The Future Belongs to Creators

There’s truly no such thing as an overnight success. Mandi Gubler spent years working on her first blog, Vintage Revivals. Her site launched when blogging was still an emerging industry and unlike her competitors, Mandi refused to accept every sponsorship offer that came her way, holding out for a few brands on her dream list. Eventually, as the success of her blog grew, those dream brands came knocking. And her fan base, impressed with Mandi’s commitment to authenticity, expanded.

But every good thing comes to an end. While her love for learning new skills fended off the natural burnout most creators experience, a TV show with the Magnolia Network expedited her exhaustion. Tight deadlines and grueling renovation work led Mandi to look elsewhere for a creative income. Luckily, she’d been working on a new blog for the past year: Happy Happy Houseplant. 

Moving an audience from one familiar brand to another is no easy feat, but Mandi pulled it off. As her business transitioned, so did her business model, and at the advice of a fellow creator, Mandi began selling physical products rather than relying on sponsorships. As a result, Mandi finally got off the neverending hamster wheel that is creating content, scouting brands, and doing it all over again.

In this episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel chat with Mandi about the difference between sponsorships and selling physical products, how to create a product that your audience actually wants, and her perspective on fending off creator burnout. 

Key Takeaways

• [03:11] - Have you heard? 
  • [03:27] - Sharon McMann (or Sharon Says So) is a news and education content creator. Her content is extremely helpful, especially now as we try to make sense of the complex Ukraine-Russia conflict.
  • [05:01] - TikTok is expanding into long-form videos. 
  • [06:05] - Instagram is discontinuing IGTV. 
• [08:38] - Main Topic: Mandi Gubler on Content vs. Physical Goods. 
  • [08:52] - Mandi started a blog in 2010 called Vintage Revivals. In the past decade, it’s experienced tremendous growth. 
  • [10:05] - Five years ago Mandi bought a building and turned it into a home. She was even featured on the Magnolia Show, In With The Old. 
  • [12:50] - Vintage Revivals’ main source of income is sponsorships. Mandi held out for the brands she truly loves. That authenticity has ultimately been reflected in her success and her sponsorship rates. 
  • [17:08] - Mandi’s love for learning helped her avoid the burnout that living on the creator hamster wheel so often creates. However, when she landed a TV show, the tight deadlines and exhausting work led her to pivot and dive headfirst into a new business. 
  • [31:20] - Mandi knew her audience well which allowed her to create a product that resonated with them. 
  • [32:47] - Different from the sponsorship model, selling a physical product allowed Mandi more time to focus on new product development and providing value to her audience. 
  • [39:39] - Mandi had to choose between her two businesses and it was difficult given that her identity was so entwined with Vintage Revivals. 
  • [44:40] - When you care about the content you’re creating and the people you’re creating it for, that's a marker of success. And when you’re building a brand and you’re building it around serving people, you’re always more successful. 
• [45:39] - Submit your listener shoutout! 
• [46:17] - A sneak peek at next week’s episode.

Quotes

[13:46] - “That was something that was really important to me when everyone was talking about all these different paint lines and different posts and for me that just felt really inauthentic and like, you’re clearly just doing this because you’re getting paid, what do you actually like? So it was really important for me to have stuff that I really stood behind. And so that works out really well with sponsors.” ~ Mandi Gubler

[17:58] - “Truthfully, I really love the creative process. For me, I’m not driven by money or status or really anything other than experience. I love learning new things. And so to take on a project like figuring out how to make tile, that is when I am my best self, is when I’m trying to do things and failing and reworking things.” ~ Mandi Gubler

[26:30] - “You have to have a physical product. It’s so much better than just doing sponsorships and being on this kind of content creation hamster wheel.” ~ Mandi Gubler

[30:28] - “We’re sharing the best information that actually helps people, we have the most amazing products, and we’re coming out with some really, really exciting ones, and it’s working because it’s what people want.” ~ Mandi Gubler

