Thanks Caterina and Anna, enjoyed this interview. Question for Anna: Your newsletter and Youtube etc seem to be things you do tangentially to your "day job" but have you ever thought about making those your primary occupation? In other words become a content creator?
This is a great question which requires a bit of a nuanced answer, so I’m gonna address two aspects - passion & money.
On passion - I have tried full-time content creation during my sabbatical but I didn’t find it fulfilling enough by itself. Instead, I crave to apply my engineering skills and business knowledge along with my creativity. I also currently have the luxury of not having to create when I don’t feel like it which is part of what makes it so fun, so even if I do end up building a content creation business, I would always want to keep some part of it protected from becoming just an income stream.
On money - content creation by itself is just not profitable enough for a creator of my size (if you rely on AdSense, sponsorships and affiliate sales), so I see two options: (1) grow a very large audience of several 100k which requires a ton of skills, consistent creation over a long period of time and luck, and (2) build a business behind the content and use content creation as a marketing channel which is much more viable and can be sustainable even with a small audience of a few thousand people
If you consider option 2 a content creation business, then I am actually planning to do that but not with my current channel and newsletter as the main focus since I think I have a much higher earning potential if I target a different niche. I’m trying to build an operations consulting business and plan to create content and digital products around that. I will keep my current YouTube channel and newsletter as ways to express myself creatively and might also add some digital products there but I don’t want to make them too money-focused. I’m also excited to use my engineering & business background to create specialist B2B content, so I think this could be the best of both worlds — although I can only speculate since I’m just getting started. 😄
I hope this makes sense — let me know in case you have any follow up questions !
Thanks Anna for a detailed reply, yes that makes sense. I'm sort of in a similar boat, doing marketing consulting but starting a content creation journey and trying to figure out if and how I should combine them or keep them separate so they can be free to operate either for passion or money. Sometimes I feel like trying to monetize the passion projects kills the authenticity and fun, and also makes the work worse. Thanks, I will be interested to see how you sort this out going forward.
Yeah it’s a tricky one that everyone needs to discover for themselves. I do love combining content creation with business but there is a little stubborn artist in me as well who needs to get her way sometimes - and some of the videos that started as passion projects and I put way too much time into ended up completely outperforming my more strategic and efficiently produced content. So you’re completely right that focusing on monetizing can make the work worse — and even lose us money in the long run.
I can’t believe we’re in such similar situations and also look forward to following your journey!
Thanks so much for having me, Caterina!
I feel so honored and had a blast answering your questions ❤️
Thank YOU, Anna! This was so much fun!!!
Thanks Caterina and Anna, enjoyed this interview. Question for Anna: Your newsletter and Youtube etc seem to be things you do tangentially to your "day job" but have you ever thought about making those your primary occupation? In other words become a content creator?
Thanks for reading, so glad you enjoyed it!
This is a great question which requires a bit of a nuanced answer, so I’m gonna address two aspects - passion & money.
On passion - I have tried full-time content creation during my sabbatical but I didn’t find it fulfilling enough by itself. Instead, I crave to apply my engineering skills and business knowledge along with my creativity. I also currently have the luxury of not having to create when I don’t feel like it which is part of what makes it so fun, so even if I do end up building a content creation business, I would always want to keep some part of it protected from becoming just an income stream.
On money - content creation by itself is just not profitable enough for a creator of my size (if you rely on AdSense, sponsorships and affiliate sales), so I see two options: (1) grow a very large audience of several 100k which requires a ton of skills, consistent creation over a long period of time and luck, and (2) build a business behind the content and use content creation as a marketing channel which is much more viable and can be sustainable even with a small audience of a few thousand people
If you consider option 2 a content creation business, then I am actually planning to do that but not with my current channel and newsletter as the main focus since I think I have a much higher earning potential if I target a different niche. I’m trying to build an operations consulting business and plan to create content and digital products around that. I will keep my current YouTube channel and newsletter as ways to express myself creatively and might also add some digital products there but I don’t want to make them too money-focused. I’m also excited to use my engineering & business background to create specialist B2B content, so I think this could be the best of both worlds — although I can only speculate since I’m just getting started. 😄
I hope this makes sense — let me know in case you have any follow up questions !
Thanks Anna for a detailed reply, yes that makes sense. I'm sort of in a similar boat, doing marketing consulting but starting a content creation journey and trying to figure out if and how I should combine them or keep them separate so they can be free to operate either for passion or money. Sometimes I feel like trying to monetize the passion projects kills the authenticity and fun, and also makes the work worse. Thanks, I will be interested to see how you sort this out going forward.
Yeah it’s a tricky one that everyone needs to discover for themselves. I do love combining content creation with business but there is a little stubborn artist in me as well who needs to get her way sometimes - and some of the videos that started as passion projects and I put way too much time into ended up completely outperforming my more strategic and efficiently produced content. So you’re completely right that focusing on monetizing can make the work worse — and even lose us money in the long run.
I can’t believe we’re in such similar situations and also look forward to following your journey!