10 Products That Nathan Barry Launched Before ConvertKit

March 19, 2022

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Creator Crumbs

Business: 10 Products That Nathan Barry Launched Before ConvertKit [Thread]

ConvertKit's annual revenue recently crossed $100 million, but few people know that the email platform was Nathan Barry's 11th attempt at launching a product. Many of his projects had $0 in revenue and even ConvertKit was a slow start, only reaching $2,000 in monthly recurring revenue after the first two years.

"It's okay if your first product flops. Earning a living online is a combination of a thousand little skills that take time to learn. The only thing you can control is to create every day for a long time. Stay consistent, keep learning, and you'll eventually win."

Money: 3 Places Where Independent Artists Can Invest Their Money [Thread]

Artists & musicians have to approach money management different than most people. Rather than funneling money into long-term retirement accounts, it makes sense to invest in yourself & your craft first so that you reach a point where your creative work is funding your lifestyle.

This thread highlights a few of the most impactful areas to be spending your resources.

Strategy: Virgil Abloh's "Free Game" [Website]

Virgil Abloh (RIP 🖤) is one of the greatest artists & designers of our generation. His signature Off-White brand is a staple in pop culture as he's partnered with Nike, Mercedes Benz, Ikea, Kith, Kanye, Jordan, and more.

He released this website to serve as a guide for young creatives, answering questions he often received throughout the years about the world of design, brand, and fashion. Included:

How to name your brand
How to obtain a trademark
How to make a website
Further inspiration

How YouTubers Can Successfully Build a Newsletter Audience

It seems like everyone has a newsletter, but there's good reason for it.

When you have an email list, you own those contacts. No algorithm or social media platform can stop you from reaching them. For YouTubers, reaching your audience is heavily reliant on the algorithm and your ability to continue producing high-quality videos.

What happens when the algorithm changes, or when you inevitably want to take a break from video creation?

That's where the value of a newsletter can come into play.

Regardless of the content you create on your channel, I believe there's a way to figure out how to create a newsletter around it. You get to pick the publishing consistency, the topics, the content, everything.

In a Twitter Spaces with Wolf Financial, Colin Rosenblum from the Colin & Samir Show talked about how they've built their Publish Press newsletter and gave a few tips on how other YouTubers can begin to convert their following into newsletter subscribers:

Tip #1 - The newsletter value prop needs to be slightly different than your channel's value prop

To convert viewers into email subscribers, you have to have a strong value prop. For example, below is the original tagline of The Publish Press - "creator economy news from the creator's perspective".

Since Colin & Samir create videos about the creator economy and they're creators themselves, they can provide a unique perspective around creator news. Also, because they can only create so many videos, the newsletter allows them to spotlight more stories and more creators, giving their audience quality content, but in a different light.

Tip #2 - Promote it in videos

Treat your newsletter as your own product (because it is).

"Sponsor" your own videos with it.

Logan Paul does this with his Maverick clothing brand and Colin & Samir do it with their newsletter. For example, if they're making a video who's topic originally came from the newsletter, they'll say something like: “If you subscribed to the newsletter, you would’ve heard about this story 3 weeks ago. We break down creator economy news from the creator's perspective and feature stories that we don't always have a chance to cover on the channel”

Also read: Why This Creator Turned Down Millions in Brand Deals

Colin mentioned that the newsletter also serves as a content pipeline for their videos and shorts on the main channel.

Since they've established a twice-weekly publishing cadence, they're talking about more stories than they can create videos for. They can then pick the best topics and use analytics from the newsletter to create a video with a higher chance to succeed because they already know it resonated with subscribers.

A newsletter also allows you to go into more niche topics or things that don't necessarily belong on your main channel. If you feel limited by the kind of videos you can create, a newsletter (regular or not) could be a solution.

Listen to Colin's Twitter Space recording