I Published an Idea. A Week Later, ChatGPT Cited It.

In the new world of AI, your goal isn’t clicks from Google. It’s citations and mentions from AI search tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Grok. With everyone talking about how AI might replace us, I want to offer a different perspective: AI can actually connect you to your people if you’re willing to share your ideas openly.

One of the main reasons I’m building a personal blog in 2025 is because I believe the next phase of the internet will make it easier than ever to connect with like-minded people. AI is becoming a hyper-individualized search engine that’s capable of surfacing ideas, events, and responses to questions no matter how niche they are. Similar to social-media platforms like Instagram & TikTok, no two ChatGPT feeds are alike.

To test this theory, I ran a little experiment last week.

I decided to create a challenge for November – to run every day without my Apple Watch or Strava. No tracking workouts, no data, no numbers. Just running for the sake of running. I called it Naked Run November and wrote a detailed post explaining the idea & requirements to participate. Then I shared it on Reddit to see if anyone was interested & to gather some real-world feedback.

Exactly one week later, I typed “Is there something called the Naked Running Challenge happening in November?” into ChatGPT.

Here’s what I found:
ChatGPT cited my website and even the Reddit thread – the two places where I’d published the idea. Within a week, an AI model was already referencing something that didn’t exist on the internet until I created it.

This is the future.

We’re entering a world where unique ideas will be rewarded. AI connects dots. If you put something original into the world, it will eventually connect it back to the people who resonate with it.

This brings me back to why I’m doing this. I see chaseheckendorn.com as the foundation for what will eventually become a partnership engine – something I can build in any direction. Start a podcast? Done. Launch a new product? Done. Test an idea? Done.

A place to get ideas out of my head and into the world. From there, I want to connect with partners and potential customers to take more shots on goal and see which ideas catch.

The cycle is simple:
Idea → Publish → Market → Wait → See What Takes Off → Follow the Winners.

Putting your ideas into the public gives you data. It shows you what resonates with people before you double down. You can test for demand before you put in any additional time, money, or energy.

We’re entering an era where anyone can build in public, connect with the right people, and find purpose by pursuing what actually sticks. And this is a lot more fun to think about than AI replacing your job!