Hey there Reader!
How's it going?
I want to try something new. Every email you receive from me from now on will have ✍️ this in the subject line.
Now you know, let's dive into it.
And I've made this cool little custom divider to personalise the feel more!
Today at a glance:
- My thoughts on the creator economy and what it actually takes to scale to $10k/mo
- 1 piece of content: Two short podcast episodes about creator communities and newsletters (Jay Clouse)
- Quote: A tweet from Naval Ravikant
- Writing prompt: A powerful question to boost growth
Total read time: 3.5 minutes.
Who else is sick and tired of being sold to by bigger creators?
It seems like everyone and their grandma has a course, a cohort, or some sort of coaching advice.
To be frank with you, it gives a really bad rep to the creator industry. But then again, everyone's got to make a buck out here to live, right?
Anyway, I'm not mad. I just noticed it recently, and couldn't help but think about how many people there are trying to make it.
Millions try and quit every year.
To even make $1,000 a month is impressive if you think about the grand scheme of things.
Now why did I come out and say that this creator industry is corrupt?
Because of this: It seems like the people who make the most money online are either:
- Teaching people how to make money
- Teaching people how to teach people how to make money.
Reflect on that one for a second...
It's pretty ridiculous huh!?
How to ignore the noise
I've come so close to quitting many many times.
Why?
Because everywhere around me I see people seemingly succeed with their million and one offers, and I was stuck here scraping along.
And the number one thing I did, was decide to block out all the fluff BS noise.
Focus on the one thing you want to be known for, and push out high-quality content at least 5 days a week.
For me, I want to be known as a successful copywriter, kind of like Matt Barker and have a bunch of digital products I can sell on the back end of being a good writer.
For me, it's about GOOD WRITING.
So that's what I focus on.
Stay in your lane, ignore everyone else's successes, and ship out high-quality ideas. This will attract opportunities for you, and you will be able to sell high ticket offers.
Speaking of offers, I'm launching a new high ticket offer valued at over $2,500/mo next week. I'm gonna start pitching it and trying to find people to take me up on it.
Stay on the lookout for that.
The future of the creator industry
So, if you aren't familiar with Jay Clouse yet, he's the owner of the brand and business Creator Science.
He essentially reverse-engineers successful creators and what they're doing. And he's built a community for creators, which pulls in $500,000 a year.
This just made me scratch my head and I dove into his content and listened to a bunch of his podcasts.
Essentially, paid communities are the future. Not courses. Sidenote: I still think digital products have a place though.
Humans are tribal after all! And now, in the digital age, these paid tight-knit communities that have a network of highly valuable people who are all doing the same thing, are the future.
Think about the math.
Let's say you price it at a yearly fee.
$1,000 for the year.
Cap it at 100 members.
$100,000 extra a YEAR. That's a salary for me.
This is, however, something that only advanced creators can do at scale. So for now, I'll be focusing on my high-ticket services, and digital products until I get to that stage!
But it's the future, don't sleep on it.
Two short podcast episodes:
Podcast 1:
How Jay Clouse Built a $500,000 ARR Community (in Less than 2 Years)
Greg Isenberg, and Jay Clouse. Two great minds, and great ideas being flushed around! A cool quick 40-minute listen about a lot of the ideas I was just talking about in the previous section.
Podcast 2:
Creator Science #147: Chenell Basilio - How the best newsletter operators grow to 50K+ subscribers.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/3IqMQ1TnFlTJ7G41TJPbTA?si=T6q_IemHQzqzqO3MQjHR9w
I've now come across one of my favourite deep dive newsletters out there! It's called Growth In Reverse, by Chenell Basilio.
She essentially reverse-engineers how the best newsletters grew. In this episode, she and Jay just talk about a few cool strategies that have been working really well for the top creators. A valuable listen.
1 quote to ponder on:
Angel investor and modern-day philosopher Naval on the power of written digital content.
I'm no lottery man, but writing online is my type of lottery. One post blowing up can change everything.
Even if you got a few hundred impressions, think about that, it's a few hundred people you've reached.
A writing prompt to make you grow:
Take out the trusty Google Doc, Notion, or paper journal, and ask yourself:
"What's been the biggest failure in my creator business recently, and why did it fail?"
Then reverse engineer that failure, and use it as feedback on what you have to do next.
I was reflecting on this because I just realised how much of a flop one of my lead magnets was. It got like 6 sign-ups. This is the lead mag if you're curious.
I'll be sharing a more in-depth brutally honest deep-dive on this next week on LinkedIn
Bonus quick picks and wins from last week:
- Loving Growth In Reverse newsletter, which I talked about in this edition
- Just bought Mike Romaine's newsletter course Creator Newsletters
- Redesigned my email sign-up page and my welcome page, which I'm lowkey proud of (especially the welcome page).
PS. If my newsletter brings any value to you, please consider sharing a quick testimonial. Even if you write 2 lines, this is the best way to support the work I put into this every week.
That's it from me this week, see you next week!
Alen
Alen Bašić
The Introverted Thinker.
Say "Hi" to me on LinkedIn 👋 X or book a call with me here☎️
