Episode 31: Launching a Creative Business in Midlife
Almost everyone has a creative thing they've been thinking about for years but never started. Rob wants to shoot action videos. Brent wants to restore old cars. Other people have pottery, photography, or a book idea sitting in the back of their head. In this episode, Brent and Rob get specific about what it takes to move a creative hobby into a real business in midlife, including the three categories of creative work, a passion-product-marketplace framework, and why most creators undercharge themselves out of the gate. If you've got a creative idea you keep coming back to, this episode is where you find out what to actually do with it.
Links, resources, books mentioned:
Mountain Mud Ceramics (creative business mentioned)
Topics we are covering in this episode:
The difference between a creative hobby and a creative business
Three categories of creative work: physical goods, creative content, and creative services
How to apply passion, product, and marketplace as a starting framework
Why most creators underprice themselves out of the gate
Choosing the right platform without spreading across too many
Starting small with a minimum viable product
Playing the long game and resisting the comparison trap
Transcript:
Transcript Disclaimer - May contain the occasional confusing, inaccurate, or unintentionally funny transcription moment. It’s all part of the show.
Brent (00:01)
Rob, most people have something that has lived inside of them from a creative standpoint that they have never shared or tried to pursue. Do you have one of those?
Rob (00:28)
I do. But it's probably not going to be a surprise to you, Brent. It's I would love to be really good at shooting action video. And when I say action video, I think of like action sports, so any type of action sport. I'm a sucker for any YouTube video that comes on TV, you know, that I can watch where it's either a drone footage or somebody skiing holding a camera. I think it goes back to my you know youth when I was watching Warren Miller ski movies, the original Warren Miller movies, and he was narrating and shooting video, and then he put music as an overlay on that. And I originally wanted to be in one of those movies. Never going to happen, but I wanted to be in one of those movies. And so that's kind of transitioned to I'd love to just know how to record video that would be awe-inspiring for people. It would tell a story a little bit, but it's set to music and something visually uh really appealing to a lot of different people.
Brent (01:25)
Just imagine this now in us in our midlife. So if we did an action video, let's say you and I are out there and we're riding mountain bikes, we'd have to speed it up by like 2x. At least for me. I'm slowing down more and more and more cautious and not sending it and doing all the things that we used to do. So we just have to speed it up. So I expect if we do any cool action videos, you do good to me. Like you make me look really good.
Rob (01:54)
That might be tough to find a place to make you look good, Brent. I know. That's a challenge. Yeah, I just bought a drone. It's coming in the mail tomorrow, actually. So I get a chance to try to start doing this. Uh, and I plan on flying the drone behind you a little bit and seeing if I can actually make you look good. That's a pretty good challenge.
Brent (02:12)
That is a huge challenge. Hey, and congrats. I think the drone is on, if I recall, your 50 list. So 50 things you want to do in your 50s. So now you're taking that challenge on. Is that correct?
Rob (02:23)
I am, yes. So it is on the 50 list of 50 things I want to learn. Learning how to both fly a drone and actually shoot video with a drone and then repurpose it. So you'll likely see some of this drone footage on our social media channel, midlifecircus.fm. I plan on posting some of it there after I get good. And maybe I will just show raw footage of Brent riding his mountain bike or walking his mountain bike is probably more like it.
Brent (02:48)
That would be like slow motion.
Rob (02:52)
What's yours? What's your creative business that you've always thought about doing but haven't shared with anybody?
Brent (02:58)
It goes back to my childhood. So I started out, and I've shared this before, that I really liked the remote control cars. And I used to buy used ones and I would fix them up and make them cool, and then I would resell them and make a profit. Then I did the same thing in high school with an old Jeep and I fixed it up with my dad, and then we resold it. So I think about that a lot. Like I like the idea of buying an old car, an old Jeep, an old Toyota FJ. That's probably the one I really like, and fixing it up and reselling it, or fixing it up and keeping it. So it's something I've always wanted to do. And I think it started a lot of that started as a childhood as well. My uh one of my closest friends is a uh when I was growing up, his dad was really into refurbishing, rebuilding Mustangs. And so he had probably 10 Mustangs at their house. They were in the outskirts of Boulder, and uh it was funny because it was like a junkyard. Uh his mom hated it, but he had a lot of Mustangs, and some of them he spent 10 years working on. So he had that patience and he had all the right tools and the creativity. So I think the cars thing is something. Maybe I'll do it someday. Uh funny thing, Rob, the other day is I was on Facebook Marketplace getting lost in uh old Toyota FJs. Those are the ones that look like Jeeps, and I'm kind of perusing all of them, and all of a sudden Carolyn looks over my shoulder and she's like, What you looking at? And I'm like, Oh, I just looking at these uh Toyotas and she's like, Are you getting one of those? And I'm like, No. So maybe there was a seed that was planted, not yet. Maybe someday. Just don't know what someday is.
Brent (04:39)
So it's fun when you think about the creative, and that's really the idea of this episode. So if we go back to episode 19, one of the things that we talked about in episode 19 is how to earn an income in midlife, and that's post your career. And so then the last episode that we did just last week was how to earn an income as a consultant. And we did a deep dive there, but we felt it was really important to shift the pendulum to the complete other side and say, how can you earn an income as a creative? And this is a fun episode for us, Rob, because when we were talking last week about consultants, that was like an easy button for you and I because it's something that we already have done. And it's like, let's launch a consulting practice. And it's taking advantage of all the skills that we have. But what if we really stepped away from that and said, What if we want to launch a creative business? And when we say creative businesses, we're talking, hey, if you want to write a book, let's say you want to get into pottery, you want to do woodworking, let's say you want to create creative content like this podcast or creative services, like you want to be a photographer. So there's a lot that you can do with it. But we're going to just talk about that at length and really outline a plan to launch a creative business. So our outcomes today is creative businesses are still businesses. So we're going to talk about what it means to build a creative business and then understanding the difference between a passion project, meaning a hobby, and actually building a business. And sometimes you might have to pick those two different lanes.
