To be a successful creator you don’t need millions. You don’t need millions of dollars or millions of customers, millions of clients or millions of fans. To make a living as a craftsperson, photographer, musician, designer, author, animator, app maker, entrepreneur, or inventor you need only thousands of true fans.
A true fan is defined as a fan that will buy anything you produce. These diehard fans will drive 200 miles to see you sing; they will buy the hardback and paperback and audible versions of your book; they will purchase your next figurine sight unseen; they will pay for the “best-of” DVD version of your free YouTube channel; they will come to your chef’s table once a month. (View Highlight)
the internet took a detour. Centralized social platforms became the dominant way for creators and fans to connect. The platforms used this power to become the new intermediaries — inserting ads and algorithmic recommendations between creators and users while keeping most of the revenue for themselves. (View Highlight)
Note: Took a detour from the internet matching patrons with creators directly
NFTs are blockchain-based records that uniquely represent pieces of media. The media can be anything digital, including art, videos, music, gifs, games, text, memes, and code (View Highlight)
Crypto’s fine-grained granularity lets creators capture a much larger area under the demand curve. (View Highlight)
The third and most important way NFTs change creator economics is by making users owners, thereby reducing customer acquisition costs to near zero (View Highlight)
Note: Why is CAC zero? Why does making them an owner make acquisition costs low? You still need to promote yourself work to find your fans.
The highest revenue NFT project to date, NBA Top Shot, has generated $200M in gross sales in just the past month (View Highlight)
Note: Need to get Michael’s story written down of the pack and shot he sold.
It’s been able to grow so efficiently because users feel like owners — they have skin in the game. It’s true peer-to-peer marketing, fueled by community, excitement, and ownership. (View Highlight)
Note: What other forces could be at play here? I have skin in the game at CW, but I’m not always feeling pumped about it.
The thousand true fans thesis builds on the original ideals of the internet: users and creators globally connected, unconstrained by intermediaries, sharing ideas and economic upside. Incumbent social media platforms sidetracked this vision by locking creators into a bundle of distribution and monetization. There are, correspondingly, two ways to challenge them: take the users, or take the money. Crypto and NFTs give us a new way to take the money. Let’s make it happen. (View Highlight)
