Behind the Scenes: A Look Into My Life and Business as a Solopreneur

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“painting of a stage with a curtain in the style of roy lichtenstein” | Dall-E

Once in a while, I like to give all of you a look “behind-the-scenes” and open up my life and business to all of you.

I do it for three reasons:

1. Writing everything out helps me get perspective

2. Your feedback is wildly helpful

3. Readers often share that these posts make them feel less alone

So I hope you all find some gems in my journey that you can plug into yours.

I’ll ask you for feedback on some pointed questions in this post but if there’s anything that you have feedback on, please please please send it. I need that feedback in my veins! Look for the ✍️ emoji throughout the post where I’ll prompt you.

It’s a long one. Feel free to skim to the parts that are most interesting to you.

Here’s what I’ll cover:

1. Updates from the liminal space

2. Brand and audience

3. Revenue growth

4. Newsletter growth

5. Consulting

6. The talent collective

7. Miscellaneous and future projects

Let’s dive in…

1. Updates from the liminal space

I wrote a few months ago about leaving the liminal space and struggling to decide which path to take. Every step in one direction felt like it would close off other paths.

I also felt fear around continuing to focus on community. Am I just doing the same thing because it’s comfortable? Would it prevent me from being able to explore other paths?

Well, spoiler, I’ve continued to focus on community. The fears are still there, and the door is still open for other paths to pull me, but I’m finding renewed energy for community by exploring it from new angles (more on that in the next section).

I’ve felt free to create in a way I haven’t been able to since the early days of my career. A lot of you don’t know this about me but I got my start by blogging, back in 2008. It’s how I made a name for myself, how I got my first job as a community manager, and what got me started on this whole community path. I’m a community builder at heart, but I’m also a writer at heart.

Back then, I could say whatever was on my mind. I had nothing to lose and no one I was accountable to. I was fearless and wrote whatever was interesting to me. But as my career developed I began to feel more restricted. I was trying to “stick to the brand voice” and not ruffle too many feathers.

Now that I’m independent for the first time in a decade, I feel free again. I’ve been able to take on more controversial topics, like the intersection of community and wealth or building community for the privileged. I can cuss like a New Yorker if I please. I can be me.

I also feel like I’ve finally turned a corner on my people-pleasing tendencies. I’m learning to love myself more and care less about what people think. Maybe it’s age. Maybe it’s becoming a parent. Maybe it’s learning the hard way enough times that it’s finally sinking in. But it’s finally starting to shift.

That’s all to say, I’m really happy with my work and life right now. I love the freedom. I’m loving being a writer again. I look forward every morning to starting my day writing. I’ll sit for three hours and time will fly by. I’ve felt more creative than I can remember feeling in over a decade.

I’m enjoying doing consulting work as well, which surprised me. I used to hear the horror stories of nightmare clients and I was bracing myself for the worst. But all of my clients have been delightful, and thoughtful. I learn a ton from our sessions and it’s been a goldmine of content ideas. It’s also giving me an opportunity to tinker on community in different fields. My clients range from a physical gym to a microschool platform to paid community models. I’m having a lot of fun.

The revenue from consulting has been healthy which has taken some financial pressure off our family after a full year of no income. My wife just got a new job too (she’s a middle school math teacher). Hurray for income! It’s nice to not be burning through savings anymore.

In some ways, what I’m doing looks similar to what I was doing before with CMX. Helping businesses build community and helping community people build businesses. But the flavor is different. The way I spend my days is entirely different. I’m not building a new community right now but it feels like there’s something forming in the abyss. I have no idea what it is, but the energy is returning.

On a human level, I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt this happy for this long. I have openness and fluidity in my life again. I’m only working 3 days/week and keeping strict boundaries on meetings. I’m loving being back in New York and experiencing the seasons again. I’m obsessed with our two kids. I’m getting to spend time with my parents and sister now that we’re back in close proximity.

I have moments where I feel lonely since my closest friends are now far away, and I haven’t formed a new friend group here yet, but I’m slowly meeting people and planting the seeds for new relationships to grow.

I’m exercising every day and in the best shape of my life (adjusted for age). I’m drinking less and hiking more. I track my mental health every day and I haven’t dipped into a depressive state in about 6 months.

Life, in this moment, is good.

