The Digital Contrarian™

Ryan Levesque

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Contrarian insights directly to your inbox.

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Contrarian insights directly to your inbox.
The Digital Contrarian™

Ryan Levesque

Issue #047

| The Digital Contrarian™

The 100, The 100,000 or “The One”

The 100, the 100,000 or "The One" (Who Are You Really Building For?)

Ryan Levesque

8 min read

-

We’ve had ten straight days of rain here on the farm.
 
And not a soft, cinematic drizzle – the kind of relentless spring rain that turns gravel roads to mud, seeps through your muck boots, and saturates everything…
 
(This image above was taken during a brief moment of morning sunlight  earlier this week, before the clouds rolled back in and washed away the rest of the day…)
 
Mother’s Day weekend (so far) has been all boots and puddles – and it’s been the backdrop for a week of reflection.
 
Fitting, really…
 
Because this week brought with it a different kind of downpour:
 
An inbox overflowing with thoughtful replies to last weekend’s newsletter: [#046] Brace for Impact: 3 Converging Forces Reshaping Our World As We Know It…
 
I spent most of Friday (and Saturday) personally replying to more than 100+ emails from readers – time that I typically allocate to writing this newsletter.
 
But these were thoughtful notes.
 
Filled with deep questions and personal reflections.
 
And I wanted to take the time to reply.
 
Some of my responses took five minutes. Others took me ten or more.
 
(And while I know you might be saying, “Ryan, that’s what AI is for!” I can tell you that I received more than one reply that was written with the assistance of AI, and those replies were blindingly obvious – and far less impactful. And because I believe a human reply deserves a human reply, these emails took time.)
 
But by Friday afternoon, I realized I was six hours in – and barely halfway through the stack.
 
And that’s when I hit a familiar tension:
 
Do I keep going, writing back one by one to the 100 who leaned in?
 
Or do I pull back, conserve my energy, and refocus on the bigger picture – on the 100,000 who quietly read but don’t reply?
 
That’s a question I’ve been sitting with more broadly:
 
How do we balance the pull of the few… the scale of the many… and the clarity of “The One?”
 
And that is our focus here today…

1 | The Dilemma Every Entrepreneur Faces

This question isn’t unique.
 
Every entrepreneur I know feels some version of this tension in some form:
 
  • How much do you focus on the proverbial 100 who are hyper-engaged?
  • What about the 100,000 who are watching silently from the sidelines?
  • Or do you just orient everything toward “The One” – your perfect reader, customer, or client – and let that clarity shape every strategic decision in your marketing, your messaging, and your business.
 
The temptation of course is to chase scale.
 
Bigger reach. More eyeballs. Growth-at-all-costs.
 
But the reward is often shallow. Growth without connection. Volume without depth. Numbers without intimacy (and often without commensurate revenue to match).
 
Then there’s the pull of the 100.
The ones who show up. Who write back. Who ask good questions. Who tell you how your work has impacted them. These people matter deeply – but if you begin designing for them, you risk drifting from your core.
 
(And sometimes, members of this group have “more time than money” – and may not represent the type of buyer you want to optimize for.)
 
That’s where “The One” comes in.
 
“The One” is who you’re really creating for.
 
In my case, “The One” looks a lot like my private advisory client, whom I’ll call “Jim” (not his real name).
 
Jim has already built a successful business.
 
Doesn’t need more hacks or tactics.
 
Instead, he’s focused on strategy, clarity, and purpose.
 
Ready to step into a different season of life and business – one defined more by meaning and alignment.
* * *
The challenge is knowing how much energy to give each group. Because you can’t give 100% of yourself to all three.
 
And you shouldn’t.
 
But you *do* have to decide:
 
Who are you really building for?

2 | The Scale Trap.

Most of us have been taught to optimize for scale.
 
For reach.
 
And there’s logic to that.
 
Bigger audience, bigger income – right?
 
But this is often a trap.
 
Many entrepreneurs over-index for the 100,000 – in the form of attempting to optimize for the maximum number of likes, shares, and subscribers.
 
You find yourself tweaking your offers, your message, your content – trying to please the algorithm, without realizing you’re drifting away from the core person you set out to serve…
 
(This happened to me in early 2024, when we went down the path of creating short form video reels that generated tens of thousands of views per video and a ton of reach – but drifted from my core message and audience…)
One reader recently shared how this has played out in their business:
 
“We used to create content for the people who were ready to go deep. Now it feels like we’re always trying to keep the attention of people who are barely paying attention.”
 
That line stuck with me.
 
Because when you optimize for scale, you often end up building for the lowest common denominator.
 
