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.
The gift no one expects
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Hey Reader, It's the holidays and at most companies, everyone gets the same thing. A gift card, a bonus, maybe some company swag. At Kit, we do something a little different. Your holiday gift scales with how long you've been here. Year one might be AirPods. By year ten and beyond, it's a $1,000 gift card or other custom gifts. The longer you stay, the more we invest in celebrating that you're still here. At Kit, we give team members birthday gifts and holiday gifts. And we've also celebrated special milestones by rewarding team members or giving them an unexpected day off. People who've joined recently are consistently blown away. But the holiday gifts tied to tenure are the ones that surprise people. You show up for the holidays expecting the usual company gesture, and instead you get something that reflects how long you've chosen to stay. Most companies celebrate what you accomplish. Hit a big goal, ship a major project, close a deal. Those are good things, but how many celebrate the decision to keep showing up? Getting something that reflects your tenure creates a different kind of memory. When someone sticks around for years, they build something that can't easily be replicated with new hires. They know the history. They've seen what worked and what didn't. They can teach the next person. That context accumulates over time, and it's worth investing to keep the people who have it. At 10 team members, you might be able to remember everyone's tenure. At 100+, you need systems to make sure no one gets missed. We built those systems. There's also what this signals to new people. When you join Kit and see someone in their 5th year, their 7th, their 10th, it tells you people want to stay here. That's not something you can fake or put in a job description. Think about what you celebrate in your business. You probably recognize launches, revenue milestones, or successful campaigns. But what about the decision to keep showing up? To come back year after year? When you celebrate tenure, people feel seen. They feel like their decision to stay was noticed. When you get a gift that reflects how long you've been there, it creates a moment you remember. It feels like someone was paying attention. People stay when they feel seen. And when people stick around, they build things that last. PODCASTHow I Built a 50M/Year Company: Frameworks & ReflectionsIn this episode, I sit down with Dan Putt, my coach for the last six years. We look back at Kit’s growth over the years and the personal shifts he's witnessed in me. It's definitely the most emotional I've gotten on a podcast. Here’s some of what we get into:
Watch or listen to episode » KIT FEATUREVersion history for email broadcastsThis is a nice quality-of-life update in Kit. After we launched collaborative editing, many of you asked for a way to track changes and protect your work. Now, version history is here. Your drafts are now fully protected, so you can jump back to any version, see what changed, and collaborate with confidence. You can now:
Available on Creator and Creator Pro plans. EVENTCreator holiday party at Kit Studios BoiseLast year, we hosted a holiday party at Kit Studios in Boise and it was a lot of fun! This year, we're doing it again. It's a great time to check out the studio (feel free to record some content) and meet other creators in Boise. Even if you're not in Boise, this hopefully gives you a sense of what we're building with Kit Studios and the type of events we want to host more of as we expand to other cities. Have a great week! —Nathan P.S. I just uploaded a vlog of my recent Austin trip to YouTube this morning—my first vlog in years! Leave a comment on the video and let me know what you think. |
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.
Hey Reader, "You really can't spend too much time on mission and vision." I recently went on a four-day trip to Montana with a group of founders and entrepreneurs. We fished, sat around the fire, ate good food, and enjoyed taking things slower than we usually do. Throughout, we had some great conversations—one of which was around an idea that kept coming up. I want to share a few random takeaways and highlights from the trip. Not really a cohesive narrative, but just some ideas that stuck...
Hey Reader, With Black Friday coming up this week, I thought I'd share a few tools we use at Kit or that I personally rely on. So if you're looking for some good gifts for the creator in your life, these are ones they'll actually use. 1. Elgato Prompter Before this prompters were clunky and required a separate iPad. Now for $299 you can get the ease of a teleprompter for all your content. I use it extensively for podcast intros and we have a ton of them in Kit Studios. My only complaint is...
Hey Reader, There's a pattern with creators who struggle to break through the million-dollar barrier. You often have a lot of things working, but you still feel stuck. Sometimes it’s your tactics, but more often than not, it has to do with your mindset. Recently, I recorded a podcast episode with Barrett Brooks where we talked about the 5 traps keeping you stuck below $1M. Barrett helped us build Kit in previous years as COO, and he now coaches some of the biggest names in the creator world....