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As the CEO of Kit, Nathan Barry has a front row seat to what’s working in the most successful creator businesses.
On The Nathan Barry Show, he interviews top creators and dives into the inner workings of their businesses in his live coaching sessions.
You get unique insight into how creator businesses work and what you can do to increase results in your own business.
One of the things Nathan is passionate about is helping you create leverage.
Creator Flywheels let you create many copies of yourself so you don’t get bogged down with the little things in your business. Flywheels will help you reach a place where you can focus on revenue instead of busywork.
Tune in weekly for new episodes with ideas and tips for growing your business. You’ll hear discussions around building an audience, earning a living as a creator, and Nathan’s insights on scaling a software company to $100M.
Learn how to get more results with less effort and:
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00;00;00;00 - 00;00;21;21
Unknown
I'm willing to pay $1 million to a content creator to be the creative director of Rich $1 million cash plus equity. And he's basically directly understanding the billion dollar creator playbook equity. Marques Brownlee It's official. I'm joining Reg as chief creative partner. I couldn't see MKB partnering on just wallets. If I were MKBHD and I would take 90% of that inequity.
00;00;21;26 - 00;00;42;10
Unknown
Mark Rober That company will be worth $1,000,000. And he had Mr. Beast in the video. James Clear. He's launching an app. You might be clairvoyant or something because you predicted this, and now it's coming true. He's done it. He's done it. So for anyone who doesn't have context, you and I have worked together for over seven years now.
00;00;42;12 - 00;01;03;27
Unknown
Long time. Yeah. So I guess let's give the quick story. You and I were both speaking at a conference in Austin. Seven, seven and a half years ago, Something like that. And I remember watching your talk. Paying attention to yourself because you. You're a designer. I'm a designer. I actually. That was weird. I said past tense on you.
00;01;03;28 - 00;01;29;14
Unknown
You are a designer. Me? I'm less of it, but you're more of a designer and I'm less. That's careers of. I was shifted slightly, but then I actually back whenever that was 20 1616, I think. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. I reached out because I wanted to understand YouTube better and you had a popular YouTube channel that has since grown further in the design space and you are doing blogging.
00;01;29;14 - 00;01;52;04
Unknown
And so I invited you and your friend Bam and Levi Allen all out to lunch because I wanted to learn about all of this. So that was kind of a fun conversation too, as we dove into it. And that's when I learned that you're actually not working for yourself, working for like leading design and software company. And I was like, what's that?
00;01;52;07 - 00;02;17;12
Unknown
Yeah, exactly. And so we chatted. I remember having my interview like, you know, let's put it in quote marks because things are very casual. Back then we had breakfast at like super early, like 630 or something because you had early morning flight and. Yeah, yeah, that was my interview for ConvertKit. Yeah. And I remember the rest of the team, another RSA team, a bunch of other attendees showed up at like 730 as we were wrapping up breakfast.
00;02;17;14 - 00;02;40;11
Unknown
And yeah, there are a bunch of people actually Corey Miller, who's on our team now, he was there and I drew a few of the things like, what are, you know, right now we're just talking to work, you know? Yeah, yeah. And then you went into. Yeah, exactly. But in that time, like since then, Weaver you've taken over leading all of brand for ConvertKit.
00;02;40;17 - 00;03;01;14
Unknown
So I've been creative director for four years, couple of years now, three years in a row. So that's grown my own business on the side too, which has been cool. I think I've I've started one new podcast since working ConvertKit and started writing a book, you know, my newsletter, the Marketing design dispatch, all those things have started alongside my work too.
00;03;01;14 - 00;03;24;07
Unknown
So it's kind of cool though, like both parts of my career can have been growing in tandem while you and I are kind of the two people on the team that our team looks to the most for, like what do creators think? How to use this? Because we both use the product a ton. You've got a quarter million subscribers are on YouTube and you've got a big audience.
00;03;24;07 - 00;03;49;12
Unknown
They're nearly just about random and we're both running, you know, active weekly newsletters. And then I think also you do a good job with the I actually talk about the your marketing design show and how. Yeah, I think it's interesting the way that you've taken the learning that you want to do as an individual, you know, as you've taken over all that and turned it into content.
00;03;49;15 - 00;04;08;02
Unknown
Yes, basically I think that I get to have that learning because of the content as well. So this is my show Inside Marketing Design is a show where I get on calls with people in similar roles to me at all the tech companies that I want to learn from. And I'm asking them like super detailed questions about how do you structure your team, How do you work together?
00;04;08;04 - 00;04;24;18
Unknown
Like what projects are you working on? How did you make that decision? Who were the stakeholders? And, you know, we really dive in deep. It's less of a like, let's talk about your full career as a designer and more like let's talk about your role at this one company right now and the work you're doing. And I have learned so much from that.
00;04;24;18 - 00;04;41;09
Unknown
I think like, honestly, I wouldn't be where I am today in like having the success. I feel like I am as creative director without learning from my peers in that way. And I think they're all more likely to get on a call with me because I've said, Hey, I really respect you and the work you're doing and I want to put it out there to my audience.
00;04;41;11 - 00;04;59;24
Unknown
And so I get to have those learnings, I get to share those learnings, and it's like it's a win win win all around you. Yeah, I think it's fascinating because there's so many people, especially of your earlier in your career, right? You and I both have access to a lot of different people in relationships from being well established in our careers.
00;04;59;27 - 00;05;29;07
Unknown
But early on they're telling you that you're like, I wish I could get this person's advice. Yeah, it's like once you can like a lot of these things, are you know, if you do it as an interview show, you know, and you give these people awareness and content and all of that, which is awesome, what they're looking for, then you can ask them questions and it actually makes for better content for a show because so many interviewers are asking things like, So what was your story getting started?
00;05;29;09 - 00;05;48;01
Unknown
You know, or some lame, you know, question to get going? And what actually I think is most interesting is when it's like, look, you're a professional in the industry. I'm professional in the industry. How do you handle this and that? Like you can put in put out like an inside baseball type show. Do you use the phrase inside baseball in New Zealand?
