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13 Secrets to Content Creation (I wish I knew sooner)

13 Secrets to Content Creation (I wish I knew sooner)

WHY did no one tell me this BEFORE I burned down my business?

Vanessa Lau
August 26, 2024

If you had asked me two years ago what the secrets to content creation were, I would have given you a list of tactics.

The truth is that tactics can help you grow, but they won’t necessarily make you happy. And if you’re not happy, your longevity as a creator will inevitably have an expiry date.

For example, even though I had built a large platform, I still had burnout and had to hit a significant reset button.

The same goes for the many prominent creators who quit YouTube, TikTok, or a ________ platform despite their on-paper success.

This week, I’m sharing the 10 things I wish I knew about being a creator and having a creator business.

I only learned these lessons after burning down my 7-figure business, and I hope that sharing them will save others from burning out and being unhappy in their creation journey.

You can watch the full video here:

I’ve added 3 out of 10 lessons in this post below, but highly enough for any creator or aspiring creator to watch the full video - enjoy! 🙂

#1. Depth vs. Volume

Imagine building a loyal audience of 1,000 people and launching a $100/mo membership, where your community's most engaged and aligned members get your best content, proximity, and support.

1,000 x $100/mo = $100,000/mo = $1.2m/year.

I wish someone had told me this four years ago.

If I had known that I needed less than 1,000 people to build a million-dollar business, I would have focused on nurturing depth within my existing community rather than burning myself out trying to get everyone’s attention.

I didn’t need 10,000+ customers.

I didn’t need to post content I didn’t enjoy creating to attract the masses.

I didn’t need to have a big team.

I didn’t need to work myself to the ground.

What I needed to do was:

Attract and build a genuine relationship with <1,000 people who share the same values and don’t want the performative version of me.
Not have a content model that is disproportionately skewed towards top-of-funnel content I didn’t always enjoy creating (ie: How to Grow on IG FAST)
Have a business model that thrives on retention and customer lifetime value rather than never-ending new customer acquisition.
Continue to deepen the relationship with the top 1,000 people: build genuine friendships, organize hangouts, support them on their most significant problems, grow with each other, etc.

The problem is that some people don’t think 1,000 people are enough, and some don’t even think $100,000/month is enough.

I was one of the people.

It wasn’t until I had nearly sent myself to the hospital trying to get more, more, and more that I realized how aggressive and broken my business and content model was.

But today, when I remind myself that I don’t need to chase the masses to be happy or have enough, my personal creation life has become significantly more fun and peaceful.

The bottom line is:

Some of you may not even aspire to make $100,000 a month.

Some of you aim to make $20,000 a month, $10,000 a month, or enough to meet your needs and be happy.

This means many of you don’t even need 1,000 people to love your stuff.

So why are we running ourselves to the ground?

Why are we posting content we don’t like and attracting people who only like us when we’re being someone else?

Why!?

#2. Content captures who you are in this moment of time.

I felt too paralyzed to post anything when I returned from my sabbatical.

The truth is, I was scared that whatever I posted would define me, just like how my viral Instagram video from 2019 ended up being my entire niche.

I was also scared that my posts would not perform if I didn’t have the right title, thumbnail, or hook.

And if my posts didn’t perform, it would give people reason to believe that taking my sabbatical and exiting my business was a mistake, and I felt a lot of shame and pressure around that.

It wasn’t until I read this excerpt from Rick Rubin’s book “The Creative Act” that I finally understood how this mindset was hindering me:

When you believe the work before you is the single piece that will define you, it’s difficult to let it go.

The urge for perfection is overwhelming.

We become frozen, and sometimes we convince ourselves that discarding the entire work is the only way to move forward.

Releasing a work into the world becomes easier when we remember that each piece can never be a total reflection of us, only a reflection of who are in the moment.

Just like how a diary entry is not a reflection of our entire life.

Think about how many pages will be left empty because your process was dampened by doubt?

Hanging onto work is like spending years writing the same entry in a diary.

Part of the process of letting go is releasing any thoughts of how you or your work will be received.

When making art, the audience comes last.

And one of the greatest rewards of making art is our ability to to share it.

Rick Rubin

Since reading that excerpt, I have enjoyed publishing my work more. I don’t second guess as much as I did before.

