I Took Over Dan Koe's Kortex Community in 27 Days (How to Build Social Capital Fast)
This article is going to talk about a lot of things that you're normally not supposed to mention.
You are going to learn 3 strategies for building social capital that i used to
- Get Dan Koe to follow me (twice)
- Get him to want to meet up
- Start writing a short story with twitchy witch
- Build a network with a combined reach of over 4.3 million followers
In less than 4 weeks
There is a Kortex template in the that will help you start applying all of these strategies.
And at the end, I am going to share some information about Kortex that I really don't know if I'm supposed to tell you.
Enter— Koe
If you're reading this then you probably already know who Dan Koe is.
In case you don't, I can't put it any better than the author Devon Erikson did recently on Dan's podcast
"Talk to you for 30 seconds and anyone can realise, you're an alpha-male type with 4-digit testosterone levels."
(This statement is actually the cornerstone of the last strategy)
Dan has become famous for his counter-culture insights on writing, business, and social media.
He's reached over 1.6 million followers on Instagram, close to 1 million on YouTube, and about 500,000 on X.
He's also leading the development of the writing software Kortex.
Which is quickly becoming a competitive alternative to apps like Notion, Obsidian, Apple Notes, and Google docs.
Dan helped me make a crucial shift in my perspective that allowed me to begin building social capital freely.
And I am going to share that perspective with you now so that you are free to use the strategies that we talk about.
Intention— Attention.
Law 6: Court Attention At All Costs Everything is judged by its appearance: what is unseen counts for nothing. Never let yourself get lost in the crowd, then, or buried in oblivion. Stand out. Be conspicuous, at all cost.- Robert Greene, 48 Laws of Power
Social Capital refers to the resources, favors, or information available to someone through their personal connections.
Dan added a concise and pragmatic formula for building social capital, which is that
"Social Capital = distribution + reputation + value"
All three of these things require attention, and when done correctly, attract more attention.
My former perspective put a cap on how much social capital I could build because I really did not want attention.
Growing up I was taught that "attention seeking" is something either children from damaged households or insecure, narcissistic adults did.
I started to realize that I would avoid saying or doing things specifically because I knew they would get attention, and I was afraid of how people would respond.
I tried to work around this by learning different marketing, copywriting, and business strategies.
But the problem was, building those skills only attracts more attention.
My intention was not to get attention, it was to find a secret trick or magic formula to dodge the attention, but still find all the success.
This led to
- 9 different failed attempts at social media
and
- 5 different failed attempts at businesses.
Some of those were going well, but once I began to feel too much attention on me, I quit.
So on November 21st, 2024, I made the decision to stop dodging attention, and I started to put the strategies in this article into action.
These strategies work because they are based on the most powerful mechanism of influence and persuasion that you can learn.
The Power of Suggestion
I've leveraged this for most of my life to build social capital, and to do everything I listed at the beginning.
It is something I picked up while I was in my amateur magician phase, along with misdirection and slight of hand,
"Suggestion is how you build and spread ideas in a person or group of people.
Suggestion is the undercurrent of your interaction with society.
It can be found in the implication of words, emotions, actions, tone, or body language.
A suggestion can be explicit or implicit, covert or overt, direct or indirect."
Take a Coca-Cola commercial for example.
What is the suggestion?
It's that drinking Coca-Cola is associated with happiness and fun.
The color of the can(red) and the effect of the caffeine and sugar pair with that suggestion to create an association that serves as a huge attraction to the drink. [graphic of that math]
When it comes to building social capital the goal is to create these suggestions and associate them with yourself.
Here is how to start.
Strategy 1: Unlimited Vision
This first strategy got Dan to follow me twice, you'll see exactly when at end of this part.
It also serves as the foundation for the other two strategies.
And like I mentioned at the beginning there is a template in the description that will help you start to apply this.
The 30 days in the title began on November 30th 2024, after I posted my first video
The writing and editing in that video were decent, but the thing that made it work is something I am going to call an "Unlimited Vision"
An Unlimited Vision is a vision with gravity.
It draws people into its orbit.