00;05;48;04 - 00;06;12;27
Unknown
I nodded along like I knew what you're talking about. But I mean, maybe they use it, but I'm just not much of a ball sports type of person there. Yeah, it would be. You can have this behind the scenes you know experts talking level of show because you as an individual are actively trying to learn it. So it's not like, as an interviewer, what would be a good follow up question to ask right now?
00;06;12;29 - 00;06;36;19
Unknown
It's like now as a curious person who's an expert in the industry, I want to know these three things totally and I like my interviews are very selfish in that the like line of questioning that I go down has changed each season based on what I'm trying to learn or like what I'm struggling with at the time. Like, I think the last season I was heavily focused on the marketing side and design systems and that type of thing.
00;06;36;26 - 00;07;13;16
Unknown
And coming up, the season coming up I think is going to be heavily focused on like brand evolution because that's something that we're tackling this year at ConvertKit. And so that's something that I'm learning and I want to learn more about from other companies. And so, you know, and but I think it's beneficial to the audience. And so it's like I can be selfish but also help people who is an interesting idea in there of the selfish content that serves other people and you would think of like service and selfishness as being on opposite ends of the spectrum and something that I how often do with our team or just in conversations that general is
00;07;13;16 - 00;07;36;19
Unknown
take things where people put them at opposite ends of the spectrum and then put them instead as an X and y axis. And it's like, no, you can have like you can have something that's very selfless and doesn't serve other people, you know, or you can have something that's very selfish and doesn't serve other people. Or you can also find that like, Hey, this is where you know what you're doing.
00;07;36;19 - 00;07;55;06
Unknown
I'm like, I want expert opinions on this thing that's very relevant to my day to day work. And I want to do it in a way that's wildly useful to the right audience. Yeah, exactly. And I agree. I think that makes content better when the person producing it is genuinely interested in what they're making as well. Yeah, that's true.
00;07;55;09 - 00;08;17;13
Unknown
So on that note, we've got some fun things that we're doing this year, which we'll be talking about more on the show as you come back on future episodes. But our team actually said that the two of you, you know, talking about us, the two of us need to be on the podcast more regularly together because we did an all team presentation in the Warmth of Mexico and that was really cool.
00;08;17;13 - 00;08;45;11
Unknown
But you are you're really hot, you know, everywhere. It's quite cold and I turn off the heater to record this. That's my dedication to being selfless. Yeah, Yeah, exactly. So anyway, our team was just saying like, you guys need to create more content together because that presentation went so well and I was thinking about it. A lot of the things that we cover on the show normally are things that you and I are talking about all the time.
00;08;45;13 - 00;09;04;00
Unknown
Like one that I want to talk about is with my PhD, and we'll cover that in a second. But, you know, that's something that like I'm posting in Slack texting to you or going back and forth and saying, Hey, what did you think about this? And so it's like, Great, let's just record those conversations. Yeah, yeah, sounds good.
00;09;04;01 - 00;09;29;13
Unknown
See the whole selfless, selfless. I just combined those two words. I can't speak. That's the portmanteau of the X and the y axis that we're talking about here. Yeah, exactly. This guy Shawn, who is the CEO of Ridge Wallet, which really they started with Ridge Wallet, and then now they're just Ridge. So that was an interesting rebrand to go go broader right from a narrow product.
00;09;29;13 - 00;10;02;17
Unknown
And now how do we do all these other things? But here's the tweet. He says, I'm willing to pay $1 million to a content creator to be the creative director of Ridge, help us make content, help us shape our creative future, can be the face of the brand, $1 million cash plus equity. Who would be a good future face Like he put this out August 9th, 2023, and he's basically directly understanding the billion dollar creator playbook where he's like, Look at these audiences and this deep integration is worth a ton of money.
00;10;02;20 - 00;10;21;01
Unknown
And a lot of people are saying like, Hey, I'll do a sponsored, you know, we do a sponsor post for ten grand. We can I do a full YouTube video for your entire channel for 30 grand, right? And he's saying, no, no, no. I want like a creator to be the chief marketing officer or chief brand officer or whatever for this brand.
00;10;21;03 - 00;10;57;27
Unknown
And he puts it out there and it the posted. Okay. At the time there's not a lot of replies but you know, I think really like looking at the views on the post now it's way way more because I have the follow up I in this greater. But before we talk about the actual creator, I'm curious, have you seen any other brands do this or like if you see something like this, what, what do you think when I don't know if that intersection between like an outside creator becoming the face of a brand like afterwards.
00;10;57;29 - 00;11;22;01
Unknown
Yeah, well, I think the fashion houses do this right Like they have musicians become like, is it, is it Pharrell who's the creative director at Louis Vuitton at the moment, or am I saying that wrong? yeah, something like that. Something like that. Someone, you know, they've got an in someone who is a music artist and you know, has a lot of cachet and like personal style to be the, you know, creative director for the brand.
00;11;22;03 - 00;11;42;26
Unknown
And so it is interesting to see more of like a product company, more in the tech space, I guess, taking this approach. But I don't think it's very common at all for companies to actually want to give a creative equity like this and to give them like a title in this way. I do wonder what the expectations of the role, you know, like this is not a 40 hour a week job.
00;11;43;00 - 00;12;07;20
Unknown
The creative showing up to. Right? Yeah. Are they making it? Yeah. Show up once a month. Join the board. I don't know. Yeah, but the announcement that came when is this? February 22nd. So, you know, five months later or so is Marcus Brownlee. So MKB jump coming in and saying it's official. I've been working on this for months.
00;12;07;20 - 00;12;42;06
Unknown
I'm joining Reg as chief creative partner and joining the board. Okay, So I guess that is there we go. And yeah, he's talking about like diving in, actually making physical products. They've got the manufacturing expertise to turn ideas into reality, but they're not too big. And so so he is actually talking about, hey, as a creator, you know, as a as a filmmaker, content creator, a gear aficionado, like I can have ideas and then go to Reg and say, Hey, will you build this out?
