If you already know how to solve an expensive problem, waiting until you have a big audience to decide what to sell can waste a lot of time. Build the offer while the audience is still small enough to talk to.
"But a 45-year-old operator with 22 years of experience does not begin at zero because she has 400 LinkedIn followers. She may have spent two decades solving problems companies were willing to pay millions of dollars to address.
Her audience might be small. But her economic value is not." - John Brewton -- The Problem with the Creator Economy
Without that frustration and the longer-than-necessary path to your most valuable offer, this article wouldn’t exist.
“The creator economy taught us to overvalue what we learned last year and undervalue what took us twenty years to learn.” is a poignant quote for our time. Thank you for publishing this.
Loved your article. It reminds me of network or pyramid marketing … selling the ‘selling’ even when you don’t need the product (or even know what it is!)
the attention loop and the value column are really a measurement problem. likes are the loop, saves are the asset, and almost nobody separates the two. the thing a creator actually owns is not reach, it is the intent their audience shows when they save something to come back to. that is the asset that survives an algorithm change, and it is the one no dashboard is built to show them yet.
Such a great breakdown on multiple levels. In any boom cycle, a reliable strategy isn't to try to "jump on the bandwagon," but rather to supply the "picks and shovels" for others trying to do so.
It worked during the California gold rush of 1849, and it worked during the creator economy.
I studied with some of the same people you did, John - Justin Welsh, Dickie, and Cole from Ship30. I was always a bit of an outlier in my cohorts because I didn't offer writing advice, preferring instead to write about my experiences and passions in product and tech consulting.
Substack was supposed to democratize the connection between creators and their audiences.
But no marketplace is immune to the "winner-take-all' dynamics.
If you already know how to solve an expensive problem, waiting until you have a big audience to decide what to sell can waste a lot of time. Build the offer while the audience is still small enough to talk to.
Well said, and so overlooked by many....
"But a 45-year-old operator with 22 years of experience does not begin at zero because she has 400 LinkedIn followers. She may have spent two decades solving problems companies were willing to pay millions of dollars to address.
Her audience might be small. But her economic value is not." - John Brewton -- The Problem with the Creator Economy
This is a well-thought-out piece John. I'm curious to know: How did you come up with this perspective?
I'm also wondering: What does this mean for a writer? Is there an alternate business model for writers beyond the traditional creator economy?
Creators teaching about creating content for creators! What a kafkaesque nightmare!
The B2B Creator Defense Industrial Complex. 😂😂😂
Without that frustration and the longer-than-necessary path to your most valuable offer, this article wouldn’t exist.
“The creator economy taught us to overvalue what we learned last year and undervalue what took us twenty years to learn.” is a poignant quote for our time. Thank you for publishing this.
In this day and age, this POV is refreshing. It flips the usual narrative to question the source of real value. Nicely written.
Thanks, Eric! Appreciate you my friend.
Loved your article. It reminds me of network or pyramid marketing … selling the ‘selling’ even when you don’t need the product (or even know what it is!)
Thanks so much, Brigitte! Sincerely appreciate the support.
That's a great comparison.
Also.the growth formulas are all generic, three loops in, and people do not understand the value anymore.
What gets lost in that process is the question of where we actually belong, and what we want to contribute once we get there.
It is not about becoming more marketable (as tempting as it sounds)
There is beauty in understanding organically matters, and what kind of space we want to help create around it.
the attention loop and the value column are really a measurement problem. likes are the loop, saves are the asset, and almost nobody separates the two. the thing a creator actually owns is not reach, it is the intent their audience shows when they save something to come back to. that is the asset that survives an algorithm change, and it is the one no dashboard is built to show them yet.
Such a great breakdown on multiple levels. In any boom cycle, a reliable strategy isn't to try to "jump on the bandwagon," but rather to supply the "picks and shovels" for others trying to do so.
It worked during the California gold rush of 1849, and it worked during the creator economy.
I studied with some of the same people you did, John - Justin Welsh, Dickie, and Cole from Ship30. I was always a bit of an outlier in my cohorts because I didn't offer writing advice, preferring instead to write about my experiences and passions in product and tech consulting.
Substack was supposed to democratize the connection between creators and their audiences.
But no marketplace is immune to the "winner-take-all' dynamics.