Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - The Creator’s Playbook: How Top Entrepreneurs Monetize Their Expertise to Make Millions Online | Entrepreneurship | Presented by Teachable

Starting point is 00:00:00 Hey, young improfitors, the creator economy is booming. We're standing at the edge of the biggest entrepreneurial wave of the next decade. And today, I'm going to help you catch it. Whether you're a freelancer, creator, or service provider, the series is packed with proven frameworks to help you turn your knowledge and creativity into real, scalable income. Personal brand is the most valuable asset you can possibly have. A lot of us are in social media.

Starting point is 00:00:24 We inherently have audiences. You may have 100,000 followers, or you may have five followers. but you have an audience. Online courses, like, cracked my life open in such a beautiful way. I had scaled a business from zero to 100K in three years. I knew something that a lot of people didn't. First thing is you want to make sure that people actually want what you have. They're suffering some problem that they want to solve.

Starting point is 00:00:45 And the bigger the problem that you solve, the more money you make. There's so many different ways you can get started online. I think my biggest advice is... Hey, young improfitters. Welcome to the first episode in our special two-part series sponsored by Teachable, where we're pulling back the curtain on course creation, everything from building your audience to testing your ideas to structuring a program that people actually want to buy. Whether you're a freelancer, creator, or service provider,

Starting point is 00:01:10 this series is going to be packed with proven frameworks to help you turn your knowledge and creativity into real scalable income. By the way, if you want to build, sell, and scale your courses smarter in 2025, you can grab Teachable's free modern course creator playbook. It's got the strategies you'll need to get started, strong, and you can find it in our show notes. In today's episode you're going to hear from some of the best in the game, Amy Porterfield, Alex Ramosey, Jenna Cutcher, and Jason Flatline, entrepreneurs who've built multi-million dollar businesses by turning their expertise into digital products. We'll break down the advantages of becoming a creator entrepreneur and how you can start building multiple revenue streams

Starting point is 00:01:47 even long before you ever launch a polished course offering. If you're just getting started as a creator entrepreneur, it's easy to think that personal branding is something just for influencers or YouTube stars. But more and more entrepreneurs, a course, across every single industry are discovering that you are your business's biggest differentiator. When people trust you, they trust what you sell. Products, on the other hand, can be copied. Services can be undercut. But a personal brand, that's all yours. Nobody can take it away from you. Nobody can replicate your voice, your values, your vibe. And when you invest in your brand, it becomes your most powerful and resilient asset. So what exactly is your

Starting point is 00:02:24 personal brand? It's your reputation. It's the sum of every post, podcast, conversation that you put out in the world, every comment, every DM. It's how people know what to expect from you and why they choose you over the competition. And when you're consistent and authentic, your personal brand starts working for you, opening doors, attracting opportunities, and building trust at scale. For me, that's how everything got started, my podcast, my content, my personal brand. They gave me my dream job as a podcast host, my dream company with Yap Media and my dream team. While I see my friend struggling to get hired or fearing layoffs in corporate, I built a company that now has a mode around me. Just off my personal brand and podcast and sponsorships I make over

Starting point is 00:03:04 $100,000 a month. And my company is making nearly $500,000 a month through agency services and my network offering. I'm sharing this because if I can do it, you absolutely can too. You just have to start. And if you're waiting to feel ready, don't. The creator economy is booming right now. There's room for every voice, every niche, every idea. and there's never been a better time to begin. In fact, the creator economy is projected to nearly double within the next two years. That's more growth than it's had over the last 17 years. It's going to happen within the next two years again.

