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There was a time when people aspired to become engineers, doctors, and CAs. But in 2024 with more people hitting success with unconventional career paths, careers like content creation have become the new cool.

The numbers suggest suggest the same. India’s Creator Economy is expected to be valued at USD 3926.2 million by 2030 at a CAGR of 22% during the forecast period 2023-2030.

With more and more individuals looking to become creators, it’s only fair to have a playbook that tells you the DOs and DON’Ts of the creator path - so you can grow fast and smooth, with as minimal hurdles as possible.

I have been creating for 30 months, and during this time, I have:

• Posted consistently on IG, X, and LinkedIn

• Grew 11,000+ collective audience

• Run two newsletters

• Paid cohort for creators to build their newsletters

• Community for writers, freelancers, and creators

Wearing multiple hats and being in content space for such a long time taught me a thing or two about creatorship and what to avoid to build a sustainable, profitable content business.

I noted down all I could remember - and I will take you through all of them in detail. But before we get started, say hi to our lovely sponsors who help me keep this newsletter free; click on the link to check them out!!

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Let me answer a BIG question first - Can anyone be a creator? NO!

Can anyone be a doctor?
Can anyone build businesses?
Can anyone engineer automobiles?

Technically and potentially, yes.
But practically, no.

Technically, all you need is a degree and some experience to become one. But that is not all. You need to enjoy certain tasks or need to have a certain kind of mentality to thrive in a particular career.

Similarly, to become a good content creator, you need:

• Ability to turn your observations into content

• Comfortable with the camera

• Be okay with talking to 100s of people

• Spending huge chunks of time on screens

…and so on.

With that being said, if you think you will enjoy content creation and want to become a creator, there are 17 notes I would love to share with you before you get started.

There might be some cliche advice. But everything I wrote here is based on my experience building my content business. Ready?

Don’t just say, “I want to create.”

Say, “I want to create [X] content because I believe it will solve [Y] problem for [X] audience. This will help me achieve [ABC] goal to make [$$$] from it.”

It’s okay if your goals are unclear. But try to define what you want to achieve six months from now or who you want to help, educate, or entertain with your content.

Simple questions like these give you 1000x clarity on where to start and how to approach your goals.

It’s so tempting to leave your digital footprints everywhere. But I believe it’s one of the reasons for my slow growth.

Ideally, you’d like to expand to different platforms. But it’s best to learn the content fundamentals on one platform, build a distribution, and then adapt and apply your experience on different platforms.

You can pick any platform based on what you’re comfortable with (remember you want to remove as much friction as possible initially.)

Comfortable taking videos? Pick Instagram
Comfortable wiring long posts? Pick LinkedIn
Comfortable with one-liners? Pick X/Twitter

But start with ONE.

BONUS: While you are building on one platform, keep consuming content on other platforms to understand platform-to-platform differences.

Don’t try to create the best content piece ever known to mankind. Because you won’t be able to. You still don’t know many things and you’re just starting out.

There is no syllabus or formula to become a successful creator. It’s highly subjective; what worked for me might not work for you. You have to pave your way—and that comes from a lot of trial and error.

Tech makes you focus on your content while most other operational stuff is automated or outsourced.

I made the mistake of doing most things manually, losing a lot of time. Just search ‘Tools for creators’ and you will find thousands of resources on the right tools to use and how to use them efficiently.

Different social media platform’s algorithms promote different kinds of content. It is important to understand what the platform is pushing and mould your content accordingly, but don’t become its slave.

Understand the difference between adjusting your content to fit the algorithm and compromising on your content only for the algorithm.

You will come across multiple engagement groups in your initial days. Have the courage to say no. Engagement groups give you the initial push, but you will never understand your content on an elemental level. The initial days are hard, but once you get a grasp of what your audience likes, your growth is exponential.

Don’t choose a path just because it’s easy. Choose the right path.

So, Slap Engagement Groups and Join Communities instead.

The beautiful thing about communities is they don’t look at your expertise level - they welcome everyone. You can share your experiences, ask questions, and learn from your peers and people ahead of you.

It’s like being in a classroom, sharing ideas.