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Mandi Gubler
• Happy Happy Houseplant
• Vintage Revivals
• Sharon Says So
• The Daily Podcast 
• TikTok
• Instagram
• In With The Old 
• Sherwin-Williams
• The Home Depot
• Alt Summit
• Kirsten Grove / Simply Grove
• Jenny Komenda
• Henry Thong
• Nathan Barry
• Submit your creator wins and be featured on an upcoming listener shoutout!  
• Thomas Dulin 
• Alyssa Dulin
• Deliverability Defined
• The Future Belongs to Creators: Why Deliverability Matters with Alyssa Dulin and Melissa Lambert

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

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ConvertKit Storyteller Isa Adney has always loved to learn. Although she aced high school, Isa’s family couldn’t afford a traditional four-year university, so Isa dove into community college and later snagged a scholarship to complete her Bachelor’s and earn a Master’s in Education. With a higher degree in learning, Isa’s passion for education is obvious. 

But now that she’s an established writer, telling stories at ConvertKit full-time with a few published books under her belt, why pursue any further education? Why spend the money for a degree if you’ve already reached so many professional goals? For Isa, pursuing an MFA is about continuing to develop as a writer, building a community of like-minded creators, and following in the footsteps of writers she admires. While this decision has worked well for Isa, returning to school isn’t right for every creator, especially considering the skyrocketing costs of a degree. 

In this episode, Charli, Haley, Miguel, and Isa discuss why a formal education can be incredibly valuable for creators across disciplines, knowing when higher education is the right choice for you, and why there’s more to school than textbooks, teachers, and a shiny diploma. 

Key Takeaways

• [02:06] - Have you heard? 
  • [02:20] - YouTube is adding live rings to their avatars for live streams. 
  • [04:16] - LinkedIn is launching its own podcast network. 
  • [05:45] - Creators’ earnings, rates, and audiences are continuing to grow. 
• [09:02] - Today’s main topic: How can creators decide if education is right for them? 
  • [09:27] - Isa’s experience at a community college shaped her views on higher education and her belief that  unpopular options are sometimes the best options.
  • [13:25] - Although Isa’s an established writer, she still sees value in continuing her education. She’s hungry to grow and develop as a writer and is seeking a community of fellow writers to connect with.
  • [20:27] - Community college is a great option for avoiding debt, especially if you’re unsure which career path to take. 
  • [24:22] - Different from many online courses, formal education holds you accountable and allows you to foster that community more easily. 
  • [29:06] - Online course creators can learn from the formal education system. For example, more courses should incorporate community within the curriculum itself. 
  • [31:38] - For so long Isa hesitated with pursuing her MFA because she never saw herself represented in programs. Doing your research and finding a good program fit is incredibly important. 
  • [33:01] - If you’re a creator toying with the idea of higher education, research creators you admire and see where they learned what they learned.
• [36:06] - Listener shoutout! Elizabeth Sloane of ConvertKit and Remotely Well now has 7 subscribers that she doesn’t know personally. 

Quotes

[15:07] - “There’s quite a few creators – and there’s a longer list that I could share –who are making a living full-time as a creator, and doing courses, and higher education is actually where they got their ideas, where they learned what they now teach.” ~ @IsaAdney

[17:25] - “I felt comfortable. I felt comfortable as a writer, I felt like it was getting easier and easier, and if you’re a real artist, real creator, you don’t actually like to stay there too long. You’re like, I want to grow, I want to get better. I’ve taken every course that I can find, I’ve read every book, and I still know there’s more that I could learn.” ~ @IsaAdney

[18:40] - “The world of writing is changing, the world of the creator economy is changing and writing is a huge part of it and I wanted to see what I could learn, and then bring it over into this new world.” ~ @IsaAdney

[28:49] - “I’m already seeing a difference and it’s so fun because it puts a different lens when you’re learning. You have this other filter where you're also immediately translating it to your life, to your workplace, to things that could make you money. So I think that’s been hugely helpful.” ~ @IsaAdney

