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John Rush's Best X Posts

@johnrushx

Discover John Rush's best performing X content.

John Rush has grown a big (and profitable) audience on X.

One of the reasons? The ability to create engaging content that got a lot of engagement.

Here are the 10 best posts (and why they worked):

Post #1

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
What is MCP & why it's a big (huge) deal: (model context protocol) TLDR: MCP makes it possible for AI Tools to use external tools. E.g. Chatbot/IDE/AI-Agent can use Gmail/GoogleDrive/WeatherApp etc. Detailed explanation for both, tech & non tech people (+demos): 1) AI Tools (chatbots, wrappers, agents, code generator, etc) wanna talk to external systems. In pre-MCP world, one would have to write code to connect AI tool to the external system via API. Which meant every connection had to be pre-coded. It also meant that every AI tool had to hard code its connection to every other tool. So if there are 1000 AI tools and 1000 external tools, then 1000000 hard-coded connections via API. 2) MCP is a standard protocol. This means that every AI tool has to implement this once, and then it can connect to thousands of external tools via this protocol. 3) The same goes for external tools. They all have to create an MCP server just once, and all AI tools that support MCP can connect to them. 4) It's a huge deal. Imagine 10k AI tools and 10k external tools now all have to implement MCP just once each. So it's 20k implementations. Versus 10k*10k=100M implementations. 5) This whole thing can also run on the cloud or on local computer. See demos:
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Why This Post Performed Well

This post nails it by tackling a complex topic—MCP (Model Context Protocol)—and breaking it down into digestible chunks for both techies and non-techies. First off, the use of relatable analogies and numbers makes the concept of MCP's efficiency crystal clear. By comparing the old method of hard-coding connections to the streamlined MCP approach, it paints a vivid picture of the massive reduction in complexity and effort. The post smartly uses the "big (huge) deal" phrase to grab attention right from the start, setting the stage for something groundbreaking. It also cleverly highlights the scalability and versatility of MCP, appealing to a broad audience by mentioning both cloud and local computer applications. By promising demos, it adds an interactive element, enticing readers to engage further. Overall, the post effectively combines technical insight with practical examples, making a potentially dry topic both interesting and accessible.

Post #2

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
Drones, Robots & Humanoids will be absolutely everywhere 10 years from now. affecting: [nurses, waiters, construction workers, soldiers, cops, janitors, factory workers, gardeners & pretty much every other repetitive manual labor]. Real demos that look like sci-fi:

Why This Post Performed Well

This post taps into the collective curiosity and anxiety about the future, which is a hot topic for many people in their 30s. By mentioning "drones, robots & humanoids," it immediately grabs attention with futuristic imagery that feels straight out of a sci-fi movie. This sparks the imagination and makes the reader envision a world that feels both exciting and intimidating. The list of professions potentially affected adds a layer of relatability. Many people know someone in these jobs, if not themselves, making the post feel personal and relevant. It stirs up emotions about job security and technological advancement, which are significant concerns for the working-age population. The phrase "Real demos that look like sci-fi" adds a sense of urgency and authenticity. It suggests that this isn't just a distant fantasy but a tangible reality, prompting readers to engage, comment, and share their thoughts on the inevitable changes ahead.

Post #3

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
I've tried all (24) AI coding agents & IDEs šŸ˜µā€šŸ’« [Cursor, Softgen, Windsurf, Wrapifai, Copilot, Lovable, Bolt, v0, Replit, MarsX, Claude, AmazonQ, Pear, Devin, Github Spark, IDX, Webdraw, Tempo, Cline, Continue, Databutton, Base44, Qodo, Aider] The Vibe Coding giga-thread:

Why This Post Performed Well

This post taps into the curiosity and FOMO (fear of missing out) that many tech enthusiasts experience. By claiming to have tried all 24 AI coding agents and IDEs, it positions the author as an authority figure, someone who's done the legwork so you don't have to. The dizzy emoji šŸ˜µā€šŸ’« adds a touch of relatability, suggesting that even an expert can feel overwhelmed by the sheer number of options. This makes the post approachable and humanizes the author. Listing the tools creates a sense of comprehensiveness and thoroughness, appealing to those who want a one-stop-shop for information. The phrase "giga-thread" implies a deep dive, promising valuable insights and detailed analysis. Finally, the post targets a niche audience—developers and techies—who are likely to share it within their communities, amplifying its reach. The combination of authority, relatability, and niche focus makes it highly shareable.