Brent (06:11)
So to kick this conversation off, Rob, when it comes to creative businesses, how would you categorize them for our listeners?
Rob (06:21)
I have to take a step back real quick, Brent, because this is going to help me as I think through how to categorize this. You gave us an assignment as we started this episode with a question is what creative business would you create? I'm trying to understand how rebuilding a car is creative. So can you help share that with me a little bit? How rebuilding a car is a creative service or a creative business? I'm just curious.
Brent (06:42)
Rob, I'm going to put flames on the side of it. Come on. Like, like no, I think it's something to do with for me, it's very opposite of what I've always done in the past, where I'm sitting in front of a computer and I'm in front of people, whether I'm a consultant, whether I was doing investing, and I'm constantly interacting with people in a business sense and a for-profit business sense. When I think of creative, and to my example, it's like I want to go use my hands. I want to challenge myself to fix things and rebuild things and make them look different than when I actually got it. So that to me is creativity. It's how do I creatively fix something that's old and rusty as an example. So does that make sense to you?
Rob (07:26)
It does. It's a stretch, but it makes sense. Like I can see taking that old FJ and putting like modern features in it and getting creative on how all that might work. So that's I'll give it to you. I'll give it to you.
Brent (07:37)
Yeah, that's an interesting way to look at it, like the modernization, if that's how I want to do, or taking something and actually bringing it back to its original state. So you see that a lot with cars as well, where people have kind of done a very bad job of the DIY. And so they kind of messed a few things up. And what if I took it back to its original state and got rid of all the modern features and said, let's go back to its mechanical nature? I think there might be some fun in that as well.
Rob (08:01)
Okay. So I could see it fitting into two of the categories I'm going to talk about today, Brent. So the first one, and it's probably the most common one that people think about when they think of a creative business, they think of actually creative physical goods. And so when you think about a physical good, this would be pottery. This would be art, so a painting that you might go and sell. I have a friend Amy who left a professional career and actually started doing uh physical artwork, painting as a primary medium. This could be the t-shirt idea that Sarah actually shared in our most recent episode that she started on Etsy. It could also be selling uh products that somebody might use as decoration. And Tara has a good friend that's actually doing that as well, and some interior decoration ideas having physical products. So you have physical goods. The second area I would say is creative content. And when I think of creative content, this is things like books. While books are physical, you can hold a book, it's the ideas inside of the books. It's really about the thought and idea. Our podcast is creative content. And so a podcast fits into that area. Uh YouTube vlogs or travel blogs, things of those natures, those are all creative content type of things. So the last one I think of is creative services. And these are things that you love to do that you provide as a service for other people. And so the example I would use here is photography. While taking a picture and selling an image at a craft fair or at a market, that is a physical good. I'm thinking more of creative services photography as being taking pictures for people. So showing up and doing high school graduation photos, wedding photos. This could be doing creative design work, uh, interior design work, or even creating music and actually playing music at a venue or playing music for somebody else, but this is done as a service for other people.
Brent (09:59)
That's a great way to look at it. So maybe to keep it simple for today's conversation, let's take each one of those categories and we'll just pick one thing that we'll talk about and we'll use it consistently as we talk about uh, you know, how you launch a creative business. So for physical goods, I have a something very close to me, is my wife is a potter, and so she creates mugs and she creates tumblers and plates and all sorts of things related to pottery. Uh, so let's use pottery for that, and then creative content. We're pretty close to this one with the podcast. So we'll talk about podcasting as creative content and then creative services. I like your example of a photographer and maybe doing events and weddings or graduation parties, things like that. So that would be creative services. So let's
Brent (10:50)
stick with that. But before we jump into the way we want to look at, you know, the big three items that you want to really think about when launching a creative business, Rob, how would you define the difference between a hobby and a business as a creative?
Rob (11:07)
Simply, Brent, I would say a hobby is for you. It's something that you love to do, and you're the person that's just getting the benefit of it. A creative entrepreneur would make something for other people. So a creative business is doing something for an audience. So a hobby's for you, a creative business is for other people, and really those other people shape the work. So the audience or the consumer or the customer really shapes the work of a creative business. They're helping you decide what is it that you're going to do for this business longer term.
Brent (11:43)
In our example, so if you're really into pottery, doing it as a hobby is you might do it for your own household, you might do it for a few friends, but you're never really selling the products. You're just creating and it's part of your hobby. If we went into a podcast, a lot of people do podcasts as a hobby, and they might release one episode a month, and that's just something that they enjoy doing. And you see a lot of podcasters do that. And then photographers, it's pretty straightforward. A lot of photographers just like to take pictures and they like to go out there and they may do as a service, they might just do it for friends and family, just to say, yeah, I can take a few pictures of at that event for you, no problem. They don't charge anything, but that's more in the hobby. But then as you described, if you're doing it for an audience, and that's really just a monetization component, if that's where the difference uh sits on that.
