Data-Driven Content Strategy: What 120x Email Growth Reveals About Consistency
Published on 29.12.2025
86% of My Growth Happened in Just 6 Months
TLDR: Hidde from Growth by Visuals shares a data-driven retrospective of his 2025 growth, revealing that 86% of his Instagram follower gains came from just 6 months, while the foundation was built during 9 months of consistent but slow progress. Automation via Airtable and Make.com enabled sustainable output alongside a 9-5 job and family.
Summary:
The numbers are striking: email subscribers grew from 50 to 6,000 (120x), Instagram from 3,500 to 175,000 (50x), and first online revenue averaging over €1,000 monthly. But the chart tells a more nuanced story than pure hockey-stick growth. For nine months, progress was incremental. Then May through October delivered an explosive 86% of total gains.
This pattern challenges the distorted view we get as content consumers. The algorithm surfaces accounts that have already passed their struggling phase, creating survivorship bias in our mental models of growth. We rarely see the consistent effort during the slow months—the phase where mistakes happen invisibly and foundations are laid.
The technical backbone here is worth noting for developers and architects thinking about side projects or content creation: Airtable combined with Make.com automation enables consistent output even with time constraints. The same system automatically pulls engagement data from Instagram, enabling the kind of retrospective analysis that reveals these patterns. This is systems thinking applied to content—building infrastructure that compounds over time.
For architects and team leads, there's a broader lesson about measurement and patience. The data didn't predict which specific posts would go viral, but it revealed that "posts don't go viral, strategy does." The viral moments were only possible because of months of consistent foundation-building. This mirrors software projects where reliable systems enable occasional breakthrough features.
The honest admission that even post-breakthrough growth remains "bumpy" is refreshing. Progress isn't a smooth curve—it's punctuated by periods of acceleration and stagnation even after initial success.
Key takeaways:
- Exponential growth typically follows extended periods of linear, consistent effort
- Automation systems (Airtable + Make.com) enable sustainable output alongside other commitments
- Data collection during slow periods enables strategic insights that aren't visible in real-time
- The content we consume over-represents post-struggle success, distorting our expectations