Creator Case Studies - creatorboom

Alex Llull: The Steal Club Creator Case Study

Please tell us about your business.

I like to split my business into two sections: there’s the “service Alex” and then there’s the “creator Alex”.

The service Alex runs a content creation and repurposing agency that works with very recognizable names in the creator economy industry. We basically help them turn their huge content backlogs into social media content. I also provide 1:1 consulting.

The creator Alex runs The Steal Club, a newsletter where we learn how the best creators use content to grow their audience and businesses. And how you can do the same by stealing their tactics and strategies. I also sell digital products as part of The Steal Club ecosystem.

How do you make money?

The “service” side of the business generates around 75% of my current income. The “creator” side of the business generates the rest. The goal for this year is to balance these and end up in a 50-50 split.

What works on the service side (from more income to less):

Content repurposing productized service
DFY content strategy
1:1 clarity calls

What works on the creator side (from more income to less):

Newsletter sponsorships
Digital products (I’m rebuilding the ecosystem as I type this)
Affiliate deals (via the newsletter)
Upscribe

What works to grow your audience?

This is where my traffic comes from (from more to less):

Twitter
Crosspromotions with other creators
Upscribe (surprising)
Other social media channels

Things I’ll try in the next 3-6 months:

Articles for SEO
A Product Hunt launch
Paid advertising (other newsletters mostly, but also FB ads)

What has been your most popular content?

Have you had any major inflection points on your creator journey?

Growth has been pretty linear, no real huge spikes. I can identify a few points where it was higher than normal though:

What were you doing before you started this?

My background is in advertising. I was working as an account manager for several ad agencies for 5 years.

During that time I worked with many creators for our campaigns, so I got a glimpse of how the creator business looked like on the inside. It also taught me the right way to deal with clients, which is something that I still apply today for the service side of the business.

How did you get started?

I didn’t “choose” to get started but was forced into it. When Covid struck, my entire regional office where I was woking got shut down. Over 60+ people got fired.

I didn’t know what to do next so I decided to finally make the switch and go from consumer to producer. I started tweeting what I learned during those 5 years on Twitter. That slowly built an audience.

But when I really started getting traction on social media was when I incorporated the “stealing” element. I think it’s what help me set myself apart from all the other creators who were talking about the same topics as me.

How much content do you produce each week or month?

Per week:

1-2 newsletter issues,
1-2 Twitter threads and around 8-10 tweets. Those later get repurposed for LinkedIn and Instagram.

How many hours per week do you spend on the business now?

Creating content: 3-4 hours a week (mostly on Mondays). Then about 30 min to 1h a day on Twitter and very little time on other social platforms

Operations: 1 hour per day (responding to emails, reaching out to partners, invoicing, etc)

Do you have any employees or assistants?

Not right now!

What are the key apps, software, or tools you use in your business?

For content creation:

Tweet Hunter
Brandbird
Figma
Grammarly
Canva

Email:

ConvertKit
Feedletter
Sparkloop

Other:

Notion
Tally

Website:

Super.so
carrd

If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?

Niche down what you do and who you do it for. Try to find your “Red Pill”.
Brand yourself. Try to find your unique edge. What makes you different? For me, that was the “stealing” bit.
Focus on one social channel, and one only. Then funnel everyone into your email list
Choose 2-3 core content pillars and only write about that. You want to get known for 1-2 very specific things. You are building a pro creator brand, not a personal account.
Pay to skip the line (if it’s possible). I’ve seen major improvements on my business when I stopped trying to figure it out and turned to experts for advice. This can be in the form of courses, other learning resources, or coaching.
Don’t be afraid of promoting yourself. No one else will (early on).

Daren Smith of Craftsman Creative Creator Case Study

Creator Case Studies

Please tell us about your business.

I’ve got three businesses… (yikes!) I run CraftsmanCreative.co that aims to help creators build bespoke creative businesses that support their work full-time. We have content, community, courses, coaching, and business consulting to help at any stage of the journey.

I also have an online course business and work as a film producer.

How do you make money?

I have two high-ticket offers. The “Craftsman System” is a done-for-you service that costs $15,000, where we come into your business and build out the systems for you. Then I have the Membership System that costs $5k per month or 10% of revenue, whichever is greater. This is a done-for-you paid podcast subscription that we run for your business, aimed at well-known authors, podcasters, and thought leaders. These are ~75% of my revenue.

