๐ดโโ ๏ธ Nobody Gets to Shame You Into Smallness
Hey Reader,
I was collecting articles for this week's newsletter when a friend texted me a reel asking how I felt about it. The reel was from a creator named Barrett Pall who had caught multiple people stealing other creators' yapping videos word for word and delivering them as their own. Some coaches are apparently encouraging this. Others are blissfully unaware they are doing it.
My answer to my friend was: complicated.
Because Barrett is also profiteering off the very thing he is critiquing. His audience exploded precisely because he made the drama visible. A hustle is a hustle and I'm not saying that to dismiss him. I am saying it because this whole conversation is more complicated than most people are willing to admit, and the people paying the highest price for the oversimplification are small creators who are getting scared into silence.
That is what I actually want to talk about.
The data says micro and nano creators are the next wave of real business revenue. Around 45% of brand spending on influencer marketing is now going to creators with fewer than 20,000 followers, up from 19.5% in 2021. Nearly 20% is going to creators with fewer than 5,000 followers. Target, American Eagle, and Soul Cycle are working with creators who have as few as 500 followers. Microinfluencers average a 3.2% engagement rate while those with a million or more followers average 1.1%. The small creator is not a consolation prize. The small creator is the point.
And yet I keep hearing from micro and nano creators in private rooms who are questioning whether the tools they use, the size of their audience, or the imperfection of their process makes them somehow illegitimate.
โThe OpenAI influencer summer camp got roasted this week. Taylor Lorenz pointed out what I will also point out: people have a strange double standard between ChatGPT and Claude when neither parent company is free of defense contracts or environmental concerns. Anthropic, which makes Claude, was caught in a scandal over purchasing rare books, scanning them to train AI, and then destroying them. I use AI every day and I am not going to pretend otherwise. I claim no allegiance to any of these companies. They all have dirty hands and anyone telling you one is morally superior is selling something or has just revealed their greatest therapy-laden blindspot.
Have you considered that no matter whose mouth the criticisms come out of, it might just be the systems of oppression doing what they have always done, which is find a new way to keep you small?
Yes there is slop.
Yes people steal content.
Yes AI companies do sketchy things.
All of that is true.
And also: small creators with genuine expertise and real relationships are exactly what the market is now paying to reach. You do not need a massive audience. You do not need perfect tools. You need a goal and the willingness to show up for it without letting anyone shame you out of it.
I do not care whether your goal is a sustainable side income or a million dollar business. I care that you have one and that you are moving toward it. That is exactly what we are building space for at the Sasquatch Summit on September 25th. Thirty people in a room, no slide decks, and no judgment about your audience size. We are there to have real conversations about how your content connects to real revenue.
Nobody in that room is going to shame you for being small. We are going to help you stop being the world's best kept secret.
๐ซ Check out the Sasquatch Summit details below. โคต๏ธ
๐ฆ September 25th Is Seven Weeks Away.
September 25th. Vancouver, Washington. Thirty seats. One day to figure out why your content is not paying you back yet and what to do about it before the end of the year.
This week isn't about convincing you to grab a seat (though the link's still down there if you want one ๐). It's about who else gets to be in the room with you.
We're putting together goody bags for the 30 creators showing up on September 25th... and I'd love something from you in their hands. Doesn't have to be product. A coupon works and so does a flyer. Anything that puts your name in front of thirty people who are actively building revenue around their work, on the same day they're deciding what's worth paying attention to next.
If you make something, sell something, or run a tool creators actually use โ hit reply and say "sponsor" and I'll send you the details.
Option #1 ๐ Grab your summit ticket for $197 with replaysโ
โOption #2 ๐ Join the Dojo at the founding rate with included ticketโ
๐๏ธ Gossip from the creator trenches...
๐ดโโ ๏ธ Your List Lives on Rented Land. Fix That.
Lex Roman wrote something recently that every creator needs to read. Platforms like Substack and Patreon are not inherently evil (although one could argue against Substack's chief investor) and in the right context they can serve a purpose. But they come with the same fundamental problem as Meta-owned social media: someone else controls your reach, your relationship, and your exit options. Owning your list is not a nice-to-have anymore. It is the whole game. Time to put on your adulting pants.
โGet the dirty details โโ
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๐ธ You Should Get Paid for Your Content. All of It.
Salary transparency conversations are not new but this one gets specific about something most creators leave on the table: ad dollars. Even if your podcast is primarily driving people into your course funnel, that does not mean sponsors should not be writing you checks too. Knowing what to charge and how to position your numbers is exactly why media kit management exists inside the Dojo. You should not be flying solo on your rates and you do not have to.
โEven the big dogs struggle with this โโ
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โฝ๏ธ Real Friends Over Competitors
Ted Lasso Season 4 dropped and I grabbed my Kleenex and settled in immediately. The first episode is a quiet testament to what real friendship looks like when nobody rushes each other. Juno Temple said it better than I can in this clip: we need more stories about women who are genuinely rooting for each other instead of competing with each other. If you do not have people like that in your corner, that is your next goal. You don't need a new strategy, you need people who actually want you to win.
โAnd for the lady, may I suggest โโ
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Let's Hang Out
I released a 90-minute Astrology and Tarot forecast covering July through December 2026 for $47. The second half of this year has a lot going on energetically and I had an absolute blast recording this. Several of you grabbed it immediately which tells me we are onto something here. This is my first experiment in bringing readings back in a sustainable way and it will not be available forever.
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Participate + Join In
I am always optimizing my offers for clients to make them more accessible (aka more affordable) for more people. This summer we had what is probably the last live cohort of Sound Before Spotlight for the foreseeable future. So I packaged it up for self-study for only $297 instead of the $1500 you'd pay me for 1:1 work. Can you finish pre-production? If yes, you're ready for cameras and mics.
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