The Relentless Iteration Loop
Read-through, add, repeat 50-100 times, set aside, return — then hand to editors. That's the secret.
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Time to result
- ~days to results
- Steps
- 4
- Confidence
- 88%
A production process for high-quality creative output: pass over the work dozens of times (Lenny ~50-100 per post, Michelle ~5-100 per chart), each pass improving it, deliberately set unfinished pieces aside to let better ideas surface, then run it through layered editors. Use it for any craft where quality compounds with revision.
Origin
Asked how many iterations a chart takes, Michelle says at least 5, often ~100; Lenny says ~50-60 per newsletter post. Both converge on the same 'secret to success': iteration and editing, plus setting a piece aside and coming back when a new improving idea arrives — echoing Lenny's old boss's advice to just 'spend more time on it.'
Core principles
- 01Quality is a function of pass count — improvement per read-through, many times over.
- 02Set unfinished work aside deliberately; distance surfaces the idea that makes it better.
- 03Layer human editors after your own passes: editor, copy editor, designer.
- 04The unglamorous lever is simply spending more time on it.
How to run it
- 1
Draft a rough beginning
Get the seed of the piece down — the beginnings you can react to and build on.
- 2
Read-through-and-add, many times
Repeatedly read the whole thing and improve it each pass — 'read through it, add to it' — dozens of times (Lenny ~50, Michelle up to ~100).
Pro tip Count passes as the real work; the first version is never the shipped version.
- 3
Set it aside and return
When unsure it's good enough, put it to the side; come back when a new idea arrives that makes it better, or when working it again sparks an addition.
Pro tip Keeping the unfinished piece 'already in my head' lets ambient ideas attach to it later.
Watch out The risk of sitting on ideas: someone may beat you to it — set-aside is for refinement, not indefinite delay.
- 4
Run layered editors
After your own passes, hand it to an editor, then a copy editor, then a designer to raise the final bar.
In the wild
Lenny: 'I go through it probably, let's say 50 times making it better... Read through it, add to it... Like 50 times. And then I have my editor go through it and then have a copy editor go through it and the designer help me.'
→ Consistently high-bar weekly posts that built a 1.2M-subscriber newsletter.
Michelle estimates ~100 rewrites of a chart; Lenny lands on that as 'probably the real answer.' Both name iteration and editing as 'the secret to success.'
→ Charts polished enough to go viral repeatedly and get stolen widely.
Common mistakes
Shipping early drafts
Treating the first or fifth version as final skips the dozens of compounding improvements that actually make the work good.
Set-aside turning into never
Distance helps, but sitting on an idea too long risks someone else releasing it first — Michelle notes 'somebody beat me to that thing I didn't ever do anything with.'
Is it for you?
Best for
Writers, chart/graphic makers, and creators whose output quality compounds with revision.
Not ideal for
Time-sensitive or low-stakes output (e.g. quick emails) where 50 passes is wasteful — Lenny admits he doesn't do this for emails.
From the transcript
“when I write a newsletter post, I go through it probably, let's say 50 times making it better”
“Read through it, add to it. Read through it, add to it. Improve, improve, improve,”
“And then I have my editor go through it and then have a copy editor go through it and the designer help me.”
“I make things and I am not sure if they're good enough yet and I put them to the side and then I come back”
From the episode
How I built a 1M+ subscriber newsletter and top 10 tech podcast
Lenny Rachitsky