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Isa Adney
• Bonnie Christine 
• Isa’s story on Bonnie
• YouTube 
• Twitch
• Facebook
• LinkedIn
• 1,000 True Fans? Try 100
• Podia
• Teachable 
• Fill out ConvertKit’s creator survey! 
• The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Teens
• Community College Success: How to Finish with Friends, Scholarships, Internships, and the Career of Your Dreams
• Harvard
• Isa’s upcoming book: The Little Book of Big Dreams
• Masterclass
• Dan Runcie 
• Isa’s story on Dan
• Trapital
• Anne-Laure Le Cunff
• Ness Labs
• Henry Thong
• Berklee College of Music
• CNN
• Elizabeth Sloane
• Remotely Well

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out

Creators come to ConvertKit with dreams of doing what they love for a living. That usually means sacrificing 9-5s for passion and creativity. But often creators forget that a lifestyle doing what you love only comes when you learn to monetize that passion and think like a businessperson. While skills like negotiation rarely come naturally, all it takes is a little education to increase your income and experience real creative freedom. 

Sponsorship Coach and Founder of Creator Wizard Justin Moore is an expert at helping creators navigate sponsorships and earn a living doing what they love, in the most literal sense. From living without a paycheck gap, navigating paid sponsorships, and negotiating rates, to simply having the confidence to initiate a brand deal, Justin helps people take the leap from aspiring creator to full-time, successful entrepreneur. 

In this episode, Charli, Miguel, and Justin discuss the biggest mistakes creators make when it comes to brand sponsorships, what an ideal sponsorship looks like, how to win brands over with confidence, and why you’re never too small to add value and earn money working with the brands you love. 

Key Takeaways

• [00:58] - Have you heard? 
  • [01:05] - Snapchat is introducing revenue sharing on ads in creator stories. 
  • [04:47] - IZEA released their State of 2022 Influencer Earnings. YouTube and TikTok were the top-earning platforms. 
  • [06:51] - ConvertKit is conducting a survey about the creator economy. Here’s a sneak peek at early survey results! 
• [07:55] - Today’s main topic: How can creators run successful sponsorships? 
  • [08:08] - Always ask the brand what the goal of the campaign is. Your pricing should change based on the brand’s goal. 
  • [08:55] - Brands have three main campaign goals: conversion focused, content repurposing focused, and brand awareness focused. You can charge the most for brand awareness campaigns.
  • [14:11] - Creators often negotiate against themselves. Rather than overexplaining your rate, lean into the silence and let brands respond. 
  • [16:38] - Don’t be reactive with your negotiations. You’re not beholden to the brand’s proposal. You can create your own “packages” with different content and pricing options. 
  • [21:54] - Be honest with yourself about which sponsorships are a good fit for your audience, be responsive with brands from the beginning, and be flexible if brands occasionally request things outside your contract. 
  • [28:51] - You have to engage brands at every stage of the creator pipeline. Otherwise, you may go months and months without receiving a paycheck. 
  • [30:51] - Don’t wait to initiate sponsorships! You have incredibly unique value regardless of your follower count. 
  • [34:41] - When it comes to working with brands, confidence is key. 
• [36:59] - Listener shoutout! Krystal Proffitt recently hit 4,000 subscribers on YouTube and got to speak at Podcast Movement University. 
• [37:40] - A sneak peek at next week’s episode. 

Quotes

[13:56] - “There is so much value in the content that you’re creating for brands and you should not just be giving the kitchen sink away for free.” ~ @justinmoorefam

[22:23] - “It’s very very critical that you are honest with yourself that this is going to be a good fit for your audience. If you have a fast money mindset when it comes to working with brands and sponsors and things like that, it’s going to be very difficult for you to maintain an intimate connection with your audience as well as one with brands.” ~ @justinmoorefam

[31:48] - “What I’m here to say to you is that it does not matter how many followers you have for you to actually start working with brands. Because there are so many different ways that you can bring value to those brands.” ~ @justinmoorefam