Once you find content creation fun, you are inclined to invest more time than needed. Most people who pick creation have other things to do in life—they might be students, full-time professionals, business owners, and they have a personal life.

Track time or at least have a rough estimate of how much time you are spending on content to ensure other aspects of your life are undisturbed by your newfound love.

Always reverse engineer two kinds of content:

• Content you enjoyed reading

• Content with massive engagement

Form a thesis around why the content worked or why you liked it. You might or might not crack the ‘why’, but you will sharpen your thoughts on how you can improve at content.

Your audience is scattered initially. You push out content to everyone and they reciprocate. But as you grow and understand where you want to take your audience, set up a funnel immediately and drive as many folks as possible in the direction you want them to.

This might be owning your audience by gathering their emails, asking them to buy a product from you, hosting webinars, running a newsletter, or anything!

This is my content funnel:

Many gurus will give you templates to network. Throw them in the dustbin.

Content Creation is a lonely journey if you try to do it all by yourself. You need friends. You need cheerleaders. You need people who feel happy for you when you hit a milestone.

And more than anything, you need people to count on and share what you’re going through when things don’t work. You might have an excellent support system in your personal life, but these folks are your colleagues-cum-friends.

They truly understand what you are going through because they are in the same profession and maybe even give you useful solutions.

Reach out to people who you find interesting on social media or communities, get on a Gmeet with them and see where it goes.

Posting daily doesn’t mean creating daily.

We publish 20 content pieces a month in our community, Cognition Insiders. I have to create 12 posts among those 20—and I do it for three hours before the 15th of every month.

That’s it. Three hours of creation → 12 days of content.

Create your content in batches and work smartly.

You will hear a lot of ‘Engagement brings Engagement’ and you need to make some x number of comments daily to grow, etc., etc.

It is true. More commenting → more visibility → more profile visitors → more followers.

My only advice here is - Don’t make it a chore. Once you do, you will lose all the fun!

You have to consume before you comment, so make a conscious effort to what kind of posts you interact with and what impact they have on you.

A smarter approach would be to balance the post you comment on with some profiles you’re sure will draw massive engagement.

Collect all your high-performing posts in one place and keep repurposing them from time to time to attract new audiences.

Don’t waste your high-performing posts by just posting once. My friend Kushagra, tells this beautifully:

I will ask you a simple question: “You are investing so many hours in creating content in this volume. What are the direct or indirect returns?”

Are you creating content to get more clients? Are you creating content to sell products? What are you investing so much time for?

You won’t be able to monetize from Day 1, but you can work towards it from Day 1. Many creators don’t even think about it, assuming they can only monetize after they hit a certain milestone.

I have been thinking about monetization since 2022, and I got Cognition’s first sponsor in 2024. Not only that, I make money from an 800-member email list.

Where do you see milestones here?

It’s all approach and the ability to turn content into business. You can do it too—only if you plan and work towards it.

I just started doing this. Instead of posting and hoping for the best, I am tracking progress, what topics are my audience interested in listening from me, what topics are trending, etc.

I am analyzing a lot of data to clarify what my readers want, and my goal then becomes to give more of it in the best possible way.

With AI, this is even easier. You can upload the data charts and ask specific questions for insights.

Virality is a byproduct of consistency. Once you focus on consistency, you will improve your content and know what to say to achieve maximum reach.

What most creators fail at is sustainability. They don’t understand how they can stay relevant because they don’t know what problem they are solving.

This circles back to the first point of understanding your goals clearly. How will you sustain and persist if you don’t know what you are solving for?

My BIG goal is to help writers, creators, and freelancers understand content at an elemental level and build systems that make their lives a lot easier than they are today—all this while avoiding the mistakes I made.

What’s yours?

No, I am not talking about Instagram polls or group messages or whatever. I am talking about one-on-one conversations. Reach out to your readers, know their problems, understand how your solutions are helping them, and how you can serve them better.

Most creators think they know their audience. I am telling you - Any small creator who does not have one-on-one conversations with their audience will never truly understand what to solve for.

That’s all we have!

TL;DR:

As I have said, there is some cliche advice that works. There are a few points I personalized for myself. In any case, I have applied and learned from these 17 points.

I hope you make new mistakes and avoid mine.

Good luck!! ❤️