Rob (12:33)
Absolutely. And so we're going to spend our time today really talking about shaping that hobby, that thing that you either love to do already and helping that become a business, or just starting a business on something that you've been curious about. And this is somewhat of a callback to our last episode where we did talk about starting a work, and you mentioned this at the beginning of our discussion today, Brent, is really creating that consulting business. One of the things you shared there before starting a business were really three main areas that you should
Rob (13:02)
address. And I do think those three areas fit for a creative business as well. The three areas were passion, product, and marketplace. Let's start with passion a little bit. As you're thinking about starting a creative business, what are some of the key components around passion? Because usually these are hobbies that people love to do already. What are some of the key things that somebody before they jump in and start the business, they should really consider around passion for the business?
Brent (13:29)
So we used when we did that previous episode in consulting, we had these three filter questions to really help you narrow down your passion. They still apply here. So the three questions are, are you excited about it? The second question is, are you good at it or do you see yourself becoming good at it? And the third is, could you create a product or a service that somebody else would be excited to own or participate in? So let's use this as an example. So for us as the podcast, so we started this journey about a year ago, and we just said, hey, this is something that we're curious about, something that we could get behind and we're willing to invest time in it. And it was so new to you and I, we had a lot of passion for it. But more importantly, we're both living our lives right in the middle of midlife. And so we felt like a lot of our stories were going to be relevant to a pretty large demographic of people. And so we had that passion. We were excited about it. Then the next thing is are we good at it? Rob, why don't you talk about how good we were when we first started the podcast before we even launched our first episode?
Rob (14:36)
I'm so happy we didn't actually share any of those audio clips of us talking into our iPhones, trying to see how we might approach a conversation that we normally have out on bike rides, but how do we formalize it? They were atrocious.
Brent (14:51)
They were it was humorous. I mean, we played them back and we said, all right, let's see what this sounds like. We're like, this is not going to work. It wasn't the equipment, it was the people behind the equipment. So that was something that we when we say, are you good at it, but also are you willing to invest in the time to becoming good at it? And this is still work in progress for us. And then the third is can you create a product or a service that somebody else would be excited about? Would they like to own it? Would they like to participate in it? And our numbers are showing that. I mean, the podcast is growing exponentially from week to week to week to week. And so we're seeing a lot of traction with the podcast. So we kind of hit those big three filters. You can do the same thing about a product. I can use the example of my wife for her pottery. So it was something she was excited about. She wanted to try something completely different. I mean, she had a background in she got her master's in information systems and business and marketing. And so she spent a career in those spaces, but she wanted to do something completely different to get to the second question or second filter is are you good at it? Well, she had never really done it. So she and a friend actually went to a local community college and took a class on ceramics. And then that just started the whole process of just trying it and getting better at it and exploring it. And now, fast forward almost 10 years later, she's actually uh very active in a local marketplace where she sells her products and people are excited about her products. So it's one of those progressions that she went through, but it started out with is this something you're excited about? And I got to see it firsthand. It was really cool to see her go from this role in technology and running businesses and using all her skills that she's acquired over the years to going to something completely different on the creative side. And it's been really cool. And she also uses all her skills from the past to build and manage her business. So it's really cool to see that.
Rob (16:50)
And it's fun when you have something you're passionate around doing, it's really easy to jump in with both feet and go all in early on. And that's something that Brent and I did as we were talking about both talking about starting this podcast, that even in our early phases of beginning to build it out. And Brent, you mentioned it was almost a year ago this week we actually started talking about this podcasting idea and the thought that we might go and do something like a podcast. We actually started talking about it in late April, early May, and we didn't record our first episode until July, and we didn't distribute an episode until November. And that really goes back into you have passion around something. It takes some time to go and build if you're going to treat it like a business. So there is a little bit of time piece in there. But even when you're doing it as a business, it's something you're passionate about, it's really easy that it becomes all-encompassing in a lot of different areas of your life. And so I know I've talked to Carolyn, your spouse, and she has to go outside to make mugs and plates for the market that's coming up. It becomes all-encompassing sometimes for her, especially if she's getting ready for that market. This podcast becomes all-encompassing for us at times because we get so excited about the feedback that we're getting from people, the topics that we have, and our attempt to broaden our reach and scope, so much so that I built out a 37-page marketing plan for us. And that was fun for a couple of minutes. And then it was stressful. And so as you think about passion, it could take over a lot of areas of your life if you're not careful. And so as you go to transition into building a business in something you're passionate about, especially in the creative space, just be a little bit careful that you don't let it take over too much of your life if that's not what you're looking for right now.
Brent (18:33)
That was a moment in time for us in this podcast. So Rob spent all this time building this marketing plan. It was really a marketing product, kind of a strategy document. So he sent it over to me and I'm like, what do you want me to do with this? Because it was so comprehensive. And we actually had a, we like to go to a local coffee shop periodically, about once a month, and just kind of talk about the business and what we're building and so forth. And that was an interesting conversation because we both said, Do we actually want to go that deep this quickly? And we both said, no, because it started to take over other parts of our lives. And that was something that we realized like we can throttle this back as much as we want to. But it's one of those things when you're launching something, especially as a Gen Xer, we're used to building things and we're used to growing things and go at it at all costs. And it's like we said, I don't think this is the right pace that we want to go. Super exciting. And guess what? All those opportunities will always be there if we choose to pursue them.
Rob (19:36)
It's easy for that passion to take over way too much. So, all right, Brent, we've talked about passion. The next category is product.
Rob (19:44)
And I know when we think about physical goods or creating physical items, it's easy to think what that item is. So, pottery, there's a physical, tangible item that somebody can hold. But when you think about product, people have creative ideas, maybe too many ideas. How should they think about product in the area of creating a business in the creative area?
