I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Build skills to build an audience
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Hey Reader,
The number of times I see people start a business without any hard skills is alarming.
Especially the wannabe gurus teaching marketing and growth before having done it themselves. I get wanting to dive in head first and learn as you go (we all do that to an extent), but you'll have so much easier of a time—and more credibility—if you learn a practical skill first.
You can learn anything if you set aside the time. Much of it you can learn for free.
What if you dedicated a year to building a new skill? For instance, design. What if you said, “In 2024, I’m going to get good at design”?
Design is a skill that sticks with you forever and continues to benefit everything you do for years to come.
In the book, Anything You Want, Derek Sivers talks about how you can do everything you want—but you have to do it in sequence not parallel. Focus on one thing at a time.
If you don’t have skills, it’s remarkable what you can achieve in a focused year or two. You can even break your efforts down into 3-month sprints.
I’m so grateful that I started my career diving deep on design, writing, and development. I feel like those skills have been fundamental for me and play a huge part in my being able to build wealth.
They’re 3 of what I’d refer to as the 5 building blocks of being successful on the internet:
- Writing
- Design
- Development
- Marketing
- Video
Writing
Being able to communicate ideas in a clear and succinct way is key for breaking through the noise and making a name for yourself. Clear writing is an indication of clear thinking.
Developing a writing habit and learning to write well is one of the best things you can do for your career.
Set aside 20 minutes to write every day, and try not to break the chain. If you do, get back on the horse—or as James Clear says, “Don’t miss twice.”
Design
Good design seems obvious after the fact. “How could it be any other way?” But there’s a lot that goes into making something visually appealing and easy to use.
Whitespace, typography, information architecture, visual hierarchy all come into play in terms of making something “look good”. Having a solid understanding of design principles will help your work stand out and be memorable.
Set aside 3 months to do a deep dive on design fundamentals. Watch YouTube videos, read articles, or take courses. It will transform the way you see media and the world.
Development
It’s easier than ever to be a creator online with all of the free (or affordable) tools available. But learning to code can be a real superpower, allowing you to create custom solutions where you need them.
The custom solutions you build for yourself can even end up turning into software products you sell to others.
Pick a beginner language (like Python) and start watching some videos. Choose a practice project and build something that excites you. Seeing something come to life from scratch is an empowering feeling.
Marketing
If you want to be successful on the internet, you have to get attention. Then, you have to learn how to convert that attention into dollars so fans become customers and stay customers for life.
You want to gain a solid understanding of what makes a clearly defined target audience, how to design a good landing page, the fundamentals of effective copywriting, and which factors influence conversion rate at every step of your sales funnel.
Listen to marketing podcasts. Sign up for email courses. Study effective landing pages. Get feedback on your copywriting. There’s a lot to marketing, but if you can get a solid understanding of the basics, you can sell anything.
Video
Pretty much every social media platform has embraced video now. Even the platforms that started as primarily text- or image-based,
Video is by far the most engaging medium, and it’s here to stay. Mastering video is an extremely valuable skill in today’s age. Whether you want to make long form essays on YouTube or engaging shorts on TikTok, the ability to capture people’s attention with editing and storytelling is in high demand.
If you spend a year learning about lighting, composition, editing, and scripting, you will be unstoppable.
—
I started off by saying the number of people starting a business with no skills is alarming. But that doesn’t mean you can’t build an audience while you develop the skills.
In fact, a great way to get a head start on building an audience is to document while you learn. Essentially, develop your skills in public and share the journey. You’re not acting like an expert before you are, you’re simply inviting people into your process.
Don’t focus on growing the audience at first. Just focus on learning in public.
PODCAST
Creator Flywheels: Scale Your Business the Smart Way
What if scaling your business didn't mean working more?
This week, we talk about one of my favorite topics: Creator Flywheels. We cover what they are and how to build them in your business.
We share the flywheels we use in our businesses to generate millions, and we show you how to build systems that run without you.
X POST
The cheat code for getting 100's of customers
Distribution is king. Everyone wants to partner with people who are already popular, because they want access to their audience. But trying to connect with them after they're popular almost never works.
So what's the right way to borrow audiences?
I love how Hunter is deliberate about borrowing distribution when he doesn’t have it himself. I also love how he is building his company in public to get his own distribution.
Have a great week!
—Nathan
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.