My First Million
The best business ideas come from noticing what's working and doing it better, faster, or for a different audience.
Traditional storytelling structures are becoming obsolete for modern audiences
Timeframe: Already happening, will accelerate over next 5 years
What's Changing
The Hollywood formula of save-the-cat screenplay structure (page 30 turning point, 120 page movies) is losing effectiveness as audiences lose patience and attention spans shrink.
Driving Forces
Social media has trained audiences to expect immediate payoffs
Short-form content dominance changes attention patterns
Global audiences with different cultural storytelling norms
Interactive and non-linear content becoming more common
Winners
- Creators who experiment with new narrative structures
- Platforms that enable non-linear storytelling
- Writers who combine short-form pacing with long-form depth
- International content creators who don't follow Hollywood formulas
Losers
- Traditional Hollywood studio system
- Writers who only know the save-the-cat formula
- Linear television programming
- Media that assumes audiences will wait 30 minutes for the story to begin
How to Position Yourself
Learn storytelling principles from other disciplines like music composition
Study successful content that breaks traditional formulas
Experiment with narrative structures that deliver value immediately
Combine elements from different media formats
Early Signals to Watch
Example Implementation
“A documentary that changes its entire premise halfway through (like Parasite did for films), keeping audiences engaged by subverting their expectations rather than following predictable structure.”
Related Knowledge
Debate Format News Platform
Current media is either left-wing or right-wing echo chambers.
Reality Distortion Field
A psychological influence technique where a charismatic person convinces others that their initial judgment or story is wrong, making them believe an alternative narrative even when evidence contradicts it.
Create definitive, unassailable narrative non-fiction through exhaustive research
You know things about your subject that they don't know about themselves.
Story Supremacy Principle
A company's narrative and ability to tell a compelling story about their product is more important than the actual quali
People will always talk to journalists if you understand their motivations
No story is impossible to report if you're willing to invest the time to understand what each potential source wants and
I don't believe people should write about other people until they have been written about themselves
You can't understand how it feels to be the subject of critical reporting until you experience it yourself