Building a community for creators to build and grow their community & business
A community for creators in the mental-wellbeing space
In this blogpost, I’m sharing my “why” for building a community to help creators in the mental-wellbeing space find their 100 true fans. “Creators in the mental-wellbeing space” is very broad and I chose to keep it this way. The community will be for anybody who can identify as such. However, in this post I will primarily relate to the example of yoga & meditation instructors.
The community will be especially suitable for people that just start with building and growing their communities and business; people that want to take their leap of faith in making a living doing what they love, i.e. helping others live a more meaningful and healthier life, both mentally and physically.
Making it easier for creators to build sustainable incomes
It should be easier for creators in the mental-wellbeing space to make a living doing what they love. Li Jin brought an interesting perspectives with her blog post on 100 true fans. The idea of 100 true friends holds that in order for creators to earn 100k$ per year, they need to find those 100 fans that are willing to pay them 1000$ per year (or 80$ per month).
This model is really helpful to help creators in the space set specific and achievable goals for generating a sustainable income. In order to apply this model to creators in my home country, Germany, consider this: the average income in Germany is approximately 45k€ per year. This means for creators to generate an average income, they would “only” need to find 100 true fans that are willing to pay them 450€ per year.
For creators to achieve this, they need to provide their true fans a more “premium” service than they usually receive. For example, a yoga instructor could build closer relationships to her true fans by offering regular 1on1 calls to check on the students progress, adjust her practice according to the students needs, organize exclusive retreats for true fans, and provide access to exclusive newsletters & communities.
Community is more important than audience
Creators, especially creators in the mental-wellbeing space, should think of their followers as a community rather than an audience. Audience has the notion of one-way communication: the creator puts out content, the audience consumes.
However, in a community, real human relationships between creator-follower and follower-follower can form. This provides more opportunities for human touch-points, which I believe is crucial for mental-wellbeing creators to find their 100 true fans. They are more likely to find these fans in a small but really engaged community than in a huge YouTube-following where they never talk to their followers.
Furthermore, I think that in order to get the most out of our meditation & yoga practice, close guidance is key. That’s where I see a huge potential for creators with a small and growing following: to leverage the advantage of small communities in order to provide personalized guidance and build close relationships with their fans.
With the growing epidemic of mental and physical illness around the globe, I think we need an army of instructors capable of helping all these people in need. With the community I’m building, I want to help them do that.
Why do we need a community for creators?
I envision this community to be a space where creators can support each other, find accountability buddies, share experiences of what works/doesn’t work for them, build a network, and share valuable, curated resources. Besides this, I’m planning to invite guest speakers to talk about relevant topics.
I’m happy to bring whatever I can to the table: for the past 4–5 years I’ve been building communities in this space, hosting and organizing events, working closely with and learning from highly experienced people in this space. I’ve been observing and working with creators that are successful at building a loyal fanbase by bringing about positive change to thousands of students around the globe. Further, I know how difficult it can be to put yourself out there when starting out in this space. I am aware of the common mistakes I and others made and I’m more than happy to share what I learned from them.