Post #4

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
How I Go From Idea to Revenue in 14 Steps: (done it so many times, so it is a habit now)
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Why This Post Performed Well

This post taps into a goldmine of curiosity and aspiration. First off, the promise of turning an idea into revenue in just 14 steps is irresistible. It suggests a clear, actionable path to success, which is what everyone craves. The phrase "done it so many times" adds credibility. It implies the author is seasoned and reliable, which builds trust. People are more likely to engage with content from someone who’s been there, done that. The word "habit" is powerful here. It suggests that success can become second nature, which is both inspiring and motivating. It implies that anyone can achieve this with the right approach. Plus, the list format is a winner. It promises digestible, step-by-step guidance, which is perfect for busy 30-somethings looking for quick wins. Overall, this post hits the sweet spot of being aspirational yet attainable, making it share-worthy and engaging.

Post #5

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
My playbook for micro SaaS startups to get to $10k/mo in 3 months: (I've done this 20+ times) 1. Identify a popular SaaS. 2. Identify one sub-audience you understand who uses it. 3. Identify one feature that's used the most by 10% of that sub-audience. 4. Keep talking about this pain/solution on social media to build up the follower base among this sub-audience. 5. Launch a waitlist for one-feature saas. You can in fact launch 10 waitlists, 1 per feature. (use this template https://subscription-page.unicornplatform.page) 6. Go build an MVP for the best-performing one-feature saas (based on the waitlist signups). 7. If you wanna be sure, do a pre-sale for the best one before you build it. It'll give you money to pay someone you find on https://mvpwizards.com to build your MVP. 8. Start with one-time pricing and move to a monthly recurring in the future when you grow the product to have more features. 9. Post this one-feature SaaS in replies on social media whenever people talk about this particular pain (it works way better than posting a multi-feature SaaS). 10. Pitch another one-feature saas to the users who bought this one. Make a pre-sale, go to the start and repeat the whole cycle. 11. Cross-link all these one-feature saas tools to grow even faster. 12. Few years later, launch a full-blown SaaS that unites all these and upsells your existing customers. 13. Keep running both the full-featured product and one-feature saas products.
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Why This Post Performed Well

This post is a goldmine for aspiring entrepreneurs, and here's why it did so well: First off, the author establishes credibility right away by mentioning they've successfully done this 20+ times. That instantly grabs attention and builds trust. The step-by-step guide is laid out in a straightforward, digestible format. People love lists because they break down complex processes into manageable chunks. Each step is actionable, making it easy for readers to visualize taking the same path. The post taps into the desire for financial independence and success, promising $10k/month in just three months. That's a powerful hook for anyone looking to escape the 9-to-5 grind. By focusing on micro SaaS, it targets a niche market, appealing to those who may feel overwhelmed by the idea of launching a full-scale SaaS product. Finally, the post encourages engagement by sharing resources and templates, making it feel like a community effort. This builds a sense of belonging and support, which is crucial for budding entrepreneurs.

Post #6

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
Predictions for the future of startups:

Why This Post Performed Well

This post taps into a universal curiosity and a bit of FOMO (fear of missing out). People love to speculate about the future, especially when it involves innovation and entrepreneurship. Startups are inherently exciting because they represent new ideas and potential breakthroughs. By predicting the future, the post invites readers to engage with their own thoughts and opinions, sparking conversation and debate. The post likely performed well because it appeals to a wide audience: aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, tech enthusiasts, and anyone interested in business trends. Moreover, predictions offer a sense of insider knowledge, making readers feel like they're getting a sneak peek into what's next. The brevity of the post title also leaves room for imagination and interpretation, encouraging people to click, comment, or share to see if their thoughts align with the predictions. It's a clever way to engage a diverse audience with a simple yet compelling topic.

