Outliers with Daniel Scrivner Outlier Academy

“Writers without niches are starving artists. Because again, they’re just competing in these massive competitions. Writers with niches are category kings.” — Nicolas Cole

Nicolas Cole shares the lessons he’s learned as one of the internet’s most-read writers, including why he’s fascinated with reverse engineering written work—from James Patterson novels to Twitter threads—into templates writers can use, why all great writing changes the reader, why his superpower is his ability to endure boring things for longer than others, and so much more.

EPISODE GUIDE AND TRANSCRIPT
https://www.outlieracademy.com/episode/140

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https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5QJhLoabFV1ZZfgVIIWmGqjKzbhe0N7o

CHAPTERS

(00:00:00) - Introduction

(00:07:37) - Service Businesses, Linear vs Infinite Scaling, and Picking a Bag of Problems

(00:10:02) - Ship 30 for 30 and Finding Your Niche

(00:17:01) - The Origin Story of Category Pirates and Snow Leopard

(00:20:13) - Category Creation, Competition, and Being Different vs Better

(00:28:48) - Content-Free Content and Blinding Glimpses of the Obvious

(00:35:34) - The Content Pyramid: Levels One, Two, and Three

(00:49:44) - The Content Pyramid: Level Four (Making Non-Obvious Connections)

(00:55:32) - Debunking Common Myths About Writing and Category Creation

(01:04:10) - The Difference Between More Views and More Dollars

(01:11:37) - What is Category Creation?

(01:14:27) - How to Create a Category: Weird Problem + Weird Solution


ABOUT THE BOOK
Snow Leopard: How Legendary Writers Create A Category Of One by Category Pirates (Nicolas Cole, Christopher Lochhead, and Eddie Yoon) shares why all legendary writers who stand the test of time create a category of one. In decades past, David Ogilvy, Gary Halbert, Leo Burnett, Gary Bencivenga, Al Ries & Jack Trout, and many more master communicators have all written about the psychology behind how messages spread. Snow Leopard builds on their work with dozens of new insights and frameworks, and brings category creation and design into the digital age.

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Episode Guide
Explore the big ideas, takeaways, and transcript for this episode: outlieracademy.com/170.

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No matter what your walk in life, no matter how big or small your enterprise, no matter whether it's for-profit or nonprofit, no matter whether you're CEO or a unit leader, the question stands: How does your flywheel turn?
Turning the Flywheel is a monograph that was meant to accompany Jim Collins' famous book Good to Great — which is all about what separate good companies from great ones, and how companies can make the journey to greatness. As Jim Collins writes in Turning the Flywheel:
I wrote this monograph to share practical insights about the flywheel principles that became clear in the years after first writing about the flywheel effect in Chapter 8 of Good to Great. I decided to create this monograph because I've witnessed the power of the flywheel, when properly conceived and harnessed, in a wide range of organizations: in public corporations and private companies, in large multinationals and small family businesses, in military organizations and professional sports teams, in school systems and medical centers, in social movements and nonprofits.
Since learning about the concept of the Flywheel, I've since explained it and helped many of the portfolio companies I've invested in — both personally and through my venture fund Ligature — to create and implement their own flywheel.
It's a fantastic way to force deep strategic thinking as it forces you to identify the disciplines, that sit far above any product or month or quarter, that will help you build and sustain momentum. The best flywheels are both timely and timeless, acting as a source of strength in turbulent times and a fantastic guardrail when making strategic decisions.
Flywheels ultimately explain why some companies build momentum and others don't.‍

Episode Guide
Explore the big ideas, takeaways, and transcript for this episode: outlieracademy.com/169.

YouTube & Substack
Watch this episode on YouTube or get new episodes in your inbox with Substack.