Brent (20:07)
So let me start with a simple disclaimer because I think we got to say this. This is really important. When you're in the creative space, it is really important, whether you're selling a product or a service, that you are very conscious about infringing upon other people's or other companies' intellectual property. And that's important. So let's say you want to start a t-shirt business and you have these really funny sayings and you want to put Mickey Mouse on that. Do you know who will come knocking on your doors? The attorneys from Disney. So you just have to be well aware of that. Or let's say you're getting to music and you're cutting a lot of you know big artists their music and put it into your tracks, most likely you're infringed upon their copyright. So you just have to be aware of that. We just felt like we would be doing you an injustice if we didn't say that, but that's not the whole goal of this episode is to scare people away. It's just being aware of that. And if you're ever curious about that, there's really good attorneys that can help you with that question. Uh, and they have, you know, on the IP side. So take the time in the early stages just to think about that. Most cases, people are not infringing upon, you know, copyrights or other people's intellectual property, but you may be venturing down that path. And we're just putting a word of caution out there. So back to your question, when people have a lot of ideas for products and what do they want to do? I think we learned this lesson when we were launching the business. The first thing to think about is how much time do you want to put towards this? And the challenge is if you have so many ideas of where you want to take something, are you willing to invest all of your time into that or a portion of your time? That's just setting realistic expectations. And we learn that through the 37 page growth plan. It's like, okay, if we want to do this, this is back to those 80 hour work weeks that we actually left behind. Is that what we want to do? And we quickly said, no, that's not really what we want to do, but maybe we could space it out over time. So understanding. Time is really important. But let's get into the goods here. So when you're thinking about a product, this is what are you selling? So you've got this purpose identified, you're excited about it. But now let's get down to it. So if you're selling physical goods, it's actually understanding what goods do you have. And also is how much time does it take to produce those goods? What's the margin reality with those goods? What's the volume requirement? I can speak on behalf of my wife, like she does ceramics. She's at a local farmer's market. We're in the mountains of Colorado. So the Vail Farmers Markets every Sunday, and she's there every Sunday throughout the summer. She knows from a production standpoint, she needs to start producing to prepare for those markets in January, and when those markets launch in June. Just to give you some stats there, there's 10,000 people that go through that farmers market every Sunday throughout the entire summer. Getting practical with your business when you sell a product. So that's a first part of it. The next one is when we think about creative content, is really understanding what is the product you're selling. So if it's a podcast, well, that's the product, but then we have to think about monetizing. One thing on YouTube is a good example is MrBeast. MrBeast is the pro, like the best at selling creative content. And his shows, I mean, he's got millions and millions and millions of followers. And that is an example of creating creative content. That's the product. And then we'll talk about here in a little bit how do you monetize that? And then when you get into creative services, if you're like our example of a photographer, what are you actually selling? And that's important to start to narrow it down to say, you know, I'm going to focus on weddings and I want to be a wedding photographer. I'm going to focus on graduation, senior pictures is an example. I'm going to focus on that. Pick your niche and kind of dive deep on that. If you go broad, sometimes it gets really hard. And we'll talk a little bit about marketplace here in a little bit. It gets hard to find your market when you go too broad. So those are examples, like starting to narrow it down of what your products, and let's say you want to do a lot of products, write them all down, but maybe you might pick a few to start out just to keep things moving forward.
Rob (24:20)
I like the idea of isolating it to one product or one output that these creative businesses would do as a starting place. And that's one of the mistakes that you and I made as we were talking about this podcast and why it took us between May and November to actually release an episode. Beyond a podcast, we actually talked about creating a media company that would actually do documentaries. We talked about books. We talked about, I don't know how many different things that we could actually go and do. We got really excited about all those things, but we also got really distracted by all those things. And it prevented us from actually taking that step and actually getting something recorded and distributed. So I'd say when it starts to, when it comes to product, start very small. Start with one idea. If it's a pottery, start with a mug, start with a plate, start with one item. If it's photography, do the one thing, as you mentioned, Brent. Just do wedding pictures or just do senior photos, something of that nature.
Brent (25:14)
And Rob, on that point, is I think it's really important. Like you start with one. It doesn't mean you can't do multiple. Going back to our example, I mean, we wanted to have multiple podcasts, we wanted to have other podcasters. We may do that sometime, but we tabled it and we just said, let's put it aside and let's get really good at one thing and build from there. And it may take us five years to get really good at one thing. And that's where you start to learn. And that deep dive is really helpful when you think about products. Because if you go too deep on multiple things, then you may not be good at multiple things. Just lesson learned there.
