How Alex Finn Successfully Pivoted His X Niche After Building 100K+ Followers

On December 28, 2021, Alex Finn bought a JPEG of a cartoon monkey for $30k and started writing as NFT God on X.

3 years later, that account became Alex Finn. Same reach. Same engagement.

Everyone tells you to pick a niche and stay there. Alex ignored them. Multiple 6-figure accounts have pivoted successfully, and some founders skip the grind entirely by buying established accounts at 10,000 followers.

The Chrome extension that exposed account buying on X

I used to run Twemex, later rebranded as Tweethunter X. The tool stored tweets with their usernames, which meant you could suddenly see a popular account's older identities if they changed their handle as it searched via unique tweets. Before ChatGPT, people would manually steal tweets and reword them so each one was a bit unique.

It revealed something most people miss: accounts change hands all the time.

X's algorithm doesn't punish pivots. You don't lose followers when you switch niches. SuperX does similar tracking now. Both tools show the same pattern: accounts get bought cheap, rebranded, and scaled up.

Jack Butcher went from design philosophy to crypto NFTs.

Different content. Same audience.

Why founders buy aged accounts instead of starting from zero

Social Growth Engineers recently bought an older account too at ~5k followers to get engagement going for their newer account. I remember seeing their older account details on SuperX.

X now shows how many times a username changed and when the account was created.

Most of the time, if you see an old account with a username change, it was bought.

Nobody cares about the history of your account. They care about what you're posting now.

The playbook nobody talks about: viral niches as launchpads

Here's the strategy people actually use: blow up in a high-growth niche, then use that account as a springboard.

Create more than 1 account while you're at it. Tools like OpenClaw make this actually feasible now. Jacky Chou is already running 400+ karma-farming Reddit accounts using proxies and Alibaba's Qwen model without getting banned from Reddit. That number's only going up.

If you know what AI writing looks like, you'll spot these bot farms everywhere on Reddit and X.

Crypto and NFTs explode during bull markets. AI does the same during hype cycles. Sports content goes viral during championships. These niches have built-in viral mechanics.

Build one account to 50k in a hot niche. Then spin up 3 more accounts in different spaces. Your main account becomes the distribution engine. Cross-promote. Convert followers. Move attention from the trendy niche into more stable ones.

Some founders buy aged accounts in dying categories specifically to rebrand during the next hype cycle. The account already has trust signals. The algorithm ranks it higher—like an aged domain. You just change what you post to get sorted into different algorithmic buckets.

Why the first 10k followers changes everything

Growth on X isn't linear. It's exponential after 10k.

Before that, you're shouting into the void. After 10k, the algorithm starts amplifying you automatically. Social proof compounds. Each new follower makes the next one easier to get.

So your only job is hitting 10k as fast as possible. Everything else is easier from there.

Grey hat tactics speed this up on any platform, not just X:

• Buy aged accounts created before a certain date

• Delete old content to reset algorithmic categorization so you get placed in new buckets

• Change your username to match your new niche if it's obvious (like @NFT_God)

The alternative is to spend 2 years building credibility while your competitors shortcut the system.

The algorithm bucket problem when you pivot

X's interest graph decides who sees your content. When you switch niches, you have to retrain the system.

Post consistently in your new category. Let the old audience churn naturally. Your follower count isn't your audience. Your engaged followers are.

Sure, engagement might drop temporarily. But it's still better than starting from zero.

Alex did this when he jumped from NFT to AI. Jack did this when he went from design to NFT. Social Growth Engineers did this by buying an aged account.

Your niche isn't permanent. Your distribution is.

This is why people build personal brands instead of business brands. They can launch multiple products in completely different niches. Look at how MrBeast did it with Feastables (chocolate) and Viewstats (SaaS for YouTubers).

In the end, Alex Finn went from ~100K followers in Crypto to ~430K followers in AI by jumping trends and pivoting successfully in <3 years.

Top Tweets of the day

1/

The goal is to increase awareness so one day people get curious and check out Claude.

2/

Lots of YouTubers have started copying this technique for sponsor videos. Great psychological hack!

3/

There is always a way to cater to the luxury audience.

Rabbit Holes

1. How I Get Creators to Promote My Apps for $0 Upfront (using Whop Apps)

2. The SEO ROI of Blog Content

3. Let the Model Write the Prompt

What’d ya think of today’s newsletter? Hit ‘reply’ and let me know.

Do me a favor and share it in your company's Slack #marketing channel.

First time? Subscribe.

Follow me on X.

More Startup Spells 🪄

1. How an AI Prompt-Engineering Growth Tactic Drove 31,548 GitHub Stars (LINK)

2. How YadaPhone Captures Voice of Customer Data using Automated Feedback Forms (LINK)

3. Claude's Gift Strategy: Beat December SaaS Slump with Holiday Campaign (LINK)

4. Niche vs. General YouTube Channels: Thomas Frank's 290K+ vs. 2M+ Subscribers (Case Study) (LINK)

5. Fingerprint's Homepage Personalization Strategy (LINK)