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1000 True Fans? Try 100

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Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#41

Post by modo_mario »

sytelus wrote: post #13

While this is well written, I would urge people to NOT to follow this advice. Subscriber churn is a real thing and losing $1000/yr subscriber hurts way more than losing $100/yr subscriber. Additionally, it takes an order of magnitude more effort for conversion and your product has to almost match the utility of a smartphone produced by $1T company to even demand that kind of automated recurring payments. The vast maj…

>The fact is that it is much easier to convince me to pay $10 to get a new release instead of forcing on me $10/yr subscription.

For the average person this is not the case assuming you as a creator are trying to extract similar value. That means you're pushing out a new release every year. That either means the new release invalidates the old one or is so enticing every time that people keep buying it without skipping releases as they think about it or are reminded unlike a subscription which can be automated.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#42

Post by wtracy »

I'm having trouble envisioning very many markets where a "fan" is going to consistently spend $1k/year.

The article mentions professional training and education, which makes sense.

I can also see certain people spending that kind of money on physical goods (mechanical keyboards, audiophile equipment, one-of-a-kind art pieces) but $1k of revenue from physical goods is very different from $1k of income.

Other than that, the only things I can think of would be direct access to a celebrity or some form of conspicuous consumption. ("That game you play all day? I personally cover 40% of its operating costs.")

I don't see how the average webcomic artist or food blogger can achieve anything like what is described here.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#44

Post by WA »

jv22222 wrote: post #36
the_watcher wrote: post #29

This thesis seems like 1000 True Fans hired patio11.

I was wondering if it was written by patio11. It’s just like his writing style.

What? Not at all imho. He writes very different. He likes to construct more complex sentences. This reads like your average journalist, which is okay, but not particular distinguishable.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#46

Post by arkitaip »

wtracy wrote: post #42

I'm having trouble envisioning very many markets where a "fan" is going to consistently spend $1k/year. The article mentions professional training and education, which makes sense. I can also see certain people spending that kind of money on physical goods (mechanical keyboards, audiophile equipment, one-of-a-kind art pieces) but $1k of revenue from physical goods is very different from $1k of income . Other than tha…

This is a "think piece" and not based on any research or data. In reality, I'm seeing lots of relatively small entertainers do the 1000 Fans Thing on Twitch and it really works because each subscriber pays 5 USD per month.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#47

Post by bambax »

1. The article shows a pyramid and it's important. In order to get a few "true fans" (people prepared to pay dearly for what you produce), you need a large amount of "distant fans" (people who like what you do, as long as it's free). The key word is conversion, and, regrettably, it's not present once in the post [0]. It's probably in the 1 to 0.1% range.

[0] Edit: In fact it is (convert). However in the next paragraph the concept is somehow replaced with "whaling", which means that a few paying customers help support a large group of free riders, or conversion in reverse. This is misleading. The large group needs to be there first.

2. At the $1000/year price point, it's not an artistic production anymore. Most examples are about "courses", about teaching something to a specific audience. Some of the topics are questionable and sound a little scammy (physiotherapy?), may be preying on people's vulnerabilities (private coding classes for kids?) or playing on vanity (having a celebrity streamer play along with you). This is Goop territory. Is this the future we want?

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#48

Post by giantrobot »

Who in the hell is going to pay another individual $1000 a year to make content? That's more than a year's subscriptions to Disney+, Amazon Prime, and Netflix!

One of the root ideas in the True Fans essay was a fan would be willing to spend a day's wage for a year's worth of content from a creator. A large portion of the population at large can pay a day's wage for say 52 hours (a creator spitting out and hour of content a week) of entertainment. Out of that population, argues the essay, a creator needs to only find a thousand True Fans out of the population that can afford the $100 in order to make a living.

That's not only workable math but something that's doable. The market can support the model, it won't always and in every situation but it can. At the reasonable "day's wage" level many people can afford to support multiple creators. Spending $200 a year for content is still in the affordability range of a large portion of the populace.

A far far smaller portion of the population at large can afford $1k for 52 hours of entertainment. It's definitely not a tenth of the $100 population, it's more likely a fraction of a percent. So any given creator isn't likely to find 100 True Rich Fans, they're going to find maybe one if they're lucky. The market isn't going to support a model where a few dozen hours of entertainment costs a thousand dollars. A thousand dollars will get you a game console, a TV, subscriptions to a bunch of streaming services, and a ton of games. Even fewer of these whales could support multiple creators so very few creators could ever possibly survive of the whale model.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#49

Post by onion2k »

wtracy wrote: post #42

I'm having trouble envisioning very many markets where a "fan" is going to consistently spend $1k/year. The article mentions professional training and education, which makes sense. I can also see certain people spending that kind of money on physical goods (mechanical keyboards, audiophile equipment, one-of-a-kind art pieces) but $1k of revenue from physical goods is very different from $1k of income . Other than tha…

The incredibly annoying thing about this is that there's a really obvious case - software tools. There should be so many cases of people who have written a useful tool and have 100 businesses who pay $1000/year because that tool is the backbone of their $1000 * xxx profit.

The fact this doesn't happen very often is a significant failure of the tech industry.

Re: 1000 True Fans? Try 100

#50

Post by johnchristopher »

> This strategy is closely related to the concept of “whales” in gaming, in which 1 to 2 percent of users drive 80 percent of gaming companies’ revenue

Last time I heard of that term - `whale` - it was a reference to a mom whose child was making in-app purchase without her mother's consent and/or knowing. Unethical behavior cursor to the max.

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