Starting point is 00:03:38 The market isn't saturated. It's expanding. Micro communities are thriving. New creators are being discovered every single day. And if you're still not convinced, listen to this take from Sean Cannell, a creator entrepreneur, YouTube expert, and one of the leading voices in digital content strategy. What's fascinating for everybody listening to this is the ability for you to maybe create extra income streams or start building a personal brand in addition to creating lead flow for your

Starting point is 00:04:04 business. Why is Gary Vaynerchuk and Grant Cardone and Layla Hermose and Noah Kagan and Alex Hermose investing so heavily in content? Why, when they have other businesses and other things to do? I think it's because they understand that personal brand is the most valuable asset you can possibly have. And by building out and content, the wave of the creator economy itself, you tapping into being a creator, publishing content, basically the next three years are going to be the best three years in the creator economy. And Mr. Beast himself, the biggest independent YouTuber, also mentioned that YouTube's algorithm is one of the most generous algorithms as we speak, that new creators are being suggested on people's homepages

Starting point is 00:04:44 and getting a shot and people's suggested feeds, that if you start a brand new channel right now, and you make the right video around the right topics with the right content, you can grow from scratch right now. So I think that when you think, oh, the platform has aged out or whatever, or it's just already saturated, saturation is actually impossible by the dictionary definition if it's still increasing. If the total addressable market's increasing, if consumption of content is increasing, which it is, if more users are appearing there, which they are, and if these users are more individual and unique, speaking to you finding your niche and you're a thousand true fans, it's not saturated. It's not too late. And the next three years are actually going to

Starting point is 00:05:26 be double of what's happened in the last 17. So we're actually in a crazy strategic time for YouTube. And so I think that's actually data-backed good news for business owners listening to this right now for really tapping into the power and the wave that's happening. That's why you're here. And that's why I'm here. Because we're standing. at the edge of the biggest entrepreneurial wave of the next decade. And today, I'm going to help you catch it. But first, let's get real for a second. If you're still working a traditional nine to five, you probably know the feeling of one paycheck, one boss, one company that decides your fate. You're trading time for money and even if you work harder, you don't really see

Starting point is 00:06:05 more money. Plus, you don't own your work, your audience, or your future. But when you step into the creator economy, everything changes. As a creator entrepreneur, you're not just earning money, you're building assets. You start owning your platform, your content, your community, and from there, you can monetize in so many different ways. Services, digital products, courses, affiliates, you name it. And if one stream dries up, you've got five more to back you up. And you know what else? You get to grow. Creators are constantly learning new skills. Marketing, storytelling, sales, leadership, you don't stay stuck in one role. You get to expand. You get to learn off the internet. I've experienced this for,

Starting point is 00:06:45 firsthand. I built my brand off of multiple revenue streams, service revenue with my agency, partnerships, high-ticket offers, courses, sponsorships. And when the economy gets shaky, I'm still steady because I'm not relying on one employer or one income stream. If something is going downhill, I just lean into what's working currently. So if you're listening to this and you're thinking, all right, Holla, this sounds amazing. But where do I begin? Then stay with me because up next, I'm breaking down exactly how to start building multiple revenue streams from your audience. If there's one non-negotiable foundation for any creator business, it's this, your audience. An audience is more than just followers or subscribers. It's leverage. It's what opens the door

Starting point is 00:07:28 to nearly every revenue stream in the creator economy, whether it's sponsorships, digital courses, affiliate marketing, live events, consulting, or brand deals. And here's the exciting part. You don't have to start with a product. In fact, the most successful creator entrepreneurs today, are flipping the traditional model upside down. Here's how Shopify president, Harley Finkelstein, broke it down for me. Usually, when you're starting a business, you start with product, and then you build an audience.

Starting point is 00:07:54 So I want to build the world's greatest pen, and I'm going to make this pen, and then I'm going to go and find people that want to buy this pen. Or using the example earlier, I made this new appliance or this new beautiful blanket, and I'm going to make more of it, and then I'm going to go and sell it.

Starting point is 00:08:08 Well, for the first time ever, you actually have people now that first have audiences that are thinking about how can I add more value to my audience. And it's not just, you know, obviously, everyone talks about, you know, Mr. Beast, and I have some feastables here, but it's not just Mr. Beast. All of us are on, not all of us, a lot of us are on social media. We inherently have audiences. You may have 100,000 followers, or you may have five followers, but you have an audience. And if you are putting out content and you're putting out information that is valuable to them, you have a really good relationship with that audience.

Starting point is 00:08:42 They trust you. They want to hear from you. They want to understand you. And so now if you are, you know, putting a great content about the future of, you know, the skateboard industry, that's one of our new story, Supreme, which is one of my, like, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my, my momy dick was supreme. For a very, very long time. And finally, now they're on Shopify.