Alright… let’s dive into the business stuff…

2. Brand and audience

I’ve been thinking a lot about my brand and what audience I want to focus on.

One challenge I’ve found is that I’m often talking to two primary audiences in my content:

1. Community creators (people who start a community business from the ground up)

2. Community professionals (people who build community for an existing business)

I’m trying to decide if I should focus on #1 or #2. There’s overlap. But then there are topics that are only relevant to one or the other. For example, my articles on changing your job title or how execs value community aren’t very relevant for community founders.

I’ve spent most of my career focusing on community professionals, but I’m feeling more and more drawn to working with community creators. I learned a ton building CMX, and I have a lot to share with other people building community businesses from the ground up.

I feel guilt around the idea of not supporting community professionals. I’ve dedicated my career to supporting community professionals to this point. There’s still so much work to be done.

There’s one angle I’ve been thinking about that would be a fun blend of both worlds: helping community professionals break out on their own.

With the current state of the job market, I think a lot of community pros are becoming open to the idea of launching their own community business rather than breaking their back for another company that undervalues them. I threw together a one-pager in 10 minutes here if you’re interested in giving me quick feedback on if this direction resonates.

As I continue to grow this newsletter, build courses, or launch communities, honing in on who I’m serving will become more important. I still don’t have a great answer.

✍️ How do you all think I should be thinking about my brand and audience?

3. Revenue growth

I’m really happy with how things are going with my business from a revenue perspective.

I have a healthy income coming in again. My goal is to match the salary I was earning at my job ($200k). I’m not quite there yet but I’m on the right track. At my current pace, if I maintain the same amount of consulting clients and don’t change anything else, I should hit about $170k in year one. I think breaking $200k is reasonable.

I have three main sources of revenue right now:

1. Consulting

2. Talent Collective

3. Speaking

Here’s what my monthly revenue looks like since I started working again:

Most of my income is coming from consulting. It’s a bit wavy because some clients pay me up front and some pay monthly. My MRR for consulting is $10,800. Over time, I’d like for more of my income to come from products with more passive revenue. I’ll share some of those ideas at the end of this post.

Speaking isn’t something I focus on. It comes in organically and it’s something I’m thinking about taking a bit more seriously since, as you can see, the revenue can be pretty substantial. I just don’t want to travel and be away from my family too much. I’m aiming to land 4-5 paid gigs per year.

The Talent Collective revenue is still modest and as you can see, April was really bad:

There were a couple refunds processed in April, and volume was about 30% of what it has been. I’m hoping to get this up to $3,000 MRR, which would bring in $36,000 in ARR, but the job market is brutal right now so getting companies to sign up has been tough. I’ll talk about this in a bit more detail in the Talent Collective section below, where I’d love your feedback on what to do.

Notes:

• I will also start getting book royalties soon since I paid back my advance. It looks like it will be about $5,000 every six months if sales persist.

• My expenses are very low. I’ve spent $466 on my business so far this year.

4. Newsletter growth

This newsletter is my #1 focus right now.

I’m really happy with how it’s going, both in terms of personal fulfillment and growth. I’m tinkering a lot with the format, trying out different kinds of content, and seeing what feels fun and what resonates with readers. It’s still a bit experiment.

We’re up to over 3,700 subscribers and open rates have stayed constant at 50-52%.

There’s an inflection point in September, 2022. That’s when I started publishing every week. Before that, I was writing pretty sporadically.

There’s also a little inflection point that you can see at the tail end of the graph, from early March. I had started posting 2x/week (had little effect) and I got Substack recommendation from

Greg Isenberg

's Late Checkout newsletter (had a big effect).

It’s plateaued now, but that recommendation single-handedly grew my newsletter by over 10% and accounts for 2/3 of all of my referrals. Wild.

Lesson: one strong recommendation from a big newsletter that’s aligned with your topic can have a massive impact.

If you take out the referrals from Greg, there isn't much of an inflection point, so I don't think that posting 2x per day was actually impactful on growth. Traffic went up during that time, but it didn’t really stick:

The gap above is when I went on parental leave and stopped publishing. The double sticks are where I was publishing every week.