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Fill out ConvertKit’s creator survey! 
• Justin Moore
• Creator Wizard
• Creator Wizard on YouTube
• Join Justin’s email list
• Snapchat 
• YouTube
• Instagram 
• TikTok 
• So…TikTok Sucks
• IZEA The State of Influencer Earnings 2022 Report
• Wattpad 
• Facebook
• Krystal Proffitt
• Podcast Movement University
• Isa Adney

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

There’s no better feeling than building a livelihood doing the work you love. For many creators, that means a life of painting, pottery, design, and left-brain thinking. But to succeed as a  full-time creator, you have to get technical every once in a while. If you’re not a numbers person and shy away from the analytical aspects of email and business marketing, ConvertKit has a built-in set of technical experts ready to explain. 

Enter Alyssa Dulin and Melissa Lambert, ConvertKit deliverability experts and hosts of the podcast Deliverability Defined. 

So what is deliverability? In simple terms, deliverability refers to the number of messages reaching your inbox versus the spam folder. Just like the post office, even though a letter or package is marked as “delivered”, that doesn’t always mean it’s sitting in your mailbox ready to be opened. Luckily, there are ways to resolve email deliverability issues and here at ConvertKit, Alyssa and Melissa are pros at helping creators solve those issues and reach the inboxes of their subscribers.

In this episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel talk with Alyssa and Melissa about why deliverability matters, how to improve your sender reputation, why removing subscribers from your list is actually a great strategy, and how to embrace life’s (and email’s) technicalities. 

Key Takeaways

• [01:06] - Have you heard? 
  • [01:46] - Wordle was acquired by the New York Times.
  • [04:19] - An upcoming Apple update will turn every iPhone into a form of contactless payment. 
  • [05:28] - ConvertKit is conducting a survey about the creator economy. 
• [06:24] - Today’s main topic: Why Deliverability Matters.
  • [10:28] - Deliverability means the number of messages that go to the inbox versus the spam folder. Mailbox providers won’t tell you where they place a message so you have to use other metrics to determine your deliverability such as delivery rates and open rate trends.
  • [12:49] - ConvertKit doesn’t accept spammers or those with incredibly poor list health to protect the deliverability of other ConvertKit customers. 
  • [18:39] - Where your emails are placed is often based on your sender reputation. A “sender reputation” is determined by the “positive” and “negative” reactions of the people receiving your emails. 
  • [20:46] - When recipients engage with your emails (reply, click links, etc.), that’s a positive signal that boosts your sender reputation. Try to be creative with the strategies you employ to encourage engagement. 
  • [23:26] - Your sender reputation is tied to yourself as the sender as well as your ESP. However, your sending domain as the creator carries the most reputational weight. 
  • [27:20] - A DMARC record prevents spammers from using your sender domain or “spoofing.” 
  • [28:49] - Sometimes creators use a verified sending domain to help bolster and authenticate their sender status. To have an account with ConvertKit, you have to use a verified sending domain. 
  • [32:25] - Remove unengaged subscribers from your list every six months. It’s better to have a small list of highly engaged subscribers than a lengthy list of cold subscribers, for the sake of your deliverability and your bottom line.
• [36:11] - Creator callout! Laura Vanagaite is an amazing illustrator and branding expert who recently had some of her illustrations shared by great influencers.  
• [37:12] - A sneak peek at our next episode. 

Quotes

[18:54] - “Your sender reputation is very similar to a credit score. It’s very easy to damage and not as easy to build back up again.” ~ @mel_lambert_ 

[20:46] - “One thing we’ve been talking about a lot on this season of Deliverability Defined is those creative strategies to increase engagement. There are a lot of different ways you can encourage people to engage with your messages.” ~ @alyssa_dulin

[32:38] - “Keep a clean list. If you have never run any kind of cold subscriber re-engagement, if you’ve never cleaned your list before, that’s a really good place to start.  You just want to make sure that you’re sending to the people on your list who are most engaged. And if you aren’t, that can sometimes negatively impact your sender reputation.” ~ @mel_lambert_ 

