Nan Wang
Questions
- How did you decide which creator tools to use?
- What is the most important feature for you on the platform?
- Apparently, there's not much switching costs between all these different platforms, because the creators own the distribution. Given the low switching cost, how price sensitive are the creators?
- Currently, almost 90% of people earn less than $15 - 20K a year. What do you think would take them to switch platforms?
- What do you think it will take for these sub 50 K per year creators to move up the earning curve to above 100K? What is required from themselves, from the platform and maybe the community?
Interview
How did you decide which creator tools to use?
Guest: I started researching operating online businesses about three, four years ago. And back then, there were Patreon, Udemy and a few others. It was quite limiting in terms of the user interface.
There are different types of creators. I cater to a very small amount of people for a higher price, rather than create something that caters to a very high volume of people at a very low price. This is why I didn't go with Patreon or Gumroad.
I signed Udemy, but the thing with Udemy is that they can decide to reduce the prices of their course, out of nowhere to 90% less. So it's very difficult unless you're selling to a very high volume of people. It's very difficult to make any money. Also, they take a commission on top of that.
With Teachable, it's the same. If you're selling through Teachable, they still take a commission, but I don't sell through Teachable. I just have my thing as a secret listing on Teachable. The reason why I chose them, rather than Gumroad is because all I'm doing is providing videos that compliment my work. After all, most of my work is with the one-to-one sessions.
The content is with the videos. I don't need anything that's super interactive or super complicated. I went with Teachable because it's easy to use. Also, for my customers as well, they like things they're familiar with. I found that keeping things simple with people is good. That would also save me a lot of time.
I haven't used Patreon, but I plan on using either Patreon or Gumroad in the future when I do start my YouTube Channel probably later this year and I will be offering people to subscribe and get extra content for a small fee. That will be mainly for people who actually can't afford to work with me one-on-one or my ongoing clients to provide support afterwards.
I think Gumroad is good for one-off purchases. You can also do subscriptions, but because they take commission, it would make more sense to have it as a one-off purchase.
I started using Mighty Networks because I started another company with my friend. Mighty Networks is basically an online membership platform and the reason why we went with that particular one rather than Kajabi or 10 other different providers was because we actually had a call with the founder of Mighty Networks.
They were the only one, who actually offered to have a call with us to create a connection. We found that very good because it meant that they were actually interested in what we wanted.
We were able to actually ask them questions about the network, about the platform.
I just found that user experience made us much more inclined to buy from them. So we purchased a plan with them. It's pretty much the same as how Kajabi works, but it's all inherent within the platform. So you can operate courses. You can chat. You can have live sessions. You can have different plans at different prices. It also connects with Stripe. And for us, the fact that it didn't connect with PayPal and it connected with Stripe instead was very good because PayPal takes a higher commission.
It is really good to provide a humanistic, personalized approach to care for people who are starting online businesses and providing a lot of an education. I think if a company can provide that kind of support, it would get a lot more creators.
What is the most important feature for you on the platform?
Guest: For me personally, I would say it is the ease of use. I want it to save me a lot of time.
I didn't go with Kajabi, even though Kajabi has a whole email list integration as well as teachable because ActiveCampaign is cheaper and better basically. I'm okay with having two separate things. When I look at a product, I think about how efficient it is. How is it going to help me in terms of conversion and what is the value for money.
Apparently, there's not much switching costs between all these different platforms, because the creators own the distribution. Given the low switching cost, how price sensitive are the creators?
Guest: I think it comes back how the platforms create customer loyalty. For example, ActiveCampaign immediately created customer loyalty by reaching out to us and making us feel they really value us as customers.
The other thing is customer care. With Squarespace, if you're trying to edit your website and you have a question and there's some kind of glitch in the code, they will literally get back to you within two, three hours to help you out and you can have a call with someone and they will talk to you. I think that's very good.
Currently, almost 90% of people earn less than $15 - 20K a year. What do you think would take them to switch platforms?
Guest: I think not only they're earning less than 50K a year, generally they're doing everything themselves and they don't have a lot of time, so it would have to justify the time that it would take them, because usually they are the individual who has to execute the task to switch everything over.
Having to learn a whole new platform, on top of everything else would really take a lot.
If you're at a stage where maybe you're earning 80 to 100 K, then if you can have a team, then it's probably more likely that you would switch. . But if you're a one man show, you just want things to be as simple as possible.
I think it depends on what scale your business is.
What do you think it will take for these sub 50 K per year creators to move up the earning curve to above 100K? What is required from themselves, from the platform and maybe the community?
Guest: I do think it's becoming more difficult to grow. You need to have a lot of people in your pipeline. Typically, for me to make one sale, I need to make around 30 calls. A lot of people may have started a business. They'll try to do so many things. They'll start with YouTube, they'll do emails, they'll do LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and webinars. To do everything at once is just too overwhelming. And then they'll give up within six months. So helping people to be consistent, I think is something that's super important.
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