00;12;42;09 - 00;13;01;29
Unknown
But then I thought, what's interesting is watching his videos since then, like there's Reg gear in all of them, like just very natively integrated and that feels so much more like so much better than, hey, this video is sponsored by Reg. Totally. And this is really natural as well because he's been sponsored by Reg for like years, right?
00;13;01;29 - 00;13;28;15
Unknown
So his audience is used to seeing him talk about Reg and, you know, he's clearly a gear aficionado. So I think the brand fit makes sense from both sides here. And also for Reg, it's like we've already tested the waters with Marquez and they know how his audience responds. Like obviously, I think we can assume that his links in the sponsored videos did really well for the company and that they want to dig an even deeper into that partnership.
00;13;28;18 - 00;13;51;17
Unknown
I think I saw that last year he produced a wallet with a competitive reg local trove. Okay. And that was like a trove times maybe HD collab. And so yeah, curious that now you know he's he's diving in deeper with Reg and clearly has more ideas to bring to life. Yeah I'm like in this update they definitely had that collaboration.
00;13;51;24 - 00;14;17;11
Unknown
I basically exactly a year ago. So that's interesting of I'm wondering what goes back and forth in there. Like if you're sponsoring a whole bunch of creators as a brand and you're saying, okay, here's the ones that we're getting the best product audience that the best return on ad spend with, And then if a competitor sees that they're going to try to edge in and say, Hey, how do we like maybe let's do a deeper coverage.
00;14;17;14 - 00;14;37;29
Unknown
Yeah, right. And so they're sort of one upping each other where it's like, you know, we don't know the story, but if if Trove is like, okay, I can see that the Reg sponsorships are working. Well, let's say, hey, don't just talk about a product. They help us co-create a product and then that like as a creator, like hell, yes, I want to co-create a product.
00;14;38;01 - 00;15;03;03
Unknown
But then on the other, so that Reg in a way comes back and is like, Please, we don't want to just co-create a product. We want you to be, you know, chief creative partner, create many products together. Yeah, exactly. And then to lock it down with equity, right. Like this, that's something that we talked about. If I were maybe HD and I had cash flow settled, then I would be looking at, okay, how do I negotiate?
00;15;03;06 - 00;15;27;14
Unknown
Not the the million dollar payment that they were talking about, but if I were in his position, I would take 90% of that in equity rather than, you know, the other way round, because then you get to capture like if you're truly bringing a huge amount of brand awareness and creative expertise to the table, then you get to capture, you know, the bulk of that value as the company grows in value.
00;15;27;17 - 00;15;42;13
Unknown
Yeah, And I think from seeing all the rich products, like you said in those videos, I think we can assume that he does have a lot of equity and that, you know, he is just motivated now to promote the company more because it's going to you know, he's going to benefit from that as well. I know I feel that about ConvertKit.
00;15;42;13 - 00;15;56;08
Unknown
You know, I'm an employee. I have I have equity, I get profit sharing and I'm also a creator and I talk about ConvertKit in my content a lot because I believe in it and I love it. But also I know that it's going to help us at the end of the day as well for me, to me to share that, yeah, I like it.
00;15;56;10 - 00;16;15;22
Unknown
I was just thinking about this, the rebrand that Ridge did, which I don't know a lot of details on it. I'm just noticing that, you know what I always thought of as Ridge wallet and heard and all those ads just became Ridge. When you think about their ability to reach a creator, like maybe by going more mainstream like that, right?
00;16;15;22 - 00;16;42;19
Unknown
Like I bought one wallet. I've actually had the same wallet shout out to Saddleback Leather for the last like 12 years, you know, And I didn't buy another one. So I'm wondering, like without it going from Ridge Wallet to Ridge if they would even be able to have a wide enough product line to be able to afford and do a partnership on this level because it's just for our wallets.
00;16;42;19 - 00;17;10;14
Unknown
It's like, well, the lifetime value of a deal is like maximum one wallet per listener. That wants a wallet. Yeah, exactly. I think as a company that rebrand makes sense for them to to like widen things out, you know, create a partnership suicide. But for sure I don't I couldn't see maybe it should be partnering on just wallets because like you said like there's a limit to how creative you can be in producing different wallet designs.
00;17;10;17 - 00;17;38;12
Unknown
But yeah, you only really need one wallet. And so, yeah, there would be a limit to how much they could sell from that as well. One thing that's interesting in this is that he didn't go create his own products, right? Yeah. Like he, he didn't go through that angle, you know, like a mark over someone and say, I'm going to create my own company because that is as much as as we talk about and say, Hey, that's a great idea and we espouse the benefits of it, it's really, really hard.
00;17;38;14 - 00;18;03;08
Unknown
Yeah. And so it's interesting he gets some of that or a lot of that upside and a lot of that credibility without having to learn about manufacturing and, you know, build out factories and all this stuff. Yeah, I wonder I might be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure Marquez was one of the YouTubers who, you know, within the past six months or so has made one of those videos about burnout, about like the hamster wheel that is YouTube and all of that.
00;18;03;10 - 00;18;19;08
Unknown
And so I could see him thinking, Well, starting my own company, that's adding on a ton of extra work to my already overloaded plate. And this partnership makes more sense. But that is why I wonder, like, what does this partnership actually look like for him on a day to day basis? You know, is he showing up at an office?
00;18;19;08 - 00;18;49;14
Unknown
Is you showing up to see meetings, you know, on any sort of schedule? I'd be really curious about that. And it would be interesting to to dig in more. There and hopefully they share more. My speculation is that they've got a person on the team assigned to him. He's sort of his internal creative partner. Yup. And they it might be Shaun's CEO, but for practical purposes, it should probably be someone who is a little more hands on and operational and they're doing like a monthly call.
00;18;49;16 - 00;19;14;28
Unknown
And then just like whenever Marquez has ideas, it's like, Hey, text him to me. And there's like, this one conduit to funnel them into the company. And then that person is also regularly bringing things back probably to Marquez, his team, more so even then to as an individual and say, Hey, here's the latest products, here's our ideas for integrations.
