001: The Secret to a Billion Dollar Creator: Get Paid in Equity

Rachel Rodgers: We have to dare to dream and dare to ask the greater question. Right? Like, what's the next thing that I could do? And it usually scares us because it's like, oh, that's to be a lot of work. It sure is. It sure is going to be a lot of work.

Attention is power, and creators harness it better than anyone else. But they're not using that attention to create the biggest impact possible and are vastly under monetized.

Hi, I'm Rachel Rogers. My co-host, Nathan Barry, and I believe you can be a billion dollar creator. Sound impossible? Over the last ten years, we followed each other on our own quest to build billion dollar companies. We've studied creators and seen how entrepreneurs build traditional audiences and use them as a launching pad for a massive business. And it got us thinking, if it can happen for them, it can happen for us. And if it can happen for us, then why not you?

Billion Dollar Creator is a show teaching creators how to capture attention and turn it into real wealth. We will deep dive into brands, celebrities, and entrepreneurs who have done it before and show you how you can apply it to your business as an everyday creator.

Join us weekly as we learn from both the wild successes and the missed opportunities, the grand gestures and the integral mistakes. And through that, help you become an expert at building your audience on your journey as a billion dollar creator.

Rachel: Welcome to Billion Dollar Creator, a podcast by myself, Rachel Rodgers, and Nathan Barry where we are going to be breaking down how different creators can be making a whole lot more money from whatever it is that they're doing, from their audience and their creativity. So Nathan, what made you write the Billion Dollar Creator essay that caused all of this to happen?

Nathan Barry: Yeah, oh man. This is one of my favorite topics. I could talk about this endlessly. I've said that to so many people. I said that to you and other people that said, “Great. Well then do it on a podcast because we want to hear these conversations. So keep going.”

Rachel: Yes.

Nathan: Yeah. So, the series is just going to be us breaking down what we think creators should be doing, what they're actually doing, what works, and all that. But your question of what made me write the essay is it really comes from this, I guess, idea that I have that most creative businesses are terribly under monetized.
Like when you have an audience and that audience gives you attention, you can direct that attention wherever you want. So what we see is people directing that attention to things that you and I have both done, right, of books, courses, digital products, speaking, all of those things, which are a phenomenal business. So it's not saying that people are doing it wrong when they're doing those things. It's just that there's another level to it.
Maybe if that's like the 100 and 200 levels, if we're going back to college classes, this is getting into like the 300 and 400 levels of like okay, what truly is possible. So I love studying the businesses or the creators who have taken an audience and turned it into something absolutely next level.
So an example that I like to talk about is Mark Sisson who years ago ran a blog called Mark's Daily Apple. It was about paleo recipes and lifestyle and all of that. One of the first talking about clean eating and everything. If you think about how he monetized that blog, you can get affiliates, digital products.
Rachel: Sell advertising on the blog.
Nathan: Yeah, there's like a two to four, maybe two to $5 million a year revenue stream there, which is just incredible. But what he actually did. Well, he went down that path. You might say like okay, he has this attention that is very well monetized. I agree. But then what he did that I think is just absolutely brilliant is he said, “Oh, well, for everyone following a paleo diet, it's really hard to get a mayonnaise or ketchup or a salad dressing that matches that criteria.”
So he started one of his own. He started Primal Kitchen. He used his initial brand and his attention to launch it, to get it promoted and placement in the first few grocery stores, and then ended up building that up into this juggernaut. I think it took just over two years, and then he sold it to Kraft for $200 million.

Rachel: Wow.

Nathan: I'm like I'm doing the math. It would take a very long time at a couple of million dollars in digital product revenue to equal that $200 million acquisition from Kraft. So yeah, I would argue that his well-monetized audience that he had before was wildly under monetized because there was a higher ROI place that he would direct that attention. So anyway, that's the theory behind it. Like I said, I could talk about this forever.

Rachel: Yes, I love it. I'm so excited about this podcast, which is why I said yes, because I think that it's asking us to dream bigger. What's the next big thing that we could do? Right? What goes beyond what's typical, or what we see everybody else doing and allows us to step into the highest level of ROI, right? Also too we could be providing more value, right?

So like it's one thing to teach people how to eat healthier, but it's another thing to actually give them the product and solve what's the next problem that they have, right? Solving that problem, which is what Mark did by actually creating the food products that people can use in their home. So I love it.

I also think there's another side to this where creators don't realize how good they are. I have some friends who have TV shows now. One of them was telling me that creators who create online are better at creating then TV networks. Basically all of the things we see on TV or on the radio or whatever, we are actually better at it. Right? But we don't realize that we are. So we can see outsized returns, just like some of those networks and production companies do. We have the ability to do that.

I think this is also the evolution of the Internet business growing up. Like we started as bloggers and had the goal of like if I just wanted to quit my job making $41,000 a year. I'm like if I can make that same money from home, I'd be thrilled. Like our goals were pretty small. Then when we were making $100,000 or $200,000 or $300,000 a year on our own terms, that was epic and amazing. We were like oh my god, I almost feel like I'm printing money. Is this illegal? Right? It just felt too good to be true in some ways.

Nathan: I've had that moment.

Rachel: Yes, exactly. Now this industry is growing up. So we're now starting to see the value of attention that we have acquired, right? We're now starting to see the value that we can create, that goes beyond just blogging, or just providing a service or just creating a course. Now we can create physical products and so much more. So that's what we're going to, we're going to unpack on this show, which I'm really excited about.

Nathan: I love it. When you were reading through the Billion Dollar Creator essay after I first wrote it or even just refreshing for kicking off this recording, was there a creator that stood out to you where you're like oh, yes, I love that story in particular. Either one that I wrote about or one that it made you think of?

Rachel: Yeah, well I thought of, I don't remember her name, but the woman who started Glossier. I thought that was absolutely fascinating. The example that you put. It was the first example. It was a great way to grab people.

Nathan: Emily Weiss.

Rachel: Yes, yes, Emily. I mean creating a fashion blog. Like no one would think that a fashion blog can become a billion dollar business. That just doesn't seem likely. If she had that vision, I'm sure she told anybody, they were like, “Don't quit your day job.” I'm sure she was discouraged by many people because it just hadn't been done before, or we just haven't seen it recently.

Maybe it has been done before. Maybe Vogue started out as a printed newsletter. What do we know? But it's not a common thing that you're going to see, but it was so brilliant of her to say, “Hey, I've been studying the beauty secrets of celebrities and people who have access to all of these things. Why not just create my own version that's accessible to my audience?” It’s brilliant. It makes so much sense.