It contains a set of suggestions and ideals that nobody would reasonably disagree with.
Some examples of visions like this are;
- Nikola Tesla's vision that you could transfer energy without wires or cables
- Elon Musk's vision to make humanity a multi-planetary species.
- Naval's vision that everyone can be rich and own a business.
- Dan Koe's vision for the mass adoption of the creator economy
You may disagree with the practicality, logistics, or feasibility of these visions.
But it is challenging to disagree with the sentiment behind these visions, or in other words, to reject what they suggest.
- Tesla's vision suggests a tremendous increase in the quantity, efficiency, and accessibility of energy.
- Elon's vision suggests that we should survive, thrive, and expand as a species.
- Naval's vision suggests that everyone can be rich, abundant, and wealthy.
- Dan's vision suggests that everyone can make a living doing what they love.
The act of communicating a vision like this suggests that there is something real, active, and meaningful available for people to support.
And this creates a foundation where you can begin to accumulate social capital.
Once you have an Unlimited Vision, and I'll go over the steps to create one in a second, the goal is straightforward
- present it to people (distribution)
- pass the suggestion (reputation + value)
- leverage that suggestion to further offer smaller, more detailed parts of your vision (reputation + value)
- repeat to build social capital
The strategy after this is going to teach you how I did that in Dans Kortex Community.
But first, here is how you build an Unlimited Vision
3 Steps to Build an Unlimited Vision
Each one of these steps could be an article in itself, but I've condensed and directed them toward the purpose of building social capital.
The first step is to
Disregard What is Possible or Not Possible
Without this freedom, it is not just difficult to build this type of vision it is difficult to build any type of vision, even about very simple things.
You won't even be able to imagine that you'll get a good parking space when you go out, or that you won't get stuck in traffic.
Let alone think on a scale large enough to draw people in.
Training yourself to have freedom within your own mind is crucial for everything in life, not just building social capital.
Some questions to prompt this are:
- What do you believe is impossible right now that you would want if it wasn't?
- Disregarding what is possible or not possible, what do you want?
- Write down the ideal life that you want
The intention here is to pull things that feel impossible into tangible, grounded, everyday experiences.
These questions can feel tough, but they develop not only where you want to go, they clarify where you are leading anyone who wants to follow you.
And if that is unclear in your mind, it will be unintelligible to the people you try to present it to.
There are a lot of these questions so I'm just going to read the main points.
Disregarding what is possible or not possible, in your ideal life
-
What kind of body do you want?
- How would your body feel in it's ideal state?
- What different actions would you take?
- What behaviors or habits of yours would change?
-
What kind of food would you eat?
- How would your diet change?
- How would your eating schedule change?
- How would planning what you eat change?
-
What do you want to build into the world?
- What kind of work would you do on a day to day basis?
- Would you have a job?
- Would you have employees?
-
How would your relationships change?
- With your family?
- friends?
- romantic partners?
-
How would your state of being be at all times, ideally?
- How would you feel?
- What would you think about?
-
How would you plan your day?
- What would be on your mind that you have to "do next"
Allow Your Vision to Expand to Everyone
This makes your vision easy for people to get behind.
The goal is not to create a naive utopia, but to balance out the harsh reality you have to contend with to actualize your vision.
So you are going to heavily bias your vision toward well-being for everyone.
Imagine not only you, but everyone on earth was granted the ideal situation and state that you just developed.
Remember, forget about what's possible or not possible.
Imagine that there was no resistance.
Nobody gets excluded.
- What structures or institutions might be built to facilitate the spread and utilization of your vision?
- What positive consequences might happen as a result of your vision being actualized?
- What small changes in people's everyday activities and communication would indicate that your vision has taken effect?
Like I said you might struggle with these at first but that's okay.
Practicing this type of thinking is beneficial for way more than just building social capital.
Vision Testing and Distribution
Dan saw my vision when I sent my video out for feedback in the Kortex Community, and to 5 or 6 friends.
Everyone who saw that video followed me, including him.
He followed me a second time without realizing it was me, while I talking in one of the chats about a smaller part of my vision.