Post #7

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
I'm turning 35. If you're a startup founder in your 20's, read these 28 rules I learned the hard way: 1. Validate idea first. I wasted a decade building stuff nobody needed. I thought Incubators and VCs served as a validation, but I was so wrong. 2. Kill your EGO. It’s not about me but the user. I must want what the user wants, not what I want. My taste isn’t important. The user has expectations, and I must fulfill them. 3. Don’t chaise investors. Chase users, and then investors will be chasing you. I’ve never had more incoming interest from VC than now, when I’m the least interested in them. 4. Never hire managers. Only hire doers until PMF. So many people know how to manage people, and so few can actually get sh*t done barehand. 5. Landing page is the least important thing in a startup at the early stage. Pick a simple template and edit it with a no-code website builder in less than an hour. That’s it! Your first 100 sales happen outside of the website. 6. Hire only fullstack devs. There is nothing less productive in this world than a team of developers for an early-stage product. One full stack dev building the whole product. That’s it. 7. Chase global market from day 1. Go for a small niche in a global market instead of a large niche in a local market. 8. Do SEO from day 2. As early as you can. I ignored this for 14 years, and it’s my biggest regret. 9. Sell features before building them. Ask existing users if they want this feature. I run DMs with 10-20 users every day, where I chat about all my ideas and features I wanna add. I clearly see what resonates with me most and only go build those. If you don’t have followers, try HN, Reddit, or just search on X for posts and ask it in the replies. People are helpful, they will reply if the question is easy to understand. 10. Hire only people you would wanna hug. My cofounder, an old Danish man said this to me in 2015. And it was a big shift. I realized that if I don’t wanna hug the person, it means I dislike them on a chemical/animal level. Even if I can’t say why, but that’s the fact. Sooner or later, we would have a conflict and eventually break up. It takes up to 10 years to build a startup, make sure you do it with people you have this connection with. 11. Invest into your startups and friends. Not crypt0, not stockmarket, not properties. I did some math, if I kept investing all my money into all my friends’ startups, that would be about 70 investments. 3 of them turned into unicorns eventually. Even 1 would have made the bank. Since 2022, I have invested all my money into my products, friends, and network. If you don’t have friends who do startups, invest it in yourself. Walk away from shiny get rich quick investment options. 12. Post on Twitter daily. I started posting here in March last year. It’s my primary source of new connections and growth. I could have started it earlier, I don’t know why I didn’t. If you are at the same place, start today. I promise you won’t regret it. 13. Don’t work/partner with corporates. Corporations always seem like an amazing opportunity. They’re big and rich, they promise huge stuff, millions of users, etc. But every single time none of this happens. Because you talk to a regular employees there. They waste your time, destroy focus, shift priorities, and eventually bring in no users/money. 14. Don’t get ever distracted by hype, e.g. crypt0. I lost 1.5 years of my life this way. I met the worst people along the way. Fricks, scammers, thieves. Some of my close friends turned into thieves along the way, just because it was so common in that space. I wish this didn’t happen to me. I wish I was stronger and stayed on my mission. 15. Don’t build consumer apps. Only b2b. Consumer apps are so hard, like a lottery. It’s just 0.00001% who make it big. The rest don’t. Even if I got many users, then there is a monetization challenge. I’ve spent 4 years in consumer apps and regret it. 16. Don’t hold on bad project for too long, max 1 year. Some projects just don’t work. In most cases, it’s either the idea that’s so wrong that you can’t even pivot it or it’s a team that is good one by one but can’t make it as a team. Don’t drag this out for years. 17. Tech conferences are a waste of time. They cost money, take energy, and time and you never really meet anyone there. Most people there are the ā€œgoodā€ employees of corporations who were sent there as a perk for being loyal to the corporation. Very few fellow makers. 