Hey Reader,

At some point in the growth of your creator business, you come up against the upper limits of what you’re able to accomplish on your own.

This is when many people hire a team.

While the first few employees free you up, as the team grows, so does the demand on your time. What a lot of creators find is things start to quickly spiral out of control.

Matt D’Avella shared his experience with this in a recent video:

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What started as a love for his craft turned into managing people, responding to emails, getting on dozens of calls per week, and a crippling stress that manifested as a tightness in his chest.

His life went from doing things he “wanted to do” to things he “had to do”.

Work was no longer fun, it was a dread.

Yet some creators are able to scale up a team just fine and have it work well for them. Ali Abdaal is one such example featured in a short segment of Matt’s video.

But even Ali explains that process was difficult for him:

I see creators face three common problems when scaling up a team (continued after the break):

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1. You hate managing a team

The motivation for hiring a team is so that you can do more of what you love. But what often ends up happening is you become a manager.

The time you spent creating now goes toward people management, emails, and meetings. Your job changes entirely.

Your new job doesn’t excite you and sucks the joy out of your work. You start to miss doing things solo, but now you have the massive burden of feeling responsible for people you care about and their livelihoods.

Either you need to actually love managing people or, like Ali, aim to make it to a point where you have someone who manages people for you. Be aware that the journey to that point can be difficult and exhausting.

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2. Revenue doesn’t stick around

This is a really difficult one. You encounter some success, things are growing, and you build a team on the assumption things will continue to go well.

But then the market shifts, lead sources dry up, and platforms change their algorithms.

You’ve spent money, and hired people, assuming the revenue would keep coming in, but old sources have dried up.

What would you do if you had to reinvent your business? Or pivot to new ways of generating revenue? The more diversified your income sources, the better your position to weather any fluctuations.

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3. The business gets too complex

When you’re doing things solo, you can make changes and adapt quickly to find what works. But what works at a small scale doesn’t necessarily work at a larger scale.

A small airplane doesn’t take much energy to stay off the ground. But the bigger the plane, the more complex the systems needed to keep it in the air.

With a big team, it’s not just that you have to spend more money. You may find that your plane just doesn’t naturally fly anymore.

Look for examples of your model working at a bigger scale.

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If this topic sounds interesting to you, check out the podcast conversation I had with Grant Baldwin and Bryan Harris below:

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PODCAST

The Teams and Systems it Takes to Hit $10M+ In Your Creator Business

This Billion Dollar Creator episode with Grant Baldwin and Bryan Harris is an absolute GOLDMINE for anyone looking to make money in the creator economy. We cover:

• Why scaling a successful business is not just about hiring A+ performers
• The importance of falling in love with the process
• How to use maths to guarantee success
• The value in "strategic laziness"
• Insights into the creator businesses of Matt D'Avella and Mr Beast

Learn how to build a scalable business from successful entrepreneurs who have done it themselves.

​Watch or listen to episode »​

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X POST

Your “Rich Life” might cost less than you think…

Have you ever thought about what your ideal life would look like if money was no object?

What would you do? Where would you go? How would you eat?

Dan Mall actually did this exercise and shared the results. The cost was much lower than he thought.

​Read post »​

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What is the biggest struggle you face with scaling up a team?

Hit reply and let me know!

—Nathan