Creator Economy

When should a creator throw in the towel?

“How does a creator assess whether they’re on a trajectory for success, especially when early growth seems so slow?”

“In February 2022 I was feeling pretty pessimistic about the financial trajectory of this newsletter, but here we are just a few months later and I’ve roughly doubled my monthly revenue. I simply needed a little extra time to experiment and see what worked. I couldn’t have predicted that outcome in advance. Sometimes, we’re on the verge of success and don’t even realize it; it’s only in hindsight that we realize we were making progress all along.”

“Too many people compare being a creator to working a traditional job, and so that results in unrealistic expectations. Most traditional jobs start paying you a full-time salary right away, and that kind of rapid success is rarely possible in the creator world. That’s why the vast majority of YouTube channels, podcasts, and newsletters peter out after just a few months; their proprietors gave up after they didn’t experience immediate success.  

Instead, a creator is basically a one-person startup or small business. I like to give the analogy of starting a restaurant. The aspiring restaurateur has lots of startup costs. They have to lease the building, pay for renovations, hire a staff, and buy supplies. This is why it can take years to achieve profitability, even if the restaurant starts generating steady business from day one.”

Why Is It So Difficult to Cross The Plateau of Latent Potential?

“We invest a huge deal of money and time to create a project. For a couple of years, there is seemingly zero progress. It’s like you are throwing money in an ever-expanding dent. At a certain point. And only under the condition that you: Persist long enough; Stay disciplined; You have all of that money to throw; You happen to successfully battle the inner doubt, the impostor syndrome, and the frustration of the lack of feedback. You reach a point of breakthrough. A major change.”

“All big things come from small beginnings. You plant a small seed today. And in a couple of years, you have a huge tree. Though it seems simple. The gap between doing and getting feels intolerable. We know that good things take time. But exactly this delay keeps us away from having good things.

That’s a short overview of the Plateau of Latent Potential.

We think that our progress should be linear. Always up. Always advancing. But the reality is quite different.

We invest a huge deal of money and time to create a project. For a couple of years, there is seemingly zero progress. It’s like you are throwing money in an ever-expanding dent. At a certain point. And only under the condition that you: Persist long enough; Stay disciplined; You have all of that money to throw; You happen to successfully battle the inner doubt, the impostor syndrome, and the frustration of the lack of feedback. You reach a point of breakthrough. A major change.”

The Part-Time Creator Manifesto

Interesting take on the value of creating while working full-time.

►  It’s about self-sufficiency: what you learn shipping something from end to end.
► It’s about self-actualization: having creative control and autonomy and not ending the week with nothing.
► It’s about long term games: building a personal network and reputation that will outlast any employer.
► It’s about optionality: having a backup plan if something goes wrong, and incubating dozens of business ideas that could be big, creating luck for yourself.
► It’s about having a job while not being your job.

Big Idea: This is the first time I’ve heard the term Meta Creator.  “A “Meta-Creator” is someone who creates content about creating, instead of just creating.”

“The sneaking suspicion that even if you win and are top of the heap at the Meta-Creator game, you are still limiting yourself from what you could be doing with your life. What the people you actually look up to are doing with theirs. What the world could be benefiting from if the greatest minds of our generation just applied themselves to other problems than “How to Crush it on Twitter” or “Get a Million YouTube Subscribers” or the 3923rd “How Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Think” blogpost. I promise you Musk or Bezos or Obama or Malala or whoever you look up to spend zero time as meta-creators.”

The Ungated Creator Manifesto

Rob Hardy wrote a lengthy manifesto on the tradeoffs creators make between publishing low-quality content that gets shares and makes money versus creating meaningful content we are proud of.

“In the summer of 2014, I found myself grappling with an unshakeable sense of boredom. After writing “7 unexpected lighting hacks to make your videos more cinematic” or “This new 6K camera will revolutionize cinematography” for the six hundredth time, I felt an intuitive desire to write things that were a bit more thoughtful and interesting. I wanted to go deeper into the craft of cinematography, and into the psychology of creativity. So I tried a few times. But the lesson I learned, again and again, was that thoughtful, long-form content rarely drives traffic as well as lazily-aggregated clickbait.”

Big Idea: Even though low-quality content often gets better results, creators still need to invest time in creating more meaningful content.

“That means tossing aside the formulas and Best Practices, and striving to produce creative work no one else but you could. It means choosing to play long, infinite games with your marketing and business. It means making friends and building positive-sum relationships. It means trusting your intuition, telling the truth, and trusting others. It means walking your own path, even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular. But most of all, it means doing whatever it takes to nourish that inner voice, and keep your creative spark alive.”

There has never been a better time to become a creator.

If you want to be a writer, musician, podcaster, YouTuber, startup, designer, artist, gamer, or even invent your own creator category, there will never be a better time for you to start than today.

Here are 11 reasons why.

1. The sooner you start the better.

Ask any successful creator what regrets they have and you’ll likely hear:

I wish I started earlier, or
I wish I started an email list sooner.

