Entrepreneurship lesson from the first thousand dollars I made on Substack
I have 164 email newsletter subscribers on Substack, NOT 164 paying subscribers BUT 164 TOTAL subscribers. Not a very impressive number, right?
YET, my gross annualized revenue on Substack is over $1000.
Enough to pay my yearly website hosting bill.
Enough for me to drink every day THE BEST coffee I can find in my country.
Enough for me to take my wife out for well-deserved succulent dinners at swanky restaurants a few times a year.
Enough for me to make a few investments back into Limitless Mindset; tools, training, and tech that will make me better at doing what I do.
$1000 is a somewhat impressive number considering that all my content is free on LimitlessMindset.com. That’s money people are paying me simply because they get so much value out of my content and want to reciprocate. And $1000 in subscription revenue — passive income (sort of, if I quit publishing great articles I’d probably start to lose paid subscribers) — from 164 newsletter subscribers is HUGELY motivating because I know each new subscriber I gain is worth about $7. At this rate, financial security and freedom are on the horizon for my family, even in uncertain times!
As an internet entrepreneur/”influencer” you’re looked down on if you have less than 10,000 followers. In fact, once upon a time, I proposed a micro-collaboration with one of the bigger Biohacking influencers and his assistant told me that he wouldn’t even consider a 30-second contribution to my 500th podcast episode because I ONLY have (legitimate) 12,000 social media followers, their minimum for collaboration consideration was 100,000. I argued that the number of social media followers is not the most meaningful metric and the one that many influencers are faking, and they did not respond.
There’s a real white pill (an encouraging truth) for entrepreneurs here. DO NOT chase the vanity metric of followers or subscribers, you’ll always feel like a loser next to bigger influencers (who are probably buying bot followers). Instead, offer three things for sale: a low-priced option, a mid-priced option, and a premium option. If people are buying, keep creating. Subscription payment notifications and money in the bank are MUCH more satisfying than follower count!