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Wordle
• Josh Wardle
• Slack
• The New York Times
• The Future Belongs to Creators 145: How Wordle Went Viral (And What We Can Learn From It)
• Apple
• Stripe
• Shopify
• Fill out ConvertKit’s creator survey! 
• Deliverability Defined
• Monthly deliverability reports
• Gmail
• Microsoft
• Yahoo!
• Growth Currency
• Nordstrom
• Sign up for the Deliverability Defined monthly newsletter!
• Bitly
• DMARC
• YouTube
• Instagram
• Bitcoin
• Lara Vanagaite
• Justin Moore 

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

You know it, you love it…maybe you’ve never heard of it. Regardless, it’s the first viral trend of 2022 and after a rough few years, embracing something as wholesome as a free word puzzle has felt uniquely refreshing. But what made Wordle the viral sensation that it is? And what’s the best way creators can capitalize on a free service without destroying what made it special to begin with? 

Like every success story and every creator misstep, there are lessons creators can learn from the absurd virality of Wordle. From its simplicity and innocence to the big scary question of monetization, this app-less internet game is both fun and a rich topic for discussion amongst creators of every niche. 

In this episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel discuss the wonder of Wordle, why it went viral, how the creator of Wordle can sustain its virality, and what every creator can learn from the success of a free word game taking the internet by storm. 

Key Takeaways

• [01:07] - Have you heard? 
  • [01:30] - TikTok is testing a paid subscriber model for creators. 
  • [02:22] - Instagram is launching subscriptions. 
  • [06:29] - YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki wrote a letter to the YouTube community with a breakdown of YouTube’s priorities for 2022 and a recap of impressive creator stats from 2021. 
• [08:33] - Today’s main topic: what can we learn from the virality of Wordle? 
  • [10:59] - Wordle is an addictive game with no barriers to entry.
  • [14:37] - Wordle has given people a lighthearted excuse to check in with one another.
  • [15:26] - The sharing function and scarcity of a one-game per day limit also contributed to its virality. 
  • [18:05] - There’s a compounding effect on the relevancy of something by the size of its adoption. In other words, something can be very fun, but if it doesn’t become embedded within a cultural wave, it won’t take off. 
  • [18:57] - There’s value in something that doesn’t immediately concern itself with monetization.
  • [19:41] - Wordle has a universality to it that creators can apply to their own services. 
  • [23:54] - Starting a consultancy, including a TiPJAR, and capturing email addresses are great ways to monetize a free service without sacrificing integrity. 
• [34:31] - Creator callout! Noah from ProvocaTeach is launching a new site and has learned to code. 
• [35:58] - A sneak peek at our next episode. 

Quotes

[17:11] - “There’s something very interesting and special about the fact that this is a thing that’s going viral when the sharing link doesn’t include a link to the project itself. You have to be invested to figure out how to play it yourself.” ~ @charliprangley

[19:49] - “A lot of times we’re talking to creators and we’re asking them to niche down, get really specific to their audience and don’t worry about the size of your niche, and niche down, niche down, niche down. Wordle’s really interesting because it’s totally universal. Everybody talks, everybody uses words, everyone writes. So I guess my lesson for creators is: what’s universal inside your niche? What’s universal inside your small little audience?” ~  @haleyjani

[18:57] - “There’s value in the success of the thing itself and not thinking about the full monetized pipeline. If the creator had thought, ‘Before I release this to the public, what sort of thing can I build around it to make something that makes money?”; that would have made it less interesting to people, it would have created barriers for people, which then would have made it not as viral which then maybe would have made it never take off.” ~ @miguelp.img 

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• TikTok
• YouTube
• Facebook 
• Instagram
• Patreon
• Meta
• Twitch
• Josh Logan
• The Future Belongs to Creators 115: The Realities of Trying to Make It in Music with Josh Logan
• Wordle
• Josh Wardle
• Wordle Is a Love Story
• Slack
• Twitter
• Wheel of Fortune
• Words With Friends
• Lewdle
• Spar
• Kelly LeVeque 
• Flappy Bird
• TiPJAR
• Giphy
• Noah from ProvocaTeach
• The Future Belongs to Creators 126: Navigating Procrastination and ADHD as a Creator with Noah from ProvocaTeach
• Noah on Twitter
• Be featured in a future listener shoutout!
• Deliverability Defined podcast 

