Bootstrap an Audience
Louis CK has been all over the internet this past week. First he wrote a very personal missive urging people not to pirate his new show, he was on Reddit, and now he’s shown that this experiment payed off.
When Kevin Smith decided to independently distribute and market his movie Red State, many people said he would fail miserably. But he did the math and he knew he’d be able to make back the money for his investors because he’d amassed such a large, devoted, core audience.
Trent Reznor and Radiohead did it before them. And the response on the internet to all of these guys has been overwhelmingly “well of course it works for them, they already have an audience”.
But what no one seems to be mentioning is that an audience can be built, without too much work.
You don’t have to be famous
These guys in show business had to grind away for years to get their thousands or millions of fans. But now you can look at youtube or twitter and see thousands of people you’ve never heard of with millions of viewers or thousands of followers. In a fraction of the time it took Louis CK to get his audience, people all over the internet are gathering fans. According to Kevin Kelly it only takes 1000 true fans to reach critical mass, so:
- Engage with a community
- Do so on a consistent basis
- Have fun
Look at Patrick McKenzie, Zach Holman, Sahil Lavinga, Jason Roberts, and Notch. These are pretty normal guys in our community who have decided to share their knowledge, build neat tools, engage us with weekly podcasts, or share awesome code with everyone. In exchange we follow what they do, listen to what they say, and buy what they sell.
It’s hard work, and it’s easy to let slip, but I truly believe that these days anyone can get tens of thousands of people interested in what they are doing.
Oh, and follow me on Twitter and tell me why I’m wrong.
