RC #022

How to build in public — with grace.

Jan 26, 2021

Welcome to issue #022 of Rational Creatives, a weekly newsletter that empowers curious people to make a living doing work they love.

Hi friends,

Greetings from Oklahoma!

I’m in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere, unplugging and celebrating my first wedding anniversary.

But I wanted to make sure y’all get your weekly dose of rational creativity on time, so I’m taking a 10-minute break to finish this writeup and send it to you. Please, don’t tell my wife 🤐

These are the coolest things I found this week — enjoy!

Cohort-Based Courses (CBC) are thriving. The latest is Gumroad founder Sahil Lavingia's course The Minimalist Entrepreneur, which aims to teach people how to build "a sustainable business that matters." He announced it last Tuesday and it sold out very quickly. CBCs seem to be the future of online education. They're a fascinating trend and business model. Keep an eye on them.
Building in Public Definite Guide by Kevon Cheung. If you're part of the same Twitter bubble I'm in, you are probably familiar with the concept of "building in public". If you're not, here's what you need to know: Building in Public "means building a company, a product, or anything and sharing a lot of the transparent "behind the scenes" with its public audience." Now, this sounds great, doesn't it? But how do you go about it? How do you do it gracefully and intelligently? The answers await in Kevon's guide! He's spent months studying and practicing this idea himself, and has compiled everything he's learned in this super valuable (free) resource.
How to increase your open rate with email preheaders by Jonas Fischer. Everybody on the Internet is competing for attention — and the competition is quite ferocious. Once you understand this, you start being more intentional and approaching things differently. In this great article, MailerLite's content manager teaches you an underused strategy to stand out in your reader's crowded inbox and increase your open rates.
What the hell is a "creator"? How do you explain it to your mom? Although I'm fairly familiar with this topic and even consider myself a creator, I struggle to explain in plain English what being a "creator" means. So reading Hugo's The Definition of a Creator was both relieving and insightful. In just 4 minutes, he gives you all the context you need to understand what it actually means to be a creator.
You've probably heard the term "minimum viable product", but what about "minimum viable post"? In this atomic essay, I explain how you can use the lean startup philosophy to create content that resonates with your audience.
You only need 2,450,000,000 True Fans to be successful by Cloakist founder Louis Barclay. This blog post is one the most hilarious things I saw this week, which is a lot to say considering all the Bernie memes that were around. At the same time, it’s a great example of how brands can use organic content to generate traffic to their website. Being funny in a traditionally dry industry like tech is still massively underrated.
I haven't drunk alcohol in more than 1 year. I didn't quit because I was addicted to it, but because I didn't get the joke. This week I found out that there's a whole movement of people like me called "sober curious". And, of course, there are a bunch of companies trying to capitalize on it. In The Non-Alcoholic Beer Market Is Bubbling Up, Steph Smith shares an in-depth analysis of this trend and all the opportunities that are popping with it.