Jan 12

The #1 way to support this newsletter is to subscribe, share it and listen to my podcast of the week. I interviewed Sahil Lavingia (CEO of Gumroad) about opportunities in AI, tech and his POV on life. Tbh, it was a pretty wild interview with some wild stuff said, but worth the listen.

Listen now on Apple or Spotify and let me know what you think. Subscribe to my YouTube to get the video version. It will come out in 24-48h. I personally prefer watching video podcasts.

Today, I’m going to talk about how to get traction with your product idea through building audiences and community.

If you understand that, you’ll have an advantage over 97% of brands out there.

Audience

I am obsessed with this TikTok show called Buying Time.

The show gives you a front row seat to two guys (Buckley and Vookum) who do live negotiations on high-end watches on 47th street in Midtown NYC. We’re talking $74,000 Rolex watches. It’s a glimpse into the future of building audiences and worth learning from.

Buckley: “How much is that $64,000 watch?”

Jeweler: “Yeah, right. Not today Buckley. It’s $75,000.”

Buckley: “Be nice to me. What’s the best you can do?”

And just like that the 60 second negotiation begins and you find yourself hooked. You get to know the ins and outs of these characters. Their jokes, their quirks, their motivations, their fears and their desires.

Buying Time is the blueprint to modern day brand building. A modern brand is where an audience is at the core of driving demand. Buying Time built an attention machine that probably has Seiko drooling.

It’s extra smart because:

They’re building an audience of people who are interested in high-end watches. This is a group of people with major disposable income. Point: it’s way easier to build highly profitable businesses with audiences who have major income
TikTok Shows drive a ton of audience affinity. The show format makes me feel very connected to the characters. I’m invested. I’m way more likely to buy from them, share their videos and follow the journey. They feel like my friends. And funny enough, I don’t even collect watches or particularly love midtown NYC. This is why I believe TikTok shows will be the next big thing in earning attention

The old way of doing business was buying attention. Taking out television ads, billboards, classifieds, buying banner ads. Once you had attention, you could sell them a product.

Because people don’t love getting directly sold to, marketers would buy attention, capture a lead (usually an email or mail address) and then “warm up” the lead over time to finally make the sale.

Example:

That’s called a lead magnet — and I don’t believe in lead magnets anymore.

The new way of earning business is earning attention, creating a space for conversation (and gathering information) and creating a community magnet.

The community will do the lead nurturing to get to sales. Converting strangers to skeptics to healthy skeptics to buyers.

Community

Community is in our blood. We’ve evolved from being hunters, gatherers to modern day social beings. Now, despite being more connected due to technology, we’re feeling as disconnected as ever. We all feel something is off.

To add to that, maybe the decrease in faith has something to do with it. Countries like the US are becoming noticeably less religious.

My point is either consciously or subconsciously, people are looking to brands, products, creators and communities to deeply connect with and fill that void.

The community is the place where people can come in, chat with like-minded people, express themselves, and understand the outcome of this particular community. The outcome is key — whether it is becoming a devout Buddhist or an intermittent faster or buying your first luxury watch, communities that have a clear goal are the ones that outperform.

The Buying Time crew have a private community for watch resellers. Despite charging $19.99 for a simple Telegram group, they can barely handle the demand. They’ll make 7 figures from this community alone and it's become the lifeblood of the Buying Time brand.

Product

Once you’re able to build an audience and foster a community, your business is built on the product you can offer. The question to ask is: “How do I build a product that will become a routine and that will supercharge my community?”

Routine is key, because you want daily or weekly engagement. And keyword supercharge because you want the product to add not subtract from the experience.

The good news is that we live in a world of no-code tools. The stack of creating a product is much cheaper now, and the data around finding a product for a community that is likely going to sell is before your eyes.

If I wanted to open a store 50 years ago, the planning and execution was guesswork.

We’re going to sell luxury watches, because every town has wealthy people who would want this.

Let’s do it in Nashville, Tennessee. I think downtown Nashville is a good spot for a luxury watch store.

From here, you had to let it play out and hope (and pray) people in Nashville bought their Rolexes from you.

Today, you can literally teleport yourself to conversations happening around the world. You can teleport to Twitter conversations, Facebook groups, subreddits and Discord servers, and directly into your own audiences/communities to figure out exactly what people want and how they want it. I’ve talked about this in the past in my Guide to Unbundling of Reddit post.

The three components I’ve laid out — Audience, Community, and Product — comprise the funnel for building a business in 2023. I call it the ACP Funnel.

Audience: bring people into the stories you’re telling

Community: create a space for people who love your stories and identify with your brand

Product: give your community a product to achieve their goal and improve their own story