Here’s a look at how my weekly and monthly subscriber rates have been growing:

I don’t know if these numbers are good. But if I could share what I’ve learned about growing a newsletter so far it would be:

1. Consistency: My subs started shooting up when I stayed committed to publishing every week.

2. A big recommendation: I got a bunch of recommendations and they would each drive a few dozen subs. Then I got that big one from Greg (a large audience that’s well aligned with mine) and my list grew by 10% in one month.

3. Make your social media posts stand on their own: Don’t just share a link and intro to your post on social. Make the social post good as its own piece of content. I get a big boost of subs when a social media post (like this one) does well. LinkedIn and Twitter have been my focus.

4. Funnel everything to your newsletter: All my bios link to my newsletter first. My subscription form is the first thing on my website. On a podcast or when I give a talk I always ask people to sub to my newsletter. It’s in my email auto-replies. It’s my catch-all.

5. Have fun: It’s cliche but when I get too focused on my subs I start to overthink my content. When I just write what’s fun and interesting to me, the content comes out much better. True, distribution matters. It isn’t just about having quality content. But once people come to your newsletter, quality matters. It’s what gets them to hit the subscribe button.

✍️ What else should I be trying to grow my newsletter? What’s worked for you?

On the revenue front, I’m thinking about turning on sponsorships in the newsletter. I’d love your feedback on this one.

I’ve been avoiding it because, as Jay Clouse put it well in his newsletter this week, “monetizing consumes social capital”. I’ve focused on giving as much value as possible here in the newsletter without asking for anything in return from readers. I want to earn your trust before I ask you to buy anything.

Sponsorships aren’t asking anything of readers, but it does take away from the purity of the content.

I now have the next 6 weeks of content scheduled out, so I’m feeling more confident about my ability to sell sponsorships and consistently deliver great content. If I do it, I’m thinking about starting with one placement per newsletter at $500/ad.

✍️ What do you think, should I turn sponsorships on? Would that hurt the quality of your experience here?

✍️ Is that the right price point? Would you sponsor this newsletter?

As another option for supporting my writing, I’ve considered turning on paid subscriptions. I just don’t see how it will drive meaningful revenue.

I have 6 pledges right now for a total of $600 per year. To get to even $10k/year I would need 100 paying subs (about 3% of subscribers). That feels like a lot for a niche newsletter. But every dollar helps, and Substack puts a lot of emphasis on supporting paid newsletters. Turning on payments would align me with the Substack platform.

I don’t want to gate my content. It’s important to me that it’s freely available. So if I turn it on, it would just be an option for people who want to support me, with no added benefits.

✍️ Should I turn on paid subscriptions? Would you pay to support my writing?

5. Consulting

Consulting has been picking up.

I’m staying really specific in how I work with clients:

• I only work with 3-5 clients at a time, starting with a three-month contract and then switching to month-to-month. I charge $3,600/month.

• Each one gets two 1-hour calls per month (sometimes more for additional costs).

• In addition to the calls, clients get unlimited async support where I review their planning docs, community research, playbooks, job descriptions, and anything else they need.

You can read more about my consulting offering here.

I’ve been having a lot of fun. I get a ton of content ideas from the challenges I help clients work through. I usually have a template or resource for any problem they have, and if I don’t, I make it. Slowly, I’m building up an incredible “consulting product”.

My three clients are in a great place now. I’m about to close my fourth client, so I’ll have one slot left. I’m talking to some potential clients right now so I think it will fill up quickly.

Most of my clients come from reading this newsletter, and most have read my book. I don’t do sales. A book may never make much money, but it’s been a super effective marketing and sales tool.

I don’t plan to change much in my consulting offering. I like how it’s set up.

✍️ Anything you see in my consulting offering that I should consider doing differently?

6. The talent collective

I run a Talent Collective where senior-level community professionals who are looking for their next gig can join, and companies who are hiring can sign up to connect with them. Companies pay $200/month.

This has been going just okay. I’m really proud that it’s helped (at least) eight people land jobs already, and the overall stats are pretty solid:

The candidate side is on fire. I have over 200 now and the quality is through the roof. More than 1/3 of the companies who reached out to a candidate in the collective ended up hiring someone, and that’s just the ones who reported back to me. Wild.

The challenge has been getting companies to sign up.

The reality there are a lot more candidates looking for community jobs than there are jobs right now. Layoffs have hit the community industry hard. I add every good job I find to the jobs section.

