Tiago Forte is the creator of Building a Second Brain. The 5-week cohort-based course now gets more than 1000 customers for each session starting at $1500.

Tiago shares the progress from the first version of the course in 2017, to now selling millions of each cohort.

He has recently finished his book on Building a Second Brain.

Big Ideas: Building a Second Brain is a great example of the power of focusing on one big idea to own that niche. Tiago has become the top expert on digital note-taking for creators.

Tiago went from 5500 subscribers to 40,000 in 2 years by implementing basic tactics like publishing a weekly newsletter, creating lead magnets, and having signup forms on all posts. Sometimes the secret is just to persist with the basics.

“Alexis Grant walks us through how she launched They Got Acquired.”

“So by the time she launched They Got Acquired earlier this year, she had already spent months laying the groundwork. This involved everything from hiring writers to designing a website to even building a pre-launch newsletter list. In an interview, she walked me through how she went about this process and what new lessons she learned along the way.”

Big Idea: Creators need to become more like startups if they are to be successful. It’s no longer enough to publish content part-time. The best creators build a team and invest money to launch their businesses.

Related Link: Infographic summary of Joe Pulizzi’s contrast between “content entrepreneurs” and creators.

“Most people who struggle to launch and grow a newsletter have the same core problem:

The newsletter’s concept or format is flawed.”

Josh Spector shows us exactly how he helps a creator narrow his niche and find the right messaging.

“Since 2012, Kristin has been growing her blog, Be My Travel Muse, and today it’s one of the top women’s travel blogs in the world. She’s been featured everywhere from Vogue and Marie Claire to Inc. and Business Insider and more. She’s also been to more than 60 countries around the world.

On a slow month, her blog brings in around $15k, but on a good month, she earns up to $50k.”

Another great example of the opportunities with niche websites.

Rob Hardy wrote a lengthy manifesto on the tradeoffs creators make between publishing low-quality content that gets shares and makes money versus creating meaningful content we are proud of.

“In the summer of 2014, I found myself grappling with an unshakeable sense of boredom. After writing “7 unexpected lighting hacks to make your videos more cinematic” or “This new 6K camera will revolutionize cinematography” for the six hundredth time, I felt an intuitive desire to write things that were a bit more thoughtful and interesting. I wanted to go deeper into the craft of cinematography, and into the psychology of creativity. So I tried a few times. But the lesson I learned, again and again, was that thoughtful, long-form content rarely drives traffic as well as lazily-aggregated clickbait.”

Big Idea: Even though low-quality content often gets better results, creators still need to invest time in creating more meaningful content.

“That means tossing aside the formulas and Best Practices, and striving to produce creative work no one else but you could. It means choosing to play long, infinite games with your marketing and business. It means making friends and building positive-sum relationships. It means trusting your intuition, telling the truth, and trusting others. It means walking your own path, even when it’s uncomfortable or unpopular. But most of all, it means doing whatever it takes to nourish that inner voice, and keep your creative spark alive.”

“How do you go from 1,000 subscribers to 10,000 subscribers? In this post, we show you how to get more newsletter subscribers with Facebook.”

“Creators often struggle to capture the value they create on social media platforms and beyond. Social tokens may change that equation and offer other advantages.”

“I have directly worked on videos with over 2,000,000,000 views on YouTube…Steal my 7-step process for viral ideas” – Paddy Galloway

via @creatorbread

Jeremy Enns publishes the Creative Wayfinding newsletter, where every week he shares a lesson on finding your way to your creative potential along with five of his favorite links of the week. It’s a great resource to help you take the next step when you don’t quite know where you’re going, which, let’s be honest, is most of the time when you’re building a creative business. Jeremy is also the creator behind Podcast Marketing Academy and the Scrappy Podcasting newsletter.

Here is a selection of the best links I’ve found this week to level up your creator skills.

17 tips to make your landing page convert – carbonated

How to leverage TikTok and Instagram Reels to grow your email list -convertkit

24 Social Media CTAs That Will Boost Traffic, Engagement & Sales – alexcattoni via @fortheinterested

7 Blog Title Formulas That Get Clicks – ahrefs

The challenges of podcasting – marketingschool

Rank in search by niching down to narrow topic clusters – tedfrench