Your actions compound.

Every follower, like, subscriber, customer, backlink you earn cumulates. Every day that you are creating, promoting, networking, and learning, helps you improve as a creator and grow your audience.

Get started as soon as you can. Your future self will thank you.

2. It’s easier and cheaper than ever to start.

The costs to become any type of creator are almost zero.

All the barriers to entry have been eliminated. It costs practically nothing to build a web presence, create and sell products and services, and reach a global audience. None of this existed just a few decades ago.

It’s hard to overstate this opportunity.

Think back to what it meant to publish videos, record music, write articles, or start a business just 20 or 30 years ago. It was nearly impossible for the average person to publish any form of content to a broad audience.

Now, any smartphone can record video and podcasts, take photos, and can update social media accounts.

You don’t need to set up your own web servers, develop custom applications to host content, or maintain your own system for collecting payments.

There are tools, apps, and services that simplify every aspect of publishing and editing content online and they are essentially free.

3. You no longer need to be chosen.

Just a few decades ago there were powerful gatekeepers you had to impress to get your shot.

• If you wanted to be a professional musician, you needed to be discovered by a record company.
• If you wanted to be an author, you needed to impress a book publisher.
• If you wanted to be on TV or on film, you needed to audition and be chosen by a director.

None of that matters anymore. Whatever you want to do, you can just start.

• Publish articles on your own newsletter or website.
• Upload your songs to Spotify or YouTube.
• Self-publish your books and distribute them on Amazon.
• Record videos and upload them to YouTube or TikTok
• Sell your art on Etsy or through Shopify.
• Get inexpensive custom-made products from Alibaba and dropship them around the world.

None of those opportunities existed a few decades ago. We live in amazing times.

4. There are more ways to get paid than ever.

Creators can earn income through:

• ebooks and books,
• courses,
• advertising,
• affiliate commissions,
• paid communities
• creating their own physical products
• consulting,
• services,
• licensing deals,
• public speaking,
• NFTs, and more.

Most creators have multiple income streams and will continue to find new ways to monetize as their audience grows.

5. The price of creator products keeps increasing.

The days of the $9.99 ebook are long past. A popular cohort-based course can now sell for several thousand dollars. Consumers are willing to pay a lot more to support their favorite creators.

6. Audiences are much bigger than they were in the past.

A decade ago, a popular creator might have 10 or 20 thousand subscribers. Now top creators like James Clear or MrBeast can have over a million subscribers.

The potential market size of your creator business is much bigger and it continues to grow.

7. Creating improves the way you think.

The act of articulating your ideas for an article, video, or podcast clarifies your thoughts and improves your understanding of a topic.

The best way to learn is to teach.

– Frank Oppenheimer

8. Creating is a great way to connect with like-minded people.

Creating will help you find your tribe.

No one creates in a vacuum. You’ll need to connect with others to get your content to spread. Others will reach out to you because of the content you create.

It’s not limited to the internet. Host your own events. Sell your art at weekend markets. Speak at conferences. All forms of public creation connect you to more people.

Your network is a superpower that can help you promote your work and lead to other opportunities.

9. You’ll level up your skills.

Creators have to master a wide variety of communication, design, marketing, and technology skills to be successful. Those skills will always be in high-demand.

Creators are practitioners of SEO, copywriting, social media, presentation skills, graphic design, web design, list building, landing pages, video editing, networking, and more.

Every business needs those skills.

10. Publishing content online is an opportunity engine.

Creating online and off will help you find new and better business and career opportunities.

The projects you shipped, the content you created, and the size of your audience are much more important than the jobs you’ve had. The best resume is a record of consistent creation.

Creating online builds your network, grows your audience, helps you master new skills, and will inevitably lead to more opportunities. That’s why we play The Creator Game.

People who consistently do interesting things, get to do more interesting things.

11. If not now, then when?

If you don’t get started now, then when will be a better time?

It’s definitely not going to be easier or less competitive in the future. This is the best it’s going to get.

Creating is difficult. It takes time to build an audience. You’re going to hit lots of plateaus and you’re going to want to quit.

Almost everyone quits.

If you accept all that and still have a need to create, start today. The best time is now.

Creators are not the future. Creative entrepreneurs are.

Important insight from Josh Spector.

Creators are not the future.

Creative entrepreneurs are.

Here’s why…

— Josh Spector (@jspector) February 23, 2022

Creating is a small part of becoming successful online. Creators are businesses. You need to master essential business skills to win with content.

Samir Chaudry Interview – Using YouTube To Launch Your Creator Enterprise Samir is the co-host of the popular YouTube channel, Colin and Samir, and publishes The Publish Press creator economy newsletter. Samir and Colin started their business by focusing on lacrosse content and creating a marketing agency for lacrosse-focused companies. They sold this company to WhistleSports. Big Idea: Dominating a narrow niche can be leveraged to bigger opportunities as your audience grows.