I am not suggesting that you guys use feedback requests to try to manipulate people into consuming your content and thinking that they will following you.
That's not what I'm saying, that will not work.
I am suggesting that you
- Test your vision conversationally to make sure people get on board
- Write it in a more concrete format like an article or video
- Ask for feedback: specifically encouraging people to tell you what they don't like.
And when they tell you, don't argue.
Your goal is to show people something they actually want to contribute to, and are motivated to help you improve.
Now, let's talk about how you build social capital on top of this vision.
[show points]
[Transition]
[Make point 1 include unlimited vision]
Strategy 2: Reputation
Law 5: So Much Depends On Reputation - Guard It With Your Life. Reputation is the cornerstone of power: through reputation alone you can intimidate and win; once it slips however you are vulnerable and will be attacked on all sides. Make your reputation unassailable.
For this strategy I am going to give you a list of actions you can take to build a good reputation, and a list of communication tips to remove any friction while you take those actions.
Which are both also in that template.
You are also going to see a lot of examples of these things used in the third strategy.
Your reputation is a storehouse for social capital.
It is essentially the association between you and what you suggest.
Which is why its important to build a strong vision and seek out honest, critical feedback.
You become known for the ideas that you are putting out and how people respond to them.
Our goal is to build a reputation that is inspiring and useful.
And I can't stress this enough, if you haven't shifted your perspective on attention at this point, things are gonna get rough, because this is the part where you are trying to be a helpful attention magnet.
You build your reputation by
- consistently engaging and responding
- maintaining an even personality
- respecting the people you speak to and situations that you're in
- talking to people about your ideas
- asking for feedback
- being open to that feedback and applying it
- giving feedback
- offering help in a polite way
This can all be amplified by
- publicizing positive response
- publicizing your work and progress
If you do not publicize you will build social capital so slowly.
Not publicizing is like trying to save up for a Lamborghini by saving your change.
Social proof (publicizing)
- draws a lot of attention
- bypasses authority and quality barriers
- and leads people to rapidly adopt your vision, ideas, and suggestions.
How you go about this is very situation specific.
Since I did this in the Kortex Community, my interactions were already public for the most part.
I also used those images from earlier in a thread that I pinned to my X profile, because it shows authority.
https://x.com/sensibleclarity/status/1865390357917155823
And in case you guys think that is inappropriate, I asked about it.
Start posting positive response you get from anywhere
- text messages
- verbal compliments
- positive response in an online forum
- a well-performing post or comment
-
if a big account
- likes your post
- comments
- follows you
- compliments you
- DMs you
- Post about it.
I'm not saying you should be incessant, but it should be something you're comfortable doing.
This article itself is practicing what I'm talking about.
Every positive interaction builds your reputation, but if you keep it to yourself as a personal emotional win, nobody knows, and you're starting from 0 every time you want to connect with someone.
Building your reputation is a continuous process.
I still use that list of stuff every day to offer my information and perspectives.
Here are some ways you can do that.
7 Tactics to Offer Your Information and Perspectives
The first strategy taught you how to make the vision, these will teach you how to spread the vision.
You will how I put these into practice in the next strategy.
You do not need lots of experience to provide value and build your reputation.
I see too many people getting excited or anxious, misreading situations, and diving in with pushy, inaccurate, and/or irrelevant advice.
Then, if anyone questions them, they get annoyed and it leaves a bad impression.
If you practice these 7 things in your communication you will notice a massive difference in how people respond to you.
Lead with questions
Pause for a moment.
Do you actually have enough information to give a meaningful response to someone?
Does it feel challenging to give an answer?
If so, try to see why, and think of a question you can ask to get more information.
This is helpful for you, them, and anyone else reading or listening.
All three of those things boost your reputation and improve your communication.
Lead with your experience
Whether you've only read about something, you've seen a video, you have direct experience, or you have no experience with a topic.
Just lead with that.
Test it out.
Qualify OR Disqualify yourself
These actually both work.
It's weird but you can try it.
Whether you tell someone that you do or don't have the experience to share your insight, both statements open them up to taking it into consideration.
