In this week's Loaf we're going to cover:
• Fourthwall, a company helping creators build brand, audience, and income, officially launches
• How much a developer earns on YouTube
• Writing Resources That Helped Alice Lemée Go From $1k/mo to $6k/mo as a Freelancer
• How to Gift an NFT for Christmas
Founded in 2019 by Walker Williams & Will Baumann, Fourthwall is a platform that lets creators easily build a website for their business, display all their content from different platforms in one place, design & sell products and merch, accept donations, manage community memberships, and more.
If you're familiar with the company & website platform, Ghost, it's fairly similar but with a priority on being the all-in-one business & community management platform for creators specifically.
Being a solo creator is hard, the founders recognized this, and are aiming to solve as many business and logistics problems that come with running a creator business.
They recently raised $17 million, led by Seven Seven Six, Lightspeed Venture Partners, and Initialized Capital.
“The creator economy finally went mainstream, but the software to professionalize it is still being built. Fourthwall solves the complex logistics of building a brand for the biggest creators.”
-Alexis Ohanian, founder of Reddit and VC-firm Seven Seven Six
Now, there are tools that already exist that allow you to do all of these things.
But the key solution that Fourthwall brings to the table is consolidation.
Rather than running memberships on one website, selling merch on Shopify, fulfilling the orders, and updating a squarespace site with your content, Fourthwall recognized the limited amount of time creators have in their day-to-day and built a solution to get that time back so you can spend more time creating and building community.
And while other platforms don't always offer full ownership of your customer's data, Fourthwall does - you own 100% ownership of the data collected and your brand.
In their product research and development, they found that the top creators have very diverse revenue streams.
Ad revenue, products, affiliate links, community subscriptions, merch, brand deals - the list could go on and on. Again, the consolidation of managing most of these services into one platform can save valuable amounts of time.
With their own merch & design store built inside of the platform, Fourthwall lets creators sell products they're proud of. Don't put up with drag and drop design sites with low-quality products.
They offer many different basic products ranging from shirts to hoodies to fanny packs - but they can also help launch beauty lines, plush toys, and collectibles.
People don't buy products from their favorite creator for the same reasons they buy products from retail stores.
When someone buys something from a creator it's an act of support.
And the higher the quality of products and overall experience, the more likely they are to purchase something in the future.
To help with this, my favorite aspect of Fourthwall is that when buying something, fans can leave a note on the purchase order so the creator can see the supportive message - and then creators can reply with a video thank you message.
In an interview with Garry Tan, the founders of Fourthwall said that so far, the average person that receives a video message from the creator watches it more than 12 times.
This is a huge opportunity to build community and establish your base of true fans.
Advice from the founders on building a business - as told in an interview with Garry Tan:
1. You'll never feel "ready" to start a business - you just have to do it, work hard, and continue learning every day
2. Focus on your strengths - double down on what you're great at and hire for roles you aren't
Learn more about Fourthwall's product and mission
Creatorbread and The Loaf have no affiliation with Fourthwall or any mentioned companies
Dorian began making videos on YouTube in January 2020 .
He became eligible for YouTube ad revenue in November 2020 and on his first day of monetization he earned just 2 cents 😳
His channel mostly consists of coding content for developers, but he's recently started creating more lifestyle/business videos as well.
This revenue breakdown does not include brand deals or affiliate revenue - which I assume is much larger than his ad revenue because he has a niche channel so the people watching are more likely to click his affiliate links - and a niche usually provides the luxury of getting higher-paying brand deals.
Subscribers: 25,000
Timeframe: 365 days
Views: 1,500,000
Highest Earning Day: $86.99 (Jan. 16)
Total 365 Day Ad Revenue: $8,537.22
He breaks down individual video strategies and more details in the full video - watch here
Learning to write better can change your life.
This thread from Sahil Bloom breaks down the 4 principles of powerful writing:
• Draft Fast, Edit Slow
• KISS
• Clear Target Reaction
• Storytelling
I'll always be a believer that freelancing is one of the best careers you can have.
But figuring out how to grow and earn enough to make a living is hard.
This thread of Alice breaks down different books, courses, and content she consumed to help her learn the business and money side of being a freelancer, allowing her to grow and thrive.
One key thing I've learned in the past 16 months of starting a business is that if you want things to happen, you have to ask for them.
"To increase the chance of getting a yes:
1) Write the ask
2) Highlight parts that benefit you
3) Highlight parts that benefit the other person
You may be surprised how much of your note is self-serving"
NFTs have been the talk of the internet this year.
As supply chain issues continue to cause shipment delays, gifts may need to take a digital form to arrive on time.
This article is an overview of everything you need to know to successfully purchase and then transfer an NFT to a friend, child, or other family member.
Keep creating,
Treyton DeVore
Creator | Content Writer