Rob (25:52)
So once you have the product, the singular thing that you're going to go into, the next thing, and we're going to talk about marketplace here in a couple of minutes. But the before you actually jump into the marketplace, I would suggest you actually run it by five people that know you really well. And I wouldn't do it right away. I would develop the product or develop the concept out in some form before you have that conversation. But talking to four or five people that you trust that will give you a really honest assessment of their thoughts around what you're planning on doing, what the product's going to be, is really helpful. So you don't end up spinning your wheels in something that may not be the right fit from a business standpoint. It's a great hobby, but it doesn't necessarily fit the business. When I think about the podcast in particular, we waited early on to tell very many people about the fact that we were thinking about doing a podcast. And in fact, we waited on our spouses the longest, I think, before we mentioned it to them. And once I did mention it to them, I know Tara said to me, she's like, doesn't everybody have a podcast? So be careful who you share that with because they may actually distract from what you're trying to go and do. But when we shared the concept, and this is where you can watch people's reaction to trying to think about building this product into a real business that generates revenue, watch their reaction. And when we shared the podcast idea, I saw a glimmer in people's eye. I saw excitement come from this. The questions were about what are all the things you could go and talk about and go and do, and almost a hint of jealousy from some of the friends that I mentioned this to as an idea that they didn't think about that and they weren't part of that. If you're if that's the reaction you get, you're on to something there. If people are getting excited, not just nice that, oh my gosh, you you you do great pottery, you should totally sell it. No, no, no. If they're willing to buy it, that's the next thing, right? Are they willing to make the investment there? And so that's really a way to start thinking about that product before you get to the next step, which is marketplace. But before we go to marketplace, Brent, we have product, but they got to make money on the product somehow. That's what
Rob (27:49)
a real business is. It doesn't become a business until you get the first paycheck from this business. So when you think about revenue streams from all of these different types of creative businesses, how should somebody think about revenue from these businesses?
Brent (28:04)
I think it goes back. So if you've got those three categories that we've been talking about, whether it's physical goods, creative content, and creative service, it's understanding each one of those areas and how are typically people paying for as a product example, are you going to sell it as a singular product one at a time? Are you going to put things in bundles and really understanding how you go about the pricing and understanding pricing models and doing research to say, you know, if you're going to launch a business and you want to charge X dollars, but it's 10 times as much as all your competitors, it's going to be pretty tough unless your product is so good. And that's something that you have to kind of be comfortable with. When it comes to a business like uh a photographer, how are they doing it? Are they doing it per project? Are they going to do it, you know, if they're working with a corporation, let's say, and they might do multiple events, they might sign a more longer-term contract. So there's different ways to do that. When it comes to our podcast as an example, so creative content, there's so many ways you can monetize it. So what we've explored, and maybe I'll just do a quick deep dive on this one, Rob. The way that we've explored it in the podcast is you could do merchandising. So you could actually have midlife circus merchandise. You could have uh we use Substack, you know, for our community. You could actually have subscriptions to our community. That's one option. We could do uh speaking engagements. We've had people that have expressed interest of us coming to events and do speaking. We could launch courses, so you start to see like all the things that you can do very similar to the products. It's like, okay, how much time? Because each one of those takes, you know, effort to make them really good. So it's been a challenge for us, you know, as we started to think about that in the early days. Now we've started to narrow it down, and where we feel most comfortable, where we want to take the podcast, is going down the partnership sponsor model and really identifying three to five sponsors that would be interested in partnering with us for the Midlife Circus podcast. We feel like that's the best thing for the podcast. We've got a growing audience, and it's one of those things where we saw a lot of early interest as well. So we had a lot of advertising agencies that work specifically podcasts reach out to us, and they were expressing interest in us going on their platform. We also had a few brands reach out to us and they expressed interest in us talking about their brands and the podcasts. And so it's been really fun for us, but we're also being very selective and patient because it's something we're still learning about the podcast. We've grown so fast that we're trying not to sell ourselves out early, but also align ourselves with the right type of partner, sponsor. And how do you look at that, Rob, when you think about our conversations around partners and sponsors? And maybe you could just share with our audience of like how do we think about it, and maybe, maybe they can help us a little bit.
Rob (31:06)
Think about it. This goes back to the product, Brent. The product is the podcast, and the podcast is really aligned to an audience. And what's going to resonate with our audience and really being really clear on what might resonate with our audience. And so, as you mentioned, media companies reaching out to us, we would lose a little bit of control. We could, we could monetize and we could generate revenue for this podcast now, but we would lose some control in what advertisements got placed on our behalf. And that's something we don't think would necessarily resonate with our audience. We want to actually find it, find a partner, find someone to come alongside us that actually has resources, products, services, something that really resonates with our audience and something they would use, something they find value in. So we're taking a little bit more of a slow approach here. And this is an area we'd like to ask all of our audience to give us a hand with. And so one of the things we launched just recently is the ability to message the show. And it's in the app wherever you listen to your podcast, if you go to the show notes, you can actually hit the link in the app that says message the show. And if you work for a company, if you own a company, if you think your products and services align with a Gen X audience, a close, soon-to-be retiring audience, an affluent audience, an audience that takes no BS and actually is really genuine in terms of how we view the world, send us a message. We're continuing to look at this area and really find a partner that we can align with that actually really meets the needs and desires of our community and the audience that we've taken time to build.
Brent (32:40)
This has been an important part of our journey. And we thought that this would just be an opportunity to share with like what we're actually doing, this creative business. We're about a year into it. We're seeing subscriber growth, but we haven't quite dialed in the partnership sponsor model quite yet. As Rob said, if you've got any sort of company in mind or somebody that you know, that's a key piece here, somebody you know or yourself, reach out to us. We just love to explore the idea with you.
Rob (33:05)
Now, Brent, you mentioned this in our last episode on the consulting business. Most people, when they start a business, they underprice themselves in the marketplace. Can you just give some thought? You talked about monetization and pricing and generating revenue in the business. Why is it common for people that are just starting off to undervalue themselves or underprice themselves? And what would you suggest they do about it?