So I think that we have to dare to dream and dare to ask the greater question. What's the next thing that I could do? It usually scares us because it's like oh, that's going to be a lot of work. It sure is. It sure is going to be a lot of work. But there's a huge upside as well. It goes beyond just selling a service that you can directly deliver but creating a real large company where you can reach people in way bigger ways.

Nathan: Yeah. Well, and there's so many examples out there. A lot of them in the celebrity world where if you think about Ryan Reynolds is a favorite example of mine just because of what he's done fairly repeatedly. I think when I wrote the article, maybe he'd sold Aviation Gin but was still working on Mint Mobile. So you could see this like playbook that he was running.

Since then he's gone on to sell Mint Mobile for 1.3 billion or something ridiculous like that back to T-Mobile who was really the biggest competition for them. So watching it play out, I think that's really common. Or we see the whiskey brands or like Casamigos tequila or all these examples.

It's easy to think like well yeah. Of course, George Clooney can do that. Beyonce can do this. Rihanna can do that. But I'm just a creator. I'm not like on their level. So I think one thing that I really want to do is to help creators bridge the gap and understand that the principles are the same.

Rachel: Yes.

Nathan: They might be operating on a different level. We might not come out of the gate and be like hey, tequila brand. Here's $50 million a year in sales right away just because I'm, whoever, I'm the Rock because I've spent decades building an audience. It might start on a smaller scale, but the rules and principles are exactly the same.

It just takes this fundamentally different way of viewing your audience. It's really a shift from short term cashflow to building long term equity in a business. That’s one through line that you'll see in all of this is that everyone has equity. It's not about hey, what can I get paid for this brand endorsement or this TV deal or this one-off affiliate promotion? Instead it's I'm really only going to take this attention and direct it to things that I own.

Rachel: Yes, exactly. Well, Beyonce’s famous line pay me in equity. That's how that works. We all need to think about like how can I become somebody who gets paid in equity? What does that look like? Even if you haven't built an audience yet, it's exciting to think about what it can do for you.

Because people are always trying to basically buy attention, run ads, advertising, and it used to be that only networks or publishing companies had that kind of attention. Now we can create it on our own, and now there are so many tools, ConvertKit included, that can help us actually reach people in ways that we never could before where it would be so hard. It would be so much money in so much work. Now all of that is available to us. So it's totally possible. It's just about how big can you dream?

The other thing too that's fascinating to me about personal brands in particular is that there's like one for everybody. Whether you are a stay at home mom trying to connect with other mothers and talking about just like the dark side or the challenging side of being a mom and raising kids and how messy it gets. Just learning how to laugh about it, for example. You can have a huge audience from that.

If you're just somebody who wants to nerd out about Star Wars and imagine alternate universes and like creating different stories for the characters and building on it. There's an audience for that. So it's almost like whatever you're into, you're probably not the only one. So you can reach all of these people and then think about how can I create value for them.

That's really what it is. It's not just about extracting value from the audience. It's actually providing real value because that's what actually makes money. I mean, I'm sure that there are plenty of billionaires out there doing damage in a lot of ways. Maybe their whole business model damages our culture or our climate or a variety of things. But how can we be people that provide value and provide so much value that it causes us to have a lot of resources?

Nathan: Yeah, I think there's so many things with that. Like when people build that amount of wealth, it usually comes from delivering an incredible amount of value, I think, in most cases. But it's thinking about how to not just be a conduit for another brand to get the attention, but for it to actually be the thing that you own like the product that you want to make.

Rachel: Exactly.

Nathan: Do you want to dive into a few of these rules?

Rachel: Yes, let's do it. If you want to create a billion dollar brand, a billion dollar company, and become a billion dollar creator, and even if you don't, right? Like don't get caught up in the word billion. If that's not your goal, that's cool too. The point of it is just to make you dream bigger, think bigger, and think on that 300/400 level instead of the 101 level. So step one. What is step one to becoming a billion dollar creator?

Nathan: Well, I think the first thing is to build more than a personal brand. Now I say this as someone who my website is NathanBarry.com. My entire thing is my personal brand. I think a personal brand is the best place to start, especially early on as a creator. If we're getting going.

Well, using my own example. I started talking about design. Then later I was talking about marketing. Now I'm talking about building companies and audiences. The through line, the consistent thing, is that it's me. So the fact that my site is NathanBarry.com, that's easy. It's consistent. I didn't have to start like iOSDesignTutorials.com, and then MarketingForDummies.com. I didn't like kill off an audience each time. It was consistent with me as I figured out what I was doing.

But my billion dollar product, billion dollar brand that I'm working on is ConvertKit. That's much bigger than me. I used my personal brand to launch it just like Mark Sisson used his personal brand to launch Primal Kitchen, but they're separate.

I think a lot of people who are too attached between their personal brand and the thing that they sell, they're going to really struggle. So the first step is to disconnect that, find something much bigger. Actually, when I wrote the essay, I mentioned Michael Hyatt because I wanted to use real examples.

So I mentioned Michael Hyatt and talking about how he's, I think, limited the growth of his business because it's so tied to his name. He actually emailed me afterwards, and I updated it in the article. He just said, “Yep, I saw the same limitations. So I started this transition of building something much bigger than just my name.” So he's built the Full Focus planner, his business accelerator products, and all of that to go much bigger. So it’s interesting watching people make the shift and go much bigger than their personal brand.

Rachel: Yes. Somebody who I think we're about to see make the shift is Amy Porterfield because she just hired a CEO for her company. It looks to me like she's on the pathway of starting to extract herself from every piece. So once you start doing that, it makes sense to transition and rename.

I've advised my clients forever never ever name your business your own name. Mainly the reason is so that you can build a brand that’s separate from you that's more easy to sell. Also, just from a trademark, copyright, protecting the IP, creating a brand is going to have more value than just making your own name of a brand.

Like your name, of course, can have value. Beyonce right? That's a name that comes with a ton of value. However, being able to be in a place where you can really scale it beyond just what you have the physical ability to show up for and be a part of is key. So I think that that's another example of somebody who's probably going to start moving away from the personal brand and building it more of a company brand.

Nathan: Yeah, I think we'll see a lot more of that. What you're saying about it being brandable, there's just a big difference between like the personal brand of Nathan Barry, and something that is branded like Beyonce. Or saying this you go to steal someone's name obviously, and there's not an umbrella corporation under that then could be sold off or something. But there's a very deliberate branding that goes into that. It's different than Nathan Barry or.

