Read time: 9 min

Hey my friend!

Since April 2024, I have been building a service business.

First, I was doing it without a job, then with a part-time job.

For the past 6 months, I was working on it with a full-time job.

I started realizing that I was spending 30 hours a week on only marketing my business. It came to the point where I asked myself, "How much more time would I need if I started having as little as 2-3 clients?"

That would've taken another 30-40 hours.

I know nobody said business would be easy.

But it would mean:

• Goodbye time with God

• Goodbye time with my wife

• Goodbye time with my friends

• Goodbye time with my future kids7

I was feeling like I was trapped in a one-dimensional business where I traded my time with everyone and everything except my job for money.

I started realizing that I was building a business for pure monetary reasons.

There was no fulfillment.

There was no meaning.

"If this business would take me at least 5 years, then I might as well build a business that is meaningful to me," thought I.

I love thinking deeply, teaching, and creating.

So I needed to find a business model which nature involved those three.

I wanted a meaningful, profitable, and high-leverage business that would allow me to spend more time with God, my family, and my church and to enjoy life.

I think I found it.

God-Honoring Creator Business Model

Disclaimer: God didn't obligate Himself nor promise prosperity to anyone who believes in him. I DON'T believe in that at all. He is the sovereign and good God whose will be done. We walk in faith trusting His guidance.

Alright, now, what is a Creator Business Model? And how can it be God-honoring?

In essence, it's this (I will dive deeper in the next section):

• You have or set a goal at the current stage of your life

• You create content around your interests, skills, ideas, and beliefs, showing how those impact your journey toward that goal

• Other people with similar goals and curiosities tune in to listen to what you have to share.

• You create digital products or offer coaching, mentoring, and tutoring services based on problems you solved in the way of your goal so you can pass them down to those 2-3 steps behind you.

In a little more detail, these are the features/benefits that make this model God-honoring and attractive to me:

Benefit/Feature 1

This business model doesn't end up being soul-sucking, draining, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. It's based on thinking and creativity, which involves creating content and solving problems.

So exhaustion is detrimental for creativity. Rest is prioritized in this model. Just like God intended the rest to be baked in our weeks, this business model was sought after by many to create the space for rest to bar the hustle culture.

Why? How do I know that?

Firstly, to attract the audience and create traffic for your creator business, you need to be an original thinker. It by default requires space for thinking and connecting ideas.

Secondly, I know of so many creator businesses or one-person businesses that harnessed the power of the Internet to work 4-6 hours a day (imagine working from 6 am till 12 pm) and make 6-7 figures a year.

They did it out of a desire to stop the influence of the hustle culture on their lives.

And it's possible because we live in a wonderful era of the Internet that creates leverage to work less and earn more.

Imagine how much more you can enjoy life and be generous with your money and time to serve others and fellowship with God!

Benefit/Feature 2

This business model allows you to talk about your interests and skills, connect ideas, think deeply, and build a meaningful community.

On top of that, you can make a decent income by living life and creating solutions in the form of digital products and high-leverage services (coaching, tutoring, mentoring).

You can help those who are 2-3 steps behind you to get where you're at now.

If I got to share ideas, my lifestyle, my curiosities, my beliefs in Christ Jesus and make income, I would say "Yes, please!" every day of the week.

One of my other favorite parts is that this model is based on giving.

You give free value with videos.

You give free value with written posts.

You give free value with newsletters.

You give value with free/paid products & services.

Yes, you do it as a way of giving so much that the person feels reciprocal to give back in terms of buying your solutions.

But the bulk of this business is to give for free. For the world, getting something in return can be the only reason to do this. But, if you're Christian, it's a great opportunity to learn giving something without expecting anything in return - to die to yourself.

Benefit/Feature 3

Creator Business Model is perfect for sharing Gospel with the world the more following and impact you have. You get a chance to exhibit Christ through your life and the words in your content. You get to point to Him in your success. In other words, you can witness to others via social media where the 99% of attention of the world is at.

An you let Holy Spirit do His miracle of heart transformation that only He can do.

Also, you can encourage other believers around the world by diving into the Word and sharing how God works in your life using social media.

So these are the benefits of the meaningful business, in my opinion, that I want to have.

But how am I doing it?

So here is my plan or blueprint, if you will:

How I Will Build a Creator Business

From learning and observing other creator businesses, I identified 4 simple ingredients for a delicious creator business recipe:

A Positive Goal in Life

Without a meaningful goal in life, you won't be able to help anyone.

Without a meaningful goal in life, you won't grow an audience.

Without a meaningful goal in life, you won't make income.

I learned that to build a unique creator business, I needed a positive goal in life that I found valuable and worth pursuing. So that I could lead others toward that goal.

This goal would create a sense of direction for your content. You would attract those who share this goal with you fully or partially. It will answer the question of "Why do I care about what you have to say or sell?"

The helpful framework for this was to think about eternal markets (they are, by the way, the most profitable ones, too):

1. Health

2. Wealth

3. Relationships

4. Happiness

So my goal, for example, is somewhere between 2, 3, and 4.

The breakdown of my goal:

• Wealth - building a business.

• Relationships - having one with the Lord and others.

• Happiness - this might include all of the above and enjoying life by working less and earning more.

Yes, your goal can be in one market at this stage of your life, and that's okay.

There are a couple of exercises that helped me to figure out my goal that you can use, too:

• If you're a Christian, pray about it and ask the Lord to give you wisdom (James 1:4).

