Report from the Frontier

Back after Labor Day, Matt takes aim at a familiar social-media anxiety: the middle-aged professional watching a 23-year-old rack up attention with beach photos and matcha, wondering where they fit. His first move is to lower the stakes on something people over-worry about. A PostFast analysis of tens of thousands of posts looked at whether when you post matters — and found the differences across platforms are marginal at best (a slight afternoon edge on Facebook, even weaker signal on LinkedIn). His verdict: stop optimizing the timing of content you haven’t even gotten comfortable making. Spend a year building the rhythm and the quality first; the tiny refinements can wait, and the ROI on them isn’t there. Then the real idea, drawn from an Axios story about a 23-year-old who launched a Charlotte coffee cart on a $10,000 bank loan (her parents made her earn it) and grew it fast by telling her story openly online — even sharing her sales numbers publicly. It works beautifully for her because we love watching an ambitious young person learn in real time. But Matt’s careful with the translation: if you’re a 50-year-old established expert, you can’t post “I’m learning to be a professional for the first time” — it only hurts you. The seasoned pro’s version is different and just as powerful: share what you’re genuinely curious about, researching, and testing. “I spent 20 years in banking, and here’s why I’m doing improv now.” Show the work of stretching yourself — not eroding your authority, but proving you’re on the frontier and coming back with a report your clients wouldn’t get anywhere else. That, Matt notes, is exactly what Backstage is for him. The prompt: what are you curious about right now, and how could sharing it take your clients on the adventure with you? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit mattstone.substack.com