Starting point is 00:09:00 So if, if you're putting a great content about the, of the skateboard industry, maybe you should think about designing a skateboard. Or if you're, if you go a blog about, you know, soccer, for example, and, and how, you know, the soccer industry, and soccer coming to America versus the World Cup, maybe you should start selling soccer balls because you know your audience already has an interest in that particular category. So actually, I think this idea of the creator economy,

Starting point is 00:09:23 it's just the economy except that there's this really cool advantage, which is that you have a built-in audience for your products. Harley's exactly right. For decades, the advice was simple. Build a product, then go find people to buy it. But in today's creator economy, you start by building trust. You create content. You provide value. You connect with your audience. And then once you understand what they need, you create something that they're already asking for. That's what makes content so powerful. A course, a YouTube video, a podcast, a newsletter. It's more than just marketing. It's relationship building. And the stronger the relationship, the stronger your foundation for monetization. You don't need millions of followers to build a business. A small, loyal audience can unlock several income streams. So how do you start? You don't have to build a course on day one.

Starting point is 00:10:12 In fact, most creator entrepreneurs begin with service-based offerings. Coaching, consulting, freelance gigs. They trade time from money while they gain clarity, confidence, and skills. One of the best voices out there on this topic is Amy Porterfield. She's helped thousands of entrepreneurs launch successful online businesses. In fact, she herself has made over $100 million in her career off courses. And here's what I asked her. You recommend three main strategies for revenue generation for online,

Starting point is 00:10:40 entrepreneurs, can you quickly go over those three strategies? So one of them, you can do one-on-one coaching consulting. That is a business in it of itself. And you learn so much about how to serve people when you create a business model such as that. Another thing you can do is a service-based business where you're actually doing the work for them. And it's a great entry point because you don't have to create the course or the membership of the mastermind. You're just doing the work that you already know how to do, so it makes it a quicker entrance. But both of those options are trading time for dollars. So in my opinion, you don't want to stay there too long. Find a business model that's one to many. I'm biased. Digital courses would be the third way that I think is a great

Starting point is 00:11:23 business model where you create a course one time and then you launch it over and over and over again so that you have that recurring revenue and it's one to many. So there's so many different ways you can get started online. I think my biggest advice is, let's just get started. Because how my business looked 14 years ago versus how it looks today is dramatically different. So don't overthink all those decisions you're making in the beginning. Just get started and it's going to work itself out over time. That last one is key. Digital courses let you finally break free from training hours for dollars. You create it once, launch it often, and keep generating income again and again. That's why platforms like Teachable are so helpful. They make it simple to package your

Starting point is 00:12:06 expertise, reach your audience, and scale without needing to be a tech wizard. Up next, we'll get into how to shape your knowledge into something people actually want and pay for. Yap, gang, I've got to tell you. The old course creation playbook is broken. Long-winded lectures, everything you know, info dumps, and high effort launches just don't work anymore. Students want clear outcomes, a premium experience, and content that respects their time. That's why modern course creators are building smarter and why Teachable created the modern course creator playbook. This free guide shows you how to move beyond outdated methods and build a business at scales. Inside, you'll learn how to package your expertise into professional

Starting point is 00:12:47 offers such as online courses, coaching programs, memberships, and digital downloads. It walks you through simplifying your workflow, using AI to save time, and creating offers people actually want to buy. Teachable also makes the technology so easy. Their platform helps you designed polished, learning products without coding or design skills. They handle payments, taxes, analytics, and marketing tools so you can focus on creating impact and growing your brand. Want to build, sell, and scale smarter in 2025?

Starting point is 00:13:17 Download Teachable's free modern course creator playbook at young and profiting.com slash modern. Again, that's younginprofiting.com slash modern. You can also find the link in the show notes below. Welcome back, Yap, gang. Now, let's dig into how to transform your expertise into a course that connects with your audience and actually sells. I'm not talking about a PDF that gets ignored

Starting point is 00:13:38 or glorified slideshow that collects dust, but a real product built on real demand. Okay, so where do we begin? You don't need a breakthrough idea. You actually just need a question, or maybe a couple questions, ones that people won't stop asking you. For me, it was LinkedIn.