The next tier down is the “done with you” offers of coaching and events/challenges/courses. These range from $200 for the challenge and courses up to $1,000/month for coaching. These account for another 20-25% of revenue.

Lastly are books and merch which are all in the $20 range and represent a very small percentage of my business.

What works to grow your audience?

I’m spending $1,000/month on Sparkloop referrals, that’s been the biggest growth channel at around 900 subs per month. The rest are organic referrals from other Sparkloop products like Upscribe, people learning of my newsletter & business from social media, and direct outreach for my high-ticket clients.

My website currently gets ~1,500 visitors per month.

What has been your most popular content?

Have you had any major inflection points on your creator journey?

The early days benefited a ton from shoutouts in newsletters by Arvid Kahl, Justin Moore, and Josh Spector, who I now consider all friends. Since then it’s been pretty slow and steady growth for my audience.

One nice boost came from doing the 10k Creator show with Joe Pulizzi in fall of 2022. That gave me exposure to his audience as the show was on his existing Content, Inc. feed. It didn’t directly lead to much revenue growth, but lots more awareness.

The big revenue growth came from the lessons I took away from that podcast, specifically conversations with Jay Clouse and Brian Clark. I added the new high-ticket offers and 10x’d my revenue in two months.

What were you doing before you started this?

I started in music and sound, then transitioned to film around 2007. I had a post-production sound business for a few years before starting a video production company that I ran until 2017, and then left that to become a TV and film producer. I started Craftsman Creative in 2020. So I’ve been a creator for my entire adult life 🙂

Why did you start Craftsman Creative and what did you do when you were starting out?

I started Craftsman Creative to help artists and creators build more resilient businesses. It was right at the beginning of the pandemic (March 2020) when I launched, and so there was quickly a huge need for guidance and stability in their lives. I saw a huge opportunity to serve and contribute. Those are things that drive me as a creator, so it was a perfect fit.

When I started it was just an online course business. I partnered with other creators who had big audiences, and I provided the technical side while they provided the marketing. It worked well and we crossed $100k in sales within 2 years. Partnering was a huge asset early on.

I applied that same principle in 2022 when I partnered with Joe Pulizzi from The Tilt on the 10k Creator Podcast. We put the new show on his existing feed, so we started with 2-3000 listeners per episode from the start.

How long did it take you to start making a liveable income from Craftsman Creative?

The course business shot up pretty quickly. In the second month, we did $11,000 in sales from one course launch, so the partnership strategy helped a ton getting leads and sales into a new business.

When I turned Craftsman Creative into my “personal brand” with the book announcement in August of 2021, my personal revenue from the business was around $1,000 per month, and only grew to about $1,500 per month in 2022. I was also working as a film producer and had about 6 months where I was doing that full-time and spending no time on Craftsman Creative.

But about 15 months in (from that August 2021 kickoff) I added some new high-ticket offers and landed some clients rather quickly, so the business shot up to $15k/month in December 2022. So for me, it was about 16 months of part-time effort. Most creators could benefit from employing that high-ticket offer much sooner, and getting to profitability and sustainable revenue much quicker than if they start with a low ticket, $20-200 offer that requires a lot more volume to reach, say, $10k/month in revenue.

How much content do you produce each week or month?

It’s a lot!

Twitter – daily posts

LinkedIn – daily posts

Newsletter/Blog – one per week on Mondays

Podcast – one per week on Friday

How many hours per week do you spend on the business now?

It generally ranges between 30-40 hours per week. I generally work 9-3 every weekday.

Do you have any employees or assistants?

Not currently.

What are the key apps, software, or tools you use in your business?

I use ConvertKit every day, as well as Ghost (blog), Typefully (Twitter), ScoreApp (leads), PersistIQ.com (leads), Streak (leads), Basecamp (project management), Tana (second brain), Hey (email), Publer (LinkedIn), Circle (Membership Community)

If you were starting over today, what would you do differently?

I would focus on one core offer ($500-2,500 range) and one channel until that was doing at least $10k/month in revenue. Then I would systematize that so I could keep the same revenue with <10 hours per week. Then I’d either add another offer ($5,000-25,000 range) and get a channel working there to 5-10x the revenue while systematizing the business further. That would lead to a $50-100k/month business in about a year. From there you can kind of do whatever you want – write a book, grow an audience, expand the team, etc.

I started by trying to be everywhere at once, build an audience, created low-price offers like a book, and grew from there. It takes longer that way. Start with businesses then expand to your individual audience members and you can get revenue much faster.