Restate their experience
Affirm that what someone is saying is understandable, reasonable, and that you can see where they are coming from, even if you think they are wrong.
Restate their experience
This is similar to confirming goals and details, but it it more generalized, and not necessarily goal oriented.
Confirm goals and details
Confirm with people
- what their goals are
- where they currently are relative to those goals
- what their current problems are
- what their current state of being is
They will correct you if you're wrong, and by confirming these things, they understand that you understand, which gets you on the same page, and makes them more open.
Call out the downside
If you feel like you're about to say something risky that might receive a negative response, call it out yourself beforehand.
"What I am about to say is probably going to sound rude"
"I am probably going to sound really annoying when I say this"
People almost never respond negatively when it is called out beforehand, and there is very little downside to calling out the downside.
You can do it regularly.
Clarify your intention
Why are you responding?
What are you trying to do?
Be subtle with this one, but it helps solidify your position.
You're gonna see examples of these right now but If you want a huge set of examples, you can join the free Discord and look through my messages.
I spent a little over one week building my reputation before using the final strategy you will learn now.
[Transition Screen "Part 4: Misdirection and Suggestion]
Part 5: Playfulness
Playfulness is, to choose an appropriate figure of speech, like steroids for your social capital gains.
I would say it is why Dan and Twitchy (pops up in this section) are friends with me.
Hopefully even after I've click-baited them like this and show the world a bunch of our messages. (Tactic #6 btw)
Once you've built some reputation, playfulness can be used to
- cement that reputation into a more stable structure
- allow you to pass wild suggestions
- amplify any value that you give
- make people like you
- and help you make you a lot of friends
and it can do all of that because it's fun.
Now I'm not telling you to become a comedian, do not act like an idiot and turn everything into a joke.
That has the opposite effect.
Maybe 10-30% of your interactions should be playful.
You have to be subtle but it opens up crazy opportunities.
I've divided this part into two key sections.
- The Koe Mythos [what got dan to want to meet me]
- The Twitchy Witch Saga [which led to us starting to write together]
I am going to somewhat awkwardly, break down a bunch of my messages with them so you can see how I used suggestion, the communication tactics I just gave you, and hear a bit of my thought process.
If you want examples of my actual advice, like I mentioned you can join the discord for free and either search my name and read those messages, or ask me something.
I'm doing this so you can understand a few things.
- I did not pop up and start making jokes randomly, I took around 10 days contributing value that was received well, to build a reputation.
- I make sure that anyone I'm making a joke to or about actually finds it funny. I'm not trying to be rude or pushy.
- I got permission before I made any memes about anyone or included anyone in my jokes.
If you don't do these things, you will very likely be received poorly.
- The Koe Mythos
The origin story of The Koe Mythos begins on December 9th, the fateful day when Devon Eriksen made one of the most legendary statements that I have ever heard.
3 times in quick succession.
I found it funny, so I wanted to see if other people found it funny.
Someone posted about Devon and Dan's podcast episode in the Discord.
And I responded with a suggestion.
Dan reacted with a laughing emoji.
Another guy also said he got to that part and laughed.
Meaning, my suggestion was accepted and other people did find it funny.
Dan responded with the pure masculinity we just referenced.
And since he played along, I continued with this
And notice how this leads with another suggestion.
Also having just embodied Dan as a cute flustered anime girl, to stay respectful, I followed with an acknowledgement that happens to have two more suggestions.
But I do want to say, I didn't plan any of this.
Suggestions are always active in communication.
I want you to start becoming comfortable with that because you may as well use it consciously if it is happening anyway.
He responds
and I respond by directly suggesting that I'm going to make a meme about it.
I also sandwiched this suggestion in a publicization of my work.
It got a fire emoji from Dan.
And he said he was looking forward to seeing it.
With that permission, a few hours later I created this masterpiece.
[meme]
And shared it in the chat, which got a very positive response.
Not just from Dan, a bunch of people were into it.
Which makes this a form publicized positive response.
Over the next 3 days I took advantage of this to gracefully bring people into into the joke whenever I could and wound up attracting 7 people, including Dan who were regularly repeating it in the chats.
which created enough momentum for this next interaction.
