EE 68 - Idea Lab - Earn €100k online from 100 True Fans
The TikTok House - aka The Goat House
Social media & mainstream media have been on fire this week with talk about the TikTok house, aka The Goat House. Started by two content creators, Thomas Arnold and Jake Browne, they have created a media storm around their idea. They even got social media heavyweights Casey Neistat & David Dobrik involved.
They have rented a €9,000 per month house in Dublin City and have brought some of Ireland’s biggest social media creators to live there.
The core idea is they create content together, leverage the power of their collective followings and generate money from doing deals with brands who want to reach their highly lucrative young audience.
Genius or madness? Have they created the 2020 version of Big Brother or is it a recipe for disaster?
Disclaimer - I am friends with Thomas and think he’s got the brains to pull this off. Either way, it’s a great experiment.
Earning €100k per year online
Today, we delve into the world of online learning and the people earning huge sums of money teaching their skills online.
Tiago Forte runs hyper niche classes about how taking better notes with his course, Building a Second Brain. He also runs a course on how to write better to build an online following. Both are incredibly niche.
He also reveals his earnings publicly. Between 2016 when he started and mid 2019, he earned, $501,000, netting him a profit of $397,000. So if we calculate running costs of around €90-100k, that still means he earned $100,000 per year in just 3 years teaching online classes.
Do you have a skill or niche area of deep expertise that you could teach online? The key here is to pick a super small niche area and become the online expert in that area.
Further reading in this area is a fantastic essay by Kevin Kelly called 1000 True Fans. This has been updated for the modern age of Twitch streamers and podcasters by Li Jin and she reckons it’s now only 100 True Fans.
For a full & detailed explanation, listen to today’s podcast.
This Week
Listening
The Billionaire Boys Club from Wondery. As I mentioned last week, I started this podcast and really enjoyed it. Binged on it again this week. Definitely worth a listen.
Watching
David Blaine’s Ascension. This was incredible. He floated over the Arizona desert using just helium balloons. He reached just shy of 25,000ft before parachuting back to earth. The world needs more magic, especially in 2020. Watch this for some simple joy.
Reading
Discipline Equals Freedom Field Manual by Jocko Willink. I am a massive fan of Jocko since seeing him on the Joe Rogan podcast. The Jocko podcast is well also well worth a listen. If you want some tough love inspiration, Jocko is your guy.
The podcast goes live at 5 am every Monday and Thursday.
Quote of the Week
“A wealth of information creates a poverty of attention.” —Herbert A. Simon (Nobel Prize winner in Economics, 1978)
Tweet me your favourite quote of the week @mrgaryfox
Gary