00;19;15;01 - 00;19;37;29
Unknown
Yeah. And so I would do more of that. Like my guess is that the actual work is probably from Marquez's perspective is probably 2 to 3 hours a month and it's more just like they want the integration and the, the free flowing ideas and all that. Yeah. And I mean that's great for him, It's great for the company and seems like it's a it's a great partnership all around now.
00;19;38;00 - 00;20;01;00
Unknown
Like now before we hit record, you're telling me something about this idea of partnering with your sponsor and that being different than what we end up doing or what we talked about with Mark Rober, where I knew that he had replaced his sponsor, but I didn't know the details of it. So when when Mark Rober launched Crunch Labs, he had a sponsor.
00;20;01;00 - 00;20;27;16
Unknown
I think maybe it partnered with a couple at different, different times. But do you remember more details on who he actually who sponsored him before he started Commercial labs? Yeah, it was Kiko that he he might have been sponsored by others as well, but kiko, someone that I know of and that I know hardly. So I'm pretty sure they had like a a collab against kind of like Marquez did with Trove where it was a collab on a product or a version of the product.
00;20;27;16 - 00;20;46;03
Unknown
I think they had like a Mark Rober Kiwi code box or we had a project that happened and I think I found as well that some of his audience were pretty surprised to see that he was starting a Kiwi co competitor because he had been sponsored by them so much. But you know, I think I don't I wonder what went down there.
00;20;46;04 - 00;21;03;05
Unknown
Like I wonder if he tried to negotiate for equity or anything like that with Kiwi Co and they ended up deciding, you know what, I'm just going to go at this on my own and, and start Crunch Labs. In this case, if Mark Rover's like, hey, I don't want to just be an affiliate or brand sponsor, I want equity in there.
00;21;03;05 - 00;21;23;00
Unknown
Probably like most brands do this, when a creator asks for that, they're like, No, we'll pay you cash. Yeah. And you have this back and forth of like, no, I'm worth more. And like, now you're not. Or, you know, maybe you reach some agreement. And the creator, there's always two alternatives, right? Negotiation is your best alternative to the negotiated offer.
00;21;23;02 - 00;21;45;22
Unknown
And and the brand always has the opportunity to just say, okay, I guess we're done working together. We're going to go work with other creators and Mark and say like, look, there's no one better on the planet for this type of content than me. And they're like, Well, we'll see about that. You know, who knows? Like and then the creator always has the option to go work with other brands or to say, you know, in this case, I can start my own brand.
00;21;45;24 - 00;22;08;21
Unknown
Yeah. And so with Mark, I thought it was fascinating in the episode where we talked about Crunch Labs, we speculated on the revenue and the success, but he actually came out and said it, and crunch time is now over 30 million in annual recurring revenue, six months in which, wow, you know, took us well, ten years to get to 40 million a year in revenue for ConvertKit.
00;22;08;21 - 00;22;29;24
Unknown
And so there's a lot of power in you know Mark's 25 million or whatever YouTube subscribers and I was watching a mark over video yesterday with my 12 year old and like the integration of the product was just so good. You know, like here's this thing, this science experiment that we did and how we learned all this stuff.
00;22;29;26 - 00;22;48;01
Unknown
when you can do it hands on, if you get the monthly crunch laps, then we go at subscription. And he had Mr. Beast in the video like pitching it and like making fun of him about how like really Mark Huge is kind of pitch Crunch Labs again but like it all worked out because, you know, it's just it's such a perfect integration.
00;22;48;03 - 00;23;10;16
Unknown
Yeah. And it's this is a contrast right to maybe she could have taken this approach to he could have decided to start his own parent company, but he's chosen to do the partnership route. And yet Mark chose to start his own. And I think that we can safely assume that he is seeing more financial benefit from Crunch Labs than he was from sponsorships with Kiwi Co.
00;23;10;18 - 00;23;37;18
Unknown
I don't know what their margins are like, but in the long term he'll do it for sure. Yeah, I think he's making significantly more because I couldn't imagine he will want. I think that the marketing is so much better for Crunch Labs than for Kiwi Co because there's that deep integration. It's not like I'm making a video. Is there a relevant Kiwi co box that maybe we could talk about instead?
00;23;37;18 - 00;24;01;06
Unknown
It's like I've been dreaming of this video for three years and I've already built it into the box and I'm coinciding the launch of these two. So they go hand in hand and then also using the Mr. B's example because they're friends and they're hanging out, they can record all this content together. And if Mark was like, Hey, Jimmy, will you create a video talking about my sponsor?
00;24;01;08 - 00;24;17;00
Unknown
Like, that would just be weird, right? Yes. But if it's like, Hey, Jimmy, give me a shout out for Crunch Labs that I can put my videos on. Yeah, of course. Why not? Doesn't cost me anything. Happy to, you know, totally. Because it's like Create is wanting to support other creators rather than a creator wanting to support another creative sponsor.
00;24;17;03 - 00;24;40;17
Unknown
Which you're right, that is a would be a weird dynamic. Yeah. Yeah. So I think so long as with Crunch Labs, they can keep churn under control because it's a recurring revenue product. Yeah. And you're going to have issues, you know, if you're your customer base is automatically or naturally aging out of your product, they're going to have to figure out, okay, what do we have targeted at teenagers?
00;24;40;17 - 00;25;06;17
Unknown
What how can we keep this lifetime value going for a long time? But if they're at 30 million a year in six months, then I think, you know, they have a pretty clear path to getting to 100, 150 million a year, which does make it $1,000,000,000 company. Right. That is worth the time. Now, if they were to exit, they're going to have some problems of it being like super, super tied to Mark and his brand.
00;25;06;17 - 00;25;25;06
Unknown
Right. That's 90% of their marketing that's going to lower their valuation. So but Mark's actually doing it. He's pulling off the billion dollar creator playbook, and that company will be worth $1,000,000,000 in the next, you know, 3 to 5 years for sure. It's super exciting. But I think a next step is that I'd like to see him do well.
