Building a Creator Mindset!

“Don’t find customers for your products. Find products for your customers.” – Seth Godin

If you’ve ever felt like you’re hustling hard on Instagram or LinkedIn but seeing no real money in the bank, you’re not alone.

This is one of the biggest traps new creators fall into.

They focus 100% on growing an audience. They tell themselves, “Once I hit 10,000 followers, things will take off.”

But here’s the hard truth:

An audience is not a business.

And when you confuse the two, burnout is just around the corner.

Why Most Creators Quit (And Why You Might Too)

I remember pouring hours into my blog, obsessing over how to get more impressions.

In my mind, if I could just grow my impressions, brands would start reaching out with sponsored ads and the money would roll in.

And for a while, it seemed like it might work.

The impressions climbed. A few ad deals trickled in. But the income wasn’t consistent.

The CPM-based ads that did come through paid next to nothing.

That’s when it hit me: unless I had a product or service of my own—or at least a concrete monetization strategy—I’d never be able to build consistent income.

And that’s exactly what most creators are facing today.

The only difference? The channels have changed.

Now it’s happening on Instagram, LinkedIn, and every other social platform.

The Audience-First Trap

Let’s be honest.

It’s easy to get caught up in vanity metrics.

When you see a follower count tick upward, it feels like progress.

But those numbers mean very little if you haven’t built in a way to monetize them.

I’ve seen creators with 100,000 followers struggling to pay their bills.

And I’ve seen creators with just 1,000 followers make a full-time income.

The difference?

The ones who succeed build a business around their content, not just an audience.

Creator Monetization – Start With a Business Model (Not the Audience)

Here’s what I wish someone had told me when I was starting out:

Your content should support your business model, not the other way around.

When you start with a clear monetization strategy, your content has purpose.

You’re not just posting to “grow.”

You’re posting to build trust and move people towards offers that solve their problems.

Two Proven Models for Creators

You don’t need a complicated business plan.

In fact, some of the simplest online business models are also the most effective.

Here are two you can start with even if you’re just getting started:

Affiliate Marketing

Affiliate marketing allows you to recommend products or services you already use and earn a commission when someone buys through your link.

Why this works for creators:

• You don’t need to create your own product.
• You can monetize a small audience because you’re helping them with specific solutions.
• It scales as your audience grows.

Example: If you’re a productivity creator, you could recommend tools like Notion or online courses you’ve taken. Each recommendation can generate passive income.

A good read on this: Superfans by Pat Flynn. It’s about how to build a loyal audience that trusts your recommendations.

Digital Products

Digital products are low-cost to create and can bring in consistent income.

I’m not talking about massive online courses with 50 videos.

I’m talking about simple micro-products:

• A $19 guide or workbook
• A $29 mini-course
• A $49 template pack

Creators are making $10,000+ per month with just a few of these products.

Why?

Because they solve specific, painful problems in a short amount of time.

A book I’d recommend on this: The Lean Startup by Eric Ries. It’s all about launching small, learning fast, and iterating.

You Don’t Need 10,000 Followers

The biggest mindset shift you need?

You don’t need a huge audience to monetize.

A few hundred highly engaged followers who trust you is enough.

Let’s break this down:

If you had 300 people buy a $30 product, that’s $9,000.

You could create that product in a weekend.

This is why the most successful creators don’t chase followers.

They chase value and business models.

What This Means for You

If you’re just starting out, take a step back.

Ask yourself:

• What problem can I help my audience solve?
• Can I create a simple product or recommend a tool that solves it?
• How can my content lead people toward that solution?

When you answer these questions, every post you create becomes strategic.

You’ll know why you’re showing up.

You’ll know what you’re working towards.

And you’ll start to see your content efforts translate into income.

The Path Forward

I wish I could tell you that audience growth alone will pay your bills.

But the truth is, it won’t.

You need a business model that works even with a small audience.

That’s how you avoid burnout.

That’s how you build a business you actually enjoy running.

And that’s how you turn your side hustle into a full-time income.

A great book to dive deeper into this mindset: $100M Offers by Alex Hormozi. It’ll teach you how to create irresistible offers your audience can’t say no to.

My Challenge to You

This week, I want you to do one thing:

Write down one way you can monetize your audience within the next 30 days.

Keep it simple.

Maybe it’s launching a $19 PDF guide.

Maybe it’s recommending a tool you already love as an affiliate.

Then, create content that helps your audience see why they need it.

Because the sooner you build a business around your content, the sooner you’ll see your effort pay off.

“If you don’t know how you’ll make money, you don’t have a business—you have a hobby.” – Chris Guillebeau

It’s time to stop treating your content like a hobby.

Build the business first.

The audience will follow.

Recommended Newsletters

Here are few newsletters that I would recommend that you sign up to if you are interested in learning the art of running a side-hustle:

• Write, Build, Scale
• Why we buy
• The Book Bub
• The Stacked Marketer
• The Growth Bulletin
• Unconventional Productivity for Online Business Owners
• Side Hustle Weekly
• The Affiliate Guy
• I will teach you to be rich
• How Brands win
• For the Interested
• Send and Grow

Sign up to these and follow them. You will get a lot of information and content for your blog posts, podcasts and even social media posts.

I will share more such ideas in my future newsletters.

I put in about 18 hours every month to create this newsletter, starting from researching to writing and editing it.

So, If you enjoyed reading this Newsletter, I would sincerely appreciate it if you could recommend it to others. You can send them to https://thegrowthcreator.com to subscribe to it for FREE!

What am I reading?

I absolutely love books and I read a lot.

In fact, I don’t just read a lot, but I also take notes on every book that I read.

I have pages and pages of information in my Notion Second Brain, so that I can find them and use them when ever I need.

I have added some of the newest books that I have been reading, to the Amazon store, so you might want to check it out.

Want to know more about the books I read. You can check it out here!

That’s it for this week!

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