Brent (33:30)
It's the hardest thing to do. I mean, you really, it's that confidence in what you're doing. And you can start to see that I'm just going to lower the price because I want that gratification. I want that people, the belief that my people are willing to buy what I'm doing. There is so much strategy and psychology that goes into pricing your product or your service. And it's so easy to undercut the beauty of what you've created because you just want to have somebody say yes. And it's just a validation that you're doing good work and somebody's willing to pay for it. But I put caution out there stick to your model, try it. Don't give in too early on discounts and all the things because consumers and like say let's use a product business. Consumers are always going to want something less expensive. But let's say you put your heart and soul into this and you're at market with some of your competitors that you think are in line with you. Don't feel the need to reduce your price just because somebody says, I need a discount. No, have pride. And I've seen this with my wife's business a lot. People go to farmers markets and they'll just try to haggle you. And she's really good about it. She's like, you know, this is my price, and I'm going to stick with it. We talk about it a lot on the side where it's, you know, you could ask somebody on the flip side, what do you do for your job? And they say, Oh, I'm a consultant. Well, if somebody comes to you and says, Hey, I'd like to have a 30% discount, would you give it to them? And most people are like, No. It's something about confidence and being confident in what you're doing and being patient that the pricing strategy is going to be really important. But you can also learn maybe you are way overpriced. And then you have to think about that. This whole pricing strategy, Rob, is a really interesting dynamic too, because it gets really hard as back to the Gen Xers, is where we saw so much value from us being really good at growing things and what's our time worth and our productivity. When you get into creative businesses, you have to somewhat throw that model out the door and you got to kind of reset expectations, but it doesn't mean your expectations is you're trying to race to the bottom to be the cheapest one in the market, unless that's your strategy. So as we now move into marketplace, which is our third main category.
Brent (35:46)
So just to refresh everybody, is we started out with getting your purpose. And do you really understand this idea and are you excited about it? And then we talked about the product itself, and we went through different ways that people think about product, how we've thought about product, your revenue model. But now, drum roll, please. What's your marketplace? And this is a really important part of the process is understanding who your customer is and how you can find them. So, Rob, when I think about this one, I often hear friends talk about how they want to start a creative business. They've got this idea for a product, or maybe they want to sell a service that's on the creative side. And when it comes to selling or monetizing, they freeze and they say, I don't know where or how to find my customers. So, knowing that, how would you respond to them?
Rob (36:44)
There are a lot of different places to go find your customer. And it's really finding early on before you start. So these are the three areas that you need to look at before you start the business and start to think of this as a business is what's the marketplace. Where do people typically sell the goods or services or ideas that you're going to be offering to people? So if it's a physical good like pottery, you have different places like Etsy, you have Facebook Marketplace, you have uh markets or farmers markets or pop-ups. All those are locations that actually sell physical goods. And a great place for you to go and do research as to what the marketplace is. What are people pricing? As we just went back to it, Brent, is what's the price point that people are using for a similar product? What does the competition look like in that area as well? So that is for the physical goods, you got locations or online resources, you could do that. For creative content, a lot of this falls into online services. So you go look out what's available on Amazon, what other podcasts for you and I, what other podcasts are of a similar vein or a similar genre that might be direct competitors? How do they sound? How are they structured? And really do your research up front. What does this marketplace look like? While my wife said everybody has a podcast, not everybody has a podcast with Rob and Brent on it, so we are unique. That's what I told her. Didn't fly, but that's what I told her. But what does this marketplace look like? And how competitive are you going to be in the marketplace of doing a podcast? And that's for us to look on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, those areas. For the services, it's looking at platform like an Upwork or just even doing a Google search for wedding photographers in your geographic area. That'll give you some insights to what the marketplace looks like. How are your competitors doing? What are they doing? And what is the quality of what they're doing? So the first thing is you think about marketplaces is where would you go and offer those services? And then what is the landscape that's there? And so I know Carolyn goes to the farmers market here in Vail. She does outstanding work. She and her business partner do really good quality pottery. And if you're in the Vail area, please stop by Mountain Mud Ceramics. It's beautiful. They're very competitive. I think Brent, they still underprice themselves because their pottery is gorgeous. And compared to their competitors in the area, I think they can actually move their market up or move their valuation up on what they're actually selling. So the first step when you think about from a market standpoint and marketplaces is what do your competitors look like?
Brent (39:20)
So each one of those categories, whether it's physical goods, creative content, and creative service, typically has platforms that are very popular. And how would you recommend people start to narrow down the platforms? Because that to me can be very challenging. So let's use the pottery as an example. As a potter, you could sell your products on Etsy. You could actually have your own website and actually have like a Shopify account. You could sell it uh via somewhat like an Instagram model where it's a click-through. You could do markets, you could go so many different places. And each one of these creative contents, the same thing. You had mentioned Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, Substack, like all these different places. If you're an author, there's so many ways to sell your product. How do you look at this so it doesn't become overwhelming? Very similar to when we were talking about product, is you could do so many different types of products, but how do you think about this from a platform selection or where people should go to sell their products or services?
Rob (40:25)
When I think about which platform to look at, is which one calls to you from a where you might want to actually reside? And just picking one and starting. The interesting thing, Brent, about any of these platforms is you don't find an audience on any of these platforms in any of these places. You actually have to build the audience on these places. And so, as an example with pottery, you could use Etsy as the way to distribute your pottery. Your photography for that has to be incredible because that's what people get to see. They don't get to touch it. They're looking at pictures on Etsy to determine if that's something that they want to buy. And so that's something to think about, the dynamics of the marketplace and how you approach the marketplace to build an audience or build your customers over time. When it comes to a market, you can have your booth at a market. You can have a table and a bunch of pottery set up on a table at a market, but you still have to market that pottery. You can't just sit behind in the back of that uh of the booth and sit on your phone and scroll and not engage with your customers. You have to actually be engaging and almost pull people in to want to stop and look. If you just think about any of the farmers markets you've been to, typically if there's lots of activity happening in a booth, people stop and go into that booth. And so you got to think that you're actually going to be very active in that setting and in that dynamic.