00;25;25;08 - 00;25;54;09
Unknown
Maybe this has already started is Kiwi co-sponsored a bunch of other YouTubers right and so that could become his like hitlist of creators to partner with because I think that a creator might be more likely to want to support another creative. Like if he could match the same like payment that they're getting, sure you would pick a creator's company over a company that isn't started by a creative like I think of Samoa John gets oof, I'm not sure I probably heard last name, but she makes the crazy robots and they're super fun.
00;25;54;16 - 00;26;12;05
Unknown
She's got so buy Kiwi. I was just watching one of her videos this morning actually had a kiwi co-sponsorship in it and so I could see that being really natural fit for him to reach out to creatives who are currently doing Kiwi sponsorships and say, Hey, when that contract ends, how about you come sponsor like promote Crash Labs instead, right?
00;26;12;05 - 00;26;32;19
Unknown
And when you come into it knowing the industry really, really well and like the pitch could be, Hey, we're going to be the most creative friendly. Yes. Because we know that this is actually totally a pain like maybe some other brand is paying a bunch, but it's like, you need to invoice and go through this whole lame procurement thing and you'll get paid in six months.
00;26;32;26 - 00;26;52;14
Unknown
Right? And a creator doesn't want to chase down invoices. And so like, that's just one example. But you know, as a creator, you know, hey, this is what we all care about. And so I'm going to really prioritize that the relationship and be like the best sponsor you've ever had and then Mark and go through the process and diversify his brand.
00;26;52;17 - 00;27;13;01
Unknown
So it's not just 100%. Yeah, yeah. Just him. He can actually go quite a bit wider. Exactly. And I think that creatives would trust that hey, we're creator friendly message more because it's coming from someone who is very clearly an established creator. Yeah I mean we've done that like we've both you and I have done that so much with ConvertKit.
00;27;13;08 - 00;27;35;20
Unknown
Yeah. Where it's like, this is how I use the product, right? We're in it all the time, you know, whether it's at conference talks or whatever else. We can talk about examples of we had an idea for a change in the product that came from our own use of it every week. And we have plenty of people have said like, I trust ConvertKit because it's made by creators.
00;27;35;23 - 00;27;59;20
Unknown
Exactly. You're writing with that. You've been leading a brand campaign that we've run off and on for a long time, but really especially over the last year or so, really emphasizing this angle of made for creators, by creators like how do you I guess to two parts of it, how do you plan that out? Like what tells you to double down on that?
00;27;59;22 - 00;28;17;07
Unknown
And then to how do you go about actually telling those stories? And yeah, it's easy to say, but how do you make a cohesive brand around it? Yeah, what? So what gave me the confidence to really lean into that with our brand messaging is that when I personally am speaking to another creator about ConvertKit and they're like, What's that?
00;28;17;07 - 00;28;35;28
Unknown
And I'm explaining it to them, I see something click for them when I talk about the fact that, hey, it was made like created by Nathan to solve problems that he had us to create it. And that's still the approach we take today is like solving problems specifically for creators, not the small medium businesses, not the enterprise corporate companies creators.
00;28;35;28 - 00;28;58;02
Unknown
And they have been. This is all different sizes and shapes, but we do things differently to traditional businesses, and that's when people are like, okay, now I get why I shouldn't go sign up for a free MailChimp account and I should sign up for a free ConvertKit account instead. And so yeah, having those conversations and seeing that moment happen for creatives is what made me want to double down on it.
00;28;58;05 - 00;29;33;02
Unknown
And then we just have so many creators on the team. It's like I think creators who still work full time jobs are naturally drawn to us because of folks like you and I who very publicly speak about, you know, having a full time job but also being a creative. And there's just a lot of cool, different things that our team does on our retreat when we're in in Paris in August, which sounds so fancy to say our brand video create a Henry organized, have a bunch of the creators on the team just come and do like a quick fire interview, answering questions about what they create, like why they appreciate working at ConvertKit.
00;29;33;05 - 00;29;54;26
Unknown
We put out content of that to like just highlight these other members of our team who maybe don't have audiences as large as you and I but are still like creating and experiencing, you know, life as a creative. And I think that when done really well on our social media, it got some good engagement. People who like seeing the behind the scenes of like who is making the product, especially in software where it's like it can feel really impersonal, right?
00;29;54;26 - 00;30;12;17
Unknown
It's just write code things on the screen and now you're seeing like the friendly faces of the creative people who are behind it. Yeah, that was a fun, fun shoot to do very randomly. That was the first clip that I saw. I think it must have been the color grading where like my beard was extra red and my hair was very gray.
00;30;12;22 - 00;30;38;04
Unknown
And I like, I should tell my wife and I was like, Is my hair really this great? She's like, Not that gray, but it's definitely going gray. And you're like, no, I'm old. Finally, finally. Yeah, exact. But that was a fun, fun shoot to do. And it was really just as simple as like, Henry set up a basic studio outside, you know, and would rotate people through.
00;30;38;09 - 00;30;59;13
Unknown
We were actually all having like a happy hour, you know, before our fancy closing dinner. So everyone was already kind of dressed up a bit. Yeah. And he's just like, Nathan, your turn is your turn. You know, Corey, get over here. And it worked well, but that content, like, really did well on social because I think for exactly the two reasons that you said.
00;30;59;15 - 00;31;20;23
Unknown
One, people want to know behind the scenes who's making the product, what's the story of it? You know, we're all nerds who are like, okay, how did that work? Like, you know, we're watching. It's the equivalent of The Lord of the Rings extended edition, you know, like the ten DVDs that came with that. I definitely watched all of probably at least twice or three times.
00;31;20;26 - 00;31;50;05
Unknown
But that for the creator world, like we want to see how things are made and then we also want to build a relationship and get to know the people who are actually making the products. And so the more we've put that idea out there, that's always been true. But the way that we've publicize it, I think the more that's resonated totally and we see other companies coming in now and like using similar language and we're still like we're like, No, no, this is ours.
00;31;50;07 - 00;32;10;25
Unknown
We we truly do own this. Here's all of the first. But there's something in there of, as you see, competitors copying what you do, which we have that happen all the time. I've had times where I'm like, Nope, that's ours. But it's not like we planted the flag, we own it. But there's an element of you have to fully own it.