Rachel: Well even with trademarks. You can register the trademark for a personal name if it is famous. It has to be famous. I don't mean like internet famous or famous in your corner of YouTube. You’ve got to be a household name worldwide famous in order to register a name. So celebrities can register a trademark for their personal name, but the rest of us cannot. So that's trademark law recognizing that that.

But however if you make up a brand name, you can register that today on day one, the day you start building that company, and you can start adding value. So everything that you build under it creates value. Like basically, the value of the name grows as you continue to invest in it and invest in that name being more well known. So.

But I think going beyond the personal brand is really important, but it's also important to start there. Because if you think about it, like I had 300 bucks when I started my business. You have nothing to start. You have no money, no expertise, no network. Or at least when I started, that's where I was.

So what I did have though was whatever expertise I already possessed. I went to law school so I had legal skills. I had writing skills. I had the ability to present. I had my name. That was it. So when I started my business, it was Rachael Rodgers Law Office. That was like the initial first business that I started. Then eventually, I changed it to Rodgers Collective because I started hiring other associates in my firm.

Then when I moved into business coaching, Hello Seven is what I named it because I wanted to name it something completely had nothing to do with me. I want this to be a company that can have value if I sell it, if I'm not attached to it anymore. I want it to still exist and be serving people. So thinking ahead.

Just like assume that is going to be big. That's what I encourage people. Assume it's going to be massive. I was just telling Nathan we should hire a producer for this podcast because we should just assume that it's going to be huge. So let's just start there and plan for it.

I think instead what we tend to do is plan to be small and teeny, weeny. So that's why we named things after ourselves, or just like our ideas about what we can do with this brand, or do with this attention are so small. We can't fathom it being bigger. So that's part of why we wanted to do this podcast, to encourage you to think about that future that you could be stepping into. It's not like you can't transition, but it does make it a lot easier if you start with a brand name instead of starting with your personal name and then have to transition away from it.

Nathan: Yeah, the nice thing is you can make that transition at any time, but it is much easier if you have that vision early on. So yeah, I think the 100 level, if we're using that analogy, is to start with your name. Something that's tied to you if you don't know what you're going to be creating long term.

I think most creators go on this journey where they end up meandering to try to figure out what resonates, what doesn't, and then you can launch to the actual thing or whatever it turns into long term. But yeah, if you're trying to build something that's worth millions, 10s of millions, a billion dollars like we're talking about then it absolutely needs to be separate from you.

Rachel: Yeah. If you think about it, like what are some of the things that you offer under a personal brand? You might offer like VIP days used to be like the pinnacle. Like oh my god, I can get paid to spend the day with somebody and advise them and give them advice and help them get a solution. Like that was like very exciting. Being able to charge maybe 20 grand or 10 grand, whatever it is, for a day with you.

But even that has limits. There's only so many days in a year that you're going to show up and do that and work. So there's like a real strong cap on that. Same thing with like hourly work. Same thing with courses. I think courses actually are truly scalable to huge places. A lot of other things are. But I think if you think about some of the offers that you create initially, you're just selling your time, which is great. You're selling your time. You're selling your expertise, and that's a great way to start. Then you create that value, and then you turn it into something else.

That's how, what's that company? FranklinCovey. They started out as a consulting business helping people with time management and productivity. Then they realized oh, like they turned their system into a planner. Then that's the company we all know today. We don't realize that like they used to be just people selling their time. So that's the trajectory. That's the pathway. So you're on it. If you've got a business and you’ve got a personal brand and you're just selling time, great. You're on the path. That's the beginning step, but you just don't want to stay there forever.

Nathan: Yeah. Okay. Rule number two is to sell products and not attention. So this is something that you see especially in the celebrity space where people, they're getting paid for show up, do a movie. Or on the side you're getting paid for brand endorsements, do a TV show, all of that.

So one of my favorite examples when I wrote the article was Kylie Jenner because I think right about then Forbes had done their cover story on her. Everyone was like she's a billionaire. People like no, she's not. If you add this all up, it's only actually worth $890 million, not a billion. I'm like so we can agree that she's within like a few little deviations of a billion as far as equity and value created.

But what I thought was so interesting about it is at the time the Jenners and Kardashians were, everyone was emphasizing like the influencer status that they had. They talked about this brand, and it blew up in this way. I think she was one of the first in the family to say, “No, I'm going to own it. You can do all your other.” Oh, you got paid a million dollars to go do this thing. You hourly rate on that was probably ridiculous. You're probably getting paid $100,000 an hour for this thing that you did.

Rachel: I've heard for a Kardashian at one point, it was like a million dollars for a post for them to post about your business.

Nathan: Yeah. Which is a great business.

Rachel: It sounds like a lot. It sounds like a lot to compare to a billion, right?

Nathan: I like the line what's the difference between a million and a billion? About a billion.

Rachel: They're very, very far from each other.

Nathan: Yeah, if you think about someone getting paid a million dollars for a social media post, one person is like oh, that's incredible. How many of these can I do, and all that. I think the other, like the billion dollar creator mindset on it is well hold on. If it's worth a million dollars for a brand to pay for this, it must be driving a ton of attention. Can I get that attention to my product? They must be driving a ton of enterprise value for the brand that’s paying for it. So there has to be more value that's not being captured, in theory.

So what I love about what Kylie did is with Kylie Cosmetics, she's like, “Look I'm going to own all of that. I'm going to sell and pitch my own product, and go from there. I'm not going to just get the short term cash flow. I'm going to get the long term equity.” Then you can even see Kim Kardashian and others follow this playbook. Kim has started a private equity firm and is going out and saying, “Okay, what businesses can I acquire and then use my brand to accelerate?” That was not happening at all three years ago. Now it's wild.

Rachel: Right. Now she's got her company SKIMS that she's, I think she has investors on it. I don't know what the value is, but I see it everywhere. I hear a lot of people talking about it. So lots and lots of opportunity to like go far beyond selling just attention but selling products that can be scaled massively.

Nathan: Yeah, I think another thing in that, and I talk about a little bit in the essay, is there's different types of products. A lot of YouTubers or content creators might be like oh yeah, I sell products. Look at this merch. Right, Casey Neistat selling a hoodie. That's not quite what we're talking about. Whereas his wife, Candice Pool, who has the brand Billy!, that's an actual clothing brand that could grow into something large and substantial. Instead of just saying like oh buy a Mr. Beast hoodie. You might sell a lot of revenue in hoodies.

Rachel: The only people, yeah. They're only going to buy merch if they're a fan. Like your big fans are going to buy merch. But if you create a clothing brand, you can acquire new customers that have nothing to do with your personality. You know what I mean? It could be because they love the way that you make this or the point of view or whatever. So yeah, that goes far beyond just merch.