18. Scrum is a Scam. If I had a team that had to be nagged every morning with questions as if they were kindergarten children, then things would eventually fail. The only good stuff I managed to do happened with people who were grownups and could manage their stuff on their own. We would just do everything over chat as a sync on goals and plans. 19. Outsource nothing at all until PMF. In a startup, almost everything needs to be done in a slightly different way, more creative, and more integrated into the vision. When outsourcing, the external members get no love and no case for the product. It’s just yet another assignment in their boring job. Instead of coming up with great ideas for your project they will be just focusing on ramping up their skills to get a promotion or a better job offer. 20. Bootstrap. I spent way too much time raising money. I raised more than 10 times, preseed, seeded, and series A. But each time it was a 3-9 month project, meetings every week, and lots of destruction. I could afford to bootstrap, but I still went the VC-funded way, I don’t know why. To be honest, I didn’t know bootstrapping was a thing I could do or anyone does. 21. It may take a decade. When I was 20, I was convinced it takes a few years to build and succeed with a startup. So I kept pushing my plans forward, to do it once I exited. Family, kids. I wish I married earlier. I wish I had kids earlier. 22. No Free Tier. I’d launch a tool with a free tier, and it’d get sign-ups, but very few would convert. I’d treat free sign-ups as KPIs and run on it for years. I’d brag about signups and visitors. I’d even raise VC money with these stats. But eventually, I would fail to reach PMF. Because my main feedback would come from free users and the product turned into a perfect free product. Once I switched to ā€œpaid onlyā€ until I validated the product, things went really well. Free and paid users often need different products. Don’t fall into this trap as I did. 23. Being To Cheap. I always started by checking all competitors and setting the lowest price. I thought this would be one of the key advantages of my product. But no, I was wrong. The audience on $5 and $50 are totally different. $5: pain in the *ss, never happy, never recommend you to a friend, leave in 4 months. $50: polite, give genuine feedback, happy, share with friends, become your big fan if you solve their request. 24. I will fail. When I started my first startup. I thought if I did everything right, it would work out. But it turned out that almost every startup fails. I wish I knew that and I tried to fail faster, to get to the second iteration, then to the third, and keep going on, until I either find out nothing works or make it work. 25. Use boilerplates. I wasted years of dev time and millions of VC money to pay for basic things. To build yet another sidebar, yet another dashboard, and payment integration... I had too much pride, I couldn’t see myself taking someone else code as a basis for my product. I wanted it to be 100% mine, original, from scratch. Because my product seems special to me. 26. Spend more time with Family & Friends. I missed the weddings of all my best friends and family. I was so busy. I thought if I didn’t do it on time, the world would end. Looking back today, it was so wrong. I meet my friends and can’t share those memories with them, which makes me very sad. I realized now, that spending 10% of my time with family and friends would practically make no negative impact on my startups. 27. Build Products For Audiences You Love. I never thought of this. I’d often build products either for corporates, consumers, or for developers. It turns out I have no love for all 3. But I deeply love indie founders. Because they are risk-takers and partly kids in their hearts. Once I switched the focus to indie makers on my products, my level of joy increased by 100x for me. 28. Write Every Single Day. When I was a kid, I loved writing stories. In school, they would give an assignment, and I’d often write a long story for it, however, the teacher would put an F on it. The reason was simple, I had an issue with the direction of the letters and the sequence of letters in the words. I still have it, it’s just the Grammarly app helping me to correct these issues. So the teacher would fail my stories because almost every sentence had a spelling mistake that I couldn’t even see. It made me think I’m made at writing. So I stopped, for 15 years. But I kept telling stories all these years. Recently I realized that in any group, the setup ends up turning into me telling stories to everyone. So I tried it all again, here on X 10 months ago. I love it, the process, the feedback from people. I write every day. I wish I had done it all these years. The End.
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Why This Post Performed Well