00;32;10;25 - 00;32;30;26
Unknown
You can't just say that. Yep. And that. Yeah, because we did it in an ad campaign once. Like you have to do it so much that it's in like in the mindshare of the community and the ecosystem. And so something for me that I think about a lot is with flywheels where they've been around a lot as an idea.
00;32;30;29 - 00;32;59;14
Unknown
Jim Collins popularized them in Good to Great. There's definitely like other books or articles that have have talked about it, but related like related to creator flywheels and making them really, really practical in your business. It's like, that's why I've created a ton of curriculum about and we had a, a competitor or I don't know, three months ago, six months ago or something like that, who was like, as you create the flywheel for your newsletter?
00;32;59;14 - 00;33;29;21
Unknown
And I was like, No, no, no, that's mine. Like, I've developed, you know, like the three Laws of Flywheel. That's my content, you know, it's what I've been teaching, but it's only claimed as yours so much as you can, as the general public knows that, Right? There's a lot of examples. I can't think of them as up ahead, but where one person invent something or coined the term and then someone else popularized it and the second voice is the one that gets all of that long term attention.
00;33;29;23 - 00;33;53;03
Unknown
And so I think about things like creator, flywheels, you know, made for creators by creators. Like it takes a huge amount of emphasizing that messaging and positioning and all that so that people permanently associate it with, yes, a ton of revenue. Yeah, way more than I ever thought was necessary in like the early days of building building a company.
00;33;53;05 - 00;34;15;05
Unknown
Totally. And it's because we are seeing everything we put out, right. But creators are not. They'll see the same 5% of what we put out. Yeah. Or even less sometimes because there's so many, you know, so much to pay attention to. And so if what if we haven't repeated it enough in the 5% that they saw, then yeah, I can see why it wouldn't stick.
00;34;15;07 - 00;34;44;05
Unknown
That's always a good reminder for me of to have fewer messages and to see them more often. Yes. And to keep coming back to it. And so that's even as we've found the flywheel messaging really resonate. You did a new homepage design or your team did. I don't know who actually designed it, but it really incorporates the flywheels into that homepage and talking about, here's the flywheel that we use to, you know, bring growth and revenue to to creators.
00;34;44;07 - 00;35;02;22
Unknown
And so we're not trying to, you know, over here teach about how to implement flywheels and then over here teach about like something different, how to buy us, buy a new software. It's like, no, no, no, they're one in the same. And like the deep integrations that we can do help reinforce that message. Yeah. And I think that's important for creators as well.
00;35;02;22 - 00;35;21;04
Unknown
Like something that I have struggled with for a while as a creator. Is that the most popular type of digital design is product design, right? Is the folks who are in there designing the apps, designing the software. That's not the type of design I do. So that's not the type of design that I make content about. I make content about brand and marketing design.
00;35;21;06 - 00;35;41;28
Unknown
And so I wanted to be known as the go to person for that. And so that's why I've called my podcast Inside Marketing Design, my newsletter Marketing Design Dispatch, because I'm trying to like drill into people. No, no, this is the type of design that you should know me for. And still I get folks putting me on like product designers to watch list and I'm like, You can keep watching.
00;35;42;03 - 00;36;12;21
Unknown
You're not going to see it. Yeah, you're not going to be disappointed, but you're going to get something different than you say what you thought you were getting. Yeah, that's interesting of reinforcing it. And what do you think on like being clear versus clever, like the marketing design dispatch inside marketing design, those are very clear names. You know what you're getting, and especially because you're trying to reinforce that same message, right?
00;36;12;22 - 00;36;37;12
Unknown
Marketing design. Charlie Marketing design over and over again. And I think that's working really well, but neither of them are clever or brand of all. They're obviously brand able, but but in the same way. And so how do you think about the balance between those two things? I think that if you already have a large audience and a lot of attention coming your way, you've got more room to go the clever route.
00;36;37;15 - 00;37;02;09
Unknown
But for me, like I'm still trying to establish the thing that I want people to know me for and want to be like the number one go to person for anything related to marketing Design on the internet is my goal. And so it's really important for me to be clear that like, this is what to expect, especially because, like I said, I was seeing those issues of people putting me in a UX design box and a product design box, and I needed that clarity.
00;37;02;15 - 00;37;25;02
Unknown
But I think if you've already got a really large audience, then sometimes being clever can actually help drive more attention to the thing. But I will always, usually on the side of clarity. Yeah, that makes sense. And when you talk about large audiences like you, you have hundreds of thousands of followers on YouTube. So I mean, like, like we're like, yeah, we even larger than that.
00;37;25;08 - 00;37;53;06
Unknown
Yeah, yeah. I'm thinking back to the first books that I wrote, the very first one, the App Design Handbook. I wonder what pretty clear. Yeah. And second one, designing web applications also. Yeah, it was that about. Yeah. Now, the third book Authority, I went, you know, like a little more brand able and I can't even remember what the tagline is on that book.
00;37;53;08 - 00;38;14;24
Unknown
Right. It's been a while. That's embarrassing. And a good thing. This isn't the call it that one. You know, as I had more traction, I had a bit of an audience. I think I could start to go a bit more brand of all clever, that kind of thing. You know, like in the logo, it like highlights author, authority, authority, you know, And so you get some of that.
00;38;14;26 - 00;38;37;24
Unknown
But I think especially early on and when you're targeting a niche, the clear is just the way to go. Yeah, definitely. Like that's what you should prioritize building the clarity first. But like James claims that, for example, it's called atoms, something that I think that you might be clairvoyant or something because you predicted this and now it's coming true and that is that.
00;38;37;24 - 00;38;56;24
Unknown
In episode two, you and Rachel were talking about James Clear and how he can become $1,000,000,000 creator. Like what he should go down, what possibly should go down in his business. And you mentioned him Building an app like an app would make sense for him. Produce a product that helps people form and keep habits because that's what his book habits is about.
