Make Content About Getting Good at Something: The Gary Vee Pillar for Engineers

What Is Gary Vee’s “Document, Don’t Create” Philosophy?

The most repeatable content strategy is not performance. It is documentation. Gary Vaynerchuk’s idea — “Document, Don’t Create” — says you should publish your real process instead of polishing a fake version of expertise.

Most people never start because they believe they need one perfect idea. That perfectionism is the trap. The creator who wins is the one who posts the messy middle: the first broken guitar chord, the failed deployment, the slow 5K run, the half-written song. You are not the teacher. You are the traveler. The audience follows the journey, not the destination.

Why Content About Getting Good At Something Works for Engineers

Engineers are uniquely positioned for this pillar. Every one of us is learning something in public anyway: a new language, a framework, a system design concept, a career transition. The difference between someone who builds a following and someone who does not is simply who hits publish.

I built my first real audience by documenting what I was learning at Google, not by pretending I had everything figured out. The posts that performed best were the ones where I explained a failure, a debugging story, or a mental model I had just figured out. People trust the person who is one step ahead of them, not the person on a stage.

Comparison: Teaching vs. Documenting

Approach	What You Say	Why It Works	Where It Fails
Teaching first	”Here is how to do X”	Builds authority fast	Requires real expertise; feels inauthentic early
Documenting first	”Here is how I am trying X”	Builds trust fast; low barrier	Takes longer to monetize; needs consistency
Teaching later	”Here is what I learned after doing X”	High authority + high trust	You have to actually do the work first

For most engineers, documenting first is the better bet. You do not need to be a senior architect to explain a concept you learned yesterday. You just need to explain it clearly to someone who is a day behind you.

How to Choose Your First Skill to Document

The skill does not need to be technical. In fact, the less obvious it is, the better. Gary Vee mentions piano, golf, cooking, woodworking, and ceramics. The topic is just the container. The story is the product.

Pick something with three properties:

You are genuinely curious about it. Faking interest shows.
You can practice it daily or weekly. You need a stream of updates.
You can attach a story to it. Why are you learning this? What changed? Who is involved?

Examples for an engineer:

Learning Rust for systems programming after a decade of Python
Rebuilding a side project in public with no AI help
Training for a half marathon while working a full-time job
Relearning music production to make coding livestreams
Documenting the move from IC to engineering manager

The narrower, the better. “I want to get good at baking” is generic. “I want to bake the exact chocolate chip cookies my grandma made” is a story.

What Makes the Story Compelling (Not the Skill)

The skill is the excuse. The story is the reason people watch. Gary Vee emphasizes this: the people who win in an AI world are the better storytellers.

A story needs three things:

A clear motive. Why are you doing this? A new relationship, a lost relative, a bet, a fear, a curiosity.
A visible struggle. The plateau. The bad attempt. The moment you almost quit.
A small win. The first song that sounds okay. The first clean build. The first run without stopping.

Vulnerability is the accelerant. The audience does not want the facade anymore. They want to see the struggle. The 50-year-old dad learning Fortnite to bond with his kid is interesting because it is human, not because Fortnite is interesting.

How to Build a Consistent Documentation Habit

Consistency beats virality. The creator who posts 200 daily videos about learning guitar has a better shot than the creator who posts one polished masterpiece every three months.

A Simple Daily System

One long-form piece per week. A blog post, a video, or a podcast episode summarizing the week.
Short updates daily. 1-2 posts across the platforms you use. Show the work, not the result.
One story hook per week. Why does this matter? What changed? What did you learn?
Repurpose ruthlessly. One blog post becomes five tweets, one LinkedIn post, one short video, and one newsletter item.

You do not need a new handle. You can start with your existing audience. If you already have followers, a documented learning journey will open a new segment of people who are behind you on that skill.

What if the Skill Seems “Boring”?

There is no boring topic. There is only boring storytelling. Someone who wants to learn woodworking can build a massive following because the skill is a proxy for patience, craft, and slow improvement.

The way to make it interesting is to go one layer deeper:

“I want to learn cooking” → “I want to cook the dishes my mom made before I moved away for my first tech job.”
“I want to learn guitar” → “I am picking guitar back up because my uncle who taught me passed away, and I want to keep that part of him alive.”
“I want to learn chess” → “I am trying to beat my coworker who thinks I have no strategy.”

The story is the reason people care. The skill is just the setting.

Frequently Asked Questions

Do I need to be an expert to make content?

No. You need to be one step ahead of someone. The beginner who is three months ahead is the most useful person to the beginner who is just starting. Expertise creates distance; documentation creates connection.

How do I find time to document while working a full-time engineering job?

Capture while you work, publish during breaks. You do not need a separate content creation session. The bug you fixed, the decision you made, the thing you learned — that is the content. The discipline is recording it, not inventing it.

What platforms should I use?

Start with the platform you already use. LinkedIn is great for engineers. YouTube and blogs are great for long-form. Twitter/X is great for threads. TikTok and Instagram are great for visual or personality-driven content. Pick one long-form and one short-form platform.

How do I make my content stand out in an AI world?

Be a better storyteller. AI can summarize facts, but it cannot live your life. Your specific story, your specific failures, and your specific voice are the moat. Double down on what only you can say.

How long before content starts working?

Give it 200 days. Gary Vee is consistent on this: 200 daily posts across the skill you are learning. One in every ten thousand people who do this seriously will see life-changing outcomes. The shortcut is consistency over time.

References & Further Reading

Gary Vee — “Why You Should Make Content About Getting Good At Something” — The original article that inspired this post.
Gary Vaynerchuk — “Document, Don’t Create” — The original post on the philosophy behind publishing your process.
VaynerMedia — The media agency and content operation behind Gary Vee’s output.
VeeFriends — Gary Vee’s community and brand project, a case study in documenting business building.