How often do you publish? I was also a bit surprised that the blog just skimmed over what I think is the most important part: how to build an audience.

It sounds like "I wasn't a good writer, but I just wrote 50 articles and improved and now I had tens of thousands of readers a month"

I am skeptical that it was all about quality. If his first article had been the best article ever it's still unlikely he'd have found an audience/get noticed. So maybe it's about the frequency of posting? I think it'd be worth reflecting on this more, how did his readership grow in that early period? Were there any inflection points? Etc