00;38;56;27 - 00;39;19;01
Unknown
And guess what? He's launched one, he's done. He's done. I didn't know about the app when we recorded the episode, but shortly after he was like, Hey, I actually did just start working on this. Did he hear the episode and was like, my gosh, I didn't even know that was a we've talked for years about like, should he build an app?
00;39;19;01 - 00;39;48;24
Unknown
What would actually be unique? I had made my app called Commit, which was I think the first street tracking app in the App Store maybe back in 2013. And then I didn't continue developing that because I worked on another little software project instead. But that grew so Commit died out, but ended up being this replacement called Streaks that was like commit fully developed.
00;39;48;26 - 00;40;12;19
Unknown
And so James and I had talked over the years about, hey, what if you were to take the commit app and run with it or you should build some idea along these lines. And so the episode was really fueled by things that friends had commented on, but then also conversations James and I had had the not for a couple of years about like, okay, what's next after the book?
00;40;12;24 - 00;40;38;09
Unknown
You know, what do you do with this audience? I've always had the Habits app. Yeah, it's just absolute nonsense. I was like, the Habits app was a great play, but also I'm not sure how you would do it in a very unique way. So one thing playing with the app, like I just pulled it up, it's called Atoms and it is free to use, though it has a 30 day trial for the pro version.
00;40;38;11 - 00;40;56;24
Unknown
But one thing that stood out to me is in the app, when you're defining a habit, so it says, like as an example says, I will meditate for 5 minutes. And that's as far as most habits app apps go, like building a string. Say I'm going to write a thousand words a day and that's it. But he actually makes you go further.
00;40;56;26 - 00;41;18;26
Unknown
And I'm curious what this will do and the adoption is. So I will meditate for 5 minutes when I wake up. So you have to define the time that you're going to do it. And then it also has an identity play so that I can become a mindful person. And so the habit makes you define the habit when you're going to do it and the identity of who you want to be.
00;41;18;28 - 00;41;45;06
Unknown
Which ties into the book, right? He talks about this in Atomic habits. So I'm curious how this is going to play out. Yeah, I think that that identity piece, especially in in this day and age when we're all trying to, you know, become better versions of ourselves, could be the thing that makes this stickier. I went through the onboarding process of this app myself and set up a habit, and it's also just beautifully designed.
00;41;45;08 - 00;42;04;00
Unknown
I think it was designed by Metal labs. I immediately went and looked up like, Who made this? This is beautiful. The like experience you hold down at one point to the to like commit to the habit or like start setting one up and it just does this beautiful like experience and you screen the phone vibrates a little bit and I'm just like, I'm getting a dopamine hit from doing my habit.
00;42;04;00 - 00;42;29;04
Unknown
And so, you know, I think that that's going to help as well. Yeah. So it's a partnership between James and then Andrew Wilkinson and Metal Lab and so which actually this is interesting for anyone from a like a designer developing background or a product background, right? And you actually came to James and pitched him and said, Hey, we all know you should build this app.
00;42;29;07 - 00;42;53;09
Unknown
We all know that, you know, that's not your background of of designing beautiful software. So why don't we, you know, design build and market it and then it's your IP, your ideas and then your audience that really runs with that. And so they came and pitched it. Obviously, Andrew has a, you know, like a lot of credibility in the space and a really successful background.
00;42;53;09 - 00;43;17;04
Unknown
And so it wasn't like some random developer with no background saying, you know, let me bring very little expertise or an unknown quantity to one of the largest personal brands on the Internet and like that would be a mismatch. But Andrew James is a really good fit. And so yeah, they, they developed it, launched it and we'll see how they iterate from here.
00;43;17;06 - 00;43;35;10
Unknown
Yeah, I'm excited to see how it goes. And especially with the model where they've got the free version and then also the pro version. Yeah. Curious to see how many people choose to upgrade to that pro version. I think I looked in at the site, there's a few extra features, but mostly it's that you can track more habits with the with the pro version.
00;43;35;12 - 00;44;06;21
Unknown
Yeah, that'll be interesting. They were at number 16 on the App store when they launched. I think they're over 250,000 downloads now. I'm not sure on the pricing. It's kind of interesting looking at so the price they have is on the pro, I think it's $15 a month or 100 to 120 bucks a year. Looks like they're still running some tests, which I would if I were them, you know, try to figure out the the conversions that you're getting.
00;44;06;23 - 00;44;32;25
Unknown
And so I think that makes sense to go a little higher on the pro version rather than like a $5 a month or $50 a year type of thing. Because I think that, yeah, I would start with the higher end customer. They're like the committed fan. Yeah, because there's so many in, in James audience and then you figure out downstream if there's something else that you want to add, you know, adapt from there.
00;44;32;28 - 00;45;05;09
Unknown
Yeah, that makes sense. I do wonder because you predicted this app, you know, coming to life in that episode too. Do we think that in a couple of months we're going to see James Clare launching it Tequila? Because that was the other thing that you predicted he should do. I think that was in the terrible one that I liked was I think that I think that you could do, you know, like a water, like a vitamin water or something like that, like the name clear is just one of those things where like just lends itself how do you have like clear water?
00;45;05;09 - 00;45;28;14
Unknown
I don't know what, but I play tequila. Yeah, I don't think that James is going to go with Gillibrand, But yeah, we can see one tie in that I think will be interesting is Atomic habits is a book is still selling an insane number of copies. Yeah. And so getting the app integrated into the book will be really, really good.
00;45;28;20 - 00;45;47;07
Unknown
Like I think it's over a million copies a year. Still 2 million copies a year type of thing that atomic habits are selling. And so if you think about the integration of those two things, like if I were the publisher, I would immediately be like, okay, how do we print more of this? And then how do we get the book tie in to the app?
00;45;47;09 - 00;46;05;17
Unknown
Yeah, and it is it's a little curious that he didn't call the app Atomic habits. I don't know. Do you any thoughts on why he went with atoms like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don't know You know calling it the same name does give it that direct tie in. You know you've read the atomic habits book his The Atomic Habits app that that goes along with it.
