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The Pathless Path
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Researched profile. Starter Story's AI research system compiled this page from 29 public sources — the founder didn't write it. Automated research can misread or misattribute a source, so treat figures as best-effort. How this works →
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How The Pathless Path Grew

Online community and resources for unconventional career paths

How did The Pathless Path grow?

Summary of the sourced claims below

The Pathless Path grew primarily through podcasting, where the founder engaged in over 194 conversations on unconventional paths and shared ideas passionately, which helped build an audience and link to other channels like newsletters and books. Organic social media and content marketing also contributed to growth, with the founder sharing writing on platforms like Quora, Medium, and LinkedIn, which attracted more people and opportunities. Additionally, SEO played a role when people searching for work-related existential questions during the pandemic discovered the website globally.

Channels

15 channels · grouped by how The Pathless Path grows

  • Organic social media

    · 6 mentions · 6 sources
    “So my stance toward it is be pragmatic and pay attention. Now, it was very clear that threads were one, an interesting way to engage with people and two, a way to build an audience... I just riff I just like post threads and like my random thoughts as I'm like wandering around or walking around a...”
    high
    Show 5 more quotes
    “I started sharing more. I was actually living out what I was claiming to care about instead of complaining about my boss or company. And I started attracting people. It was very slow at first.”
    high
    “And that's like Twitter, my newsletter, longer form blog posts, maybe another book. I don't know. But like a lot emerges out of that.”
    high
    “I was writing too. I was writing for fun on Quora with no goals. ...like writing an article and posting it on Medium and LinkedIn and the people I'm meeting, this is really interesting and energizing.”
    high
    “I started really publishing and sharing my writing in 2015 to 2018, mostly because it was still harder to make money.”
    high
    “When you share ideas on the Internet, you can work from anywhere in the world and create opportunities from the comfort of your couch. Your rate of learning is limited only by your curiosity and thirst for knowledge. I know Paul's ideas are legit because he lives what he preaches.”
    medium

  • Podcasting

    · 5 mentions · 5 sources
    “Yeah, I didn't start getting podcast feedback until the last two years when it started growing a lot more. I was sort of just doing it into the void. ... That will link you to my podcast, newsletter, community, and book.”
    high
    Show 4 more quotes
    “I think our mutual friend David can have he talks about that, the idea that everyone should write a book. Yeah, and he's really seeing the returns on that. Now. I love that David shares his income reports. And the returns for him are really starting to take off. He's published like 10 mini ebooks...”
    medium
    “Like I spent a lot of last year going on podcasts, talking about my book, about ideas I'm super passionate about, I want to help people with and yeah, it's fun.”
    high
    “I like talking on podcasts, I like talking about the ideas in the book.”
    high
    “The Podcast 194+ conversations on unconventional paths All episodes → Episode Every Book Recommended on 203 Episodes of The Pathless Path Podcast”
    medium

  • Newsletter

    · 4 mentions · 4 sources
    “I have 2500 newsletter subscribers when I started writing my book. I now have like when I launched my book, I think I had 5000. And so I've sold more books than people that were on my newsletter.”
    high
    Show 3 more quotes
    “You can look back at my old issues and see like my uncertainty, my discomfort, my small following, my meager financial earnings. It's all there.”
    high
    “And that's like Twitter, my newsletter, longer form blog posts, maybe another book. I don't know. But like a lot emerges out of that.”
    high
    “I do that in my newsletter my podcast Etc.”
    high

  • Weekly newsletter

    · 3 mentions · 3 sources
    “It's very important to like dance with your fears and really like get in with them. If I'm afraid of not making money, right? Like it's very reasonable that book sales will fall. And so I don't know if we can sustain our lifestyle unlike what I have set up two, three years down the road.”
    high
    Show 2 more quotes
    “I think when you launched the book, you already had like 5,000 subscribers and you had your newsletter with around 2,000 at one point.”
    medium
    “And that's like Twitter, my newsletter, longer form blog posts, maybe another book. I don't know. But like a lot emerges out of that.”
    high

  • Leveraging existing platforms

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “And the cool thing with that is if I inspire people to write a book, that's amazing, right? ... it's great that this is now generating a lot of attention, which is compensated, you know, in, in, in cash that comes back in from uh, from Amazon and all the places that you sell it.”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “Then you just output a PDF, upload to Amazon, and you can start printing and sending out books in like three days.”
    high

  • Word of mouth

    · 2 mentions · 2 sources
    “What I'm really grateful for is that people around me have been very encouraging... But when they see that I've kept at it for almost 120, then they all start coming in and saying, we really admire it. We really want to help you. And it just opens doors I never thought was possible...they start t...”
    high
    Show 1 more quote
    “If you can deliver more useful, valuable, interesting stuff, people are gonna pay attention. The bar just keeps rising is the challenge. ... And also, the best stuff often comes from just doing it for yourself and then realizing, oh, wow, other people might find this interesting.”
    medium

  • Social media mentions

    · 1 mention
    “I think Ali Abdaal sharing my stuff, for sure. His brother reached out like three years ago. ... he started reading my stuff and replying to it and saying, oh, that's really cool and sharing it. ... He likes my stuff and he keeps sharing it and it's selling a bunch of books.”
    high

  • Video content

    · 1 mention
    “I'm doing the podcast. I have some sponsors around that and so like that's sort of taking over.”
    high

  • SEO

    · 1 mention
    “the pandemic hit 2020, suddenly, all around the world, everyone is told to stay home. A couple weeks later, people are having existential crises. And they start googling what the hell is going on with work and like people are stumbling across my website from all over the world.”
    high

  • Event Ambush Guerilla Marketing

    · 1 mention
    “And you have this Quora post example where you wrote a lengthy Quora post, a reply to somebody's question about these health issues. And you noticed that the responses coming in where people were like extremely happy that you gave them the opportunity to learn from your experience. You were empow...”
    medium

  • Speaking at conferences

    · 1 mention
    “I met some people at a conference in New York. One thing led to another. And one of those first people I met actually led to the naming of my book. So it sort of speaks to the serendipity of how these things happen. Somebody I met at a conference said, you have to meet this guy, Stephen Worley.”
    high

  • Free Samples

    · 1 mention
    “Gifting books has been my other fun channel as well. And it's super easy with self-publishing, too. I can, in the US, send them anywhere for $4.50, including shipping.”
    high

  • Building in public

    · 1 mention
    “That's why I'm so big on building in public because not only is it a really nice way of marketing, whatever you're doing, showing the world what you have to offer, that's great, but it has such an inspirational power for everybody else around you.”
    high

  • Hacker News

    · 1 mention
    “My podcast is all conversations of people on unconventional paths and sort of the the inner game of work. And I don't talk about tactics and outcomes as much as really just like how does it feel?... I do that in my newsletter my podcast Etc.”
    high

  • Content marketing

    · 1 mention
    “as I kept writing, I got a bigger audience and more and more people would reach out.”
    high

How 2,739 businesses grow

Of businesses with mapped growth channels, the share using each — The Pathless Path’s highlighted.
  • Referral/Word-of-mouth
    68% ◀
  • Social media
    60% ◀
  • Search/SEO
    57% ◀
  • Email
    48% ◀
  • Community
    35% ◀
  • Content/Inbound
    33% ◀
  • Partnerships
    32%
  • Paid ads
    24%
  • Events
    24% ◀
  • Press/PR
    17%
  • Outbound/Sales
    17%
  • Marketplaces/App stores
    10% ◀
  • Product expansion
    2%
  • Influencer partnerships
    2%
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