Shortly after we launched portfolios in July, learners started asking for a follow feature. They wanted to know when specific people in the community were building something new.
It seems like a fairly ordinary product request, there’s something much bigger behind it. Following has always existed in service of content. You subscribe to someone on YouTube because you want to watch their next video. You follow someone on X because you enjoy their writing. Instagram grew around photos, TikTok around short-form video. Every major social network has been built around a particular type of content, with the social graph emerging around the people who consistently create it.
Portfolios have never worked that way. They’ve traditionally been static records of work - something you put together when you’re looking for a job, fill with your best projects, and then mostly forget about until the next time you need it.
But that changes when a portfolio is created simply by building. Instead of a carefully curated snapshot, it becomes a running history of someone’s work. You can see what they’re building, how often they build, what they’re interested in, and how their skills are evolving over time.
With skills changing so quickly now, NextWork portfolios and the ability to follow other builders removes a middle layer that historically slowed down the transfer of knowledge. The portfolio is no longer a destination a recruiter visits once while making a hiring decision. Instead, it’s something people want to return to because it’s the best place to get the latest and greatest from people in the field. Following their portfolio gives you a direct view into that work as it happens, without requiring them to turn it into a tutorial, a LinkedIn post, or a YouTube video first.
I think that creates the beginnings of a different kind of creator economy. The people who build large audiences won’t necessarily be the best writers or video creators. They might simply be the people who consistently build interesting things.
And once those people have audiences, the economics around them start to change too. Companies might want to sponsor their projects, give them early access to new tools, or pay to have talented builders create with their products. The thing attracting the audience isn’t content about the work. It’s the work itself.
That’s a very different kind of social network… one built around what people can actually do.
All my best,
