In today’s episode, I sit down with investor, entrepreneur, and content creator, Sahil Bloom (in front of a live audience) to unpack the key strategies and lessons that will help you achieve longevity and sustainability in the creator economy. Sahil has had a fascinating journey, transitioning from the world of private equity to making a name for himself in the creator economy (his bi-weekly newsletter alone has more than 400K subscribers). Upon entering this new sector, Sahil found himself occu...
Jul 31, 2023•52 min•Ep. 78
Today, I talk to Darrell Vesterfelt, who is a longtime friend who helped grow ConvertKit in our craziest growth times (from $100,000/mo when he joined to $500,000/mo in just over a year). Darrell is one of the best marketers I know. He is the Founder and former CEO of Good People Digital, the Co-Founder of Homestead Living, and Co-Founder and COO of the School of Traditional Skills. In this episode, Darrell breaks down the goal and execution of an online summit that accumulated an astonishing 10...
May 22, 2023•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 77
In today’s episode, I’m joined by PJ Taei, Founder and CEO of Uscreen, an all-in-one video monetization platform for content creators that helps them build their brands and grow their businesses. The creator economy has changed a lot since PJ first founded Uscreen in 2015. And in that time PJ has managed to grow Uscreen to $20 million a year in revenue, representing sought-after clients and their channels, like Yoga with Adrienne and Justin Rhodes’s streaming platform, Abundance Plus. Our conver...
May 15, 2023•57 min•Ep. 76
In this episode, I talk to Susie Bulloch, who runs Hey Grill, Hey, which started as a wildly successful food blog (to the tune of a million dollars or more a year in revenue). Then she did something that I absolutely love: she used her online business to kickstart a physical products company. Her sauces and rubs company in the barbecue space is now about to overtake the blog in revenue. The online world of content creation is vastly different to the product manufacturing space, and as Susie expl...
May 08, 2023•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 75
Today, I sit down with the Head of Deliverability at ConvertKit, Alyssa Dulin, to shed some light on the often mysterious game of getting your email into the right inbox. Alyssa's expertise about what creators need to focus on and the most recent developments in the email marketing space can truly take your company's reach to the next level! Deliverability has always been a huge part of what we offer at ConvertKit, and Alyssa unpacks the most important pieces of this puzzle, covering sender repu...
May 01, 2023•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 74
Today I’m talking with Thomas Frank. Thomas built a YouTube channel called College Info Geek to over a million subscribers. Since then, he’s rebranded and grown the channel to nearly 3 million subscribers. He’s also built a massive business around courses and Notion templates. In this episode we talk about making a pivot as a creator. Thomas has an interesting and understated approach that’s worked quite well. We also talk about the Notion templates he’s selling, the YouTube productivity channel...
Jan 09, 2023•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 73
In this episode I talk to Brian Feroldi. Brian is an incredible creator in the investing space. He Tweets about money, investing, and self-improvement. He also has a free newsletter with over 40,000 subscribers. Today Brian talks about his recent experience migrating his newsletter to ConvertKit. He’s also a member of the ConvertKit Sponsor Network. I haven’t said much about the Sponsor Network, so Brian shares how he’s using it to book sponsors. The bulk of our conversation, however, is about T...
Nov 14, 2022•54 min•Ep. 72
The podcast is back! Today I’m talking with Turner Novak. Turner is someone I’ve followed for a long time. He has an amazing Twitter account where he drops hilarious memes, talks about life as an investor, and makes fun of venture capitalists and founders. He also posts deep dives on companies like Snapchat about how their earnings work, what’s going on in TikTok ads, and a lot more. It’s an interesting balance, and he does all this while investing in early-stage companies as a venture capitalis...
Sep 05, 2022•54 min•Ep. 71
In this episode I talk to Katelyn Bourgoin. Katelyn is a creator and entrepreneur. She’s built several successful companies and agencies, and built a consultant company that she later sold. We dive into why customers buy, and how to market and sell to them through the Jobs-to-be-Done framework. Katelyn has a wealth of marketing knowledge she shares with us today. We talk about different business models. We get into why you should focus on selling checklists, cheat sheets, and outcomes rather tha...
May 09, 2022•59 min•Ep. 70
In this episode I talk to Laura Roeder. Laura and I have been friends for a long time. I’ve learned so much from her, and it’s great to have her on the podcast. Laura started an online community and a course called Creating Fame. She’s done a bunch of stuff in the internet space. She’s one of the people who’s been doing it since the early days. She got into software with a company called MeetEdgar, which is a social media scheduling service, and grew it into a successful company before selling i...
