Jack Conte

This is Jack Conte. You may not have heard of him but he is a creator, musician, founder and CEO of Patreon.

He gave a talk at SXSW where he warned how the internet is changing and how you can make the most of the change

Here's what you need to know:

Jack finished college and wanted to be a musician. He spent months creating an album and then went on the road to play shows.

The only problem, no one showed up.

He needed reach. And that's when this great thing called Youtube came along.

For the first time, the internet transformed from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0.

This allowed individuals to post their own media on the internet.

Thats exactly what he did.

He started posting videos of him playing his music on youtube.

It was working - he was finally reaching people with his work!

But even more revolutionary about this new site, Youtube was this feature called "Subscribe".

This button allowed people who liked his work, to sign up and see more of it.

He could create a following, a channel of distribution to ensure those people could see more.

He started playing music with his Girlfriend, they called themselves Pomplamoose and they took off.

Their following skyrocketed, but not only that, they had found a following of true fans.

Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired, wrote an essay called 1000 true fans.

It argued that you don't need millions of fans for success, you just need 1000 ture fans who would be willing to pay $100 per year, and you have yourself a career.

Read the essay here: https://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/

True fans are different to simply reach, which is a lot of people who sometimes see your stuff.

It is different to followers, who are people who want to see your stuff.

True fans are people who really connect with you, support you and love you. It is the deepest of all.

True fans are people who:

- go to the shows

- buy the merch

- download course

- get record

True fans get everything.

This is where his idea of Patreon came from. A platform for creators and artists to create a community of true fans.

A way for them to truly support the creator.

The problem was, the 2010's saw the rise of ranking, as Jack saw it.

Where Facebook would rank posts from who you follow, reward the posts which were more engaging, punish those which were less.

They ranked posts, according to what was best for Facebook.

Great for Facebook, bad for the creator.

For the first time, followers might not see your posts.

Creators were then left competing for what was most engaging.

They weren't incentivised to make the best stuff for them, or for their following, but the best for engagement.

The natural progression from here was Tik Tok and the invention of the "For You' page.

This was the death of the follower.

Instead, everyone is competing for attention and social media became an ad economy.

It is harder to:

- connect with fans

- sell tickets

- reach people

- build community

- build a business

But Jack is still optimistic about the future.

He sees the future as being a shift away from the ad economy, legacy social platforms.

Instead the growth of a new creator economy.

A whole new set of companies is emerging to help fill the void for creators:

- Kajabi

- Gumroad

- Patreon

- Skool

And of course, Jack is positioning Patreon to make the most of this shift as well.

So, if you are a creator, he has 3 pieces of advice for you in navigating this next shift.

1. Invest in true fans

Look for those people who you can build real deep connection with.

Find that small community of people who are your core engine, to support your creation.

2. Make Beautiful things

Focus on the quality of the thing you're creating.

Forget about the algorithm, getting reach and views. Make it beautiful and the right people will come to you.

Video

3. Know what you want

Don't let others tell you want you want.

What this means is understand what success is for you.

He says, we are being told by social media companies, in their dashboard, that success is views, likes, reach.

Bowie's goal when making music wasn't 'maximise human hours consuming my work'.

So why is it ours? Why have we allowed ourselves to want the things which these social companies have told us we want?

We must figure out the thing which we want and aim solely at that.

Jack's ideas are a sign of the times ahead.

He gives me hope for an internet of the future with:

- true community

- true connections and

- true fans

I highly recommend you watch the full talk he gave at SXSW

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5zUndMfMInc

And drop me a follow if you liked this breakdown!