Rather than worrying about being defined by my posts, I now recognize that the purpose of my posts is to share the person I am at this moment in time.

By sharing who I am at this moment, I’ll be able to find myself in the next moment.

For example:

In 2017, I was a beauty creator — because that was my genuine passion at the time.

But then, through posting, I learned I didn’t like the creation process of scrubbing my face so much and the overconsumption of buying makeup products. So I dropped it.

From 2018 to 2019, I created videos for young adults about my experiences quitting the 9-5 and other topics.

I had built a small community. Then, one day, someone from my community wanted to collaborate on a video.

We talked about Instagram because that was the one thing we had in common.

My video generated millions of views overnight, so I pivoted.

This pivot allowed me to grow my channel faster and further.

From 2019 to 2022, I continued to be an Instagram Guru and YouTube “expert” because I valued growth at all costs.

But then, after years of posting the same thing, I realized I was playing a character. I felt inauthentic, and I was burnt out from building an entire business based on this character.

So, I burnt it all down to re-evaluate my next chapter.

In 2024, I’m now documenting my experiences rebuilding my personal brand and showing up more authentically online.

I’m also documenting the building of my new brand, Superboba, with Leon.

The moral of this lesson is that you’re human.

Changing is a universal human experience; no niche or post can define you unless you let it.

The worst thing you can do is post nothing because you want to be perfect and fear being rejected or defined.

Once I understood this, I then posted the video below — where I candidly shared how I truly felt since my return:

If I had never posted that video, I would have never received evidence that it’s safe not to know all the answers.

If I had not gotten evidence that it’s safe not to know everything, I would have never started this newsletter you’re subscribed to.

So now I ask you:

What if each imperfect post led you to the next part of your ever-evolving journey?

Not ever sharing keeps you stuck in a time capsule where you’ll never create enough evidence for yourself on your next move.

#3. The personal is universal.

I’m often asked how I balance being “vulnerable” while still being “valuable”.

Here’s what one of our Creator Journal readers wrote to me:

- From a lovely Creative Journal reader 🙂 You know who you are!

I used to fear that I would sound “victimish” or that people would label me as a “hot mess” if I shared the things I was going through.

Here’s something I read that allowed me to feel comfortable with vulnerability and to trust that the value is in the vulnerability:

The secret is this:

What is most private and personal in you is also what is most universal.

What is deepest in you is deepest in all people—and in the world itself. The deeper you look into yourself, the more you find what is most important to everyone.

The most private you, “the real you,” isn’t isolated and alone.

When you speak, write, think, perceive, and act from your deepest, truest self, you automatically speak to other people’s deepest desires and concerns as well.

In making art, music, or literature, the more you base your work on pandering to others to win their attention or extract their money, the more you miss the mark.

The effort to project your motivation outward and shape your work purely for appealing to others serves only to alienate them and make the work sterile.

Real creative connection with others comes not from chasing after it outwardly but from accessing what is most personal within you and expressing this in some truthful form.

You can read the full post here.

I used to think that posting about my income, number of followers, etc., would build a connection.

I posted those things because I thought it would make people like me more and because I wanted to be seen as an authority.

But in reality, that messaging probably alienated a lot of people.

I used to think that the gurus felt out of reach… and then I became one.

Ironic right!?

This doesn’t mean you can never share your “qualifications”…

But what if your qualifications weren’t solely about the money you make or the number of followers you’ve acquired?

What if your qualifications were your experiences? Your story? Your wisdom and lessons through struggle?

What if sharing those stories and moments brought people closer to you rather than making people feel like you’re out of reach because you’re so perfect?

Or what if not always having the “expert” hat on actually changed the vibe of your videos and made filming videos easier?

I spent a lot of time teaching people how to do things, forcing myself into tight video scripts, and maintaining a specific image of myself.

But now, I have learned that people can access ChatGPT for that! 🤣

Remember: You don’t have content ideas. You have thoughts, stories, lessons, and experiences. It’s time to share them.

There are even more lessons that I wish I had known about sooner, which might have prevented my public burnout from 2023.

Listen like a podcast, or watch the video with some tea and snacks 😀😀

Thank you for reading!

I’m so grateful for you as always, and I want to wholeheartedly thank those of you who were so excited and enthusiastic when I announced the other side quest I’ve been on the past year:

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