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

When someone stumbles upon something different, it usually takes mainstream society a while to catch up. Understanding and validating the power of creators and the creator economy is no different. After years of creators forging their own careers despite judgment and confusion, the universe is finally catching on. And everyone wants in on the lucrative new economy that’s disrupting a $2 trillion industry. 

But when did the power players of society finally take notice of the creator economy? How can creators best leverage this newfound validation? And will this normalization cause creators to lose sight of their original purpose? Good or bad, eyes on the creator economy will only expand. 

In this episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel dive into the recent Forbes article, To Succeed in the Creator Economy, Startups Should Address Creators’ Needs. The three discuss how creators should respond to the attention, why startups and businesses need a mindset shift when it comes to their relationship with creators, and what’s next for the creator economy all around us. 

Key Takeaways

• [00:54] - Have you heard? 
  • [01:40] - A TikToker is now the face of a Gucci-NorthFace collaboration.
  • [02:28] - Instagram is testing allowing users to reorganize their profile grid.
  • [03:23] - James Clear’s Atomic Habits was the #1 best-selling book on Amazon in 2021. 
  • [05:31] - Instagram is now allowing users to choose how their feed is sorted.
• [08:20] - A recent Forbes article argues that startups must address creators’ needs in order to survive in the modern creator economy.
  • [11:23] - Creating as a profession has become normalized and because of that, creators have the power to disrupt the mainstream media.
  • [15:26] - When did society start validating the creator economy? When creators learned to monetize their business? Or when venture capitalists finally started paying attention? 
  • [20:23] - There are three things startups can do to solve challenges in the creator economy: mitigating creator burnout, tailoring solutions to creators, and viewing creators as design partners rather than just employees. 
  • [26:06] - Startups must also tailor solutions to a creator’s audience. 
  • [26:55] - Creators have to establish the precedent of demanding proper payment for their labor, regardless of how exciting a partnership may seem. 
• [31:05] - Introducing creator callout!
• [32:56] - A sneak peek at next week’s episode.

Quotes

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• TikTok
• Gucci
• The North Face
• Francis Bourgeois
• James Clear
• Atomic Habits
• Reese Witherspoon
• James Clear at Craft & Commerce 
• Craft & Commerce Conference
• Meta
• To Succeed in the Creator Economy, Startups Should Address Creator’s Needs 
• Young Creators are Burning Out and Breaking Down
• I Am A Blogger coffee table book
• Isa Adney
• Stripe
• Creator Sessions
• The Future Belongs to Creators 107: Making Creativity Sustainable and Avoiding Burnout
• MailChimp
• fypm (f*** you pay me)
• Glassdoor 
• Happy Happy Houseplant
• Vintage Revivals
• Home Depot
• Sherman Williams 
• TFBTC listener shoutouts
• Terrible, Thanks for Asking 
• Wordle

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

The time has come for annual reflection. When you’re passionate about growing a side hustle, it’s important to reflect mindfully on the year you’ve had rather than forging ahead carelessly and going through the motions of yet another 12 months. So what have you learned this year as a creator? And what changes are you planning in the year ahead?

In this episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel reflect on their own 2021 while asking listeners the same question. From setting boundaries, finding hobbies, stepping away from good things, diversifying income streams, and overcoming the fear of creating in public, here’s a look at lessons learned in 2021.

Questions

• [02:52] - What are some of your favorite things that you’ve learned as creators in 2021? 
• [10:20] - How have you learned things the hard way in 2021? 
• [30:02] - What energy are you taking into 2022? 

