If You’re a Creator, Focus On Finding Your Audience
“The riches are in the niches.”
The only thing you need to do if you want to achieve success in anything — is to find your audience.
It doesn’t matter how smart you are.
It doesn’t matter whether you’re the best.
It doesn’t matter whether you’ve got competition.
If you have your audience in place, you will succeed.
Riches Are In The Niches
When I was growing up, everyone wanted to build the biggest building in town. Many people still do. Almost nobody starts a company, thinking, «Oh, this is just my side hustle, it’ll never become big, and I am OK with that.» There is always that 1% of you that hope for a lucky break.
But let’s be realistic. The world is dominated by platforms, such as Amazon, Medium, and YouTube. You can’t expect to go and build another successful video website (although some try), it’s entrepreneurial suicide. And setting overly ambitious expectations for yourself, like being the next ‘Mark Zuckerberg’, is a path to heartbreak.
It also doesn’t make sense. It used to be that to succeed; you had to build the biggest building in town. But in the connection economy, you can source an audience from every part of the world and find your people. There is no limit to how many people you can serve because you’re sourcing them from everywhere.
Say, you’re building a niche SaaS company. You charge $30 per one user per month on recurring revenue. If you have just 1,000 users, you’re making $30,000 per month in revenue. And if you have 3,000 users, that’s already a million-dollar company.
Say, you’re building a blog. You’re writing about quesadillas on Substack. You just love ’em. You think that it’s stupid, and you’re considering giving up. But if you persist, you’ll be able to find 5,000 (actually, probably many more) people who are just as in love with quesadillas as you are. If you take the time to find those people and charge them money for a premium content subscription fee — i.e., $5/mo for a paid newsletter — you’d be making $2,500/mo at a minimum, considering that only 10% of all your readers sign up.
In the world dominated by platforms, the riches are in the niches. Yes, you won’t build the biggest building in town. And yes, you probably won’t become a billionaire. But do you want to? Or are you OK with making enough money to cover living costs while doing something you genuinely enjoy?
By the way, almost no billionaire had a plan of becoming one.
Forget About Competition
Most new bloggers and creators get discouraged by not seeing the results too quickly. And then they say, «Oh, there are all those bloggers out there! Who am I to compete with them?» I know this because I’ve said it several times myself.
Two things:
1. You’re right. Content is abundant. It is hard. That’s why you need to forget about trying to find «tactics» (read: copy other people) and focus on creating the way you feel. The only way to succeed when there’s too much competition is to be original and be you.
2. Competition is irrelevant. In the startup world, the competition argument is overrated. Founders come and cry, «Oh no! There’s somebody else creating the same idea as I am,» so what? If you’re better, they’ll come to you. If you’re running a race, do you care whether you’re running alone or not? No, you care about scoring the best time.
But there’s more to it. The new connection world is not the old dog-eat-dog-I-win-you-lose kind of world. It’s a win-win world. It’s a world in which you get proportionately to what you give. It’s a world where you don’t have to be the smartest, the best, the cutest, and the strongest.
You’ve just got to find your audience.
You Can Teach Others
The most common objection from someone considering starting a blog is, «Who am I to teach others?» And the answer, of course, is: you are you. And that’s exactly why you can teach others.
When we take the world at large, there is always going to be someone who knows less about a particular subject than you do. If you’re passionate about quesadillas, I am sure you know more about them than I do. You can teach me. I am your audience.
Sometimes I have doubts about my content, like most writers. But then I remind myself, «Hey, a lot of people need it.» What seems cliche to you might not seem so to others. And if someone doesn’t want or need your content, they can unsubscribe — you don’t need them anyway.
You don’t need to be Tony Robbins or a spiritual guru to teach others. It’s enough to be just one step ahead of the people you’re teaching.
Kickstarter Is Always The Last Step
When do you launch a Kickstarter campaign? Most people assume that you begin it at the start of your project to put together cash for its realization. Wrong. Kickstarter is always the last step.
If you go and launch a Kickstarter campaign now, nobody will come, and you won’t raise any money. Why? Because nobody knows about it. More than that: nobody trusts you — yet.
Build trust first. Launch Kickstarter at the end.
Trust Isn’t Built In a Day
When I first heard Kevin Kelly’s ‘1000 true fans’ concept, I naively thought that all you need to do is find 1,000 followers. But, of course, that’s not what Kevin Kelly meant.
‘One thousand true fans’ is not the goal. It’s the result of a 10-year-old (or more) struggle to find your voice, your audience, and to serve that audience in a way that builds trust and relationships.
There’s nothing new under the sun, if you want success as a creator, you’ve got to build trust. And trust — whether online or offline — is built over long periods.
When Is Enough?
People are obsessed with numbers. «How much have you made last year?» or «How many followers do you have?» or «What’s your reach?».
And yes, I get it. In business, numbers show the efficiency of the venture. In media, the exposure and reach figures show the advertiser what they can get for their buck. But progress is overrated. You don’t need to grow all the time. At some point, it’s perfectly fine to say, «Enough.»
If you have enough money to cover your food and living expenses, why do you need more? If you have enough readers who enjoy your work, why would you want more? People are chasing the number because the instinct of external validation is insatiable. You can’t get enough.
But it’s fulfilling to define for yourself what’s enough.
For me, having «enough» is having an audience of people who trust me, believe me, and are ready to accept the projects I work on (books, businesses, blogs, etc.). It’s having those ‘1000 fans’ — and, as a result, everything else I need: money, validation, creative fulfillment.
You can’t ever have enough money, love, or followers — but I think that if you refocus your approach to building trust and relationships with people, you might find that it’s enough.