This post resonates because it’s raw, relatable, and packed with wisdom from real-world experience. The author, turning 35, shares hard-earned lessons, making it feel like a personal chat with a mentor who’s been through the startup grind. The list format is easy to digest, with each point offering a nugget of insight that many startup founders can relate to or learn from. The post’s authenticity shines through as the author admits past mistakes, like chasing investors and ignoring SEO, which humanizes them and builds trust with the audience. By addressing common startup myths, like the allure of corporates or the hype around consumer apps, it challenges conventional wisdom, sparking curiosity and engagement. The advice to focus on users, embrace failure, and prioritize personal connections over corporate allure appeals to the entrepreneurial spirit. Overall, the post’s blend of personal anecdotes, practical advice, and candid reflections makes it a compelling read for anyone in the startup world.

Post #8

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
Very sad ending for Software Developers. I kept saying this for 6 years. In 10 years, 90% of them won't get their former pay grades (inflation-adjusted). The solution: Become an Indie Maker ASAP. Even if you fail, you'll earn soft skills to be hirable by corporations later.
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Why This Post Performed Well

This post taps into a potent mix of fear and opportunity, which is a surefire way to grab attention. First off, it plays on the anxiety many software developers feel about job security and future earnings. By predicting a "very sad ending," it hooks readers with a sense of urgency and concern. The post's claim that 90% won't maintain their pay grades is a bold statement that provokes curiosity and a bit of panic—people want to know if they're in that 90%. The suggested solution—becoming an Indie Maker—offers a proactive way out, which is appealing. It suggests empowerment and control over one's career, a message that resonates with those who feel uncertain about their future. Plus, the mention of gaining "soft skills" provides a safety net, reassuring readers that even failure has value. Overall, the post effectively combines fear, a solution, and reassurance, making it compelling and shareable.

Post #9

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
Very important decision to be made, and I need your say on this! Where should the first Indie Maker village be? šŸ‡¹šŸ‡· Turkey šŸ‡µšŸ‡¹ Portugal Why Turkey: - no visa needed - best airport in the world - cheap Why not Turkey - poor brand. People think it's a poor third-world country that's Islamist, has a dictatorship, and is dangerous. - locals don't speak English at all - almost no Western immigrants Why Portugal - good English - good reputation and brand - lots of Western immigrants - D7 and nomad visa Why not Portugal - need a visa. Easy for EU/US people, hard for the rest If you live in Portugal, can you please help me decide? 1. Do people actually speak English everywhere? 2. How are the prices? 3. How is the crime? 4. How is life in rural areas (I plan to be in a ranch/farm area, far from the city) 5. Are there actually many Western immigrants? 6. What is great about the place? 7. What is wrong about the place? By the way, I consider Turkey because it seems like the indie maker space will be primarily popular in non-western countries since Western founders prefer VC-funded models.
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Why This Post Performed Well

This post did well because it taps into a few key psychological and market dynamics. First off, it directly involves the audience in a decision-making process, which is a classic engagement booster. People love to share their opinions, especially when they feel their input could influence a real-world outcome. The post also cleverly uses the power of juxtaposition by comparing Turkey and Portugal. This not only makes the reader weigh pros and cons but also sparks curiosity about the less obvious choice—Turkey. The detailed breakdown of pros and cons for each country adds depth, showing the poster has done their homework. This builds credibility and invites informed responses. Furthermore, the post targets the indie maker community, a niche group that values authenticity and non-traditional paths. By suggesting that Turkey might be a better fit for indie makers, it challenges conventional wisdom, which is always a conversation starter. Lastly, the call for local insights from people in Portugal personalizes the post, making it feel like a community-driven discussion rather than a one-sided query.

Post #10

JR
John Rush
@johnrushx
How I Go From Idea to Revenue in 13 steps:

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