Scan time: 2-3 minutes / Read time: 3-5 minutes
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Hello rebel ideapreneurs 🦸♂️🦸♀️
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🙋♂️ Nate’s four months of waiting
Nate is a software engineer who runs a podcast on the side, for people learning to code after 30.
His podcast has twelve episodes, and every plan he has for growing it needs somebody else to say yes first.
A bigger show to feature him, Spotify to recommend him, a brand to sponsor him.
He has emailed the shows and the brands, and he is waiting for Spotify to notice.
He has been waiting for four months, and in that time he hasn’t recorded a single new episode.
🧩 His struggle:
He waits for other people to say yes,so he stops recording episodes, which he could do on his own.
During a slow afternoon at work, he clicks on a video that tells the true story of an investor
who also knew that most ways to grow need somebody else to say yes first,
and who co-founded a company worth $4 billion.
Here’s the part anyone can start tonight.
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📱 The man who sorted leverage into three piles
Leverage is anything that multiplies what one person can produce, without adding more of their own hours.
Naval Ravikant splits it into three kinds.
He co-founded AngelList, which reached a $4 billion valuation.
He was also an early backer of Uber and Twitter.
The first kind is labor, which is other people working for you.
It’s the oldest kind, and in his view the worst.
“Managing other people is incredibly messy.
It requires tremendous leadership skills.”
The second is capital, which is money.
With more of it, you sometimes answer to investors, and you’re tempted to buy your way through a problem instead of thinking it through.
The third is code and media — software you write, and things you publish.
Then he explains which kinds need someone’s permission.
“Capital and labor are permissioned leverage.
Everyone is chasing capital, but someone has to give it to you.
Everyone is trying to lead, but someone has to follow you.”
“Code and media are permissionless leverage.
They’re the leverage behind the newly rich.
You can create software and media that works for you while you sleep.”
And for anyone who isn’t a programmer, he’s specific about what to do instead: “If you can’t code, write books and blogs, record videos and podcasts.”
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🔥 The recipe
➡️ Permissionless Leverage
Naval co-founded a company worth $4 billion,
and he says only one kind of leverage needs nobody’s permission.
Naval sorts leverage by one question: who has to approve it before you can use it?
Naval’s strategy is called permissionless leverage, that third pile of code and media, the one kind nobody has to grant you.
He didn’t tell people to wait for money or a team.
He told people who can’t code to write books and blogs, and record videos and podcasts.
So you stop waiting for somebody to say yes.
Nobody has to say yes.
You can start tonight.
Today even the code pile is open to you.
Your AI sidekick can write a simple tool, and you don’t need to know how to code.
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🛠️ Nate’s turn
Let’s check in on Nate, who hasn’t recorded a new episode in four months, because he’s waiting for somebody else to say yes.
That night, he runs the prompt at the bottom of this email, and tells it everyone he’s waiting on.
His AI sidekick says:
Nobody has to approve your next episode, so record it this week, about something you already know.
On Thursday night, he records an episode about the bug that nearly made him quit coding at 31.
He puts it out the next morning, without asking anyone.
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🌅 Three months later
Nate hasn’t missed a week since that Thursday.
A hundred and fifty people listen to the show now.
He never heard back from the brands, and he stopped waiting for them.
Most of what grows your work doesn’t need anyone’s permission.
Write, record, or publish something tonight that nobody has to approve.
That’s it, my fellow contrarians!
Yours ‘proving one person with an AI sidekick can build something amazingly big’ Vijay Peduru 🦸♂️
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🏄♀️ The prompt
The prompt below finds where you are waiting for permission, and what you could publish
instead without asking anybody.
🧰 What you’ll need
What you’re trying to grow, and what you’ve decided you need before it can grow
- Type it, or say it out loud with a voice tool.
- e.g. a podcast for people learning to code after 30, and I think I need a bigger show to feature me, and a sponsorWho has to say yes for each of those
- e.g. the host of a bigger show, and a brand’s marketing teamWhat you already know deeply, and could publish this week with nothing but time
- Something that took you years to learn.
- e.g. how I went from zero to my first coding job at 34, and I could explain the exact order I learned things in
🚀 How to run it
Open your AI sidekick, ChatGPT, Claude, or whichever one you use.
Swap the three examples, the text inside the curly brackets, for your own, then run it. If your AI sidekick can already see your notes, you can run it as is.
🧪 Want to test it first? Run it without changing anything, and it will use the examples.
CONTEXT:
- Use my own material first. If you can see my episode list, my download numbers, or my notes, pull the real details from there instead of the examples below.
- If you know how I write, use my voice. Otherwise, write in a clear, warm, no-jargon voice — first-person, plain words, no startup-speak.
- If you know who my readers are, write for them. Otherwise assume people learning to code after thirty.
- If I have replaced the examples, use only mine. If an example is still there, fill it in from what you already know about me, and mark it as your assumption. If you don't know anything about me yet, use the example exactly as written.
- Do not suggest hiring, fundraising, or anything that needs another person's approval. That is the thing this replaces.
=============== INPUTS — edit these, or just run as is ===============
What I am trying to grow, and what I have decided I need before it can grow:
{e.g. a podcast for people learning to code after 30, and I think I need a bigger show to feature me, and a sponsor}
Who has to say yes for each of those:
{e.g. the host of a bigger show, and a brand's marketing team}
What I already know deeply that took me years, and what I could publish this week with nothing but time:
{e.g. how I went from zero to my first coding job at 34, and I could explain the exact order I learned things in}
======================== END OF INPUTS ========================
Outputs:
1. The permission list — everything in my plan that needs somebody else's yes, and who that person is in each case.
2. What survives without them — the parts I can do this week with no approval at all.
3. The multiplier — what I know deeply enough that publishing it would actually be worth reading, in my own words.
4. Three things to publish — specific pieces, each one built only from what I already know.
5. The honest cost — what I genuinely give up by not waiting for the permissioned version, stated plainly rather than dismissed.
Then tell me the one thing I have been waiting for permission to make, and what to publish instead on Thursday.