00;46;05;19 - 00;46;25;15
Unknown
I'd have to look on You could definitely fit it well on length of characters that shows up on the phone. I don't know. They get all of atomic habits. I can't remember how many characters it is that makes sense. It's really close though. Like because I have this app called called Protect on My Phone, and that's fairly long.
00;46;25;18 - 00;46;44;00
Unknown
And I mean, you get Google Maps, so it's really close on the character limit. So That might be part of it. I do think, like I looked at the icon and sorry, James, but I think the icon is pretty lame. It doesn't really stand out because it looks just like your messages app, right? It looks too native to the phone.
00;46;44;02 - 00;47;12;20
Unknown
Right. Okay. And and so, yeah, I think that if they want it to really stand out, I would be a different icon. Okay. Well, there we go. We'll see if James listens to you about that, just like he listened about making the app in the first place. Yeah, exactly. And just any credit for it. Yeah, it. Yeah. Unless there's some I'm sure there's some good reason that we don't know about, but I would have called the app atomic habits because it's just repeating the same idea over and over again.
00;47;12;25 - 00;47;31;22
Unknown
You read it in the book, you understand the core. You know, it's more than just the title of the book. It's it's like his methodology. Now you're using the atomic habits app and you're like integrating this and then repetition over and over again and it's super, super clear. So we'll have to find out from James why. Yeah, why.
00;47;31;26 - 00;47;46;01
Unknown
That's a future episode of the shows, you know, a few months down the line talking to him about this. Yeah, but I do think it's a missed opportunity to, to reinforce the same brand message over and over again. I like it. Okay. We covered a lot of good things. One last topic is where we're going with the show going forward.
00;47;46;03 - 00;48;09;11
Unknown
So the, the big news in that, which I think if people have been listening to the last handful of episodes, they've been like, Wait, where's Rachel? And she was just on the episode we did with Jackie Aina. That was a fun one. Recorded it in person in front of an audience of 500 people, live at Rachel's event in Puerto Rico, but before that it's mostly been me interviewing other people.
00;48;09;14 - 00;48;31;25
Unknown
And that's because Rachel decided to leave the show and take a step back just in everything going on in the craziness of life and business basically run around the new Year. She realized like, Wait a second, I don't actually need to be like best stressed working all the time. She's built a business to, you know, 10 million a year in revenue.
00;48;31;25 - 00;48;53;18
Unknown
And it's like, wait, I can actually take a step back. Kids are young right now and really spend time with family. I enjoy life and I got to hang out when I was town in Puerto Rico. She lives in like the most insane, like beach community there. And so anyway, she's decided to take a step back from the show, still come on regularly as a guest.
00;48;53;21 - 00;49;17;07
Unknown
But that leaves me with figuring out kind of what's next for the show. And then really the idea that I have now is to get this recurring cast of characters where we can, you know, understand the show riff on ideas. Charlie you're going to be one of them. I've just been great. Yeah, just like that. Yes, exactly. Cycle Bloom's coming back on.
00;49;17;07 - 00;49;36;27
Unknown
I know that people loved the the episode with Grant and Brian on building teams and so they've been requested to come back. But if I always bring them back as a duo so they make fun of each other a lot. And so it's good energy to have them together. But yeah, that's kind of where the show is going.
00;49;37;02 - 00;49;55;04
Unknown
I want to say major props to Rachel for recognizing that this was a commitment she didn't want to have on her plate until like, you know, focus her business in this way. I've definitely been thinking about simplifying my own business recently. Maybe that's something we'll talk about in future episodes, but just like looking at where what gives me energy, what pulls energy away from me.
00;49;55;07 - 00;50;15;21
Unknown
And so, yeah, respect Rachel for that. And I'm excited to come back on the show and talk about these things more. I love noting about this stuff. I also think that you're going to be doing more coaching episodes, right? That's been some of my favorite personally episodes of the show so far. Seeing the advice you give to other creators, you know, like advising James Clare to launch a tequila.
00;50;15;23 - 00;50;42;22
Unknown
Me Keep bringing that up, but nervous is good. Is there a part? But now I'm looking forward to more of that. That episode that I did with Tiago, if you're listening, you haven't watched that episode with Tiago. Definitely go and watch it. It's one that is worth checking out on YouTube. Search Billion Dollar Creator and you'll find our channel and definitely subscribe because you know, that's what tells the team like, hey, this is a good investment of time.
00;50;42;24 - 00;51;07;17
Unknown
But that one was really fun. I'm just going in Tiago studio and he, you know, I said, Here we come on on my podcast. And I was like, Yeah, sure, let's do it. And then I think a day before he texted me and I was like, Actually, I have a new idea. How about instead of an interview, I just tell you all the problems in the business and you use the billion dollar creator framework to coach me through exactly what I should do.
00;51;07;19 - 00;51;38;27
Unknown
And I had so many top creators, I won't name them on the show, but a bunch of people who I've followed and respected for years read their books. I have their books on the shelf behind me. You know, who reached out after that and said, Hey, I would love the same thing? And so one idea that we're playing with right now is, okay, can I, like, build out a podcast space in Boise maybe, and like fly creators in and record more of these in person because I love the format and then just the texts from other people.
00;51;38;29 - 00;52;18;22
Unknown
Like it turns out they love the format too. Yes, I also love the format. So I will be happily both a fan and also a regular recurring guest on the show. I like it. So if you're listening now, definitely go and subscribe on YouTube. Leave us a review on iTunes. We like comments, we like reviews, and then if there's someone that we should coach or you want to be coached and you're at that like professional level creator, of course, at the bar at 500,000 or so and annual revenue to keep the show focused on that high end, but definitely reach out and then always send us news and things to to riff on.
00;52;18;25 - 00;52;49;24
Unknown
Yes, the ABS-CBN News, the James launching the app. There's a bunch of these fun things that I find out about because people send Medium on Twitter, shooting, email, and it's fun to hear about, and we'll bring the right person on to riff on the topic and go from there. Sounds good. All right. Thanks for hanging out, Charlie. Yeah, thanks a million people.