Happy Sunday, creators. To keep you in the loop, we’re starting a Gumroad newsletter that will be in your inbox every Sunday. Its entire goal is to help you make more money as a creator.

Here’s what to expect moving forward from our newsletter:

Creator Spotlights (we may feature you)
How to content (how to build an audience, how to create a high converting sales page)
Weekly updates from our team
What’s happening in the creator economy
Creator inspiration

Let’s dive in.

How Dru Riley Went From 37 Months Without An Income to $100K+ on Gumroad

Post-college, Dru worked as a software developer, focused on Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Scala, and Spark. And in 2017, he made a tough decision. A decision that would give him control over his time.

He quit his six-figure job.

With 250k in his savings, Dru went on a mini-retirement to travel, learn Jiu-Jitsu, and improv comedy. During that time, he worked on side projects. But none ever gained enough traction.

Dru took off his developer hat and put on his founder hat.

Taking off his developer hat meant disconnecting from code and exploring content. His identity shift sent him down an avenue where he was obsessively searching for valuable problems to solve.

He quickly spun up two projects: The B2B SaaS Marketing Playbook and StrongStack. Both gained initial traction but quickly stalled.

By the end of 2019, Dru had gone 32 months without an income.

He pivoted. Again.

Dru went from something that felt like work to something that felt like play.

So, he started writing about Trends.

Something he’s always loved.

On February 10th, 2020, Dru posted Trends #0001 — Cloud Kitchens, the first-ever Trends Report.

A Trends Report broke down into the sections:

Problem
Players
Predictions
Opportunities
Haters
Links

It was a compilation of 50 hours of research and writing ad interviews into a report capped at 1000 words.

It cut through the noise and provided you with valuable high signal trends.

Things finally started to look upward.

His high-quality content caught early traction. He used Indie-Hackers and Tweet Storms to scale.

It was working.

After reading about the success of other creators monetizing their content, Dru decided to monetize his.

In his 13th report, Dru announced Trends Pro where he would alternate between free reports and paid reports.

He launched his pre-order for the first-ever paid report two weeks later.

Dru didn’t generate one sale.

So, he pivoted again.

Not once, but twice.

First, Dru made half of his reports free and the other half paid. His first report in that format brought in $162.

After much advice, he switched from a monthly subscription to an annual subscription.

Here’s the timeline:

By June 22nd, Trends Pro crossed 100 subscribers.
In August, Dru raised the price of Trends Pro to $149/year.
Trends.VC was number one on Product Hunt.
In October, Trends Pro annual price doubled to $297/year. Trends.VC earned $38,000 in October alone.
After 6 months, Dru turned Trends into a product generating $100k+

Today, 99 percent of Trends.VC revenue is recurring in the form of Annual and Quarterly subscriptions.

Read Dru’s full story here.

Want to create an annual subscription just like Dru’s?

Tap here and we’ll teach you exactly how in a few minutes.

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Here’s What We Shipped For Gumroad Creators:

Allow creators to change the “View Content” label.

Show your list of followers.

Option to modify publish date of post.

Full-text search for posts.

And you can also Delete Products from the Library!

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What’s Happening in the Creator Economy

How to manage your time as a creator.
Grow your audience in this 5 day challenge (we will feature the top 3 winners).
Gumroad creators who use Facebook Ads can now verify their custom domain via Advanced Settings.
The steps Vlad Pasca used to make over $700 selling his ebook Web Developer Knowledge.
The easiest way for a creator to launch a side hustle.
Customizing your Gumroad page with CSS with Sahil Lavingia.
How to make a living as a creator.
Exciting news: we’re launching a podcast very soon! We’ll keep you updated.

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Create Daily. Get Better Daily.

If you don’t water a plant, it doesn’t grow.

Your journey as a creator is no different.

To excel, you must work on your craft over and over again.

During a Clubhouse room about the creator economy, Naval said, “To be a good creator, you have to be creative. To be creative, you have to be constantly creating.”

Water your skills.

Experience growth.

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Learn How To Build a Loyal Audience

Are you a new creator on the block? And don’t how to start building a loyal fan base?

No problem.

On Wednesday, we’re releasing our five day “Grow Your Audience Challenge.”

Over the course of these 5 days, you will learn:

How to pick the right platform and goals
How to form a digital identity
The 3-step process to growing your audience
How you’re like The Beatles
The secret behind the fastest growing companies/creators
4 Ways to make your first dollar online

It’s a value-packed email series that’ll land in your inbox for the next five days starting this Wednesday.

Start building your audience this week.

Get the free course here.

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We will be back in your inbox next Sunday.

Until then, keep creating!

The Gumroad Team

Gumroad is becoming a Merchant of Record (+ more updates!)

🆕 Instant Payouts!

📢 New: Boost Your Sales with Built-in Upsells (+ Important PayPal Update)

Commissions: Custom Work, Custom Pay

One-on-One Calls: A New Way to Earn on Gumroad

See all posts from Gumroad