Do you know what you've got?
Oil companies make big bets on exploring potential oil reserves. When they find a reserve and it is on private land, they often offer the landowner a payment of $50,000 or so in order to access the land and drill for oil. To these landowners that is a healthy chunk of change. Hard to pass up. To the oil company, it's a drop in the barrel. They'll generate millions of dollars in revenue, none of which will be shared with the landowner. Which makes that one-time $50k payment like a latte.
The landowner doesn't know what they're sitting on.
They don't have the same information for making a decision as the oil company.
What's this got to do with you? Do you know what you're sitting on? Or more specifically, what's in your head? I bet there are untapped reserves awaiting a spark.
Often times we don't know or appreciate what we have and what we offer. We miss it because it's easy to get fixated on the likes Elon Musk. Or Jack Dorsey. Or Kylie Jenner. Never mind there's a huge delta between them and unsung but lucrative pursuits.
It's also hard to ask those closest to you what you can offer. They know you for you. Not what you’re fully capable of. Moving the proverbial needle widely requires a change within you. Expanded you may become. You'll think differently and choose differently. You'll talk differently too because you'll have a strong sense of purpose. You'll know where you want to go and be on that path. Even if you slip off, you'll hop back on.
And that's scary to those comfortable with things as they are. They don't want you to change. Okay, admittedly in almost every relationship one desires something in their partner to change. But this isn't about THAT. This is about big stuff. Things that potentially threaten the world view of those you love.
So don't ask them. Look inside. And test your ideas with those you have weak tieswith. Those without preconceived notions of who you are and what you're capable of.
Years ago I had a job researching the economic and environmental impacts of cyanide heap-leach mining for gold. The process involves digging up earth filled with tiny particles of gold, extracting it by sprinkling a weak cyanide solution over the mounds, and then melting it together to form large gold bars to sell. Like oil reserves, just looking at the land you don't know what's there.
And I bet just looking at your head, you don't know how your synapses are connecting. Or could connect. Think about what you can combine to create something cool and transformative?
What might those untapped reserves be? Look at what scares you the most. No, not skydiving. But the big job or business or capability that you want to do but aren't sure you can? If it both scares and excites you, you're on to something. Follow that muse. Let me know what you discover.
If you want some prompts, here are some hot topics ripe for innovation we can explore here (in fact, if there’s one that piques your fancy let me know and I’ll feature it next week):
- Affordable Housing / Home ownership
- Climate change
- Resiliency
- Aging
- Digital privacy
- Digital health care
- Financial Services for bottom 50%
Let's talk creator platforms.
This newsletter is published via Substack which has seen tremendous growth and hype over the past year. It allows creators to easily publish and charge subscriptions for their newsletters if they want. I haven't yet started offering a premium edition of Own The Cow, but am considering it in the future.
Some people complain about Substack's 10% fee which is fine when you're small, but adds up with you have 50,000 or 100,000 subscribers. Several have moved to their own platform as they've scaled to avoid this.
But what about all of the other platforms out there? To get started, most reward creators with a generous algorithm and then ratchet that down with popularity. Right now, it's pretty easy to get your content organically seen on Linkedin, but not so much on Facebook. There, you pretty much have to pony up for any measurable exposure.
Most platforms start out free to create the network effect. To get you to invest your time on their platform building an audience. You're hardly going to want to pay for an empty room. You want to test it out and see if it'll work.
Once you are committed, they'll start tweaking and squeezing to fill their revenue pipeline. They'll start charging YOU to show YOUR content to the audience YOU built in addition to their ad revenue. They know that the larger your audience, the harder the switching costs.
Remember how last week I talked about how little they value the time of their users? Well, the same goes for your content. While in the beginning you're essential to their success, later you become a commodity once they've built up their platform.
Substack reportedly lured key writers with audiences to establish credibility and word of mouth. It worked. Like most any platform, it's the top 1% or so making 90% of the revenue. Your audience size is your asset.
Which is why it makes sense to own your own platform if you can. Or at least control the revenue streams. To cut through the noise, people are more willing than ever to pay for access to quality information. If you save them time and make them money, it's worth paying for.
As you think about tapping the value within you, think about how you can create sustainable revenue streams that are not at the mercy of big technology. The field is opening up as platforms recognize the value of creators. What new platforms are you exploring? What kind of platform do you think you need?
Go create. Share with us.
I’ll leave you with a few words from Milton Glaser, the designer of the famous Bob Dylan poster and I Love New York: