Making $20K with 1K subs
How creators with a community of 1000 subscribers might be able to make a steady income of $20K per month just by using the right tools.
Making a living as a creator should not be that hard, especially if you can explore ways to monetize your expertise. Have you ever stopped to think how valuable it would have be properly advised or mentored, for example, at the bending of your professional, freelancer, or creative career? I do it all the time.
I don’t consider myself a classic creator. I remember, for example, the start of my career in finance. The advice was coming in many forms, non of which, in honest retrospect, meant too much as it was not rightly sourced. Plus, in most cases, it pointed me in the opposite direction.
Today we have tools we can use to connect to those seeking expertise so that we can share ours. Tools focused on community building around expertise can lead to a strong network. It’s not only about the 1000 true fans or how to monetize that relationship but how we can help others by boosting their career with mentorship while creating strong communities.
The alternative of monetizing it is up to you; you can make 20K a month or more.
I’m a Calendly lifetime user (their lifetime), but I find that to be a bit restrictive product, especially for those starting out. About a month ago, I was digging into some platforms I could use to mentor or give advice from creators to startup founders in a convenient way for both. And share my experiences looking for the perfect combination of tech and flexibility.
That’s how I ran into Superpeer.com, a community scheduling platform with a bit of a twist. It has a social component, has some pretty cool marketplace features, it’s pretty easy to use and free(ish). What I liked about it is that it focuses on your persona and expertise, period.
You have a social profile within the app, where you can put an a la carte menu of the options people looking for mentorship, only classes and advice can pick from with your vanity URL. Something important for creators.
This is mine Superpeer profile, for example
https://superpeer.com/orlandopedro
Feature-wise is where it gets interesting. It does not only offer 1.1 meeting scheduling but live events, premiers, and on-demand videos. On top of that, you can have subscribers (yes, as in Patreon).
They have a calculator to check how much you can make based on your audience composition, conversion rate, subscriptions, and 1.1 calls.
Some of the key features use cases:
1.1 Mentorship or Consulting: this is the easiest and most obvious of them all, and there’s a 0% cost on this if you decide to charge. 100% of the fees (minus credit card processing fees) go to you.
Create a Class: you can easily create a class in a few different videos. This is way better than hosting a class on Domestika or Skillshare. Trust me, if you develop an online class, you want to retain 100% control and fees. Using something like Vimeo taht will allow you to gate your content to a specific URL.
Host Livestream: this is great for cohorts or if you want, for example, to do group sessions, lessons, or more. Extremely convenient
Newsletters: they have this feature as well, although, for newsletters, I still prefer SubStack. But if you want to have it all under one roof, this option is there.
Digital Products: there’s also the option to sell digital products. This might become handy for those trying to get extra material in the hands of their subscribers. Here again, I still prefer Gumroad as a huge loyal day-one fan.
Socialize: there’s messaging and the profile social feature that can act in your favor when sharing and when it comes to taking advantage of the network effect that a greatly crafted proposal will have.
Now I have some ideas on how you can leverage this depending on the type of creator you are:
Photographer: as a photographer, the first thing that comes to mind is portfolio reviews or consultations. You can leverage your expertise to help others up their photography. You can also use the social features to run challenges in the community, give assignments, and create a fully online class on photography in your style, from the gear to editing and all in between.
Videographer: same as above, but you can also go further. You can create classes for groups to teach color grading. You can complement this by selling downloadables like LUTs, video assets, or presets.
Content Creators: create 1.1 meetings with your audience and fans or cohort-based courses. If you are a travel creator and expert in the location, you can empower travelers by sharing experiences and taking advantage of live streaming if you want to take your audience with you.
Musicians: private live-stream music sessions on one end, on the other, community building or fan base.
Illustrators & Designers: here, you have flexibility, from portfolio reviews and mentorship to classes, step-by stem into the design, an application, into an illustration process.
Other Professionals: others like me that have an area of expertise in finance, web3, blockchain, and startups can also leverage the tools in so many ways. Personally, I’m thinking of organizing a free Web3 online event focused on the regulation, risks, and rewards of the industry, “Beyond the NFT.”
Yes. Calendly. It’s a scheduling platfom. After talking about Superpeer, Calendly's features pale in comparison. But here is the catch. Not everyone needs robust features to connect with an audience or potential clients.
Let’s take the case of an advisor in product or development. They might not be interested in setting up a profile, link text, etc. They might want an easy way to connect their calendars, give people a chance to book, and sometimes charge for it.
Calendly is very flat in features, making it extremely simple to use and set up. I use this for my work-related bookings. I can connect all my calendars to avoid conflicts and redirect to one. I use the free version, and that’s enough for me to get all scheduled and organized.
Calendly is scheduling made simple. So if you want a simple solution, this is for you and your team.
Let’s talk about price. While Calendly offers a “free” plan, this will come with a limit. If you start looking into a more complex setup involving other team members and integrations into workflows, you can easily pay up to 20 USD per user per month.
Those who know me understand what I take on Discord. My love and hate relationship with it. My less favorite thing about Discord is the fact that you build on Discord, but you don’t own your audience. And you should, as you should own your data. That’s why I preach about digital data ownership and privacy.
So what’s Mighty-Networks? Well, sort of a standalone Discord server. The caveat is that you can create the community, but you have 100% control over it, from the setup to the email addresses, to the full setup of the spaces.
The other day, I came across this platform, Mighty(Networks), looking for Discord alternatives. One of the most attractive features for me is that they offer token-gating. Meaning Mighty allows me to create a close community only accessible to those who have certain NFTs in their wallets. Support Metamask, Coinbase wallet, and Wallet Connect; they verify ownership every hour.
Mighty has very interesting features for all kinds of creators, and I saw a few communities running on it already. Full disclosure I haven’t used it myself, but I’m subscribing to the free trial.
So what’s Mighty-Networks? Platforms like this are great for learning communities, professional associations, DAOs, and NFT projects that don’t want to deal with everything Discord has to offer. But mostly those who have a community or teaching at its core.
How much Mighty-Networks costs? On pricing, they start at 33 USD per month and up to 250 USD, and they offer a “branded” version of your community for an undisclosed price. My best guess is this will be in the 5k to 10K range. But that’s speculation based on similar platforms.
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