Nathan: That's interesting. Just the idea of would someone who doesn't know me buy this? They're not a fan of me. Maybe it got to the level of notoriety because of the initial push from you as a creator or as a celebrity, but now will it carry beyond you? Someone sees it in a lineup at Target and is like yeah, I think I'll buy this one. They don't actually know who you are. That's really the difference between like creator merch or something that's really just another fairly standard monetization stream and like building an iconic brand.

Rachel: Yes. It's the same thing. I love that question. It's the same thing as a course that can make $100,000 or even a couple million a year versus a course that could be a billion dollar course. Would somebody buy this if they don't know me? Are they buying it because they know my personal brand or my personal story, and they're buying it to learn from me specifically?

Or is it providing like, is it the framework or the system that they're buying into that's going to help them get a specific result. They don't care who's teaching it as long as they get the result at the end. So I love that like detaching it and saying would someone who doesn't know me buy this product, buy this thing without my name attached?

It's the same way like would somebody sign up for this experience if I wasn't going to be there? Like, that's another way to start to think about like detaching yourself from the brand. Does your company create value when you are not present? Like, that's a key part of it. It's how to think about like what are the you sell or you can sell at scale.

Nathan: Right. Who are the examples of creators you can think of like on the course side or the content side that have actually pulled that off? Of going beyond people were buying it maybe for the outcome. It's less tied to the individual name of the creator.

Rachel: Yeah, there's one that comes to mind. I don't know if they've actually pulled this off yet, but I feel like it's a work in progress. It's a course called Tempest. It's all about going sober, like not drinking anymore. It's not necessarily for people who label themselves as alcoholics, but it could just be other people too who want to stop drinking.

It's created by someone who's famous. She has a very popular book. However, I think the name of the course and the positioning of the course itself makes it feel like it's not necessarily, it's not about her. It's not her story. That might have got the initial customers, but people are buying in because they relate to the brand and to the messaging, and they want to get sober. They don't necessarily want to go to meetings.

They want to be able to do it online and in a community with a specific cohort based program. That company does have investors, last I heard. I don't know the status of it. I haven't looked at it in a while, but that was one of the first ones that I saw that really struck me as this feels like something that could be huge. Not necessarily, it doesn't feel tied to the creator's personal brand.

Nathan: Yep, that made me think of Shawn Blanc with The Focus Course. He has this, he's going into businesses and teaching productivity and all that, but the umbrella is The Focus Course. That's their method. Everything else. It's still decently tied to his name. He's the one in all the videos and all of that.

But if you were buying it for like an implementation in your company, and someone else showed up, you wouldn't be like wait, where's Shawn? You know? He's detached enough that it can stand on its own. I think that's the Stephen Covey thing you're talking about. Maybe in the business world I don't know if Michael Gerber with the E-Myth has people, like implementers, who will come and teach this stuff.

Oh, so an example would be like the Rockefeller Habits, the EOS and Traction. Like that whole business methodology system. They have their – I'm not a part of that community so I don't know it super well, but they had their facilitators in every city, and you can go and they'll help you with your annual planning. You're not like well, hold on. Where's the one person who wrote it? It's like wow, this is a much bigger thing.

Rachel: Yeah. This is a direction.

Nathan: In marketing, you're going to spend a lot of money.

Rachel: Yes, exactly. That reminds me of certifications, which is another licensing. That's licensing or certifying people in your methodology, which is a direction that we're moving in at Hello Seven. So we have our first cohort of certified Hello Seven coaches that are going to graduate soon.

So what I'm trying to do is essentially duplicate myself. Instead of me having to show up to all of the trainings, I'm training this first cohort is a little over 100 people. So I'm training 100 people to be able to deliver the business coaching that I can deliver. So then my focus becomes training them. Then there can be Hello Seven coaches all over the world.

My job then becomes building up the brand so that the more well known the brand becomes, the more our Hello Seven coaches can get hired. So that's another scalable opportunity. Creating a certification. Like StrengthsFinders, for example. Gallup has a certified program where you can become a StrengthsFinder coach and deliver that training to corporations, individuals, etc. They have their methodology that really doesn't seem like it's changed much.

I think they have other certifications as well that they've probably added to it and that assessment that they sell. Maybe, I don't know, they make their money on the assessment, on the training, etc. But that's another education model where you can sort of scale education or scale a course from just.

The basis of my certification started out as a course that I was delivering direct to my customers with my framework and then taking that from work and training other people in how to use it and how to teach it. So, that's another example of how you can like scale at least education in particular.

Nathan: Yeah. Well, I see you moving up this ladder of starting with here's something that I'm teaching and then okay, here's how I'm bringing other people to teach it. Then next we know, in a little while you'll have franchises and everything else.

Rachel: Locations all over the world.

Nathan: Somebody could be teaching your method. Everything you're talking about now is in English, but someone could be teaching your method in Brazilian Portuguese and someone else could be teaching it in these other languages because these other countries have huge online populations.

Rachel: Yes.

Nathan: Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is that you can ease into this over time.

Rachel: Exactly. Like one of the visions that I had for the company that it almost like scared me to think about it because it seemed like too much work and required real estate. But one of the things that I imagined is that Hello Seven would have like clubhouses all over the world where people can have physical community with diverse entrepreneurs, and get training and go to events and like just go there for dinner and lunch like Soho House.

Go there for entertainment, but have a community of fellow entrepreneurs wherever they are located like a clubhouse where they can hang out. Then it's also like have a membership to be able to use those club houses when you're traveling for work, when you're hosting events, and that kind of thing. So that was like the further out vision from where we're starting right now.

You’ve got to be okay with the steps. It is ladders, like you talked about... It's about like leverage, How can I, with each step, increase my leverage so I can create value at scale, at an even greater scale, with each step on the ladder?

Nathan: Absolutely. Okay. So rule number three is to drive higher customer value through recurring or repeat purchases. I was trying to break down all of these trends that I saw basically like identifying here's a whole bunch of creators who have done this, and what are the common threads between all of them?

One thing I realized is 95% of them or more are some kind of product that you buy over and over again. It’s a consumable like food and beverage, whether that's Mr. Beast with Feastables or the Primal Kitchen. The bottle of ketchup, it runs out. The more you enjoy this product, the more you're going to need to buy it. Or it's a software product like ConvertKit or a whole range of things. Mint Mobile is a great example. You pay $25 a month, or whatever the price is every single month.

I think so many of creators initial products that they sell are one time. I have purchased your book once. I purchased it to gift it. But like that's kind of the extent of it. You're going to get one sale, maybe two or three, instead of the thing. What if it made sense to buy your book every single month no matter what? I mean you have memberships, but those don't quite scale in the same way. All of these other businesses, they have to have something that you buy effectively on repeat.

Rachel: Yes, that's brilliant. Yes, that also makes me think of like Honest Company. When my kids were little, I had 50,000 of their diapers and the wipes and the creams and the shampoo. Like I used all their products. You can literally, on their website, put it on repeat. So it gets delivered.

You have to get the timing right because I had a closet full of their products at one point. I had to turn it off. They were coming faster than we were using it up, but it's like it's a perfect example of like, they were all things that we had to replenish. You don't want to run out of it. You don't want to run out of your baby stuff because you need it all the time. You run out of diapers, you're going on a late night trip to find something open 24/7 because that kid could not be kicked out of bed.

Nathan: Is that where the phrase shit out of luck comes from?

Rachel: Yes, probably. But this makes sense on licensing too for example. Like if you are certifying somebody, usually there's an annual certification fee and like an annual conference for everybody who's certified to like get updates on the education that they received. Or to have community, the professional community around it, there can be recurring fees with that.

I'm trying to think of other things that have that sort of consumable kind of feel to it, but that's an excellent point. It's got to be something that has a recurring fee. It doesn't have to just be monthly recurring, but it has to be recurring in some way. At a minimum annually recurring.

Nathan: Repeat purchase of your favorite tequila, that works fine, but it needs to be something that you buy over and over again. Now an exception to that. Oh, actually, I'll give you an example of why that was an exception. Now I'm talking about, I realize it's not, is I talk about Beats by Dre.

So amazing music business that Dr. Dre has done. Produced all of this all. of his own music, very wealthy and successful, but almost all of his net worth comes from selling Beats by Dre to Apple for $3 billion. So I was about to say, I was like well headphones, you're buying an expensive pair of headphones. That's not a repeat purchase. Then I thought about how when I connect my air pods to my phone, it says like Nathan's AirPods Pro Four as a reminder that I've gone through four pairs of the little air pods because I keep losing them.

Rachel: Exactly.

Nathan: That's a repeat purchase.

Rachel: I'm traveling right now, and I've got two pairs with me. I've got the ones in my ears. Then I got another pair that I wear on the plane. It's so interesting. Yes, you could definitely go through a lot of headphones. I have like my desk headphones. Then I have my purse headphones. Then I have my airplane headphones. Not exactly recurring, but listen, if it breaks, I'm going to go out that day and buy another pair because I can't live without them. So yes, that's interesting.

Nathan: This wasn't one of the rules in the original essay, but also thinking about a product that is shareable in some way. Like I see you. If I sit next to you on the plane, and you put AirPods Max on, well, now I'm going to realize you don't want to chat, which is a great visual cue. That's half the time if I'm wearing headphones on a plane is to send that message like don't talk to me.

But in that, I look at that and I'm like oh, she's wearing those. I was thinking about buying them. Maybe I actually will them. Or I see a coworker wearing them on Zoom or any of these things where you get to see the product in action, or it's a social product.

Like I keep going back to George Clooney with Casamigos Tequila. That's a social product. We were inherently trying and saying, I'm like Rachel, try this tequila. That was. So I think a lot of these products that are really successful are going to be ones that are visible or social in some way. Then I'm going to ask you like oh, how do you like that? Or it's so good that you want to talk about.

Rachel: Yes, yeah, it's true. Like I think of people who have Home Goods lines at Target. For example, Tabitha Brown, who six years ago was an Uber driver. By building an audience, I think initially on TikTok, became so well known. Then had all kinds of, she has a lot of attention basically. She's so lovable. Everybody who's a fan of hers just loves her.

Now she has physical products in Target. She's had a New York Times bestselling book. I'm sure she's done a lot of other things as well, but she's got this product line at Target with clothing and home products. Clothing are things that you're going to buy consistently. Physical products at home. Like I can't tell you how many potholders I have in my house, like 50 million. Things that you would gift. Things like that, that are the kinds of things that you're going to buy again and again.

So I think they get the point. But yes, shareable, social, there's a reason, consumable that people are going to buy it consistently. Or even like, for example, what do you think about events? Because I think that that's an interesting model.

Especially like we just launched ROI, which is our big conference. When I walked in the first time and just saw the experience, I was like Oh my God, this is going to be huge. Like, I think that conference could, that in and of itself is a huge asset that is sellable. Because it's the kind of thing, conferences are like that, that are recurring. You go to a conference. You love it, you love the vibe, you love the people, you love the community, love the type of speakers that they have. Then you're going to go every year.

Like it becomes your conference that you go to every year. Like you have those ones that you hit up every year, and that can become that. Like people going to South by Southwest every year, for example. So I'm curious what your thoughts are about that, about event’s ability to become a billion dollar brand and the recurring revenue from that?

Nathan: Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. I think in most cases when people do events, it's not a billion dollar brand or doesn't have those attributes because they do it poorly. But at the same time, there's a lot of conferences that have sold. I think of Ryan Deiss with Traffic and Conversion. I went to that conference a couple different times. I think they sold and then they told people a few years later. They disconnected the actual announcement of the sale from when it happened. That's common thing.

Rachel: It's super smart, super smart. Because it's like no, people are going to be looking for things to get funky. So don't announce it immediately. Yeah.

Nathan: I remember when J.D. Roth sold his blog Get Rich Slowly. It was one of the first big exits in the blogging community. I don't remember what year it was. Maybe 2013 or something like that. He announced that, and people were oh no, the blog is going to go be garbage. Everything that I cared about is gone. He replied, and he was like, “We actually close the transaction a year ago. You've been reading and loving it ever since.” They're like oh.

Rachel: Yes, exactly.

Nathan: So yeah, having that that overlap because then people are like oh, I actually only started reading a year ago. You demonstrate that ongoing value afterwards. But so with events, there's a lot of examples of events that are massive and have exited for really solid multiples. I think of Web Summit. I don't think they've sold, but this is an event that's grown to 50,000 attendees each time they hold it, maybe more. Then CES, the Consumer Electronics Show, is at a pretty massive scale.

So yeah, I think they definitely could be so long as you focus on the brand in the right way. Then if you understand the network effects of the event. The way at a more intimate event, or something like South by Southwest that's created a feeling of like, you have to be there. Then like if I get hooked in, I'm plugged into a community. Then like oh man, Rachel's going to be there and all this. Or like.

Rachel: All my friends are going. Why am I not there?

Nathan: Then it turns into a self-fulfilling prophecy where like all your friends are going because all your friends are going.

Rachel: Exactly. Essence Fest is another example of an event that is huge that every year I feel like all my friends are going, and I'm not there. You know? So it's around July 4, and I feel like I'm always traveling overseas or whatever. I don't know. I just am never on point. But that's another example.

So yeah, I think events can be huge. How we're doing this, we named it ROI: The Millionaire Summit. It was like one of the first examples, no, I shouldn't say first. But it was an example of I was barely on stage. Like I was on stage at certain times. I definitely spoke too much. That's what I discovered.

When you're hosting an event, it's hard to be the main speaker at a conference level, but I felt like Oprah. Like I got to sit in the audience and cheer on all these incredible speakers, and just like be a part of the community in the crowd. I had so much fun. It was not about me. Like at no point was it about, it was not the Rachael Rodgers show. My picture wasn't everywhere. You know what I mean?

I loved that. I was so excited. I think some people struggle with that part, like divesting themselves from the brand and pulling themselves out of it. We can get attached to the attention and to it being about us. I am not one of those people. I do not have this problem. I am totally fine with it not being about me. I am totally happy to share the stage and highlight other people.

The event has a point of view, which is that we need events where white guys aren't the only speakers. So instead of doing the like it's mostly white guys with one white woman thrown in and one black guy for good measure, which I think Traffic and Conversion was guilty of for many, many, many, many years. Probably still is.

I decided you can be mad about it, or you could do something about it. So I'm like you know what? I could do this better than them. So let me just go and do it. So having a stage where it's only people of color and people with disabilities and entrepreneurs of all different backgrounds, queer entrepreneurs.

So like you're seeing yourself reflected on the stage. Of course, you can speak at ROI. We allow some white guys, only a few. But you know basically creating something that was missing in the marketplace. Just deciding that we're going to do that. It's about the fact that it's missing. That's the value prop. It's not that you're going to come to see me speak.

Nathan: I think it's the, well first, I totally resonate with all of that right. Running an event myself, I'm on stage very little. I give one talk. I'm not the emcee. I might come up and welcome people or something at one point, but that's kind of beyond my keynote.

But one thing that you said that really stood out to me is or what imagining is the times that you sit back in your life, and you're like watching something happen, and you go I can do that better.

Rachel: Yes.

Nathan: Right? Anytime you do that, whether it's like you buy clothes, you're putting on, you're like ah, it's just not like I could do better than this, and I'm not even a fashion designer, or I don't know these products. So what I would look for is the overlap between the interests of yourself and your audience. Like what you have attention around, and the things in this world where you say I can do better. Yeah, that's probably the scene for a billion dollar creator business.

Rachel: I love it. So true. Oh, my God. Such an excellent point. Write that down, y'all. You know what's so funny? I was trying to think of like of course it takes years. Like you have a great idea, just like you did with ConvertKit, and then you kind of like half ass commit to it forever. Then you finally one day say okay, I'm all in.

That's what happened with this. Because actually the event that made me want to create ROI: The Millionaire Summit is Mastermind Talks, which is a great event, except that there was zero diversity on the stage, and honestly, not much diversity in the audience either. That bothered me.

I remember talking to Jason about it, and it didn't really bother him. He didn't care about that. What his thesis or his premise for what he was trying to create is not the same as mine. That's okay, but I wanted to create something different because it was a priority to me. Especially as someone there who's like one of two women of color in the audience, it's like really? That's it out of 150 people?

So like if that bothers you, you can harass the founder and tell them they should change it, but they may not care about that. But if you care, you go create your version. That's exactly what should be done. Of course, that was years ago that I was going to Mastermind Talk. So it took me a long time to finally launch the thing, but now it's done. Now, I'm so glad that I did.

So don't feel bad if it takes you forever, but don't let those things nag at you forever. Like at some point, just decide you're going to do it, even if it's super small scale just to get it out the door. Then you grow. That's what it is. A billion dollar brand, all of them start with like one customer, with one entry point, and then you slowly but surely scale it.

So okay, so what's the last point? All right, let's review. So number one, for building your billion dollar creator brand, you have to go beyond the personal brand. Number two, sell products, not attention. Then number three is drive higher customer value through recurring or repeat purchases. Then hit us with the last one.

Nathan: Yeah, so the last one is to choose a better business model. Specifically, what I mean by this is choose a business model that is valued in the broader investor markets. Not because we should make all our decisions to please investors, or that's the end game or anything else, but because there's a reason that they value some businesses higher than others. We can write off those reasons, or we can try to learn from them. I say learn from them. So as an example, a blog is worth –

Rachel: Okay, so can I qualify that? I think, I completely agree we should learn from them. It doesn't mean that they can't be disrupted. It doesn't mean that something that's never been done before can't be done. So if you feel strongly about it, and definitely if you have an audience for it and a market for it, you can certainly try it.

But I agree that we have to study what exists right now and allow that to help us make decisions. It doesn't mean that what exists right now is the only thing that will ever exist, but it does leave clues. It points us in certain directions about how things are valued.

Nathan: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a lot of things that might be good for short term cash flow that aren't as good for long term value. So in the software space, I think about OptinMonster, which this started as this WordPress plugin for capturing leads. It integrated with ConvertKit, MailChimp, and all the other tools. That has some amount of value as a WordPress plugin.

But really what they did is they went through this difficult process to rewrite the entire tool and build it from scratch as a standalone SaaS product, software as a service. In doing that, they switched categories. WordPress plugins are viewed as an add on to another ecosystem. It's not its own thing. It's not standalone. What happens if WordPress declines? So they really made themselves a lot more long term viable by taking this different approach. So that's a better business model.

I think about Andrew Wilkinson with Metalab. An agency business is, they were wildly successful, but that gets valued at certain multiples because you're constantly looking for new clients. It's a feast or famine business based on what's happening in your industry. So what Andrew did is he said, “Great. I'm going to take this high cashflow business that doesn't have a high multiple for what agencies exit for. I'm going to use that money to go buy like really high quality durable businesses that I can hold for a long time.”

You see that a lot of people getting started in one business type or industry and then trading up to one that has recurring revenue, high multiples, and is like long term, durable and defensible.

Rachel: Okay, let's talk about that for a second because I love that example. This is something that I advise my clients who have million plus businesses as they continue to grow is start pulling money out of that business and putting it into other industries so that you are more diversified. So like pulling some of your profit and putting it in mutual funds and just making smart long term investments.