What I’m hearing from the big companies who are hiring (Airbnb, Notion, Figma, etc.) is that they’re getting overwhelmed with applications. They don’t have a big need for the Talent Collective with so much inbound.

The companies who have signed up are overall small-to-mid-sized companies. They don’t have the brand recognition of the big companies, and they don’t have as much experience hiring for community, so the curated network is a big help to them.

I’ve tried reaching out to hiring managers on Linkedin inviting them to join the network. I’m not great at cold sales so maybe my copy just isn’t right?

I even offer to give them a free month. I want to get more companies in there so the candidates get more opportunities, I don’t care that much about the revenue. Still, the sign-ups have been really slow.

I’m thinking about sending an email out to all of the candidates in the collective asking them for referrals since perhaps there are jobs they’ve found that wasn’t a good fit for them but could be for someone else. I’m also planning to publish some content on the newsletter about how to hire for community and how to land a community job that I hope will drive more companies to post jobs.

It could just be the market, and when job supply increases, this collective will be a goldmine.

But I want to be able to help the candidates now. Not sure what else to do.

✍️ I would love your ideas. What can I do to get more companies to sign up for the talent collective and get more jobs for my candidates?

7. Miscellaneous and Future Projects

Here are some other things that I’ve been working on, and considering building in the future…

Social Media Marketing

I’ve always been pretty ad hoc in how I post to social media. I post when things come to mind and hope it does well. I’m working on becoming more strategic in how I use LinkedIn and Twitter to drive subscriber growth. I’m taking Justin Welsh’s LinkedinOS course which has been solid so far (I’m about halfway through). I’ll probably have some concrete lessons and metrics to share with you all in my next business update.

Operations

Ops never used to be my strong suit but I’m learning to love it. I read Tiago Forte’s Building a Second Brain and started keeping highly organized notes in Apple Notes for everything I do.

All of my processes have been going into Notion.

I start every day by rating my health, exercise, sleep, mood, and phone usage. I then take 15 minutes to write my morning notes which is a braindump of everything on my mind when I first sit down at the computer. This has helped me in a huge way to get focused and get into flow as I start my day.

All of my consulting processes are getting organized. I have a content calendar and publishing flow all mapped out.

I’m keeping weekly and monthly analytics for all of my projects and revenue.

I carve out a little bit of time every week to work on my ops and the system I’m building is turning into one of my most proud accomplishments.

Courses

I’m thinking about launching a new course. There are three focus areas I’m considering:

1. The Community Launch Plan - a step-by-step playbook for launching and growing a new community.

2. The Community OS - I’ll teach you how to build engagement, processes, and analytics systems to turn your community into a well-oiled machine.

3. Writing for Community - If you’re building communities online, your success in driving engagement comes down to how effective of a writer you are. Writing for community is different than writing for social media, marketing, or sales. It’s a unique form of writing that focuses on sparking and facilitating conversation. Learning how to use humor, when to be direct in your instructions, when to practice non-violent communication, etc. This course would help you become an expert community writer.

I don’t think I’m going to launch one until I get clear on the audience I’m focusing on.

✍️ Is there course that you wish existed that I could create for you?

Podcast

It feels clear to me that I will launch a podcast again in the future. I think about it all the time. I have a running notes doc with guest ideas that I think would make for one hell of a podcast relaunch.

But I’m not going to do it yet. I know how much time a podcast takes to do. And while I can probably bring in some revenue through sponsorships, it would be a while before that revenue would be significant.

I’d like to get my other projects, operations, and revenue in order before launching this one. I know myself and I love to launch new projects. I’m fighting the urge.

But this one is definitely brewing.

Paid Community

Another project I find myself thinking about launching is a paid community.

I don’t know what it would focus on yet, but something seems to be taking form in the abyss. Something around a specific way of thinking about community. An entrepreneurial approach with no fluff and a clear focus on growing a business. Something that involves running a lot of community experiments and sharing the outcomes with each other. Something for community creators. I don’t know. This one is a ways away.

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Those are all the updates I have for you fine folk.

If you read this far, thank you for taking the time to peek behind the curtain and for following along with my journey. I always feel a bit vulnerable sharing all of this info. But I’m always happy when I hit publish and I hear from all of you. I feel a lot less alone with you here.

Hit reply or drop a comment with your feedback. It’s all welcome and appreciated.

Until next week…

Thanks for building community!

-David