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.
When the biggest companies in the world compete with you
Hi Reader,
It can be scary when some of the biggest companies in the world come to compete with you directly.
In 2021, Facebook launched Bulletin (a newsletter subscription service), and earlier that year, Twitter acquired Revue (another newsletter startup).
Both are shutting down less than two years later.
Bulletin is going away “early" this year, and Revue users only have another week to retrieve their data before it’s deleted.
Both tech giants were jumping on what they saw as a trend.
But ConvertKit isn’t just here to make a quick buck. It’s more than a trend for us, it’s a mission.
Jumping on fads makes it unlikely you’ll last. Trends come and go, and you can’t control them. What matters, and what you can control, is consistent effort over time.
If your reason for doing something is because it seemed like what everyone else was doing at the time, that’s a pretty fragile reason. It’s not going to be enough to get you through the difficult times.
What is your ultimate mission?
Take advantage of trends, but don’t chase them.
Establish deeper reasons for why you do what you do, and keep going.
SPONSORED BY THE BLOGGING MILLIONAIRE
Try the Blogging Millionaire Podcast
Is your blog missing out on valuable Google search traffic? Are you spending hours creating amazing content and not getting the traffic you want?
You need a guide, right? Someone to help teach you actionable SEO and traffic-building tactics that actually work.
Enter the Blogging Millionaire podcast with Brandon Gaille. Brandon gets more than 5 million monthly visitors from over 100,000 first-page Google rankings. So yeah, he knows what he's talking about.
When you apply what you'll learn, every blog post you write will begin to compete for a first-page Google ranking. With each passing week, your traffic will continue to grow.
The Blogging Millionaire podcast is one of Apple's ten most downloaded marketing podcasts and has over 500 five-star ratings.
If you’re on an Apple device, Go here to listen.
If you’re on an Android device, Go here to listen.
CASE STUDY
The Road to $300k+ with 60k Subscribers
In his first full-time year as a creator, Mario Gabriele, started a tech and news publication as a side project, but it quickly turned into a full-fledged business making more than $300k per year.
In a detailed post, he breaks down how he was able to do this:
YOUTUBE VIDEO
How Drug Cartels Infiltrated Global Shipping
Most people don’t think about the journey the goods they purchase take, but much of what we buy arrives by way of container ships.
These container ships aren’t just used by consumer goods companies but also cartels.
With the help of cartel-run crews, drugs are smuggled onto container ships every day. Because of limited resources, only 1.5% of the containers are thoroughly inspected, which means most of the drugs make it through.
When officials found $1 billion worth of cocaine onboard a single container ship, it kicked off a fight between the US and the world's largest shipping carrier over drug trafficking.
This Bloomberg video provides a unique look into the logistics of the whole operation:
ON THE PODCAST
Making Six Figures Per Month as a Creator
I recently interviewed Thomas Frank on the podcast. Thomas has grown a YouTube channel to over 3 million subscribers and built a massive business around courses and Notion templates.
In this episode, you'll learn:
- How to pull off a successful rebrand of your creator business
- Why your subscriber count isn’t as important as you think
- Why now is a great time to get started on YouTube
- Was Gumroad’s price increase a mistake?
Watch or listen to the episode »
Have a good 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.
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