🙂‍↔️ Your expertise isn't enough

April 22, 2025

In partnership with

You started your business because you were great at something specific. Design. Writing. Financial planning. Coaching. But now? You're juggling marketing, sales, operations, customer service—and occasionally, plumbing.

Welcome to entrepreneurship, where your job description is simply “figure it out.”

In this newsletter:

• Want to build a $45K/month business? Your current skills won't cut it (and that's okay)

• How to overcome “that's not my job” syndrome

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Weekly Insight

“I don't have a marketing budget—just me, myself, and I.”

That's what Tony Dinh tweeted in January 2022, shortly after quitting his cushy software engineering job to build digital products solo.

His first project failed. 6 months spent developing a macOS app that never got off the ground.

But, importantly, he tried again.

The next month, he created something else and earned his first dollar of revenue as a digital entrepreneur.

Just like that, he was hooked.

Fast-forward two years: Tony's indie projects now generate $45,000 monthly revenue. No team. No investors. And still, no marketing department.

So what happened?

Tony realized something most entrepreneurs discover too late: your expertise gets you started, but versatility gets you paid.

When his Twitter analytics tool, Black Magic, first launched, Tony wasn't a marketer. Or a designer. Orrr a customer support specialist. He was just a developer who built something cool.

Then reality told him he needed to evolve.

Users reported bugs he hadn't anticipated. Competitors emerged with flashier designs. His product, despite being technically sound, wasn't “selling itself.”

Most solo founders hit this wall and retreat to their comfort zone. But Tony—like all successful entrepreneurs—chose the discomfort zone. 

He turned Twitter into his classroom, slowly (but surely) building an audience of 100,000+ followers by publicly documenting his wins and losses. Early on, he learned to stop trying to plug his product into every post, and just show up.

Tony's success isn't about being exceptional at everything. It's about being willing to try everything; the only superpower that’ll take you from “I wish” to “I did.”

Intent to Action

Before getting into this section, I want to be clear about something: 

Your job is to figure it out. Not to have it all figured out.

Success as an entrepreneur requires you to admit what you don’t know, be curious, then go learn it! 

Oh, and make sure you have fun doing it. Otherwise, what’s the point 🤷🏻‍♂️

Okay. Game plan time.

Build your superpower by strategically mapping your skill gaps:

Identify your deep expertise 

This is your foundation—what got you here. For Tony, it was coding. For you, it might be design, writing or specific domain expertise.

Map your necessary horizontals 

List the 3-5 adjacent skills your business most desperately needs right now. Not everything—just the highest impact areas.

• If customers aren't finding you → Marketing becomes your priority horizontal 

• If your product isn't intuitive → UX/UI design moves to the top 

• If you're overwhelmed with tasks → Systems/automation takes precedence

Choose ONE horizontal to develop first 

Trying to learn everything simultaneously guarantees you'll master nothing. Give yourself 30 days to focus on a single skill.

Use the 20/80 principle 

You don't need to become world-class at these things. Learn the 20% that delivers 80% of results. For Tony, that meant mastering tweet fundamentals rather than becoming a “marketing expert.”

The beauty of this framework is that it's cumulative. Tony's combination of development skills plus his self-taught Twitter marketing created a competitive advantage no specialist could match. Each new skill you develop compounds, eventually becoming your business’s secret weapon.

Closing Thought

As an employee, you’re expected to specialize to move up the ladder. When you’re an entrepreneur, versatility is your best friend. It’s the unique combination of skills that allows you to do what no one else can.

Next week is all about partnerships—how to make value-added deals that benefit everyone.

See you then.

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Your Weekly Challenge

This week, I'm challenging you to identify and start developing your most critical horizontal skill.

What's the one capability that—if you improved it even marginally—would have an outsized impact on your business right now?

Bonus points if you commit to a specific mini-project to practice this skill. Remember: you learn by doing, not just consuming information.