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Massa Art - the Anatomy of a Creator Businesses
Published 3 months agoΒ β’Β 4 min read
π Monday, 08-09-25
π Reader
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I'm visiting my father who lives in Kenya π°πͺ
On the plane I wrote a breakdown of the core components of a (YouTube) Creator Business.
So in this email I will flesh it out a bit more.
Enjoy :)
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Anatomy of a Creator Biz
my 9 hours flight London-Nairobi was surprisingly productive
1. Video
Value: Entertainment + information
Cost to consumer: Time (currency: attention)
What to do: Teach what you have learned or (preferably) what you are learning. The skill to develop here is how to make entertaining, yet value-dense, videos of 6 to 30 minutes.
N.B.β βVideos are the entry point to everything else. They grab attention, build trust, and if you are "learning in public" they allow people to learn alongside you without you needing to be an βexpertβ first.
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2. Lead Magnet
Value: Information, Time saver
Cost to consumer: Email (currency: data)
What to do: Create a single downloadable resource that goes beyond the video. Make it easy to use and share-worthy.
N.B. βA good lead magnet is like a shortcut, it distills what youβre teaching into something immediately actionable. The easier it is to apply, the more likely people are to perceive value from it. Always try to maximise practical value over theoretical value.
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3. Newsletter
Value: Behind-the-scenes info, Personal connection, Timely insights
Cost to consumer: Time (currency: attention)
What to do: Write 1β2 emails per week. Make them as real, personal and transparent as possible. The goal here is not to entertain.
N.B. βThis is where your audience gets to know you as a person. Itβs less polished, you can assume prior knowledge and can get straight to business. You are writing to your inner circle here.
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4. 1:1 Coaching
Value: Implementation support, maximization of outcome
Cost to consumer: High-ticket (4-digits)
What to do: Provide your time to help people 1-on-1. Tailor guidance to lead them through the transformation they desire. Only take clients who you feel confident you can 100% get them through the desired transformation.
N.B. βCoaching is the fastest, and most guaranteed way to reach results for your audience. It also gives you deep insight into other peopleβs struggles. But be picky with your clients, don't take up anyone who would pay!
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5. Digital product
Value: Time saver, deep knowledge
Cost to consumer: Low-ticket (2-digits), one-off
What to do: Package the most common problems your coaching clients face into resources that help others fix/avoid those problems.
N.B. βDigital products are your first scalable offer. They can be extremely narrow in scope, or quite broad, but what matters is that they provide quantifiable help in undertaking the desired transformation.
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6. Course
Value: Time saver, roadmap, implementation support, deep knowledge
Cost to consumer: Mid-ticket (3-digits), one-off
What to do: Standardize the steps you use in coaching. Turn them into a structured, easy-to-follow course that walks people through the transformation. Keep it specific and actionable.
N.B. βCourses are just coaching made repeatable. They allow you to bottle your process into a system that anyone can follow, without requiring your direct time. As a result though there is also less accountability, and less specificity. But I have learned immensely from self-paced courses and I am very much looking forward to make my own one in the future, hopefully in H2 2026.
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7. Community
Value: Implementation support + accountability
Cost to consumer: Low-to-mid ticket (2 to 3 digits), recurring
What to do: Design a journey with daily actions in a platform that allows it (eg. Skool) then add weekly/bi-weekly Q&A calls, guest talks, challenges and rewards. The aim is to make it self-moderating.
N.B. βA community is one of the best ways to provide accountability value. Done well it is truly transformational because it combines the best features of all products. That is why it should come last, AND it should not be free. This last point is controversial but I have been in both free and paid communities and I have made up my mind: paid beats free every time, under all aspect. I am still far from gaining first hand experience by making my own one though so we'll see when I get there :) (hopefully 2027)
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The Order Matters
In my opinion the order actually matters.
Ideally, 1:1 coaching should precede every other paid product.
This is counterintuitive.
Almost no first-time creator does that, but almost every serial creators do it.
That's because as a first time creator you are not comfortable with asking for money, and coaching is the most expensive product of your product-suite as a creator (4 digits minimum).
But it's the ideal order because through 1:1 coaching you can go deep into solving the problems that keep your clients from reaching the desired outcome.
You get to see the transformation that you have/are going through but with an outside perspective, which allows you to be much more objective and thus really see what needs to be done.
You also get to see a wider set of circumstances so you can create approaches that are going to be helpful for a wider set of individuals.
The more people you help through 1:1 coaching, the higher the quality of all other products that you will create.
Now having said that, it's okay to extract the learnings from a sample size of 1 (yourself) initially if you need to ramp up your confidence when it comes to earning your first dollar online.
But stick to a low ticket digital products though!
Don't go all-out putting together a course before you've had success with at least 3-5 coaching clients.
Otherwise you risk delivering a sub-par experience which burns your trust.
And trust is the single most important asset in today's digital economy.
Protect it at all costs.
I hope this was insightful.
As always, I'd love it if you reply with where you're at in your journey.
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