Starting point is 00:13:53 My inbox used to be flooded with people, asking me how I grew my audience, how I hacked the algorithm, how I got leads, how I built a brand. And eventually, I turned all of those answers into a masterclass. It was an instant hit, not because it was flashy or new, but because it actually solved a problem that people already had. Jenna Coucher has a similar story. Today, she's a best-selling entrepreneur and the host of the Top 100 Gold Digger podcast in the Yap Media Network. But she started off as a wedding photographer, and it didn't take her long for her to realize that she could help other photographers by teaching them the business side of things. I committed to booking half of the weddings that I had been shooting,

Starting point is 00:14:31 and I said, I'm going to figure something else out. And so that's when I started learning about online courses. And I had scaled a business from zero to 100K in three years. I knew something that a lot of people didn't. And so I started mentoring other local photographers, having them come into this little condo we lived in, and I would walk them through pricing, marketing, social media, like all the business stuff. Because I'm like, these people are so good at their craft. They don't know how to, like, sell it. And so I started coaching. Then I started looking into online courses.

Starting point is 00:15:01 And that's kind of where the business that people see today started to form. But it was years in the making. And it was so funny because I ended up coaching five local photographers. And they all had the same questions. And all of a sudden, I found myself, I'm like, I am a broken record. I'm teaching them the same things. I'm showing them the same pricing guides. I'm walking through the same things.

Starting point is 00:15:22 And that was when I really started to discern, like, there are trends. and questions that everybody has. And that is the type of content you want to put into an online course. And I am so grateful that I took the time to sit down with people face to face, hear their struggles, understand like, well, what am I actually doing different? Because I think that so often we are so close to our own genius that we think everybody knows this. Surely this is easy for everybody. And so when I started to identify these trends, I was like, oh my gosh, I can teach branding and I can teach social media, and I can teach pricing, and I can teach email communication and all of these things. And so online courses like cracked my life open

Starting point is 00:16:01 in such a beautiful way. But it did. It allowed me to reach people outside of where we lived in this tiny village in Wisconsin. And it allowed me to connect with other photographers who are struggling with the same thing so that they could really focus on the art and their craft. Jenna's story is the perfect reminder that your genius doesn't have to be groundbreaking. It just has to be valuable. The best digital products aren't being super original. They're about being indispensable. They solve a problem people actually feel. That's why your course idea should live right at the intersection of what you know and what people

Starting point is 00:16:34 can't stop asking for. If you're wondering what kind of topics will always have an audience, remember the big three. Health, wealth, and relationships. These are timeless engines of human motivation. And when somebody's missing one of them, they're in pain. And where there's pain, there's always demand. But here's what most creators get wrong. They build what they think is cool, not what their audience actually needs.

Starting point is 00:16:58 According to CB Insights, the number one reason that startups fail is misreading market demand. In fact, 42% of business failures come down to just one mistake. They built something that nobody actually wanted. That stat should just stop you in your tracks. It's not about how good your idea sounds in theory. It's about how badly your audience wants it in real life. So don't wing it. Be strategic because everything begins with your own.

Starting point is 00:17:23 your audience. If you don't know them, you can't sell to them. If you don't know what their problems are, you won't sell anything. And this goes deeper than demographics. It's about truly understanding pain points, desires, and what your audience is willing to spend to fix all these problems. Alex Ramosey, founder of Acquisition.com, has built and scaled companies by obsessing overmarket fit. He explains why solving the right problem for the right audience is everything. The first thing is you want to make sure that the people actually want what you have. So typically, I express that as pain. They're in some sort of pain.

