I started my Social Media Escape Club newsletter in 2021 with an imported email list of 19 people.
Maria Popova started Brain Pickings “in 2006 as an email to seven friends.”
These days I have 6,600 email subscribers, the biggest email list I’ve ever had.
Then I have around 100 paying members, which is also the largest paying membership I’ve ever had.
There’s a big distance between zero and Kevin Kelly’s “1000 true fans” dream, but it all starts somewhere, one person at a time.
There’s no one-size-fits-all path, I don’t think, because everyone we serve is human, and as humans we’re messy and unpredictable. So when people ask me about finding their “1000 true fans,” I usually ask if they found their 10, or their 50 yet.
You’re gonna learn so much with the smaller groups of people, lessons you’re going to need to learn before you even think of hitting 1000.