Resources → The Newsletter • 3 min read

⚡️ Where to focus your creator energy next

It's easy to feel overwhelmed when building your own thing. The trick is to point all your attention towards the few things you can control: your output, attitude, and choices. No matter what twist gets thrown your way — treat it like it's there to help you, and it will.

💬 In this week's issue:

Recession-proof. What steps can you take now to protect your progress?
Control the channel. How you communicate with your audience could make or break your business.
Success metrics. See why creators who go slow tend to win big.

💸 Recession planning 101 for creators

Everyone has questions about the current economy. Where is it headed? Are we already in a recession? What does that even mean?

Even though there's much uncertainty, there are a few proactive steps you can take to ensure your project (and income) land in a good place if things do go south.

The following tips are borrowed from the Creator Economics podcast, which you can listen to in full below.

Understand your cashflow. How much money are you bringing in and sending out each month? Do you have a buffer?
Look for ways to save on costs. Is there a subscription you rarely use or conference you could skip?
Diversify your revenue. It's common for sources like ad revenue to dip in times like this, so how else can you make money with your content?
Be mindful of audience struggles. Are there ways you can support your listeners, readers, and viewers as they face their own challenges?

Regardless of what the global economy does next, getting your financial cards in order is always a smart move for long-term success.

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Here is a link to the document mentioned in the podcast: Thriving in Hard Times

🗞 Latest tips & stories

Creator burnout: A guide to sustainable publishing
An easy framework to improve your content
The metaverse and the future of creativity
Insights on reducing churn of new subscribers
YouTube clarifies how they think about short content

🔑 Why ownership is the future

The audience you are building on other platforms is never truly yours.

Platforms can be temperamental. Rules and algorithms change on a whim, drastically impacting businesses without a single warning.

Designer and author Tobias van Schneider recently dove into this problem. Their conclusion is one that's gradually being echoed by more and more of the creator community: own your audience.

For most, that means guiding people to subscribe to an email list you control. Communication channels are the heartbeat of content-based businesses. The safer yours is, the more sustainable your project will be.

The best guarantee when building an audience is using tools you can control, and building a brand/product people love – one they won't forget if it suddenly disappears from their feed.
— Tobias van Schneider

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Pro tip: If there's a creator or brand you love, make sure you're connected with them beyond any single social channel!

🐢 The slow and steady strategy

How big of an audience do you need? How fast should you aim to grow?

In this video from Matt Koval, they challenge many of the widely held assumptions in the creator community while shining a light on counterintuitive answers to the above questions.

Business-minded creators tend to outlast entertainment-focused ones because they build systems and hire help early. Don't become the bottleneck to your own success.
Although viral stars gather lots of attention, they often have difficulty monetizing it beyond ads and merch. Understand exactly how you plan to make money and offer that to your audience from day 1.
The compound effect is greatly undervalued. It's normal for the early days (years) to be fairly quiet while you gain steam, only to be followed by a period of exciting growth!

TLDR: Be the tortoise, not the hare.