If your goal is to make money soon, don't focus on building an audience

Andrew Kirby

Jan '23 in Other

I met Sam Ovens yesterday (see picture)

For those who don't know him, he's the founder of skool.com, and was one of my early mentors.

He’s made some valuable YouTube videos. Example 1. Example 2. Example 3.

Here’s a loose transcript of a part of our conversation:

HIM: “Y’know your Synthesizer community. What do the members in there want?”

ME: “They care about impact, income, and fun. I think they want to make a good living doing what they love doing.”

HIM: “And how are they trying to do that?”

ME: “Well quite a few of them are creating their own content, planning to build an audience and then monetise somehow in the future.”

HIM: "But aren't a lot of people in the group beginners? From what I've seen, content works really well for experts who have things to say. But beginners struggle…"

This reaffirmed what I've been thinking for a while now. And even what

@Ali Abdaal

mentioned in his last newsletter (attached).

So many people give the advice of "build an audience first, then figure out monetisation later” and this is possible. But if you're a beginner, I can pretty confidently say it’s not the fastest path to making a full-time living doing something you enjoy online.

Does that mean you shouldn't build an audience? No.

Does that mean that if you're a beginner, and one of your goals is to go full-time ASAP, building an audience isn't the best path? Very likely, yes.

Here's the point I'm trying to make:

Almost 0% of people will build and monetize an audience within a year.

And a much higher percentage of people could find one person that will pay a full-time salary within the same time-frame

So if you’re in a job you dislike, or you want to avoid having to get a job you dislike, and want to get out quickly, then building an audience probably isn’t for you.

Instead of focusing all your effort on creating content, your priorities should be:

Find someone who you can help
Get paid to help them

THEN consider sharing the exact steps you took along the way.

This way you earn to learn. And people will start to listen to you because you are doing meaningful things. Adding value.

It’s easier to get one person to pay you, than it is to get the attention of thousands.

I talked about this when I advertised the "Become a Content Specialist" opportunity.

But I'm making this post to let you know that even if you don't want to become a content specialist, there could be a better way than the way you're currently doing things.

PS: The point I’m making is nuanced and only applies to a specific kind of person. If you have any questions, let me know. I want to make sure I’ve accurately portrayed how I see things.

41 comments