Seen two separate things recently on the TL about how substack is a scam and how NFTs are a scam and my personal read is that the real problem is that people are gullible.
If you solve for your own gullibility you don’t have to worry about being scammed.
As a creator if you build an audience one real connection at a time you should be ok. Yea every platform has tradeoffs but nobody owes you an audience.
There are some complicated things to talk about re: algorithms and throttling and so on but it’s really secondary to the fact that ultimately you (as a creator) ought to focus on what you can directly influence and control.
Apparently some artists have minted dozens of their artworks as NFTs – which costs “gas money” – and now they’re broke because nobody wants to buy their stuff. This is like, basic marketplace awareness 101. Don’t spend $ you can’t afford on supply until you know there’s demand.
Run small experiments. Do a pop up store to test to see if people want to buy your stuff before you put down $$$ for retail space. Honestly IMO the reason most businesses fail is because most businesses are started by people with no survival instinct. Do the reading.
Sell one product before you sell a dozen. If you can’t sell one thing, selling two things is a bad idea because you just added complexity into the process and consumers are fickle/tired/distracted/bust etc. You reduce your odds by more than 50%
(Well – there are counter-examples to “only sell one thing” – but try to get at the underlying spirit of what I’m saying here. It gets a lot more complicated depending on the cost of production and distribution and so on but the foundational thing is product/market fit)
Some experiments are cheap to run – if you’re selling tshirts, you can post tshirt ideas on IG etc and see the responses people give, and then use that to gauge what you should sell. Beware of costly experiments, spreading yourself so thin it diffuses your value proposition.
I would say don’t sell ebooks until like a dozen people have literally bugged you saying “do you have an ebook? I would buy” first. Validate the demand. Practice your trust falls from survivable heights. Never spend $ you can’t afford to lose.
Don’t quit your day job until you’ve saved at least 6 months of runway, ideally about a year. Keep your expenses as low as possible. Be prolific on mediums that are free to publish on. Collect as much feedback as you can and never just assume that people will part with $ for you.
I can show you what I mean by pointing to my YouTube journey. My Twitter audience doesn’t actually convert very well to YouTube- turns out people who like text don’t like video that much. Maybe about 2-3% of Twitter followers become YouTube subs. I’ve uploaded about 150 vids.
I made about 70 videos on my MacBook and had gotten a few dozen positive comments before I felt comfortable spending $1000 on a Proper Camera- and even that I consider a bit of an indulgence. After clawing my way to 2,000 subs I made like a few cents in ad revenue. Is YT a scam?
It depends on my expectations. Do I expect to be able to live off of ad revenue after a year of trying? No. I expect it to take many years. Building one relationship at a time, publishing 4,000 videos and replying to 10,000 comments. That’s the work, as far as I’m concerned.
- make stuff
- be prolific
- move fast
- give each attempt a good shot
- don’t waste time agonising
- take 1000 shots
- learn as you go
- spend as little $ as possible
- talk to 1000 people
- optimise for output
- cultivate your taste
- publish imperfect
- do better each time
- revisit old work
- fail small
Do 100 of anything and you have created a valuable asset: something interesting. I haven’t even planned that far ahead but when I’m done with 100 of these vids I can stitch them together, make a video, post on YouTube, repost on /r/guitar, basically guaranteed engagement/replies.
I think I’d then actually be able to charge people $ to teach them guitar. Even though I’m not a professional! Just being a “serious hobbyist” who’s worked through the path of “do 100 thing” should suffice. I don’t think I wanna be a teacher but you see how it expands my options
every guitar student btw would be a potential customer/audience for an album. teach 1000 students, build good relationships with them, and when you release your work it will have people excited to listen & share with their friends.
“But that takes years” yea,, all good things do
Here is a thread on how to become a Sword Guy. You can replace “sword” with whatever kind of guy or gal or them you wanna be. This is half of the puzzle of becoming great at something – the half that people tend to overlook.
here is an ongoing thread where I study how popular figures solved their distribution/audience problems. I’ll discuss this at my next salon and I’ll piece together like a blogpost or something. Ppl really underestimate this part of the puzzle. It’s at least half the puzzle.