In the last 7 years, we’ve paid $6.9 million in profit sharing to the ConvertKit team.

While most companies hope to return money to shareholders in a moonshot acquisition, we’ve created a unique model to help our team think like owners.

Here’s how our compensation model works: Our mission is to help creators earn a living. That’s why ConvertKit exists.

My personal mission extends beyond that—I want everyone in my life to have the opportunity to become financially independent.

That means everyone at ConvertKit should have a path to financial freedom.

In 2021, Spotify reached out to buy @ConvertKit for hundreds of millions.

I said no.

Instead we came up with an innovative way to get liquidity for our team: ConvertKit is an email marketing platform for creators.

I started it in 2013 with a goal to solve my frustrations with other email tools.

When it grew, I figured I’d sell it after a year or two.

Then I fell in love with our product, team, & customers.

I never wanted to sell.

Becoming a creator will change your life.

Here are 13 tips to make the switch from a consumer to a creator: Set a Daily “Make Something” Goal

Grab a sticky note and write “make something today--stick it to your computer monitor.

Your goal is simply to make something--anything--every single day.

Set the bar low and make it achievable.

Creation will start to become a habit.

I made $37,000 in the first month of selling my ebook.

But I almost made a $10,000+ mistake.

Here’s a lesson on pricing that’ll make you thousands: In 2012, I launched my first product, The App Design Handbook.

But in a hurry to get the product out the door, I almost made a costly mistake…

It’s a mistake I see entrepreneurs make every single day.

I’m excited to announce we just acquired @SparkLoopHQ which is going to allow creators to make a living in a totally new way.

Here’s why this acquisition is a game changer for the creator economy: SparkLoop’s Partner Network is the #1 newsletter growth platform.

After building a deep integration, we got so excited about the potential, we decided to bring them into the ConvertKit family to build the largest advertising network for creators.

Here’s why this is so exciting:

Podcasts are one of the best ways to generate many different types of content.

If you film an episode, there are a bunch of ways you can repurpose it.

This flywheel generates content whenever you’re interviewed on someone’s podcast: What if the point of going on a podcast wasn’t the podcast itself?

What if going on podcasts was a significant part of your content creation strategy?

By simply showing up to speak, you can produce blog posts, newsletters, and social media content.

My SaaS business hit $1,500 MRR and then got stuck.

Until I learned an important trick…

Here’s the exact method I used to scale to $100k MRR in the next 12 months: I started @ConvertKit with the goal of $5k in monthly revenue within 6 months. Initial traction came quickly, but then stalled out at $2k/mo & gradually declined to $1.5k.

I tried everything to scale: content marketing, webinars, & partnerships.

Nothing worked to get traction.

Many companies have a process for writing case studies or gathering testimonials, but I’ve never seen a storytelling flywheel on the level of what we have at @ConvertKit.

This storytelling flywheel is the heartbeat of all of our brand marketing efforts.

Here’s how it works: 1. Find a creator

Our resident storyteller, Isa, tells everyone in the company she’s looking for creators with unique businesses doing interesting things with ConvertKit.

So our account managers, product team, and customer support team send her a steady stream of story leads.

8 principles to help you grow your wealth faster: In a previous thread, I shared The Ladders of Wealth Creation, a step-by-step roadmap to building wealth.

You can read the thread here:

https://twitter.com/nathanbarry/status/1634200595887452161

Today, I'm breaking down the principles to help you move up the ladders:

In 2021, Spotify reached out to buy @ConvertKit for hundreds of millions.

I said no.

Here’s what we did instead: ConvertKit is an email marketing platform for creators.

I started it in 2013 with a goal to solve my frustrations with other email tools.

When it grew, I figured I’d sell it after a year or two.

Then I fell in love with our product, team, & customers.

I never wanted to sell.

5 underappreciated ConvertKit features you may not know about: 1. Content snippets

Tired of typing the same thing over and over?

Create reusable content snippets for adding to your emails. Snippets can include rich text, HTML, images, etc.

Great for sponsor blocks, social media links, promoting your most recent blog post, and more.

Fast decision making is a major business advantage.

Here are 3 frameworks I use for quickly making decisions: 1. How to deal with stress

When you’re stressed about an issue, ask yourself two questions:

1. Do you have control over the issue?
2. Will the issue get better or worse with time?

10 pieces of advice for high school graduates who want to make a living online: 1. Pick an emerging field with not much good content, interview experts, and use the video + transcripts to drive traffic to an email list.

https://twitter.com/moseskagan/status/1640559782477316096

The Four Laws of Building Audience:

1. Create consistently
2. Show your work
3. Own your platform
4. Build once, sell twice

⬇️ 1st Law: Create Consistently

Consistent effort over time is the only way to hone your craft & make the switch from a consumer to a creator.

I’m not talking about a big sprint each weekend or taking a week off a year to work on your book proposal.

Instead, Create Every Day

I recently asked what physical reminders you have in your workspace to keep you centered on your goals and values.

Here are 10 of my favorite responses: 8 years of GitHub framed.

"I framed my GitHub graph over the last 8 years to remind myself I'm a maker." – @tdinh_me

Creator industry trend I'm watching right now:

Creators sponsoring newsletters through @SparkLoopHQ's Partner Network at ~$2 per subscriber, then sending them into an email automation pitching a paid product.

I expect we'll see creators get to a 30-45 day payback period. @SparkLoopHQ I know @brennandunn is doing this (and paying an affiliate commission on top). I'm going to spin it up this week for my own newsletter.

There are few things better than getting paid to add engaged subscribers to your list.

T-Mobile is acquiring Ryan Reynold's Mint Mobile for $1.35 billion.

Here are 6 things I learned from studying his work and why I think Ryan Reynolds (@VancityReynolds) is the greatest marketer alive today: 1. Insert yourself into the narrative

In the 2020: A Match made in Hell ad he used Taylor Swift's not yet released re-recording of Love Story.

When all the press was talking about Taylor re-recording her masters just the fact that Ryan used the song become noteworthy.

Want to kickstart word-of-mouth growth?

Do things that don’t scale.

Here are 5 examples: 1. Direct sales

It makes sense to want to sell automatically. But starting with direct sales will teach you a lot about your customers.

Get on calls and talk to people. You’ll learn a lot that will help you improve your marketing and sell better at scale.

The Creator Network is going to change the game for audience growth and earning a living from your audience.

Here's how: 1. Partner with friends, grow 50% faster

Form a mastermind group with creators in your industry, recommend each other, and you'll each grow significantly faster.

When one of you has a big week, you all will. That momentum is huge.

The Ladders of Wealth Creation—a step-by-step roadmap to building wealth: Making money is a skill—like playing the drums or piano—that you can get better at over time.

I wouldn’t expect to be able to sit down at a piano for the first time and play a concerto. The same is true for making money.

This is why most first companies fail.

Mr Beast’s top 10 pieces of advice for starting on YouTube: 1. Fail

If you have a brand new channel, expect your first video to get zero views. That’s just how it works!

Many people are afraid of starting because they’re afraid of failing. Expect to fail in the beginning.

Your first job is to post a video that doesn’t do well.