Starting point is 00:17:56 They're suffering some problem that they want to solve. And the bigger the problem that you solve, the more money you make for it. So number one is that they're in pain. Number two is you want the marketplace to be growing rather than shrinking, right? Because if you could have a tailwind, if you're going to do the same work, you might as well have something pushing behind you. The flip side of that, I can give examples in a second. The third one is you want them to have the spending power because the worst thing in the world is like, you've got a market that's growing. There's a painful problem that you want to solve and that you

Starting point is 00:18:26 have the ability to solve, but then they ain't got on money, right? A friend of mine had a resume business, right? He wanted to help coach people on their resumes and whatnot. And he called me up one day. He's like, this is brilliant. I'm going to make all this money. And it turned out, he was like, dude, they're all broke. They're all on unemployment. Now, you could make the argument that helping people with a resume inherently is not bad, but he had picked the wrong market to serve. If he had helped corporate executives get raises, you probably would have made a lot of lot more money, right? But he was picking unemployed people to help them get a job rather than helping people get a better job, right? Tiny difference. But the lever on how much money you can make

Starting point is 00:19:03 serving different audiences is the name of the game. The reason many of the Fortune 500 companies are enterprise, like Salesforce. Well, they've gone down market now, but like they built their value on the fact that they served very expensive customers, $1 million, $2 million, $10 million your contracts. It's because you get to charge based on the value of their business. not yours. And that's one of the beautiful things about this. So how do you apply this? Start by getting crystal clear on who you're creating for. Who exactly is your target audience? Are they mostly men or women? What is their age range? Where do they work? What keeps them up at night? And once you've figured out who they are, defined who you are to them. Are you the patient teacher, the trusted

Starting point is 00:19:44 advisor, the funny friend who makes everything less intimidating? Once that relationship is locked in, your brand voice practically writes itself and with a clear voice, your content becomes consistent and your offers feel tailor-made. All right, now that we set the stage for your brand and audience connection, let's shift gears into the practical side, developing your course content. The first step is defining the change your course delivers. What is the big transformation you want your audience to take? This is called your big promise. What problem are you solving and what clear end result will your students achieve from your course or program. That promise becomes the foundation of your offer,

Starting point is 00:20:22 and we'll dive deeper into how to pitch it in the next episode. Once you've nailed down the transformation your course delivers, it's time to think about what I call your content funnel formula, a simple three-step approach to make sure all of your content is moving in the right direction. First, in the early stages, focus on entertaining or educating with consistent topics on your social media. Give people value over and over again so that you know, know exactly what to expect from you. Next, you want to layer in inspiration and authenticity by sharing personal stories and behind the scenes moments. This is where trust and connection deepens

Starting point is 00:20:56 with your audience. And finally, when the time is right, move into promotion, creating content that naturally points to your offers and CTAs or call to actions. But here's the thing, you don't need to start selling right away. Build trust first and then monetize. In fact, I waited over two years before I ever sold anything to my audience. I just focused on delivering value and being of service. Once you've laid down the foundation, it's time to outline your framework. Keep it simple. Three to seven steps is the sweet spot anymore, and it becomes overwhelming for your audience.

Starting point is 00:21:28 These steps for pillars are going to be the roadmap that your students follow. It's essentially your course curriculum. Each module or lesson should tie directly back to one of those pillars. That's exactly how I built my LinkedIn Secrets course. Every step was based on real questions that my audience kept asking. Once you understand the outline of your course, you want a format that fits you best. Will your course be pre-recorded video? Will it be live?

Starting point is 00:21:51 Will it be a hybrid of the both? Will you add quizzes and worksheets or community forums? There's no right answer. Only what plays to your strengths. The best part is that platforms like Teachable make it super easy for you. You just upload your videos, PDFs, or quizzes, and it all gets turned into a professional-looking course. You can mix it up with video, audio, downloadables, even live sessions. whatever fits your style, and it keeps your audience engaged. You don't need to be tech savvy either.

