How to Choose the Right Platform for Your Content

I used to do all of this by hand.

Back in the early 2000s, I was blogging on Blogger, teaching myself HTML in Dreamweaver, and fighting my way through Illustrator and Photoshop because nobody was going to build my website for me.

Before I wrote a word, I researched. Not a quick search. I read hundreds of books, cover to cover, because that was the only way to get it right.

That ran through my years at Apple and into Lean Startup, back in 2012 to 2014. It gave me mastery. It also took forever, and the technical hurdles were a hindrance to actually getting my message out.

In 2023, I started using AI. The exact same loop I’d been running by hand for over a decade became almost instant.

AI is a shortcut to mastery, not a replacement for it.

And it only works if faith is the foundation underneath it. When you start with faith as your foundation, you can’t go wrong.

ROOTS is the water. FIRST is one tool inside it.

Everything I build runs through ROOTS: Research, Organize, Offer, Test, Share.

If it’s not working, you go back to Research and run the loop again. It’s not a one-time checklist. It’s a loop you run every time.

Picture a tree. Faith is the Rock underneath it, the bedrock everything else stands on.

The roots are my 6P system: Person, Problem, Promise, Product, Process, Protection. Each one is vital.

Dig into any of them and you’re checking your foundation. If the fruit isn’t bearing right, you go back and check the roots. That’s 6P.

ROOTS isn’t the roots. ROOTS is the water.

It’s how I use AI to water those 6 roots, again and again. Whatever you build, a book, a product, a service, is the fruit.

FIRST lives inside the Research step of that watering loop. It’s the tool I reach for when the question is specific: which platform or market should I actually be on?

What is the FIRST framework?

FIRST is 5 steps, in order.

Why find winners before you pick a platform

If nobody’s winning on a platform, that’s usually not a blank canvas. It’s a sign nobody’s there.

If a few people are winning, study them. What are they doing that’s working?

Identify the rules, then research the why

Once you know who’s winning, look for the pattern. When and how do they win?

Then go one layer deeper and find out why it actually works.

Don’t just copy the surface. Know the reason, or you’ll copy the wrong thing.

Select your USP

Once you know what’s working and why, look for the gap. What’s missing. That gap is your angle.

Not “I’m different.” It’s “here’s the specific thing nobody’s doing yet that I’m the one to fill.”

Test small before you build the whole thing

This is the step people skip. They pick a platform and go all in before they know if it’s right.

Test small first. A small post, a small offer, a few real people responding, before you commit months to it.

One thing before you use FIRST: know your Six-Second Pitch

FIRST tells you where to build. It doesn’t tell you what to say once you’re there.

That’s your Six-Second Pitch: Person, Problem, Promise, the first half of 6P. If you haven’t locked that yet, that’s the real starting point.

Where this fits in the Grounded Growth System

This teaches how I actually use AI, in order:

1. ROOTS vs LIESHow I use AI at all. Read it inside Is It a Sin to Use AI in Your Business?
2. FIRSTHow I research where to publish. That’s this piece.
3. Six-Second PitchPerson, Problem, Promise, researched with AMA prompts and ChatGPT inside ROOTS’ Research step. Next.

Frequently asked questions