Hired at The Hustle Without a Twitter Account
The Story
When Sam Parr hired Trung at The Hustle in January 2020, Trung did not even have a Twitter account. A colleague at his previous fintech job recommended he apply.
At The Hustle, Trung was encouraged to build an online personality. During pandemic lockdowns, he approached Twitter “like a video game,” transferring the dopamine-seeking energy he’d previously spent on fantasy sports and day trading.
He grew from roughly 10,000 followers to over 300,000 in a single year (2021). By the time he left The Hustle in February 2022, he had approximately 350,000 followers.
His brand crystallized during this period: “Smart threads and dumb memes.”
Lesson for Creators
You don’t need to already have an audience to start building one. Trung went from zero to 300K in a year. The key was treating it like a game with daily objectives rather than a long-term strategy. He didn’t agonize over his personal brand. He shipped content, tracked what worked, deleted what didn’t, and iterated fast.
Related
- The Advantage of Being Under-Leveled — Starting from a low point can be liberating because there is no reputation to protect and every move is upside
- The Indie Hackers Post - I’ll Work for Free for 2 Months — Beginning from nothing and offering value first to earn a foothold, similar to Trung arriving at The Hustle with zero following
- 15 Years of Reading Before Overnight Success — The invisible preparation that made Trung’s rapid Twitter growth possible once the opportunity arrived