I found a guy who seemed like he knew Dan Koe.
So naturally, I had to confirm these rumors.
I downplayed the joke heavily so i could build curiosity toward a punch line.
And used the opening I created to continue my mission.
And Dan, presumably impressed by my commitment and creativity, started to embody his role as 4-digit.
This interaction led to
- Dan sharing an awesome story that I'll leave in the description
- A demand and curiosity for me to write a longer form piece of content on the meme.
Seeing how much traction this was getting, I also capitalized with a crazy suggestion.
Which nobody rejected, and you'll see how this developed.
3 days later on December 15th, I published Koe Mythos Volume 1: A Psychoanalysis of Dan Koe's Testosterone, in the free forum mentioning the 7 people who repeated the joke, giving them the title of early adopter.
There are a bunch of suggestions in that as well and it's pretty funny. I would recommend checking out, you can find it in the Discord. And if you can't, I'll send it to you there.
This preview on discord reinforced my marketing masterclass suggestion by stating that I am performing lobbying efforts to make the Koe Mythos a part of the public consciousness.
Ironically, in the vein of Devon Eriksen's message about culture (add culture quote)
I had just created a fun, mutually beneficial tool to enroll people into what Dan is trying to do, as well as boost my authority and ability to share insights.
The first Koe Mythos was very well-received, and it made it way easier to enroll people into the joke, because now I could just mention something mysterious sounding like "The Koe Mythos"
A day after the first Koe Mythos post, we had cemented our friendship.
Which is super awkward to cite, but I feel like it's kind of necessary.
Because having talked to really hundreds of people over the last last month, and having experienced this issue myself, people are very timid and confused about how to make friends.
I'm trying to give you things that you can notice when building connections, while also make it clear that there is no artificial trick.
Also, I would encourage you to talk to people who are "bigger" than you, like normal people.
Because they're not mystical creatures, they are also normal people.
And if you want to be there yourself one day, you have to start seeing yourself on an equal playing field.
Now, the twitchy witch saga.
This is a cool example because I did not have the same amount of leverage that you saw in the Koe Mythos example.
About 2 days after the inception of the Koe Mythos, I encountered twitchy witch in the chats, asking about how to deal with bots impersonating her.
And you can see how differently I approached the situation.
I use basically all of those communication tactics here.
I led with a question.
I led with my experience
I disqualified myself
I asked more questions.
I restated her experience, and asked more questions
Disqualified myself again by saying that Dan probably has experience.
And gave a subtle suggestion.
I stated my experience with her content.
I confirmed her state of being by checking that she held a mindset that it was a good problem to have.
And after all of that, I came up with the idea to maybe use some kind of affiliate system to at least mitigate the problem and gain some control over it. Which was well-received.
The next day someone asked a question about masculinity in one of the chats.
Also shoutout to Matt he actually has a cool podcast.
It's called "The Quest" with Matt Buffa on Spotify.
So Twitchy answered him.
And you might be thinking "masculinity? I see, so you threw the Koe Mythos in there now."
Nope.
I led with a question by asking her opinion on an insight I had. Which created curiosity, and got her to ask a question.
Again, I'm not trying to shove any ideas down people's throats, I'm getting permission.
So I answered her question, which was neat because I hadn't really thought about it much before.
You can pause to read it if you want.
And she gave one of the most significant responses you can get from a girl.
She sent me tarot cards.
Now since I'm already in this deep telling you about social dynamics.
When somebody does something for you, especially, if a girl puts effort into something for you, you should learn how much.
So I learned that she went and pulled them out of a deck, rather than it being like a picture off the internet or something.
And that, cued to me that she could be a potential Koe Mythos supporter.
So about 3 days later, after she gave some advice to someone else in the chat, I found an opening
I even incorporated some urgency
and noted the same thing I imagine Dan is thinking now, as he reads this article.
you can see she was a fan by her engagement.
So I anointed her as my masculinity consultant for The Koe Mythos.
And shouted her out in the next set of updates
Which is again, publicizing positive response.
