Nathan Barry and Codie Sanchez debate whether early-stage creators should chase quick money or build trust first. They land on a middle path: secure a few paying clients to cover expenses, then grow your audience without the pressure to monetize everything immediately.
It's really hard to ask for people's attention and their money upfront. You got to choose between the two.
I tell my audience all the time, we're not building an audience right now. When you're starting at like what I call H1, which is the beginner stage, we're not building an audience, we're getting money. So like you have professional skills, what can you sell? You only need like 5 clients to be able to pay your bills. Okay, now we have some money and your bills are paid. Now we'll go build an audience next.
The only thing that I would say upfront is you need to be really clear on your goal. So for me, I knew that I wanted to have trust more than anything up front. The one downside I think to using your audience to make money in the beginning is your audience immediately loses a tiny bit of trust because you're asking for something from them.
