Prompt Playbook: Start a Creator Business PART 1

Hey Prompt Entrepreneur,

In this week’s Playbook I’m going to look at what I believe the quickest and simplest route to generating a side income and reaching financial freedom.

Simplest and fastest. Not easiest!

You know me well enough to know I’m not going to sling you some get rich quick nonsense.

How do I know this is the quickest way?

Because I’ve previously launched over 30 businesses, solo, partnerships and teams. And this the fastest one to start cashflowing life changing amounts of money.

It’s the business I’m now all in on now. It’s taken me <9 months to get it from just an idea to six figures with almost zero costs.

I want to show you exactly what I’ve done. And how you can do it to.

This week we’ll cover:

• Part 1: Why you need to become a creator.

• Part 2: What will you create?

• Part 3: Turning on the creative machine

• Part 4: Generating first cash

• Part 5: Growth pathways

I’m going to give an overview of the whole process of how I set up Prompt Entrepreneur, its structure, growth mechanisms and revenue sources.

This will be a case study that you can apply yourself.

One caveat - I’ll keep it a little high level because otherwise I’ll be sending out 5000 words a day.

Which you won’t read!

If this is a topic that is of great interest to you though I’m thinking about turning this into a workshop, book or course. If that’s something you’d be interested in here’s a form: https://forms.gle/nrkbzbD8VHtyEn4M8 . Feedback helps me shape this up to exactly what you need.

Still not sure? Let’s cover what exactly a creator business is and why you need this.

Let’s get started:

Why you need to become a creator?

First up let’s deal with the elephant in the room: influencers.

Starting a creator business is not the same as becoming an influencer!

You won’t be taking photos of your brunch or doing dances on TikTok. Unless you want to!

A creator business is better defined as unique type of entrepreneurial venture that is centred around an individual’s personal brand, expertise, and content creation.

Unlike an influencer the creator provides value to audience and customers by creating high quality content, product and services.

Influencers on the other hand are about attention. It’s an attention based business.

The larger the following the more attractive to advertisers and the more monetisable. They don’t necessarily have to build this audience on valuable high quality content though. Most do not.

As a creator you do not need millions of followers to generate a life-changing income. Followings are more likely to be in the thousands or tens of thousands. But because of the way we will sell up a value funnel that’s more than enough to generate lots of revenue.

So whilst creators and influencers do live in the same space (social media) it’s a much deeper, more value based connection.

For creators too social media is the first step. It’s an entrance into our business. More on this later.

Hybrid theory

Creators and the creator economy sits between several powerful fields:

• expert based business

• content marketing

• personal branding

It’s the combination of these that makes it so powerful. Your products and services are based around your expertise. You use content marketing to make sure people know you are an expert. And you combine personal branding to make it all cohere.

This all makes it very resistant to AI as well.

I’ve talked in detail about this elsewhere - basically personal branding and human-made content will help you differentiate from AI by using what’s uniquely you.

Namely: you!

By putting yourself, your expertise and your creations at the centre of your business you become a more indispensable linchpin.

It’s also…and lots of people forget this…fun! You can layer in your own personality, hobbies and interests as part of your “brand” (ugh). Hell, the other day I wrote about tardigrades. And this was within scope.

This leads to a much more fulfilling and sustainable entrepreneurial path than pretending to be something you’re not.

Creator multiple income streams

The other biggie that proofs you against AI is the fact that creators have multiple streams of income.

I’ve talked about this too previously! Advances in AI can at any time mean that a particular skill or income source is removed from the market.

This is a massive risk if have one income source like most people - their job.

But AI also helps us to build new income sources by starting businesses. A creator business is no different. In fact Prompt Entrepreneur as a whole is all about how we can use AI to start and grow businesses!

Creator businesses can have multiple sources of income. I started listing them and it got a bit silly. I got to 50 or so. Too many.

Instead here’s a few that Prompt Entrepreneur has made money from. It’s actually probably more…

1. Digital Products (e-books, courses, templates, etc.)

2. Physical Products (merchandise, apparel, accessories, etc.)

3. Memberships

4. Paid Subscriptions

5. beehiiv Boosts

6. Sponsorships and Brand Partnerships

7. Affiliate Marketing

8. Consulting and Coaching

9. Online Events (webinars, workshops, masterclasses)

10. Live Experiences (conferences, meetups, retreats)

11. Newsletter Advertising

12. TikTok Creator Fund

13. Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing

14. Paid Webinars and Workshops

15. Consulting Retainer Agreements

16. Done-for-You Services

17. Speaker Fees and Events

Right now we have about 6 core income streams at Prompt Entrepreneur. These are the ones that we have found work really well sustainably. I’ll talk about them all and how to get them up and running.

The exact amount is unimportant. What’s important here is that it is not ONE single source of income but a handful. So if one stops paying there are alternatives to take up the slack.

Adjunct business

Finally, whatever business you are running will benefit from adding creator components.

If you do not yet have a business then starting a creator business lets you branch into practically any business model (see the revenue sources above!).

If you already have a business then adding a layer of creator business on top will supercharge it and create more opportunities.

And here’s the real kicker. If your particular niche doesn’t work out for whatever reason you can pivot your creator business. Because it’s based on you. You can have a portfolio of businesses and the common theme is still you.

This lets you have loyal customers even across wildly different product categories. Once you’ve built that trust (in you as a person!) that’s transferable.

This means any new venture isn’t from scratch. It’s built on the goodwill you have from your audience. As someone who has previously built 30+ businesses from scratch let me tell you this is a lifesaver!

This week

Over this week I’ll show you exactly how to plan and deploy a creator business like Prompt Entrepreneur.

Namely here’s what we’ll explore:

• Part 1: Why you need to become a creator.

• Part 2: What will you create?

• Part 3: Turning on the creative machine

• Part 4: Generating first cash

• Part 5: Growth pathways

We’ve now covered what a creator business is and why you should be focused on becoming a creator.

In the next Part we’ll work out what your niche is and what sort of content you’ll create.

Then I’ll reveal what content formats, platforms and types work really well. I’ve done a LOT of trial and error over the last 9 months so can hopefully skip some heartache on your side!

I’ll then outline the 6 income sources I personally use and show you how to get them all rolling, what tools I use and how to price everything.

Finally I’ll give you a growth plan to deploy at each stage of your growth. Rather than trying to do everything all at once you’ll instead have an incremental step by step to build up.

For everyone in the Forge I’ll see you tomorrow where we’ll continue this journey.

Keep prompting,

Kyle

Follow me on X (Twitter).