Hey Reader,

Since I wrote The Billion Dollar Creator essay in 2020, I’ve been obsessed with what the most successful creators are doing to turn blogs into billion-dollar brands, audiences into best-selling books, and more.

Audience growth is at the core of their success, but I’ve also notice three distinct lessons we can take away from the most successful creators:

1. Stick with it longer than you think

There are tips and methods that can help you get where you want sooner than later, but even if you’re doing all of the right things, it’s simply going to take time.

I’m not just talking about time in terms of showing up occasionally when you feel like it. The clock starts when you’re consistent. What are you doing to show up every day, week, and month?

Once you’re showing up consistently, keep at it! You can’t just do something a few times, or for a few months, and expect major results.

Most creators who don’t make it give up about a year to a year and a half in.

If you look at the most successful creators, you’ll always find a period in the beginning where they were showing up consistently without apparently getting any results. It only seems “sudden” after the fact.

2. Get personal

As your audience grows, you can either water down your message to reach everyone or find a way to speak to each person individually.

The most successful creators get personal. They find a way to custom-tailor their message to different subsets of their audience. Since this is next to impossible to do on social media, the smartest creators get their audience over to the only platform they can control: their email list.

Imagine meeting someone who follows you at an event. If you know they bought one of your products, you’re going to adjust what you say accordingly. You might recommend something related. You certainly wouldn’t try to sell them on something they’ve already bought.

Segmenting your email list based on interest, demographics, location, purchase history, and more allows you to customize the way you speak to people in your audience the same way you would in person—but at scale. This creates tremendous opportunities for upselling and driving revenue growth.

3. Direct attention to the most valuable place

Billion Dollar Creators think in terms of creating empires, not products.

A lot of people say they want a million followers without knowing why. Growing a YouTube channel just for ad money, or a newsletter just for sponsorships, is thinking small.

There are people in your audience who would spend more with you if you gave them the right opportunity.

Nick Huber directs people in his audience to a real estate cost segregation company that is making hundreds of thousands of dollars per month just a year in.

Sahil Bloom decided instead of hiring agencies to perform the services he needed, he would create the agencies himself. He now directs people in his audience to hire the agencies he owns.

Whenever you feel like you might be thinking too small, ask yourself:

What’s the most valuable place I can direct this attention?

​

---

---

​

PODCAST

Lessons from a Scrappy Launch

I’ve had something like 15 people come up to me and say their favorite moment of the Billion Dollar Creator podcast was when we bought the domain for the show while recording an episode.

Not only did we start scrappy, but we almost immediately went on tour. We had an amazing time, and we have zero regrets, but there’s a lot to unpack.

In this episode, we discuss what went well, what we’d do differently, and what we’d avoid altogether.

​Listen to episode »​

​

CONVERTKIT

Creator Profile: Limit posts to subscribers

With ConvertKit, you can now choose to limit email broadcasts you publish as newsletter posts to subscribers only. This is perfect for creators who want to give new readers a sneak peek of their content, but require subscription for full access. For any readers who are already a subscriber, they'll be able to login to start reading.

To set this up, go to Grow > Creator Profile, and select "Posts". You'll see the option to choose the visibility settings of your posts.

You can find more information on how to set this up here:

​Knowledge base article »​

​
​

JOBS

ConvertKit is hiring a VP of Product

ConvertKit is on a mission to help creators earn $1B using our SaaS email marketing platform. We are 100% independent, 100% remote and growing rapidly.

We are hiring a VP of Product who will help us scale from $40M ARR to $100M ARR through product-driven growth. You will guide our product strategy, manage our product development and release process, and work closely with Engineering, Growth, and Leadership to build a great product that over 50,000 creators use to earn a living.

​Learn more and apply »​

​

​

Have a great week!

—Nathan