Quotes

[04:26] - “One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned this year is that being prepared allows my brain way more room for creativity.” ~ @haleyjani

[20:05] - “I’m at that point where the reason I make a video is not because I genuinely want to make a video, it’s because I want to connect with the people on the other end. That’s the important part to me. So I want to make sure that what I’m making is connecting.” ~ @charliprangley

[33:41] - “I think my word is going to be purposeful. I’m always really eager to produce results and get stuff done and the downside of that is I’m always heads down looking at one thing very myopically. And I really want to stop doing that so much and stop trying to get those quick wins. Because ultimately I think I could make more impactful choices if I were to stop for a second, zoom out, and sort of map my road a little bit better.” ~ @miguelp.img 

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Creator Sessions
• Henry Thong
• Inside Marketing Design 
• Happy Happy Houseplant
• Charli on YouTube
• Nathan Barry
• Nathan on Twitter 
• Craft & Commerce Conference
• Cory T. Taylor
• The Starting Line

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

As this year wraps up, consider the place email has in your creator strategy. Does it have a place at all? Or was it overshadowed by the latest social trend? 

Email may be older than the internet, but if you think it’s a medium of the past, think again. While easy to overlook if you’re like all of us reaching for TikTok before breakfast, email stands alone in a few key categories you’ve probably never considered. So if you’re scared of being sent to the spam folder, this one’s for you. 

In this episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel discuss the relationship between email and social strategy, the right way to send to your subscribers, and the invaluable benefits of capitalizing on email. As ConvertKit CEO Nathan Barry says, email never dies. Let’s talk about why before you hit “send” on your marketing plans for 2022. 

Key Takeaways

• [04:44] - Rather than picking one medium over the other, leverage email in concert with social media. 
• [09:12] - Email is where your true fans are and it’s where your fans are when they’re ready to purchase. 
• [13:27] - The only downfall of email is that you can’t go viral. But you can use virality on social media to funnel subscribers to your email list where they can make a purchase.
• [15:17] - As long as every email you send is rewarding your subscribers, you don’t need to worry too much about spamming them.
• [21:54] - Segmentation is exclusive to email and it’s incredibly important for personalizing your communication with subscribers and building that relationship.
• [33:01] - Clean your list regularly to make sure it includes only the most engaged subscribers. 

Quotes

[06:20 - “The way you organize your life happens in your email for the most part. And that’s why it’s a very valuable space for creators to be reaching an audience. It’s not a place that you have to remember to go to check. It’s a natural part of people’s day.” ~ @charliprangley

[13:39] - “Social posts, they go viral, they give you access to an entirely new audience, or hundreds of thousands of people when your email list maybe only has five thousand or so, and then you're able to push them into your email funnel and then you can sell to them there. So that’s one way that I see a lot of creators using social media to fuel their email growth.” ~ @haleyjani

[22:27] - “With social media, your only option is, mute the posts or unsubscribe. There’s no, ‘send me fewer of their posts’ or ‘send me more of their posts’. You can’t get that granular. So that’s one of the other benefits of email is you can really segment your audience based on their wants and their behavior.” ~ @miguelp.img 

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• LinkedIn
• Nathan Barry
• Slack
• Floret Flowers
• Erin Benzakein
• Creator Sessions
• Growing Floret
• Marie Forleo
• Floret Flowers blog
• The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood
• Ali Hazelwood 
• Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James
• Charli’s newsletter 
• Alyssa Dulin
• Nordstrom
• Everlane
• Etsy
• Instagram
• Charli on YouTube
• YouTube
• Pat Flynn
• All Of Your Beeswax
• Shawn Blanc
• Shawn’s newsletter
• The Focus Course
• Plan Your Year

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

In today’s Q&A episode, Charli, Haley, and Miguel discuss the importance of social media, the future of podcasting, and the benefits of planning a business before diving in headfirst. From social strategy to a SWOT analysis, here are a few hot takes on the creator economy.