Starting point is 00:22:19 Instead of getting stuck staring at a blank page, you can focus on delivering the content and the transformation that only you can teach. Now that you've outlined your framework, you've chosen a format, the question then becomes, will your course actually work? Will you have any sales? Before you invest months into perfecting your course, you need to just test the waters. And the best way to do this is with a pilot, and that's what we'll dig into next. Once you've mapped out your framework and format, the real test begins. Putting your idea in front of people. That's where running a pilot course comes in. A pilot is like a dress rehearsal. It lets you validate whether people are actually willing to pay for your expertise and at what price. When I launched my LinkedIn Masterclass pilot,

Starting point is 00:22:58 I decided I would charge half the price of what I eventually intended to charge. That early validation told me two things. One, that people liked my course, they wanted it. And two, that I could confidently charge more once I refined the content. I asked my students blatantly, how much was this course worse to them. Many of them said it was worth 10 times what I sold it to them. So I knew that I could charge confidently double the price. A pilot spares you from the most common startup mistake, misreading market demand. You don't want to spend months creating a full program only to find out that nobody wants to buy it. But beyond proving demand, pilots are a powerful way for gathering feedback. You'll learn more about what your audience really needs than

Starting point is 00:23:39 from any survey or spreadsheet. That hands-on interaction forces you to refine a adjust and improve your product in real time. And as a bonus, you start building success stories, testimonials that you can later use to make your full launch irresistible. Jason Flatline is a master of this approach. He's helped scale companies like Alex Ramoses and his philosophy is simple. Don't wait for perfect. Launch a beta, even if your product doesn't have a polished name or a finished members area. Let's hear what Jason has to say. We like to launch these beta launches for pretty much everything we do. I like to sell products I don't even have names yet. What's a speak of members area. The concept is so fresh and I want to put it in front of just some people to see

Starting point is 00:24:19 if it grabs or not. So the type of marketing that we're doing in these situations almost always goes like this. I don't know if this will work or not. I think it will, but I need you to try it out to see what happens. If it plays out the way I think it will, then oh my God, this will be a game changer for you. And if it doesn't, here's all you're out. You're out sometimes. You're out. and maybe some money, and I really pointed at who I feel are going to be the tastemakers or the people that are going to need the least amount of effort to get the best result or that are already predisposed to be super successful. So I'm rolling out campaigns like that. Now, here's why I'm doing this. The number one way you can sell anything is with the customer

Starting point is 00:25:01 result. If you don't have any customer results, good luck. But if you have so many customer results, it's ridiculous, then you don't have to be that good at marketing to get the benefits of marketing. I mean, I'm here as a result of the impact that I had on Alex Hermose. I didn't have to go and chase you down and beg to get on your podcast. Like, you hit me out of the blue. I saw I'm like, this is a good podcast. I want to be on this thing, right? And that's how I like to play it. So we have to create success stories first. And so what's great about the beta launch approach is, like I told you, I don't have to have a name for the product yet. I don't have to have a fancy sales funnel for it.

Starting point is 00:25:38 I don't have to have a member's area. We'll sometimes tell audiences, in fact, we're like, we don't know if it's going to be three, four, five, six, seven, or eight modules. I don't even know if I can teach it exactly. So I'm going to have to teach module one two or three or four times, right? But what's beautiful about this model is it sets us up so we can see if we can get success stories or not. That's the first thing.

Starting point is 00:25:56 The second thing is you will learn more about what matters to your customers by being interactive with them than you ever will with any other type of market research that exist, getting your hands dirty, using that back and forth. You, in fact, are enlisting customers to force upon you what the best results are. So they're giving you the answers as opposed to you trying to give them the answers. What Jason just said is pure gold. You don't have to over-engineer your first vision. Don't wait until everything is perfect. Just get your idea in front of real people. That's how you create your first success stories. Learn what works. sharpen your course until it truly delivers. That's the difference between an idea that

Starting point is 00:26:35 stays in your hard drive and a business that takes off. And if you want a practical head start, remember to grab Teachable's free modern course creator playbook. It's packed with strategies to help you build smarter, sell faster, and scale with confidence, and you can find it in the show notes. All right, young improfitors, so you've got your idea and you validated it with your audience. Now what? In episode two, we'll dive into how to launch your course like a pro. We'll cover sales funnels, pricing psychology, and the exact launch playbooks that top entrepreneurs use to turn courses into real revenue. You won't want to miss it.

Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - The Creator’s Playbook: How Top Entrepreneurs Monetize Their Expertise to Make Millions Online | Entrepreneurship | Presented by Teachable

There aren't comments yet for this episode. Click on any sentence in the transcript to leave a comment.