So wrapping around to the present moment, at least at the this article was published, how did I start writing with her?
I was answering one of her questions about how to share documents in Kortex. In other words, giving actual, useful informaiton.
I also suggested this video/article, because I has already started working on it during this interaction.
And to give context to her question, a few days earlier she asked this
So again, playfully, I said this
Which got this little gif as a reaction.
Now I suspect that this may have been an elaborate ruse to actually get me into a shared document, and that type of suspicion is the kind of confidence you need while you're gathering attention.
I openly expressed that i would be excited if I could help her build out ideas.
Not really a 4-digit message there.
I had found myself in my own meme, but I composed myself after that so I could get Dan into checking his rank for all of that testing.
And to end off, you will see that the suggestion I mentioned 2 weeks prior, and again when I showed twitchy KM, came up again directly.
Where she says that it is great marketing.
And the total reach between those two and everyone I connected with is over 4.3 million followers.
Kortex Stuff
Now for the information about Kortex.
First, if you want the free template that goes with this article
1. Sign up for Kortex for Free https://kortex.co?via=signup
2. Open this template https://app.kortex.co/accept/document/55e9f10a-2ba3-4d79-b663-acac01489f22
3. Click "Duplicate" in the top right corner to add it to your workspace
Second, the stuff I actually don't know if I'm supposed to tell you.
A few months ago there was kind of an unofficial 60-70% price drop
Normally, to get everything that comes with the premium tier of Kortex, it cost $150 upfront, and $50/mo after that.
Now, it costs $21/mo billed monthly. And $17.50/mo, billed annually.
Also, what you see on the website is not really accurate.
It looks like you are getting a writing software beta that has some unique stuff and is going to get a handful of extra features.
But the actual roadmap of intended features is over 30, and the end goal is
- the ability to host a public profile, where you can send newsletters, offer digital products, and schedule social media posts
On top of something that will rival all of the features in something like notion or obsidian.
The reason they're aiming for features like that is to streamline your ability to write yourself into the digital landscape.
Which is why the premium subscription also includes many of the key points from Dan's full courses.
You get a "Strategy library" that teaches you
- How to build a personal brand
- How to create designs and images for your content manually or with AI
- Dan's 3-point content ecosystem from 2 hour writer, for writing newsletters and turning them into threads, tweets, and video scripts
- How to design digital products, lead magnets, create landing pages, and write email sequences.
- And how to network and build an audience
We're still at $21/mo and it comes with more.
You get access to the premium community which is where you saw me do everything in this article.
Also where can ask for feedback on your content and products, test ideas in the chat, ask for next steps, or you can just network with other people, and practice all of the stuff from this article.
They also host a 1 hour strategy call once a week, and you get content templates for tweets, threads, reels, and long form content twice a month.
And to be honest Dan is usually in there every day and he will usually answer your questions.
I have no idea how long that can keep the price this way, because right now it is super underpriced.
But I do know that in principle Dan does not like to make you pay more than you paid originally.
So, I can't promise you this, but it is likely that if you get this for $21/mo and the price goes up, your price probably will not go up.
The only caveat to that is that they are going to introduce a layer of pricing for AI depending on how much people use it and what models they offer.
So if you want to access all of that stuff,
Just go to the link in the description and make a free Kortex account
Click your profile in the bottom left corner
Click billing
Go to change plan and on the right side and select premium
After you enter your payment details
Go into any of the discord chats and ask to be added to the premium community, you'll be added within a day (it's usually a few minutes or hours) and you'll get access to everything that I mentioned.
If you need any help with that process you can leave a comment or ask about it in the free discord.
How to Access the Premium Community
- Log into Kortex https://kortex.co?via=signup
- Click your profile in the bottom left corner, and click "Settings" (or press ctrl+^+shift)
- Click "Billing" at the bottom of the list
- Select "Change Plan" on the top, and select 'Premium'
- Enter payment details
- Go into one of the Free Kortex Discord Chats and request access to the Premium Channels https://discord.gg/7XKUjvP5
You'll be added within 24 hours.
