We’re back with another edition of The Gumroad newsletter.

And as we wrap up 2021, expect more value, insights, and stories from creators doing what they love while generating an income while doing it.

The goal?

To guide you through your journey.

In this week’s newsletter, we cover:

Easlo’s journey to building an income online
Justin Welsh’s rule to promoting your products

Let’s jump in.

From $0 to $27k In 8 Months

Eight months ago, Easlo didn’t have an audience online or had never generated a dollar online. Fast forward to today, and Easlo built an audience of nearly 18k followers on Twitter, over 25,000 customers on Gumroad, and has made over $25k online.

Our Alex Garcia caught up with Easlo to run through his journey, what he’s learned, and what he’s planning in 2022.

From 0 to ~18k Followers in 8 Months

Easlo’s growth on Twitter is largely due to his consistent contribution to the Notion community since setting his path to becoming a template creator.

To start that journey, he joined Twitter. And uses Twitter as my primary platform to distribute Notion templates and resources, offering freebies from time to time. However, because Easlo knew that starting as a digital creator without much background or following, there's inherently a form of trust hindrance from the community to use his Notion templates.

And he knew giving away free products was the first step to building this trust and leveraged Twitter to distribute those templates to the Notion community.

After Gaining Traction, Easlo Started Leveraging His Email List

After Easlo started building an audience on Twitter, he launched his newsletter and later his website. Starting the newsletter was Easlo’s way to find his true fans who loved his products. With that, Easlo continuously aims to deliver his newsletter subscribers with free Notion templates and processes and systems to help them with their work and personal life.

These Templates Served As The Base For Easlo To Make His First $1 Online

Easlo made his first dollar from a small payment for a Notion template he published on Gumroad. And Easlo decided to use the “pay what you want” feature on Gumroad for his template when someone chose to purchase the product for a small amount. And Easlo says, “it felt great to receive a payment for that.”

Now, Easlo has over 10+ free templates on Gumroad that he continues to give away for free to continue to build trust and credibility within the Notion community.

This supercharged growth and served as the catalyst to scale.

Fast forward, Easlo has now made over $25k as a creator. From here, his growth transitioned from building an audience to building a fan base as he released larger and larger products. As he accomplished this, Easlo started to launch more comprehensive Notion dashboards and systems.

This decision to scale his collection of products resulted in building a brand in itself. This transition made it easy for Easlo to upsell his new products to previous customers.

In 2022 Easlo Plans To Expand And Scale

Easlo says, “The way forward for me is pretty clear, I have to start creating a more personalized solution for my audience.” There’s no Notion system or template that truly fits everyone. And Easlo plans to offer consultations and personalized systems to set himself apart from his competitors and really improve the lives of others.

Another way Easlo plans to empower the community with knowledge and skills is to help individuals build their own systems. To do so, Easlo plans on publishing his own course on learning Notion in 2022.

And His Notion Advice For Fellow Creators

For creators, Easlo believes it’s essential to build a good system from the start because it will save you a compounding amount of time and energy. And that system will empower your workflow, processes, and organization.

If you’re looking for a product to build a streamlined system, then Easlo recommends his Second Brain System.

And you can browse all of Easlo’s products here.

And follow him on Twitter here.

Here’s What We Shipped For Gumroad Creators

Creators on Gumroad now get even more customizability over their product URLs.

E.g. You can now use "book" for your book, "course" for your course, "membership" for your membership, etc.

What's Happening In The Creator Economy

What’s Happening In The Creator EconomyWhat’s Happening In The Creator Economy

What’s Happening In The Creator Economy

What’s Happening In The Creator Economy

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Give 80% Of The Time. Ask The Other 20% Of The Time.

Justin Welsh has made over $1M as a solopreneur and is building a diverse portfolio of one-person businesses to $5M in revenue.

One of the driving factors has been building large, loyal audiences on Twitter and LinkedIn where he provides immense value for free.

This is the 80%.

Because of this, Justin believes you earn the right to “ask,” aka promote your products the other 20% of the time.

Justin says he asks his audience to buy his course once a week resulting, in 15x the revenue on these days.

A few weeks ago, we spoke to Justin about how he plans to scale to $5M in revenue.
You can read the interview here.

Another week in the books.

Another week closer to 2022.

Keep thriving,

The Gumroad Team