Today’s Questions

• [06:32] - Will creators always need social media to reach their audience or is there some kind of future where we can transition away from it and have a direct relationship with our audience? 
• [21:03] - How important or beneficial is it for a podcast to also be on YouTube? Do you think podcasts without a video component will be in the minority at some point in the near future? 
• [25:26] - Should creators consider having a business plan? 

Quotes

[12:07] - “I think that that’s a question that every creator needs to ask, which is, ‘What does my audience want? And how do they want it the best? And what’s the majority saying?’ And then you focus on that.” ~ @haleyjani

[18:16] - “The important thing is that there are all these different avenues of ways that you can sell or grow your audience. But the most important thing is that you know what that is and you create your funnel through that and then you also own your audience.” ~ @haleyjani

[18:37] - “Become a data scientist. The data is always going to point you in the right direction. And maybe Instagram isn’t the answer. Maybe Discord is the answer. Maybe YouTube is the answer. Insert whatever different creator platform is the answer for your type of business and do the thing that is right for your audience.” ~ @haleyjani

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Podcast: Unclogging America’s biggest ports 
• Substack
• Patreon
• Instagram
• Discord
• The Future Belongs to Creators 140: What Creators Need to Know About ETFs
• Twitter 
• Happy Happy Houseplant 
• Ben Schoeffler 
• Athletic Greens
• YouTube
• The Joe Rogan Experience
• The Skinny Confidential Him & Her Podcast 
• Almost 30 Podcast
• Amy Porterfield 
• Create A Profitable Digital Course That Leverages Your Time & Scales Your Business

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

Do you know much about NFTs? Or does the blockchain space make you think of Elon Musk and an exclusive tech community that feels far out of reach? 

Regardless of your personal affinity,  NFTs will only become more relevant to our modern economy. And they’ll only become more relevant for creators looking to build community and earn a living. But the types of people you meet in the NFT space and the organizations that grow out of these platforms may surprise you. 

More than just a Twitter trend or an elusive tech fraternity, NFTs can expand your creative horizons beyond what’s been possible over the last few decades. In this episode, Charli and NFT enthusiast Waldo Broodrÿk discuss doing NFTs right as a creator and the surprising opportunities that lay ahead for creators who succeed. 

Main takeaways 

• [11:47] When it comes to NFTs, invest in companies, people, and movements that you believe in and always do your research. 
• [12:36] NFTs aren’t just a project you produce once and forget about. It’s more valuable when you’re iterating because a community of people will want to stick around and watch your platform evolve. 
• [23:00] While the energy it takes to produce NFT systems isn’t great for the environment, the space is evolving to be more eco-friendly. 
• [26:28] NFTs have led to a resurgence in the value of art. Artists are finally getting paid for their work rather than just living off of ‘exposure.’ 
• [28:30] To be successful as a creator in the NFT space, build your community and get to know others in the space. See what others are creating, create utility around your NFT, and build an experience.

Connect with our hosts

• Charli Prangley
• Miguel Pou
• Haley Janicek
  
  

Links

• Watch The Future Belongs to Creators on YouTube
• Waldo Broodrÿk
• Waldo on Twitter
• Blush
• Robotos
• Ethereum
• Solana 
• Open Sea
• Foundation
• Dribl
• Visa
• Woodies NFT
• Lucas Bean
• Twitter
• Discord  
• Metamusk
• Trust Wallet
• Elon Musk
• Polygon
• Coinbase
• eToro
• The Infinite Machine: How an Army of Crypto-hackers Is Building the Next Internet with Ethereum
• Jellysquad
• Scallywags 
• Myspace
• Slack
• Kickstarter

Got a story to tell on The Future Belongs to Creators podcast?

We'd love to have you on the show to talk about successes or failures you've experienced on your creator journey. Submit your story here!

Start building your audience for free

With ConvertKit landing pages, you can build a beautiful page for your project in just a few minutes. Choose colors, add photos, build a custom opt-in form, and add your copy. All without writing any code! Check out landingpages.new to get started.

Stay in touch

• Apple Podcasts
• Spotify
• Twitter
• Facebook
• Instagram