May 02, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 69
In this episode I talk to Justin Moore. Justin is a Sponsorship Coach & the founder of Creator Wizard, a school & community that teaches you how to find & negotiate your dream brand deals. In today’s episode Justin reveals how narrowing in on sponsorship coaching was a huge boost for his business. We talk about him growing multiple audiences between different YouTube channels (he and his wife, April, have well over a million combined followers on YouTube). My favorite part of the epi...
Apr 25, 2022•1 hr 11 min•Ep. 68
In this episode I’m joined by Kaya Yurieff. She is the Creator Economy Newsletter writer for The Information . It’s the publication I read when I want to know what’s going on in startups and funding, learn about Spotify’s latest launch, find out what’s going on with Instagram, and things like that. Kaya has a great approach. I love her writing. I love the way she profiles both individual creators and the moves happening from big businesses in the creator space. We talk about her writing process ...
Apr 04, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 67
In this episode I talk to Wes Kao, co-founder of altMBA. Her latest startup is called Maven, and it's all about cohort-based courses. Wes is fantastic at course design. Before Maven, she did a bunch of amazing things working with a lot of different creators. We talk about the State Change Method, which is something I use to make my presentations much more interesting. We talk about building an audience on Twitter. We also talk about course design, cohort-based courses, and a lot of other fun thi...
Mar 28, 2022•59 min•Ep. 66
On today’s show I’m talking with Brennan Dunn. Brennan is a longtime friend. He's been around since the very early days of ConvertKit. He helped me review pull requests from our very first developers. These days Brennan is an expert in all things email marketing and automation. He’s fantastic at segmenting lists, personalizing content, using Liquid, and other advanced techniques to create a custom experience for subscribers. We talk about some of the ways you can gradually get into automation. W...
Mar 21, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 65
In this episode I talk to Sahil Bloom. This is Sahil’s second time on the show. He’s doubled his audience from an already large number since then, and he’s now a full-time creator. Sahil is someone I’d love to have on the show every six months or every year. He’s putting out incredible content. I’ve probably learned more from Sahil in the last few months than I have from any other person. We talk about Twitter growth, monetization, growing a podcast, and newsletters. I also try to sell him on sw...
Mar 14, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 64
On today’s show I talk to Isa Adney, a resident storyteller at ConvertKit. Isa came to ConvertKit as our webinar producer. You get to hear the arc of what she was doing before, how she joined the team, and how it morphed into her current role. Isa is very good at systems. She shares how she uses systems to free up time for creative activities. We also talk about reusing content, and how to create systems and flywheels to make one piece of content work across many platforms. In this episode, you’...
Mar 07, 2022•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 63
In this episode, I talk to Ellen Hyslop, Co-Founder of The Gist. The Gist is a newsletter all about sports, written entirely by women. Ellen and her co-founders have scaled a massive team to 20 people. They’ve grown The Gist to almost 400,000 subscribers, and they’re earning fantastic revenue from it. Ellen talks about how they grew The Gist in the early days. She also talks about their process of testing, how they launched with a launch party, and a bunch of other things. In this episode, you’l...
Feb 28, 2022•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 62
In this episode I talk to Rachel Rodgers. Rachel is an attorney turned business coach. She’s someone I’ve admired and respected for a long time. She helps small business owners understand contracts and the legal side of running a business, and helps them scale their business. Rachel is a lot of fun, and she’s brilliant at business. She’s my hero because of the way that she approaches scaling a massive and successful business, and how she thinks about brand and everything else. On today’s show we...
Feb 21, 2022•1 hr 4 min•Ep. 61
In this episode I talk to Reid DeRamus. He comes from the video streaming world of Hulu, HBO Max, and Crunchy Roll. His background in data analysis helped these companies grow their streaming services. Now he’s taking what he learned into the creator space to help people with their paid newsletters and courses, bringing these growth habits and growth techniques into their solo or small team creator businesses. We spend this episode riffing on business models, and the analytics that you should pa...
Feb 14, 2022•1 hr 12 min•Ep. 60
In this episode, I talked to Samir Chaudry. Samir is the co-host of the popular YouTube channel, Colin and Samir . He and his business partner, Colin Rosenblum, have built a really interesting enterprise. It’s been fun getting to know them. We talk about how they built and structure their entire business, and what drives revenue. Then we get into storytelling, and at the end we even talk about designing the perfect day, what’s driving growth on YouTube, and much more. They’ve got a show, they’ve...
Feb 07, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 59
Andrew Gazdecki is the founder and CEO of MicroAcquire, the world’s most founder-friendly startup acquisition marketplace. MicroAcquire helps entrepreneurs buy and sell startups. After founding and later selling two successful startups, Andrew decided there needed to be a better way to connect buyers and sellers in the startup marketplace. He founded MicroAcquire to fill this void in the startup acquisition arena. In this episode, Andrew shares how he grew his Twitter audience from 30,000 to 70,...