• Write a short essay (1000-2000 words) answering this question: "If I could have the life I wanted, what would it look like?"

• Write an Anti-vision - everything you want to avoid. This will clarify what you want.

• Be more observant and self-reflective on what you like, what you spend most of your time on, what you're good at (ask others about this; they will tell you)

Interests And Skills

Interests and skills are like road rollers toward my big life goal.

They are my content ideas.

We, humans, are multifaceted creatures. I have never met a single person who is not interested or skilled in more than one thing. Then why do we need to talk only about one thing on social media?

I know the answer: it's to differentiate yourself from others.

But doesn't the combination of your goals, interests, skills, beliefs, and experience create the most unique niche?

Think of your interests and skills as the tools for reaching your positive aim in life. Sauce it up with your beliefs and experiences. That way you'll present yourself as relatable and unique to your audience (just like humans are).

Example: My content explores how my skills and interests in creator business and lifestyle design support me in reaching my goals, with my Christian faith shaping the journey.

In other words, I see my interests and skills through the lens of my big goal and see my big goal through the lens of my faith.

When I do that, my learnings and discoveries become interesting to someone with a similar goal, interests, skills, and beliefs as mine.

But HOW do you write about these things?

I use Content Engine framework. Pick four Content Pistons that power your Content Engine:

1. Money-making piston (usually your skill but you can pick an interest that you always wanted to get good at. Get good publicly by sharing your journey.)

   • For me: Creator business

2. Exciting piston (to you)

   • For me: Christian theology/faith - I love talking about it

3. Developing piston

   • For me: Lifestyle design

4. Saving piston (if you’re a Christian)

   • Beloved, this is very important. Include Gospel in your content verbally and experientially. Share it with everyone. Be bold.

And then break down each of them to sub-topics (a little more specific) and mentors for inspiration (industry leaders, major thinkers).

Systems

Next ingredient of the recipe are systems that I use and will use to solve my own problems in a way of my goal. In other words, this is the part that I will sell.

Systems are the building blocks of my offers (products and services) and free lead magnets.

As I'm solving certain problems in my way toward my goal, I'm creating solutions that can be helpful for others. If they are helpful for others, then some people will be willing to pay for them.

For example, I have created 114 videos on YouTube, 1k+ posts on LinkedIn, X, and other social media platforms. So I, at least, know how to start and create content because I had to come up with the system for myself. That's a problem I solved in my life toward my goal. So I can package my systems, my templates, my tools into a digital product (like a course) or tutoring service or coaching/consulting service and sell. (This will happen soon. I will work on building these. I'll share my journey here, on YouTube, and LinkedIn)

So you can as well!

You can live life, improve yourself, solve problems along the way and sell the solutions.

When I am creating systems for the problems I am solving, I like thinking about them in terms of inputs.

Here is my process in short:

1. Define the Desired Outcome of the Problem: What's the grand outcome you're aiming for? For example, “Build an active community on YouTube.” You don't have to be super specific no matter what others say. This shouldn't be the focus. This is only for direction.

2. Identify Intermediate Outputs: What are the tangible results you need to consistently produce to reach the desired outcome? For the success on YouTube, an intermediate output would be "Produce a good quality video every week (or every month, depends on your goal)."

3. Reverse Engineer the Inputs: This is where the magic happens. Break down the intermediate output into actionable inputs. Ask yourself:

   • What specific tasks or activities need to happen? (e.g., Research topic, Write a script, Record video, Edit video, Create thumbnail, Write description, Schedule upload)

   • When will I do each task? (e.g., Research on Monday morning, Script on Tuesday, Record on Wednesday, Edit on Thursday/Friday, Upload on Saturday)

   • How Long will each take? (e.g., Research - 2 hours, Script - 3 hours, Recording - 2 hours, Editing - 2 hours, etc.)

   • What Tools do I need? (e.g., Microphone, Camera, Editing Software, Scriptwriting software, etc.).

4. Document and Experience: I like using my physical notebook or Notion to spell out my new system so that I can see it. Then I use my Google Calendar to bake the system into my week. Finally, try your system for at least a week because you need to implement it before you can optimize it.

5. Optimize: Afterwards, ask yourself these questions:

   • How can I make it effortless?

   • How can I make it faster?

   • How can I produce better results with it?

Then experiment with your new system and keep iterating until fully satisfied.

The beauty of focusing on inputs is that you shift your attention to controllable actions. Instead of worrying about the results (which can take time), you focus on executing the actions that lead to those results.

I will expand on this section in a separate letter because this one is getting long already.

Social Media Marketing Skill

And the last but not least, which is a huge topic in of itself, is developing SMM skill.

You will inevitably learn this skill by working on this project of your life (aka creator business).

SMM is the ability to appeal to others with your content and solutions to attract potential buyers (leads).

My simplest advice would be:

• Go on YouTube and learn from those who have this skill (like my YouTube channel)

• Observe those who succeed on the platform you make content and emulate them (like Justin Welsh on LinkedIn or Ali Abdaal on YouTube)

• Read books and articles on this topic

• Then always apply your knowledge in your projects because that's where the real learning happen

I will write more on this topic so stay tuned.

But for now, come and build a creator business with me for the glory of God, good of others, and enjoyment of your life.

I hope this helps!

Thanks for reading and see you next time!

P.S. If this letter was educating or entertaining to read, could you please share my newsletter with others who you think would like my content? Just share this link: https://creator-chronicles-letter.beehiiv.com/subscribe

P.P.S. Bereket means abundance and blessing in my native language - Turkmen.