Chapters
(0:00) Chapters coming…

Join Outliers Club
Listen to episodes a week before they're released publicly. Remove all ads. And get access to exclusive Ask Me Anything sessions, hand-written transcripts, bonus articles, and more. All for just $149/year or $19/month. Join now →

Get in Touch
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielscrivner/
Email: https://www.danielscrivner.com/contact
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No matter what your walk in life, no matter how big or small your enterprise, no matter whether it's for-profit or nonprofit, no matter whether you're CEO or a unit leader, the question stands: How does your flywheel turn?
Turning the Flywheel is a monograph that was meant to accompany Jim Collins' famous book Good to Great — which is all about what separate good companies from great ones, and how companies can make the journey to greatness. As Jim Collins writes in Turning the Flywheel:
I wrote this monograph to share practical insights about the flywheel principles that became clear in the years after first writing about the flywheel effect in Chapter 8 of Good to Great. I decided to create this monograph because I've witnessed the power of the flywheel, when properly conceived and harnessed, in a wide range of organizations: in public corporations and private companies, in large multinationals and small family businesses, in military organizations and professional sports teams, in school systems and medical centers, in social movements and nonprofits.
Since learning about the concept of the Flywheel, I've since explained it and helped many of the portfolio companies I've invested in — both personally and through my venture fund Ligature — to create and implement their own flywheel.
It's a fantastic way to force deep strategic thinking as it forces you to identify the disciplines, that sit far above any product or month or quarter, that will help you build and sustain momentum. The best flywheels are both timely and timeless, acting as a source of strength in turbulent times and a fantastic guardrail when making strategic decisions.
Flywheels ultimately explain why some companies build momentum and others don't.‍

Episode Guide
Explore the big ideas, takeaways, and transcript for this episode: outlieracademy.com/169.

YouTube & Substack
Watch this episode on YouTube or get new episodes in your inbox with Substack.

Chapters
(0:00) Chapters coming…

Join Outliers Club
Listen to episodes a week before they're released publicly. Remove all ads. And get access to exclusive Ask Me Anything sessions, hand-written transcripts, bonus articles, and more. All for just $149/year or $19/month. Join now →

Get in Touch
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielscrivner/
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Episode Guide
Explore the big ideas, takeaways, and transcript for this episode: outlieracademy.com/168.

Paul Graham's essay on "How To Do Great Work" begins with the following words:
If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it. Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise shows is that it does have a definite shape; it's not just a point labelled "work hard." The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious.
As we're all both very ambitious and focused on doing great work, it felt appropriate to cover this essay as a sort of book in miniature. The essay itself comes in at a staggering 11,800 words or nearly 30 pages when printed.
"How To Do Great Work" explores curiosity, the source of originality, the relationship between breaking rules and new ideas, and how being naive is a form of independent mindedness. As well as why being self-indulgent helps you find overlooked problems, why big ideas are more often questions than answers, and why the best questions grow while you work to answer them.

YouTube & Substack
Watch this episode on YouTube or get new episodes in your inbox with Substack.

Chapters
(0:00) Chapters coming…

Join Outliers Club
Listen to episodes a week before they're released publicly. Remove all ads. And get access to exclusive Ask Me Anything sessions, hand-written transcripts, bonus articles, and more. All for just $149/year or $19/month. Join now →

Get in Touch
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielscrivner/
Email: https://www.danielscrivner.com/contact
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Paul Graham's essay on "How To Do Great Work" begins with the following words:
If you collected lists of techniques for doing great work in a lot of different fields, what would the intersection look like? I decided to find out by making it. Partly my goal was to create a guide that could be used by someone working in any field. But I was also curious about the shape of the intersection. And one thing this exercise shows is that it does have a definite shape; it's not just a point labelled "work hard." The following recipe assumes you're very ambitious.
As we're all both very ambitious and focused on doing great work, it felt appropriate to cover this essay as a sort of book in miniature. The essay itself comes in at a staggering 11,800 words or nearly 30 pages when printed.
"How To Do Great Work" explores curiosity, the source of originality, the relationship between breaking rules and new ideas, and how being naive is a form of independent mindedness. As well as why being self-indulgent helps you find overlooked problems, why big ideas are more often questions than answers, and why the best questions grow while you work to answer them.

Episode Guide
Explore the big ideas, takeaways, and transcript for this episode: outlieracademy.com/168.

YouTube & Substack
Watch this episode on YouTube or get new episodes in your inbox with Substack.

Chapters
(0:00) Chapters coming…

Join Outliers Club
Listen to episodes a week before they're released publicly. Remove all ads. And get access to exclusive Ask Me Anything sessions, hand-written transcripts, bonus articles, and more. All for just $149/year or $19/month. Join now →

Get in Touch
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/danielscrivner
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danielscrivner/
Email: https://www.danielscrivner.com/contact
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices