This email is close to 2,000 words.
I can guarantee this to be the longest email I’ve ever written and it might very well say the least out of any email I’ve ever written while simultaneously saying the most out of any email I’ve ever written.
It’s paradoxical, and yet it works. (that’s a reference only the truly cultured understand).
Anyway, I warned you.
Start reading at your own risk:
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Would it surprise you if I told you I already created a “business plan”—more like a vision—for the next 50 to 70 years of my life, depending on how long I’ll be able to walk this wonderful planet?
Well, I have.
But before I dive any deeper into it, let me just tell you something… this isn’t meant to be practical advice. This isn’t meant to be used as a guideline or something to strive towards. If anything, I’d suggest you forget everything I talk about right now and pretend I never wrote this.
What I’m about to share with you doesn’t just walk the fine line between visionary and pure lunacy… It IS pure lunacy, no doubt about it. In fact, I’d even argue it should deserve a whole new category of its own.
Hard, relentless work likely won’t cut it. Burnouts are a given. The amount of patience, determination, and quite possibly luck, someone would need to pull this off is truly off the charts and out of this world. But as a wise man once told me, “You don’t know where the line is until you cross it.”
And I’m damn determined to figure out exactly where that line is.
See, it’s 2024. Almost everything is digitalized in one way or another. There’s barely a person left who isn’t, is in one way or another, plugged in and online at all times. You’re able to reach a near-infinite amount of people just by pressing a few buttons without even having to leave the comfort of your couch.
Technology is evolving at incredible speeds allowing you to create everything you can imagine.
Yet, people’s vision isn’t evolving at even close to the same speed. And neither is their marketing…
Before I continue, let’s look at how current-day online marketing (for independent creators and entrepreneurs) is mostly done
First, you’ve got the usual options of joining and engaging in online communities (e.g., on Discord, Reddit, Skool, Circle, various forums, hobby or theme pages, …) that share your interests. Then you’ve got the general “building an audience” social media route (LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, …) as well as more specific (market)places (Upwork, Fiverr, Etsy, Amazon KDP, Steam, Itch dot io, Soundcloud, Spotify, you name it).
All great tools on their own.
And that’s where many people stop.
But not you. You know better… you know if you stop there you’ll be entirely dependent on some algorithm or the whims of the next update to the platform—as well as its regulations—that may or may not break your entire business overnight. You’re essentially gambling for success this way (and gamblers tend to lose—big time).
If you’ve got any brain cells in you, then you should be in this for the long game.
That means, setting things up so you're in control. You decide your own success… without having to pray that some algorithm shows your work to the right people at the right time, let alone consistently and reliably.
So you’ll want to think about building something you own, something you have absolute control over and where you don’t have to please an algorithm or fight an uphill battle to get your content in front of your audience… As well as somewhere you can focus on marketing not just your work, but yourself as the creator behind it… something like a personal blog, or, even better in my humble yet biased opinion, an email list.
When you realize your email list is the true base of operations and everything else is only a portal for people to come into your world (the email list) where you can entertain them and build a deeper relationship with them so they'll stay for years to come (again, you're playing the long game) and all but guaranteeing they'll read, consume, and buy a lot more than they would've if you'd tried to get the one-time sale… that’s when the real game begins.
But there are as many of these portals to get people onto your email list as there are grains of sand on Earth (possibly, I didn’t count).
Just to give you some inspiration:
The first and foremost method people use (aside from the ones I mentioned earlier) is to use paid advertisement to get people interested in what you have to offer, maybe give them something for free which they can use (or that’s purely entertaining—this depends on the market you’re in) in return for signing up to your email list.
But what if you don’t want to spend any money?
No worries, there are plenty of other options as well.
Here we’re already entering a terrain that not many people (definitely not nearly enough) are thinking about using and abusing.
For example, going on podcasts or interviews with other people/channels/businesses in your market (or related markets)—the smaller ones especially are always happy to talk with anyone. Or writing articles and press releases for (online) magazines and blogs. As well as your local newspapers or radio stations—they love to interview local people who are doing something creative in their lives.
Everyone is looking for news and entertainment all the time. You just have to approach them and ask (make sure you’re allowed to plug your work or your email list at the end—most will allow you to do so, but it’s best to double-check).