Or buying real estate that has recurring revenue attached. So pulling it out of your online based business and putting it into another asset class. That's essentially what you're saying. Instead of having a plugin, have a SaaS platform that is valued more highly on the marketplace if you should decide to sell it, right. So that's another example of doing it within your own business is trading up on the asset class.

So I think that's super smart and something that really all entrepreneurs are doing. Like, even if you're making $100,000 a year, start investing $1,000 like whatever you can into the stock market or real estate so that you can start to trade up on assets. That's just such a smart money lesson period in addition to becoming a billion dollar creator.

Nathan: Yeah, I think there's a lot of different lessons in there. Just thinking about how you're thinking differently. If you go through different examples of creators and think okay, what would I do if I was in their shoes? It’s one thing to hear a few examples. But what actually made a difference for me was trying to write down more and apply it myself. Then say oh, who else has done this?

Like one that I came across that I really like is Vani Hari, who had a blog called Food Babe. She had built a ton of attention, both in the online space and mainstream media, around like higher quality food and what needs to change in the industry. That could be a solid business, as some of these other examples, but it was never going to be a billion dollar business.

What she ended up doing is teaming up with Derek Halpern, which I've known Derek for a long time. So I think this is the funniest thing because Derek is this brash content creator. Like in your face, talking about marketing and copywriting and all of this. He just completely left that world, and is going with Vani. They've built this incredible business selling health food products.

Rachel: Yes, I remember that complete 180.

Nathan: Yes. He took all the things that he was teaching and he’s like forget it. I'm just going to be a practitioner. I'm just going to apply it all in this new business. You can tell anytime you talk to him, he's having so much more fun. He loves applying this on a day to day basis. They've had incredible results just scaling up everything they're doing.

But I would just say keep finding examples because there's all these places where you know, you're going to find something that resonates with you and matches your audience. You're going to be like I don't know what to do. Oh, that. Here's someone doing something similar. Let me clone that.

Rachel: Yes, for sure. I agree. Like, I used to always think like oh, we should just build software. Like what kind of software could we build in like the Hello Seven universe? To be honest, it still hasn't come to me. If y'all have a software idea for me, feel free to pitch it. But it's just not like, for whatever reason, it's just not coming. So that's not the direction that we're going in right now. So instead, we're going into these other directions like the coach certification and the event for now. We'll see where that leads us as well. What stood out to me.

Nathan: I think also don't force it.

Rachel: Yes, exactly. You’ve got to let it find you. I totally agree. It's just like a book idea. You're like oh, I want to write a book, but I don't have anything that I feel passionate about writing about. You just kind of have to wait for it to come to you until you find that thing that you want to rant for 250 pages about.

But the thing that stood out to me when you were talking about OptinMonster is like the fear. Like the fear that they must have had at that company is if WordPress goes out of business, or if some new company comes along and becomes the WordPress killer, we're out of luck. Like we're out of business.

So face that fear. What is that fear that you have, and then face it. This is something that they teach in law school. There's so many lessons about business in law school, but one of them is like, yeah, exactly. But one of one of them is like if there's something that you think that the opposing attorney has, or they have something. Like they have a fact or they have a piece of law or a case or something on their side that they're going to use in their argument, you can't hide from it. There's no hiding from it.

So address it. What's your narrative? How can you spin that? How can you show that it actually proves your point and makes the case for your client? So it's the same thing. What is that thing that makes you feel like you might go out of business one day because of it? Or that fear that you have like this thing in my business is broken. I've got to fix it, but it seems so hard to fix or too expensive to fix.

If you face that thing head on, that might be the thing that unlocks your business and turns it into this next level billion dollar brand. So for OptinMonster, it was essentially stop being a plugin right and build your own platform. Way more work than building, a plug in, you can build, I imagine, in way less time than you build an entire software platform. However, that's part of the reason why they're valued differently because it’s not easy to reproduce.

So I think that that's an important thing for people to think about. Like what scares me about my current business model, and how can I address that head on and build the thing? Like build the solution to that problem.

Nathan: Yep. I agree with all of that. One other thing that was interesting rereading this article a few years later is I talk about Taylor Swift. One thing that I say is that, let me go for the line, she owns two private jets and has a net worth of over 350 million, but she isn't going to become a billionaire through albums and touring. It's going to take smart investing. She’s got plenty of time for compound gains. Brilliant endorsement deals, think Air Jordan, or create product company to bring in that extra two thirds of a billion. Would you say I was wrong about this, or very wrong about this?

Rachel: Totally wrong about this, I think. Yeah. So she's just.

Nathan: Because her tour itself has done 1.3, 1.5 billion, and she's just getting started.

Rachel: I don't know exactly what it was. The last number I saw was like 500 million for her Eras tour, but that was just the North America.

Nathan: I think it’s over a billion now.

Rachel: Oh, okay. Even at 500 million. If one tour can create $500 million in value, and that's just the North American leg. Then she's about to go to Europe. So that's part two of the tour that maybe generates another 500 million, or even her next tour that generates 500 million. So I think you were wrong about that one.

Nathan: I think so. So, I just googled it. CNN right now, two days ago. Taylor Swift could break 2 billion for Eras tour in North American ticket sales alone.

Rachel: Wow. Yes. So tours can definitely make you a billionaire when you're Taylor Swift. Yes.

Nathan: Rules just don't apply.

Rachel: Well, for her, for Beyonce, like certain types of people. They have such a massive audience, such a huge number of fans. Even people, like I feel like there are people going to this concert who aren't even the biggest fans but are just curious or just want to attend because it's amazing entertainment. They're going with a friend or whatever. So I feel, like you said, network effects. I feel like we should have a little like bell or something that rings every time we mention network effects because it's Nathan's current obsession. Something should go off like here he goes again.

But anyway, yes when your network effects are operating at the Beyonce and/or Taylor Swift level, you can make a billion dollars from a tour. But it is grueling. For Beyonce in particular, I know that she's got a show going every other day. Then when she's in the same city, I think it's every day. I think she just did Atlanta three days in a row. That is intense.

I will say though, one of the things that I love, this is definitely a tangent y'all, but I'm just going to own that. So one thing that I noticed though about Beyonce on this tour versus her past tours, she's dancing. It's incredibly entertaining. It is exceptional, like just absolutely exceptional, the Renaissance World Tour. She's not working as hard as she has in the past in terms of dance moves where you have to, like the dancing feels almost more like a party than like really synchronized dancing where you have to hit the move the exact right time all the dancers otherwise it's not good.

So like, she's moving away from that, and this feels more like 40 plus I got three kids, which both things I can relate to. I don't have to work that hard for y'all anymore to put on a fantastic show. So I love to see it that she's like touring and doing this show that is blowing people's minds. She's figured out what matters to blow people's minds and what doesn't have to happen. So even the effort can be a little different.

