Early Work
When I share, I learn - Austin Kleon
On sharing what you have learned and learning in return.
Curators Are the New Creators
The Business Model of Good Taste
Perfectionism (has nothing to do with perfect).
Because perfect is impossible and perfectionism is about hiding.
Pursue Mastery, Not Status - More To That
Refine your intuition, and trust your judgment.
More popular (and cheap, too)
Why Quantity Should be Your Priority
The Key to Higher Quality is Higher Quantity
The Ultimate Guide to Building Audience-first – Part 1
Build your ideas with the experience of 100+ founders – condensed into 5 min reports.
Creativity is an act of leadership
(not management)
Stages of the Builder’s Journey — a Blueprint for Aspiring Creators
Dear Everybody, I channel successful creators in my personal life and at Gumroad. Here’s what I’ve learned from them in the past six months, in their own words. Don’t wait until you have a big following (i.e. start now)… “I had fewer than 300 followers when I started”
Buzzer management
Beer Mode and Coffee Mode - David Perell
Creatives have two ways of working: beer mode and coffee mode. Beer mode is a state of unfocused play where you discover new ideas. In contrast, coffee mode is a state of focus where you work towards a specific outcome.
Creator Hierarchy of Needs
Creators have a hierarchy of needs as they grow. Understanding these needs helps you build products that creators love so let's explore each need in detail.
“Jootsing”: The Key to Creativity
Creativity can seem like a mysterious process. But many of the most creative people understand that you can actually break it down into a simple formula, involving what researcher Douglas Hofstadter calls “jootsing.” Here’s how understanding systems can help us think more creatively.
Good taste is a skill
Try to find a definition of ‘good taste’ and you’ll likely fail. It seems to be something we’re supposed to innately understand. But given…
CJ Chilvers: It’s Time to Get Personal
The personal website seems to making a comeback. Why? When social networks fail, we return to the hub: the place you own, the place where you control the experience. It's where you're indexed for life, if you're lucky. It's where you're background checked by employers, neighbors, new friends, and
David Epstein’s Range - Austin Kleon
A look back at the instant classic about why generalists triumph in a specialized world.
The Definition of a Creator
As it became the way to define a whole new generation of internet explorers, I asked myself that question and came up with a definition.
Be Yourself, Not a Niche - Nat Eliason
Try to be a legitimately interesting person with all the varied things you find fascinating, and don't worry if it takes longer than the growth you see from others.
How I leveraged 5 principles from Build Once, Sell Twice to produce a #1 Amazon Bestseller
Owned Community Matrix for Creators
The go-to owned community platform for creators will play a major role in the creator economy. To understand why let's explore the owned community matrix.
Seek Buyers, not Followers - Nat Eliason
Newcomers to social media and influencer marketing naively assume that if they can build a big following, those followers will buy from them. But that's not always the case.
How I put together my weekly newsletter - Austin Kleon
My process for putting together my weekly newsletter week after week...
Best Story Wins
A truth that applies to many fields, which can frustrate some as much as it energizes others, is that the person who tells the most compelling story wins. Not who has the best idea, or the right answer. Just whoever tells a story that catches people’s attention and gets them to nod their heads. C. R. Hallpike is a respected anthropologist who once wrote a review of a young author’s recent book on the history of humans. It states: It would be fair to say that whenever his facts are broadly correct they are not new, and whenever he tries to strike out on his own he often gets things wrong, so...
#96 You Don't Have To Start At The Beginning
I’ve spent a good few lockdown evenings recently in the company of a four-part documentary: 10 Years with Miyazaki. It’s a surprisingly low-fi and intimate encounter with the legendary Japanese director Hayao Miyazaki, produced by national broadcaster NHK.
Micro-Interview: Josh Spector, Founder — VeryGoodCopy - Copywriting & Content Marketing
Josh Spector shares his most valuable career move, how to speed up your audience growth, when it’s time to stop what you’re doing and move on, and more...
The Creator Lifecycle: How can you turn your audience into an empire?
How are successful creators transforming audiences into empires? To better understand the process, here’s the framework I use: The Creator Lifecycle.
Why You Should Practice Failure
We learn valuable lessons when we experience failure and setbacks. Most of us wait for those failures to happen to us, however, instead of seeking them out. But deliberately making mistakes can give us the knowledge we need to more easily overcome obstacles in the future.