And it’s easy to lose sight of “The One” in the process.
* * *
Alternatively, other entrepreneurs burn out serving the proverbial 100 – often in an attempt to respond to every comment, message, and request.
 
Because while the 100,000 become a silent referendum…
 
In the meantime, the 100 are offering a flood of feedback…
 
And if you’re a student of The ASK Method – it’s tempting to take every suggestion to heart.
 
But if you’re not careful, you can end up building by committee – and that never ends well.
 
Which brings us to “The One.”
 
“The One” rarely gives feedback. They’re too busy living the life you’re helping them build. But when you speak to them directly, they show up. Quietly. Decisively.
 
And that’s when you begin to see alignment…

3 | The Reframe: Centering the One

Last week, I invited Charlie Hoehn to deliver a 2-hour workshop for members of my Strategic Advisory Group Mastermind.
 
I wrote about Charlie back in [Issue #021] The Life-Changing Magic of Strategic Obsession. As a refresher – Charlie has been responsible (in part and in whole) for more million-copy best-selling books than anybody on the planet.
 
In fact, here are just a few of the books he’s been a part of over the last few years alone:
One of the biggest lessons he shared with our group last week, is that your book should be written for one specific person.
 
Not an amalgamation of multiple people.
 
Not a customer “avatar” that you create in some marketing exercise.
 
But a single, actual real person in your life.
 
Tim Ferriss, for example, famously wrote The 4-Hour Workweek for two of his real-life friends:
 
One friend who was trapped in his own startup and another who had taken an investment banking job and gotten sucked into a bloated lifestyle.
* * *
When you center everything on that one real person – their fears, their context, their internal dialogue – your message becomes real.
 
It resonates.
 
And it stands out from everything else in your market.
 
But this principle doesn’t stop at books.
 
You build your entire business around “The One.”
 
This doesn’t mean you ignore everyone else.
 
You honor the 100 – the ones who show up, reply, share thoughtful feedback – by responding when you can, and by making space for genuine conversation when it matters most.
 
You serve the 100,000 – not by trying to please them all, but by being consistent and clear in your message, even if most will never reply, and some will quietly unsubscribe.
 
But everything you do – your offers, your positioning, your entire strategy – is shaped around “The One.”
 
(This is something I spend a lot of time dialing in for many of the CEOs I work with as their strategic advisor.)
 
Because that’s the only way to avoid the slow drift. The creep toward dilution. The temptation to play to the crowd.
 
The irony, of course, is that when you focus deeply on “The One…”
 
You often end up reaching the many.
 
But not the other way around.

4 | A Call to Reflection

As you think about your own work, my question to you is this:
 
  • Who is “The One” in your business (or life)?
  • Are you spending too much time trying to please the 100,000?
  • Are you burning yourself out trying to over-serve the 100?
  • Are you clear on who you’re really designing your business for?
 
If you’ve been wrestling with any of these questions, I’d love to hear your thoughts.
 
SHOOT ME AN EMAIL and share what’s coming up for you.
 
And to everyone in the 100 who wrote in last week?
 
Your notes meant more than you probably realize.
 
Once again…
 
Thank you :-)

5 | Final Thoughts (& Next Steps)

Today is Mother’s Day.
 
(And I’m grateful that I get to spend it with both my mom and my wife – though this meme describes our decidedly Un-Mother’s Day-like plans for the day….
And that feels fitting:
 
Because no one embodies “showing up for The One” better than mothers do.
 
Often without thanks. Often without recognition. But always with love, presence, and a long view.
 
So to all the moms out there – Happy Mother’s Day :-)
* * *
Lastly…
 
Picking up on the conversation from last week where we explored:
 
The 3 Converging Forces Reshaping the World as We Know It…
 
If this conversation – and the idea of “Returning to Real” – is something you want to go deeper into – Last week I recorded a podcast conversation that digs into this very topic that I think you might enjoy:
It’s a dialogue with a close friend, and we expand on last week’s issue – by exploring what it means to build a business and life around alignment and meaning – rather than just growth and metrics.
 
You can listen here: The Return to Real Podcast.
* * *
Okay, I’ll leave you with that for now…
 
Remember to hug the ones you love.
 
And until next week,
 
Ryan :-)

Want more insights like these?

Get The Digital Contrarian delivered to your inbox every weekend – before it’s published anywhere else.

Read more newsletters:

Subscribe to the Newsletter

Join over 100K+ readers of The Digital Contrarian getting unconventional business strategies delivered straight to their inbox.

Want more insights like these?

Get The Digital Contrarian delivered to your inbox every weekend – before it’s published anywhere else.

© RL & Associates LLC. All rights reserved.

Privacy Policy | Terms and Conditions | Contact Us

The Great Sea Change

The Great Sea Change diagram from Return to Real