Nathan: And made it stainable for her.

Rachel: Yes, exactly. Even though it's still a wild amount of effort, it's just not, I don't think she's dancing and going as hard in the dancing in particular as in others. The vocals, though, are crushing. So. So there's that. But anyway, I could go on and on about the Renaissance World Tour.

Nathan: Yes, that level of like consistent effort that these top performers put out. Even the idea of having to show up consistently. Like, if I have a conference talk coming up, I'm like am I getting sick? Am I getting sick? I've got like 45 minutes I've got to be on stage five days from now. Like, I can't get sick right now. I keep thinking they're on their tour like what are you talking about. I've got to perform for three hours straight three nights in a row every single week. It's just another level.

Rachel: When I saw her in Nashville, we went to this hotel for brunch the next day, and they were saying that she went there like with some of her folks after the concert. I'm like she was hanging out. I imagined she was somewhere like having a physical therapist like massage her and like I don't even know. Sleeping hopefully. So I don't know. I don't know how they do it.

I clearly am not built that way. I whine if I have too many calls on my calendar on Zoom, you know what I mean, for two days in a row. Can you imagine? Billion dollar work ethic. That's another podcast.

Nathan: All right, speaking of tours, we're going to take this podcast on the road. We're going to do a launch tour, which I'm very excited about.

Rachel: Yes. That’s a great segue, Nathan. Love it.

Nathan: Thank you.

Rachel: Nailed it.

Nathan: Anytime I can equate you and I with Taylor and Beyonce, I think that's a win. Because we're clearly the same level as far as performers. Like our fame levels are a little bit different, but it's just a matter of time.

Rachel: Listen, we're on our way. Okay, this podcast is about dreaming big. Okay.

Nathan: Oh man. So, we thought it'd be fun to meet listeners in person and kick this off. So what we're going to do is start with a three city tour. We might expand a little bit from there.

Rachel: You know, small things.

Nathan: Yeah, little things. We're going to do in New York City, September 22, Nashville, September 29, and Austin, October 6. I don't know what URL to send people to. We will talk about it. Well, hold on. Let me check. This is the most awkward thing, and I'll get back to the show. If I go to BillionDollarCreator.com. See if that’s a domain.

Rachel: I was just thinking that. We should keep that in because that’s hilarious. It’s like wait, I've got to stop everything to buy this domain real quick.

Nathan: Okay, just a second. GoDaddy.com. There we go. I don’t know why I still buy domains on GoDaddy, but here we are.

Rachel: I mean, I was going to say we've I've graduated to Name Cheap many years ago.

Nathan: That just makes you seem cheap. I think all our business domains are somewhere else, but I'm just going to do this right here right now. BillionDollarCreator.com. There we go. GoDaddy says this could be the start of something big.

Rachel: Yes. It can. It sure can.

Nathan: Exact match domain. Make it yours. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect.

Rachel: We didn't have to pay $15,000 for it, which is nice.

Nathan: No, I'm going to pay like $10 for this. Hold on, let me fill in some other stuff.

Rachel: Listen, you're making an investment. Okay.

Nathan: Hold on, there we go. No, I don't need to start a website for free. No, I don't need professional email.

Rachel: No, I don't want any of the ads. See what GoDaddy is trying to do is get recurring revenue from this one time purchase, see?

Nathan: Sure. Let's register that for five years. I'm ready to pay. Perfect.

Rachel: Five years, I love it. I always do two. So like you're right. I am cheap.

Nathan: Hey, commit long term. Rachel, the thing that I need you to start to do is to think long term and you invest in yourself.

Rachel: Thank you. You know what? I'm going to work on that. I'm going to work on that.

Nathan: Okay, so where is he going? Hold on.

Rachel: The tour.

Nathan: If you want to grab tickets to show up in person for our tour, go to BillionDollarCreator.com. Isn't that a great URL? I love that URL.

Rachel: So good. So good.

Nathan: BillionDollarCreator.com. You'll see the tour dates. Basically the format, what we're going to do is do a live recording, bring in a guest. We'll announce the guest later for each tour date. But we'll do a live recording of the podcast, break down some billion dollar creative businesses that we're fans of and we can learn from them. Then we'll do you know Q&A, hang out with everyone who's in the audience listening, and then just do a big meet up. So it'll be a live recording creator meetup together. We'll do that in New York, Nashville, and Austin. You can find all the details BillionDollarCreator.com.

Rachel: It's going to be fun. I'm so excited. I love a tour.

Nathan: Yep. I've never done a tour before. So, you know. Have you done a tour before?

Rachel: Honestly, I have had, no but I have attempted to do a tour many times. I think what it is, is I keep saying too much work.

Nathan: Now we have teams that do all the work for us. I'm like hey, what's the venue for Nashville? They're like oh, it's this. I'm like great.

Rachel: Yeah, exactly. This is the benefit. When you get to a place where you have an eight figure business, you don't know where anything is. You don't know how anything works. That's not your job. Your job is to think about the future of the business and what's next, but not necessarily to know where events are or what's included in your ticket or even how much tickets cost.

Nathan: Yep. Don't even know. Don’t even know.

Rachel: You too can be clueless about your business. Just keep listening to this podcast. We’ll show you how.

Nathan: That's how you know you've made it.

Rachel: Yes exactly.

Nathan: Speaking of making it, we, in our next episode, we're going to break down a few hypothetical billion dollar creator businesses. What we would do, some like solid thinking, some just wild off the wall ideas, but what we would do if we ran this creative business. Yeah, I think it'd be fun to apply a lot of these principles to real life. We'll just speculate, and maybe they'll come back and that creator will hear the episode and be like wow, thank you. Here's 1% equity in this new thing that I'm going to start. Just oh yes, 1% equity.

Rachel: That's why we're starting this podcast. You know, that's the real reason behind.

Nathan: Get paid in equity.

Rachel: Pay me in equity. That's what Beyonce said.

Nathan: Yeah, it’s come full circle. That's perfect. I think we should probably leave it there.

Rachel: Yeah.

Nathan: All right. Thanks, everyone.

Rachel: Thank you for tuning in to this episode of Billion Dollar Creator. If you enjoyed this episode, please like and subscribe, share it with your friends and leave us a review. We read every single one. If there is a company you want us to profile on Billion Dollar Creator, send us a message on social media and we will consider it. Thank you and we will see you next time.

001: The Secret to a Billion Dollar Creator: Get Paid in Equity
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