Jan 10, 2022•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 58
Sherrell Dorsey is the founder and CEO of The Plug, a publication and community for news, insights and analysis on trends in Black innovation. The Plug features stories that show the substantive ways Black people engage with the innovation economy, including analyses of modern technologies. On today’s show, Sherrell shares about building an audience and growing The Plug. We talk about sponsorships, The Plug’s revenue model, and her background in journalism and how she brings that into her curren...
Dec 13, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 57
Matthew Kepnes runs the popular travel blog, Nomadic Matt, and also writes a successful newsletter. In fact, Matt’s newsletter is one of the biggest I’ve had on the show. His book, How to Travel the World on $50 , is a New York Times Best Seller. After a 2005 trip to Thailand, Matt decided to leave his job, finish his MBA, and travel the world. Since then, he’s been to nearly 100 countries, and hasn’t looked back. Besides being a New York Times best-selling author, Matt’s writings have been feat...
Nov 15, 2021•1 hr 5 min•Ep. 56
Andrew Warner has been part of the internet startup scene since 1997. Andrew and his brother built a $30 million per year online business, which they later sold. After taking an extended vacation and doing some traveling, Andrew started Mixergy. Mixergy helps ambitious upstarts learn from some of the most successful people in business. Andrew and I talk about his new book, Stop Asking Questions . It’s a great read on leading dynamic interviews, and learning anything from anyone. We also talk abo...
Nov 08, 2021•1 hr 8 min•Ep. 55
Nick deWilde is a Product Marketing Principal at Guild Education. Guild is a fast-growing startup that partners with Fortune 500 employers. Guild unlocks opportunities for America’s workforce via education and upskilling. Nick also runs his newsletter, The Jungle Gym. The Jungle Gym helps readers build a more fulfilling career that integrates work and life. Before working at Guild, Nick earned his MBA from Stanford Business School, and was a Managing Partner at Tradecraft. Nick and I talk about ...
Nov 01, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Ep. 54
Kimberly Brooks is a contemporary American artist and author. Kimberly integrates landscape, figuration and abstraction to address subjects of history, memory and identity. Her work has been exhibited and featured internationality. Kimberly received her bachelor’s degree in literature from U.C. Berkeley, and was Valedictorian. She has taught art as a lecturer and adjunct faculty instructor, and was a featured speaker at TEDx Fullerton. In this episode, I talk with Kimberly about her work as an a...
Oct 25, 2021•1 hr 7 min•Ep. 53
My guest on this episode is music industry veteran, Jay Gilbert. Jay wears a lot of hats. He’s a musician, photographer, marketer, speaker, and music executive. Jay has worked as a creative consultant to many record companies and artists. He hosts The Music Biz Weekly Podcast , is a Co-founder of Label Logic, and runs the weekly music newsletter Your Morning Coffee . Label Logic helps artists, managers, and labels grow their audience and optimize their presence across all platforms. Jay’s newsle...
Oct 18, 2021•1 hr•Ep. 52
Sean McCabe is the founder and CEO of seanwes media, and Daily Content Machine. Sean is a prolific and successful creator, author, and influencer. His course, Learn Lettering , made $80,000 in the first 24 hours. For nearly a decade his podcast, blog, and courses have helped creators grow their brands, content, and skill sets. Sean’s website is a treasure trove of courses and resources for anyone looking for business knowledge and creative support. Sean’s book, Overlap , shows creators how to tu...
Oct 11, 2021•1 hr 9 min•Ep. 51
Dave Pell has been writing online for almost as long as the internet has existed. His popular newsletter, NextDraft, has over 140,000 subscribers. NextDraft covers the day’s ten most fascinating news stories, delivered with a fast and pithy wit. Dave has been a syndicated writer on NPR, Gizmodo, Forbes, and Huffington Post. He earned his bachelor’s degree in English from U.C. Berkeley, and his master’s in education from Harvard. Besides being a prolific writer, Dave is also the Managing Partner ...
Oct 04, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Ep. 50
Jessica DeFino is a freelance beauty journalist living in Los Angeles, California. For the past seven years Jessica has been writing, researching, editing, and publishing about the beauty and wellness industry. Her work has appeared in Vogue, The Cut, Fashionista.com, Cosmopolitan, Marie Claire, Business Insider, SELF, HelloGiggles, Harper's Bazaar, and more. Before starting her career as a freelance journalist, Jessica worked as a beauty writer for The Zoe Report. She was Director of Communicat...
Sep 27, 2021•56 min•Ep. 49
