My Story
Beating the Commoditization Trap
I spent a decade building a career as a residential real estate broker in Hong Kong. In a sea of 30,000 identical brokers, I built my personal brand so I could stand out. It worked: opportunities and clients came to me without having to chase them. Within 3 years, I went from from a broke novice to leading a team of 13 agents and making more money than I knew what to do with. My real estate career culminated with buying, turning around, and exiting a real estate business.
Permissionless Leverage
Real Estate requires permissioned leverage (labour and capital) to scale. I wanted to build businesses with permissionless leverage (code and media). Real estate keeps you tied down to one place, I wanted to work with anyone in the world from anywhere in the world. In 2021 I fell down the bitcoin rabbit hole, started writing on Twitter, and grew my personal brand from 0 to 70,000 followers in 36 months. My personal brand gave me the leverage to pivot industries, speak at conferences, and travel the world with complete time and location freedom. After 25 years in Hong Kong, my family and I were able to try living in different places before picking where we'd finally settle.
Building Monopolist
In 2024, I settled down in Dubai with my family. At the same time, I launched my personal brand consulting and advising practice, where I focus on helping clients build their personal brands. The results were immediate: my first client went from 300 to over 7,000 followers in 9 weeks. Another had a post go viral with 700K impressions from a brand-new account with only 50 followers. But its not all about just followers and impressions. Clients have also used their personal brands to invited on podcasts and to speak at conferences, to get better jobs and pay rises, and to launch new businesses.
The Golden Era
AI is ushering in a golden era. It makes building a personal brand easier, but also more important than ever. As the internet drowns in a sea of AI slop, content will become completely commoditized. The winners will be the ones who build their personal brands leaning into what makes them uniquely human. You are the monopoly.