Growthmates: Create and Grow Meaningful Products & Careers

Build an Audience, Then Build a Company | Michael Ridd (Dive.club, InFlight)

Feb 17, 2026
Guest
Michael Ridd
Michael Ridd, founder of Dive Club and Inflight and former creator of Figma Academy, is a product designer building audience-driven startups. He talks about shifting from selling time to building distribution. He explains why podcasting became core, platform and format choices, turning an audience into collaborators, and evolving ideas from marketplaces to habit-forming products.
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INSIGHT

Audience Is The Universal Leverage

  • Building audience distribution compounds more than credentials or code skills.
  • Michael Ridd intentionally invested daily into content because audience is universal leverage.
ADVICE

Pick Platform By Audience And Energy

  • Choose platforms by where your audience is and what format energizes you.
  • Commit to a format you can sustain long-term because compounding takes time and consistency.
ADVICE

Favor Video Only If Sustainable

  • Lean into video where algorithms favor it, only if you can sustain it.
  • Avoid formats you can't keep doing daily because inconsistency causes burnout.
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