Audience Building, Singular Focus & Diversifying Income
What I Learned at School this Week
Happy Friday Y’all,
Re-reading these five bullets, it seems I gravitated towards “inspiration” this week, versus “execution.”
I’d like to get better at being aware of what I need at a certain time, as it relates to the type of content I consume, or create, for that matter.
Let’s dive in.
Content Creator’s Audience
Inspired by this conversation on The Pomp Podcast: Jarrod Dicker on The Rise of Individual Creators.
The world is shifting, technologies are popping up (and down) like whack-a-mole. But as platforms change, strategy remains the same. I’ve personally observed this to be true in the business world, as it relates to the tools/platforms/etc that are used to distribute a message.
I believe that content creators who have loyal audiences are positioned for even more success in the future. Look at the Kardashians as a simple example. Or whoever you follow religiously. You’d probably follow them, regardless of the platform they’re on, right? That means they own the audience, the platform does not own their audience.
As Kevin Kelly argued, you only need 1,000 True Fans. “To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.”
Another facet of the conversation between Pomp and Dicker, brought up the idea that in traditional media companies (think: The New York Times), News and Opinions literally sat on different floors. Today though, these two are blending.
I think about this a lot, even with this little Newsletter — how much should I be simply curating and reporting on facts, versus share my opinion on a situation. I like sharing my opinion and think I’ll start leaning into that more, but I’ve been fighting it for a while, for the sake of “fact reporting”.
Being Singularly Focused
I came across Derek Sivers this week, while listening to his interview with Shane Parrish on The Knowledge Project. Derek built and sold CD Baby for $22M, before Amazon or eBay existed. Well, Amazon existed, but it was only selling books at the time.
I then searched and came across this raw, and fairly kooky, video series Derek put on YouTube. But it’s gold.
The 8 part series (45 minutes total) tells his story, calls out pitfalls, and explains some great mental models for entrepreneurship. TLDR: be singularly focused for a long period of time.
I’m realizing that in my current season of life, I want to cut, not add things, in my life. There is a time and a place for trying lots of things, but at a certain point, I think narrow focus is the only way to create compounding success — and that is my goal (doesn’t have to be yours!).
Here’s another angle on this topic:
Advice By Kevin Kelly aka the GOAT
Kevin Kelly is the founder of Wired Magazine, technologist, and author of What Technology Wants (one of my all-time faves) among other books.
This week, he published “68 Bits of Unsolicited Advice”.
It’s my birthday. I’m 68. I feel like pulling up a rocking chair and dispensing advice to the young ‘uns. Here are 68 pithy bits of unsolicited advice which I offer as my birthday present to all of you.
It’s absolutely incredible. Most are just quick one-liners.
Oh, and if you don’t want to read through the advice, he made a video recording of himself, reciting the 68 bits of advice from a rocking chair, listen to it: here. You won’t regret it. The wisdom-per-word is astounding.
TikTok Part II (Skip if you’re over this topic!)
As I continue to follow the TikTok (potential) acquisition by Microsoft (or Twitter?), I read this snippet from Reuter’s and was stopped like a deer in headlights.
Could it be true that President Trump didn’t ban TikTok because he didn’t want to upset, and thus lose, the young voters?! What a time.
Forty-five days is one timeline to watch: Another deadline to eye is the U.S. presidential election. U.S.-China geopolitical tensions have contributed to the pressure on TikTok, but domestic politics have also played a role. Trump, at one point, sought to ban TikTok outright, dismissing the idea of a sale to Microsoft. So why did he change his mind? Many in the Republican party worried a ban would alienate young voters ahead of the election, according to Reuters.
Diversifying Income
In the last ~year since leaving my full-time job (before I took my current job) I thought a lot about the different potential paths you can take, to make a living. The pros and cons, financial/freedom/etc gains of certain options.
Diversifying income streams is something more accomplished folks always seem to recommend. It’s hard for my mind to grasp what this really means. And also, at first glance, feels contradictory to “Being Singularly focused.” But upon further digging, I think it may be more a means of distribution diversification, and not necessarily the content or focus of your day-to-day skill-building.
This is a simplified view of how you could view the different distribution paths:
I’ll leave you with a quote that I heard this week, that continues to rattle around in my brain:
“What the pupil must learn, if he learns anything at all, is that the world will do most of the work for you, provided you cooperate with it by identifying how it really works and aligning with those realities. If we do not let the world teach us, it teaches us a lesson.” - Joseph Tussman
Have a wonderful weekend!
Cheers,
Brendan J Short