Taking it yet another step further: unleash your inner Brandon Sanderson (to stay in theme as creatives) and grow your own all-around entertainment-focused podcast like he does with his “Intentionally Blank” podcast as a supplement to all the books he’s writing.
This is truly where most people stop.
Only the true devout, the maniacs, and the mentally insane in our world would dare to go beyond. Probably for the best because you’d need to be a special type of deranged to even dare thinking about taking it to this next level.
What level am I talking about?
The level of madness where people start thinking “Why build a business around one product, service, or offer when I could build a whole universe around one central narrative?”
That’s where you start thinking like a publisher.
This is where you start writing books, comics, and graphic novels, releasing video games, board games, or card games, recording songs, albums, and soundtracks, creating paintings, sculptures, or even action figures, directing animated series, films, and documentaries…
All with the intention of creating one coherent universe where everything’s interconnected, one thing leads to the next, the movie follows the book, the action figures follow the movie, the video games follow the action figures, the paintings follow the video games, the books then references the paintings in a later installment, which then again follows the albums, the documentaries, and everything else, all in unison, all living together in harmony, supporting one another and strengthening each other to the point where there are a bazillion gateways for people to come to discover, enjoy, and ultimately become obsessed with everything you’ve built…
And no matter where people are in your universe, they’ll always find themselves on a road that leads to your email list in exactly the same manner as every road would lead to Rome.
Yes, this is a lot.
If anything, this is too much. Especially for just one person to accomplish. No doubt about it. I warned you in the beginning…this takes work. It might not even be possible. I haven’t got the slightest clue. Probably nobody really does.
The least I can say is that this isn’t for the weak-willed, the weak-minded, and the lazy… not in the slightest.
I repeat, these are merely ideas meant to inspire you. I haven’t even started working on 10% of this. It will take years or even decades to do all of it. And nobody’s forcing you to do everything. But it’s great to have goals you can’t possibly reach. It’s good to be motivated and have something to drive you.
Nobody got anywhere without a vision.
And well, mine just happens to be… well, however extremely, more than likely, unattainable this is…
I can’t, in good conscience, suggest you try anything even close to this. No doubt many people who’d attempt such a thing would go insane or completely burn out, draining every single drop of life and creative expression they have left… even attempting to do just two or three different things on this list would probably mean the end to most people.
If anything, I recommend you NOT to do this.
But just in case you happen to be as crazy (and as overly optimistic and long-term-focused) as I am.
This might just get you inspired to make something happen.
Remind yourself that just because you barely see anyone else attempt something like this doesn’t mean you can’t or shouldn’t do it. More often than not, you’ll become MORE, not less, successful by doing the things others don’t.
Circling back a bit…
Don't forget, you're not limited to solely talking about your projects from a creative perspective. In fact, it’d likely hurt you if you did. Realize that people won’t be solely interested in your work. If you’re attempting anything close to my crazy vision of the future I’ve laid out right here, and if done right, they'll be interested in YOU (and everything you put out).
So share stories about the development, about how you came up with your ideas, what inspired you, even talk about the work of others and what you thought was missing from their creations—a common reason for making your own version—be bigger than life. Show them there’s a real person behind this universe you’re creating.
At the end of the day, people just want to be entertained, which opens up a whole new world of things to talk about.
No doubt this universe will become bigger than you. It will outlast you if you put everything you have into it (which also means someone else will cause its downfall when you’re no longer around—you either die a visionary or live long enough to see them kill off your babies).
But as long as that’s not the case, you’ll have to be the driving force of expansion—you and the characters that inhabit your universe and the many worlds it holds.
There’s no plug for anything today.
I wouldn’t feel comfortable “selling” you on something like today’s vision only to plug something of mine that can’t even come close to helping you understand or even try to get started on completing a task as big as this one.
The only thing I can offer you is a helpful piece of advice—unproven and untested, not even backed up by my own experience. This is at least how I’m currently working towards tackling the above. And that’s by starting things slow. Focusing on every aspect one at a time. And building the foundation first (you can’t build a skyscraper on a rushed foundation after all).
And that foundation is nothing less than learning to write and entertain, as well as growing your email list.