Brent (41:46)
You know, it's that, what's that old saying, ABC, always be selling? So it's one of those. I think that was always be closing.
Rob (41:53)
Always be closing.
Brent (41:55)
Oh, yeah, that would be ABS. Wow.
Rob (41:57)
Yeah, ABC, always be closing. That came from Glengarry Glen Ross. I got a funny story, I'll tell you about that some other time.
Brent (42:02)
What's interesting, Rob, is you've just alluded to the reality of an entrepreneur in the creative space, is you've got to be willing to put yourself out there. If you're in the creative space, you've got to always be closing. You always have to get into the mentality of like put yourself out there. And granted, it may be really uncomfortable.
Rob (42:26)
That's the difference between the hobby and a creative entrepreneurial business, is you have to actually have somebody purchase those goods. And I'm going to go back, Brent. It's really important to select what platforms. So do the research on what platforms exist and what does it take to be great on that platform for the type of product you want to distribute or you want to sell. That's the first step is the marketplace and identifying which one fits. And then picking one and doing it. I've seen a lot of people that actually start a creative business and they land on five or seven different marketplaces, and they're okay at five or seven. They're not great on any of them. And so it's really identifying what's the marketplace, picking one and being outstanding on the needs of that marketplace.
Brent (43:13)
And I think it's that fear of missing out. And also one thing I think it'd be good to talk about here, Rob, is the measuring stick. And I think in any creative business, is you're going to create a measuring stick and a comparison really quickly to somebody else in the space. So if you're a photographer, you might look at another local photographer and say, wow, they're crushing it. Well, guess what? Maybe they've been crushing it for 10 years, but they spent 15 years trying to figure out how to crush it. We get it all the time in podcasting because podcasting is a well known medium for you know consuming information. And there's podcasters like I follow Rich Roll as an example. But guess what? Rich Roll has been doing this for 13 or 14 years. And so he's had to build his audience. He's had to go through those slow years. He's had to really keep redefining and defining his approach and his customer base and so forth. So you have to be very, very patient with yourself in this process. Because if you create a measuring stick and you really start to look at other people and say, wow, they're just so far ahead of me. Well, maybe they've been at it for 10 years.
Rob (44:22)
It's really important to have a long game frame on this thing, right? Having a business in the creative space takes a period of time. It could take several years for you to actually become successful doing it and give it the space that it needs. You're not going to be an expert at it right away. I know I tried to make a mug on Carolyn's wheel the first time, and I didn't even make an ashtray. I did a better ashtray when I was five years old from my grandparents at that time. And so it takes time to build a skill set. And unless you're already a celebrity and you already have a following, when it comes to our podcast, it's easy to compare yourself against the greats, but unless you're a celebrity, like the Kelce Brothers or Kylie Kelce or one of the celebrities that have launched a podcast the last couple of years, they had millions of followers before they launched the podcast. People that have been authors for years have had New York Times bestsellers book after book after book. Your first one may not be a bestseller. And so give yourself the time to actually sit in that creative space. And that's the neat thing about this, Brent. We started this conversation where it's turning a hobby into a creative business. And you have to be clear that you want to create as a business because it may take some of the joy out of the hobby itself. But it's something that you love to do in the first place. Give it the time it needs to do it in a way that's actually authentic to you in the long term. And stop comparing yourself against the people that have been doing it for 10 or 15 years.
Brent (45:49)
I think that's an important step, you know, in also understanding time horizons. For us, Rob, it was a really important step in our journey. Is okay, we did start out thinking a little bit around the hobby, like, hey, this would be fun to do. Then we realized this is actually really fun to do. Could we do something a little bit broader with it? And then we started to talk about frequency of releases, and then we started to get interest from advertisers, like, hey, maybe we could start to build a model that pays for itself. And then, oh, maybe we could build a model that actually profits from itself. So it's one of those things that you start to think about when you transition from a hobby to for profit. Maybe your first goal is I just want to pay for the work that I'm doing. Not the hourly. Let's not confuse this because the hourly, then you'll be probably disappointed. You're not going to make an hourly rate that maybe you did if you equated to your previous salary. But if you get into like, let's say you're in the the you know, physical goods business and you've got cost of raw materials, maybe the first goal is just say, I just want to pay for that. And then you grow from there. So this is a good way to transition for us, Rob, is how do people start? We've talked about the passion. So clearly, people are going to have a ton of passion about what they're excited about. The next thing that we talked about is the product, and we try to really influence people to say, narrow it down to that one product you really want to be great at. Then we started to navigate pricing within the product, and then we took us to the marketplace and where are you going to sell your products? Where are you going to be active? So, how do people start?
