When the gold rush happened it was a time of opportunity. The ones that made all the money were the people providing the shovels.
The new gold rush is content.
The digger is the creator.
The shovel is apps and services that make content creation easier.
Software rush
For the last 20 years software has been eating the world. Developers have been the most sought-after resource.
Entrepreneurs seeking gold have poured their life energy into creating software. Some succeeded and most failed.
Agencies building software for you made money from day one. Some grew to be huge, some made great lifestyle businesses that just worked.
Tooling services that helped you create a website or host a website also grew to be huge.
For software —> the goal is to build things people want to use.
In content —> the goal is to create things people want to watch/read/listen to.
Get either right and you have no reproducing limits and growth can be very fast.
The deceiving simplicity of both and the possibility of rapid success cause a gold rush.
Content creation rush
Tik Tok, podcast, YouTube, newsletters, LinkedIn, blogs, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch (+OnlyFans)
Make success in one channel and you are set for life.
“Developing a good brand lets a business operate capitalism in easy mode”.
Good content is a winning formula for business. More importantly, if you can’t create good content, you will be left behind any competitor that does.
A friend summed it up as “The WHAT / HOW is software. The WHY is content.” - Vicky Wilson
Everyone rushed to get online and ‘have a website’ 20 years ago. Many didn’t build a business around it though and were left behind.
You don’t just need to have a presence on Twitter and Instagram. You need to make content to genuinely interest people.
Brands need to understand the difference between:
Story-shoving - ‘look we do stuff, so buy our stuff’
Story-crafting - ‘you will never believe how we do this’
Good content makes people think, it challenges them even if they don’t agree with it. Bad content makes people yawn.
So what are the opportunities?
Developers and designers were the limited resources in software creation.
Good editors and storytellers are a limited resource for content creation.
Solo creators
Anyone can learn to write code. Can everyone be a good coder? It requires 2 things:
Logical skills to solve problems
AND a love of sitting at a computer all day being obsessed with code.
Anyone can learn to edit content. Can everyone learn to be a good storyteller? It takes two things:
Creative skills to craft captivating stories
AND a love of sitting at a computer all day being obsessed with your edit.
If you can stay dedicated to the practice and keep improving you can ultimately build an audience.
If you are starting out now I would value the skill of being a creator as much as being a developer.
“Those who create are rare; those who cannot are numerous. Therefore, the latter are stronger.”– Coco Chanel
Start making your own content, whether or not you build a big audience. The same way devs build dummy apps to learn to code that never gets used. Try making podcasts, Tik Tok’s, and YouTube.
Industry rates for editors have gone up and up. It is seriously hard to find talent. With these skills, you can always get a job and be useful to people. If you start a business, you can tell its story.
Business
Business accelerators used to place a demand that one of the founders needed to be technical. I predict in a few years’ time one founder will need to be a good creator. With increasing numbers of startups applying to accelerators every year they choose those most likely to win. These will be the ones that can make a brand.
If you want ideas to start a business and provide shovels for this gold rush. Make the content creation process easier for other people:
Niche agency - specialise in one type of content creation:
Pick a podcast format and length, or make a specific type of Tik Tok content for brands.
It is a seller’s market. If you execute you will succeed.
Bonus, make money straight away
Make software that makes creation easier:
Get obsessed with one type of content and find all the flaws and difficulties in the creation process. Make the process easier, or more enjoyable (or both!)
There will be big winners here but there will be many competitors and many losers.
Provide hardware that makes creation easier:
Get obsessed with a type of creator (ideally one with a budget) and provide equipment/location that makes it easier for them to create
Less scalable but compete only on a local level
Train - content creators:
Teach people how to make good stories that people enjoy
To make an online course you have to make good content first and often compete with people with big audiences already. e.g. YouTubers with 3 mill subscribers making courses on how to YouTube vs. a nobody….
To make a local training academy with in-person experience, you compete against any other locals. (Could be a good opportunity to get in early and offer internships in your content creation agency )
If you want to stand out as a creator or business, my piece on how to succeed is relevant - The physics of success.
Ultimately
Marc Andreessen said, “Software is eating the world.”
Now content is eating the world's attention. If you can get a share of it you will do well.
Personal notes on this
The difference in good editing is honestly huge.
When I started my podcast it grew to 10k subscribers in the first year. I used editors after that and growth flatlines. I recently gave up on using editors (4 years later) at my current budget.
I took over editing two months ago, retention has quadrupled and my podcast downloads have doubled.
I’ve been tossing around the idea of building a podcast editing mastery course for a while.
I keep finding ways to teach the basics of how to use editing software. I can’t find:
How to tell good stories and create captivating content in podcasting.
The art of how to make a joke land right and gloss the feeling of a podcast to make it funnier.
The mentality you need to be obsessed with the emotion of your consumer at every second they are engaging.
These are mind-bogglingly important if you want to be a good editor and create content that stands out.
If you’d be interested in early access to some draft content for this idea let me know with a reply =)
Thanks for reading.
Remember, if you want to enjoy your life, it starts by enjoying today.