My Suspicions: How Dr Mehmet Yildiz Actually Grew This Platform

The Secret Is In The Editorial Team

We all know Dr Mehmet Yildiz as a kind and generous man. But is he really? Read about all the dark truths as inspired by Rita Skeeter’s bestseller ‘The Life and Lies of Albus Dumbledore’, a true biography if ever there was one.

Just kidding. When I joined Illumination — you can read about that experience here: My Discovery Of The ILLUMINATION Platform — Illumination had just shy of 40,000 followers. A month later, 44,000 followers.

I kept looking at all the other ‘BIG’ publications. You know, The Startup, The Ascent, The Innovation, Better Marketing, etc. Some of them aren’t accepting new writers. The ones that are, have a “years-long” waiting list. You can submit your piece, start a family, have them graduate, and then, they might read that piece. Also, the growth of these publications has stagnated.

I’ve looked through them with my magnifying glass. You can find out about a publication’s writers and editors by simply adding /about at the end of the link to their homepage. All of these publications, as well as 20 or more that I’ve surveyed, have about 2–3 editors.

“When hell freezes over, I’ll add more editors,” they chuckle to themselves. Illumination currently has 41.

That’s over a thousand percent more than the average. Hence, the growth. Dr Mehmet Yildiz does not hog the reins all to himself. He has created an environment that can grow by itself. Other people write and the best of them can edit as well. There’s an element of trust involved.

Otherwise, no publication could get through the sheer volume of HIGH-QUALITY work that Illumination goes through on a daily basis. My respect to you, sir, and all Illumination staff.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”

This also reminds me of an old story by Steve Jobs — God bless him. When he was a kid, he had a scary-looking 80-year old neighbor and Steve thought he had mowed his lawn once. He didn’t remember what they were talking about but he was shown or saw a rock tumbler in the man’s garage.

The man had him collect some ugly rocks from outside and he put them all in the tumbler with some grit and some liquid and turned it on. The thing made a hell of a lot of noise.

Steve came back the next day to find these beautiful polished rocks. The friction and the abrasion had created something magnificent. Not all writers agree with each other all the time. Sometimes pieces get rejected. A different editor or writer or layman might have thought that piece amazing. But through the process of seeing your work get accepted, rejected, edited or having requests for edits, your work becomes more polished.

There’s even a draft-feedback section on the Slack Channel. What more could you ask for?

These writers, myself included, get to stumble along and grow. Growth doesn’t happen smoothly, but it happens. And we’re growing right along with it.