Your audience size doesn't determine your marketability

👋 Welcome back to Content to Commas, the weekly playbook for creators, founders, and content pros who want to stop waiting for permission to charge money.

Cannes Lions is a few weeks out, and my phone has been going off.

One friend messaged me asking how to get brands to sponsor them. Another just launched a newsletter and wants to make money without losing money in the process. Two different people. Two different problems. Same root answer.

I've been sitting on this for a while because I had a bit of writer's block to put this into words.

But this whole follower threshold isn't a rule. It's a story.

The 1K line is something people hide behind. It sounds like strategy, but it's procrastination cosplaying as a metric.

I’m proof that the people making money at 1K followers were making smaller versions of the same moves at 300.

There are real ways to generate income from your current audience, whatever size it is. Not hypothetical ways. Not "when you grow" ways. Right now ways.

This issue is about the mechanics of early monetization, so you stop waiting for a number that will never feel big enough.

📌 In this issue:

Let's go build!

— Brandon

^{a message from our friends at Hubspot}

Ready to transform artificial intelligence from a buzzword into your personal revenue generator?

HubSpot’s groundbreaking guide "200+ AI-Powered Income Ideas" is your gateway to financial innovation in the digital age.

Inside you'll discover:

Download your guide today and unlock a future where artificial intelligence powers your success. Your next income stream is waiting.

Get Your Guide

My biggest problem with list size advice on the internet is that it's almost always written by people with massive lists.

So they tell you the number that worked for them (like 10K or 25K), and forget to mention they earned $0 from their first 8,000 subscribers.

Everything I'm about to share costs you nothing to start. No minimum audience required. No waiting.

The variable that actually moves your revenue isn't list size. It's what you sell to the list you already have.

If your list is under 1K and you're not selling, the problem isn't your audience. The problem is you don't have a sharp enough offer for the people who already opted in.

That's the real diagnosis and the fix isn't to grow first.

It's to figure out what the people already on your list actually want to pay for.

[ 🙋 before we start, none of this is sponsored ]

I have a friend who works at a very big company.

aka … brand deals are off the table. Posting publicly makes him nervous. He has real expertise but zero interest in jeopardizing his W-2 for social media.

I know a lot of you are sitting in that exact same spot and honestly … I totally get it.

That's exactly who this offer is built for. Because you don't need a public profile to run a cohort. You need knowledge and a small room of people willing to pay for it.

My friend Sarah is Head of Influencer Marketing at Wix. She's running a cohort on Maven for $1,200. Four live sessions. Optional one-on-one feedback. The whole thing wraps in under a month.

Here's what's crazy … I know Sarah, and I never saw her post about this. I was on Maven, and I saw it. They just do a great job with organic marketing.

Pick one thing you know better than the people on your circle. Price it. Put it in front of them

I publicly talk about running my own thing and not going back to corporate.

Still, I get messages regularly asking me to contribute to publications, write thought leadership pieces, or interview people for branded content. I pass most of them to other people who are a better fit.

That same friend I mentioned above? We talked about this too.

The contributor route is less likely to jeopardize a W-2 than posting publicly, and it still gets you paid, published, and findable.

If you are good at any of the following, there is a check waiting:

Friends of mine who run their own companies today spent years as contributors for outlets like Business Insider or doing interview series for various brands. That work only helped them down the line.

The friend that messaged me about Cannes Lions sponsorships?

I suggested she could help brands that can't afford to send their social media teams. I told her she could be their “on-the-ground correspondent”. This way, she wouldn't need to post anything herself, but she would still provide great value to the brand.

You get paid, you build credibility, and every op makes you more marketable the next time someone looks you up.

Had a call earlier this week with a newsletter friend who runs an anonymous newsletter covering Austin events, businesses, and activities for founders. That newsletter clears $4K to $5K a month.

Brands pay to be featured. Brands pay for how-to guides on starting a local business. That's it. That's the model.

Your corner of life IRL, is a business opportunity that most people completely overlook.

The more I work with the Beehiiv team, the more I see how untapped the local newsletter game actually is.

Downtown Chicago events. Eating your way through Seattle. The best kept spots in Detroit. A founder-focused guide to what's actually happening in your city.

People don't trust the big publications for this anymore. They want something real from locals. Something that feels like it was written by someone who actually lives there.

You don't need a national audience for this. You need the right 2,000 people in the right zip code.

The opportunity is genuinely untapped. And the brands that want access to that audience have budgets for it.

You don't need a bigger audience. You need a better answer to the question: what do the people already here actually want to pay for?

The cohort, the contributor route, the local play.

None of these require a massive list. None of them require you to go viral.

They require you to look at what you already know, who you already reach, and get honest about what that's worth.

The 1K threshold was never the gate. The offer was.

Reply and tell me which one of these you're closest to pulling off. I read every response 😎

Each week, I share simple plays on branding, monetization, and growth strategies, plus tools I actually use that you might've missed. Catch up in minutes.

Yes, these are affiliate links, but I really use them.

Thanks for reading!
If this newsletter helped you make money, save time, or get unstuck… I want the receipt
Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Subscribe here
Interested in advertising? Get in touch