Rob (47:26)
It's starting with one small step, and I would suggest don't build everything out until you test it. So, for a physical good, think about selling just a handful of items, and it's really simple to set up and really straightforward to set up, say, an Etsy shop. It's pretty simple to actually ask a retail establishment if you could set up a table in their venue. I have a friend or my wife's friend that does some design and some interior decoration. She actually sets up tabling events at wineries and pop-ups at places. And so just getting a foot in the door and setting up one thing and actually identifying if there's a marketplace for that. When it comes to creative content, go and record 10 episodes before you actually distribute any and practice it. We've actually recorded probably close to 45 episodes, and a lot of them went in the trash to get to the 32 that we distribute. So there's a lot of testing that comes involved in actually doing something great, test it out early on, but the steps are pretty straightforward to actually do that. When it comes to creative service, I think about the step or the it's the minimum viable product from a creative service standpoint is go in and actually offer a friend or a family member to provide that service for free. And actually don't just do it as a friend, do it as a business, not getting paid for it. And so if it is going to be, let's say photography is the example we've been using, show up as a photographer at that birthday party or at that event. Don't show up as the friend that's just taking pictures. You're there as a photographer now. So those are the minimum viable first steps is to just take that step, do it small. You don't have to be big to begin with, test the marketplace, test to see if you like doing it as a business before you jump in with both feet and try to build this thing out in its entirety.
Brent (49:14)
It's such a key step in the process, is it can be so overwhelming. And what we outlined today is there's a lot to it. But when you start out with purpose, that's actually the easy thing to do to say, do you really like doing this? Is this something you can see yourself doing? Then you start to advance your thinking by saying, all right, what are the products that I can envision here? And you may identify a whole host of products, but you might narrow it down to just one or two, just say, I need to do this to get going. Then it's all right, how could I price this? And what are the models out there? There's a lot of information on the internet, as we all know. So you can actually figure out a lot of this stuff in a very short amount of time. Then you go into where are people residing that might want my product and you do it. And I like how you said, as a if you're like a service provider, is show up as the photographer, not as the good friend. Have a few business cards, have things to just get the conversation going with potentially paying customers. So there's things that you can do, and where we want to encourage people is this is a beautiful thing to do. It's so much fun to do. I mean, the creative, it's like I didn't know that I would do this, Rob. Like this wasn't on my long-term Brent plan.
Rob (50:29)
We both like to talk. We both like to talk to each other. We just never thought we'd share it with other people.
Brent (50:34)
Absolutely. I mean, we're talking about everything we talk about, you know, on a regular basis, but then we just said, let's just bring this to a larger audience. But it's been so fun because it is different than what we've done in the past, but we can also leverage some of our skills from the past. So there's a lot of cool things that you get from doing something creative. And I just encourage people at this stage in life, it's a really fun endeavor to explore something that you normally wouldn't do. So if you want to get into something, you're curious about woodworking, just start and just try it and just see where you can go with it. And it may stay as a hobby, and that's not a bad thing either. So we're excited about this for our listeners because we felt like this episode was something we had to share because there's so many people come to us with ideas and they just get stuck in, but I'm going to go be a consultant. Maybe that's what you want to do, but maybe this is what you really want to do. So let's challenge ourselves
Brent (51:31)
there. So, Rob, we always like to close out episodes with a gratitude share. And this one's a fun one for us, and I'm going to play it, and I want to see what your response is. I think you've listened to it, but it's you're specifically called out on this one. So uh, or I'll play it and then we'll go from there.
Elena (51:51)
Hi, Rob and Brent. This is Elena. I love what you're creating with Midlife Circus. It's thoughtful and vulnerable, and because of that, it's real, and I think actually really needed. So keep it up. Um, one thought I keep coming back to is that I'd love to hear more female voices. And I know you both are married to um well, I don't know Brent's wife, but I know Rob's wife. So here's my request to get Tara on the podcast. Really appreciate what you're doing. I'm a huge fan, and know that we're cheering you on from Minneapolis.
Rob (52:30)
Elena, yes, I want Tara on the podcast too, as much as I want Carolyn on the podcast. But when we started this, Brent, we were uh we were given two kind of ultimatums from the very beginning. What were they?
Brent (52:45)
The first one was don't do anything that is cringe worthy. So that was how we started out. That's what our, we took our wives out to dinner when we were talking about the podcast to really say, you know, what do you think and so forth. And they're super supportive. But that was their first thing.
Rob (53:02)
Are you going to do anything cringe?
Brent (53:04)
Yeah, don't be cringe. All right. So a whole thing.
Rob (53:06)
And then we gave them a list of cringe topics we were going to probably discuss that dinner too.
Brent (53:10)
Yeah, they gave us a few things not to go there. Second was don't think that we will ever be on your podcast. I was like, this episode's a perfect example. My wife's a potter. You know, she could actually talk about what it took to move from her prior career to doing this, super excited. She's like, I'd be so terrible. She would be amazing. But we are respecting those boundaries, Carolyn. So thank you for sharing it. But Elena, I just want to thank you because this is something when Rob and I launched the podcast, that was one of our main goals is to get all sorts of people on the podcast, male and female, and from different backgrounds and different experiences. And so we just had our first episode with a female, Sarah, that came out just a little bit ago. And we've got others in the pipeline. So thank you for that. Thank you for the encouragement. And it's super exciting for us. And it's fun to also hear that Tara was called out on the podcast because Tara, we'd love to have you, but we knew we do know the answer. So thank you everybody for joining us today, and uh, we'll be with you next week.
Lena (54:18)
That's it for this episode of Midlife Circus. Visit midlifecircus.fm for show notes, transcripts, and all the latest happenings. And be sure to join us in the Midlife Circus community on Substack. Follow Midlife Circus on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and wherever you get your podcast so you never miss your next great act. Quick reminder the opinions and stories shared here are personal reflections, not professional advice. This show is for entertainment and inspiration only. Thanks for listening, and we'll see you under the Big Top next time. Midlife Circus is the Burning Matches Media production.