Also published on LinkedIn
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Zero to One medium.com/nexus-notes
Five years ago I wrote an article on Medium about Peter Thiel's Zero to One. Six lessons from the book, 6-minute read.
Medium paid me a few hundred bucks for it. Just from reading time. Those were good days.
Medium pays much less now. Substack pays nothing unless you charge readers. LinkedIn pays nothing.
But the other side of this got better. Building your own thing is much easier than it was in 2021.
Thiel's whole argument in Zero to One is about making something that didn't exist before, instead of copying what already does. Five years ago, most online writing was the opposite. You wrote on someone else's platform, played their algorithm, hoped for a payout.
Now you can build your own version. A newsletter on Beehiiv with a website, paid subscriptions, and digital products you sell directly. No middleman, no 30% cut.
beehiiv just made this more obvious with their latest update. You can sell ebooks, guides, courses, and digital products natively, with 0% platform fees. Audience, content, products, payments, all in one place.
Five years ago, you needed Medium to get paid for writing. Today you need an idea, an email list, and a product.
Going zero to one used to mean getting accepted into a publication. Now it means publishing your first issue, selling your first $20 ebook, and running your first $99 cohort.
The platforms aren't paying what they used to. You don't need them to.
Full ESP comparison table with pricing at different list sizes, free at leadletters.digital
See you tomorrow.