EUREKA MOMENT: Is It Possible To Do The Impossible?

[Danny_Cox]

Good morning Fastlaners,

I posted the following yesterday after getting inspired by the "Astonishing Secrets" thread, in which @IceCreamKid revealed @Zen*******'s greatest lesson of all—

LOVE THE HELL OUT OF OTHERS AND YOU WILL EVENTUALLY HAVE ALL THE ICE CREAM YOU CAN EAT.

​

Sounds great, hey? Well...

I keep looping on this EXACT thing. I helped my mother turn her life around following a suicide attempt by sharing with her everything I'd learned about mindfulness from my [ex-monk] teacher (plus a tonne of practice, reading & listening).

After that, my teacher told me 'ok, you're a teacher now!' and instructed me to speak to more people all over the world. PLENTY of people are unhappy, so commandment of need is taken care of.

Actually, this service would fulfil all 5 commandments. But there's one issue—my teaching lineage doesn't charge fees. We'll take donations, but that's it, because to limit access to this life-saving information would make us no better than the U.S. healthcare system.

The big question, really, is this: can a donation-only model work? I don't need millions; I'm happy if I can just get out of the rental trap and keep sharing this most valuable information I've ever found.

This morning, I had a eureka moment:
I actually have some stats I can run!

I have 107k plays & 1000 followers on a platform called 'Insight Timer',
where I've uploaded 78 talks & guided meditations,
all with 4-5 star ratings.

From those plays, 23 listeners have donated
That's 0.02% of listeners
for a total of £72 over 2 years
(The 'donate' button is clearly displayed in-app while listening.)

My outgoings per 2 years = £18480.

Result: I'd need 27,456,200 plays to reach my target figure from donations at current play:donation ratio.

So, the big question:
How realistic is this figure if I post consistent, high-quality content in the mindfulness niche (and how long might it take to reach)?

Re: platforms, Insight Timer likely trends toward generosity (it's full of hippies & meditators).
BUT it's a crapshoot because it's almost impossible to get followers off the platform.

So I'm thinking YouTube, newsletter, any other platform that enables me to own my following.

I know, I'm doing the typical forum thing: sign up, ask questions, take value.
All I can offer in return is instruction in mindfulness (though you all seem like pretty well-balanced folks).
Oh, I can offer drum lessons, too, in case you fancy becoming less balanced

I have no acquaintances who've ever done this—I'm not sure anyone's done it at all—so I've no frame of reference.

Any insight—or even just opinions, honestly—will be incredibly valuable to me, and to a world full of sad people who really need access to my knowledge

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

How realistic is this figure if I post consistent, high-quality content in the mindfulness niche (and how long might it take to reach)?

Depends on your medium to reach people. It's quite a saturated niche, but monetization would involve doing better than average content on a platform that has big reach. So yes, IMO, that would be YouTube and perhaps a mobile application ... the challenge is then, CONTROL. Who will own your data and your customers?

I'm not sure anyone's done it at all

Ever heard of Calm? Headspace? The market is saturated. But that doesn't mean you can't do it better, or differently.

 

[Danny_Cox]

Depends on your medium to reach people. It's quite a saturated niche, but monetization would involve doing better than average content on a platform that has big reach. So yes, IMO, that would be YouTube and perhaps a mobile application ... the challenge is then, CONTROL. Who will own your data and your customers?



Ever heard of Calm? Headspace? The market is saturated. But that doesn't mean you can't do it better, or differently.

Thanks for responding, MJ. It seems possible to push subscribers from YouTube onto one's own platform—especially those who are super into the product, which is precisely who would be donating. They'll be the ones checking the links in the description.

Calm & Headspace slipped my mind. Insight Timer is a competitor of theirs and they're huge, too.

I'm swallowing the pill—now just isn't the right time for this.

Building the kind of following necessary will take insane time investment—and just to pay rent. Meanwhile I'm still selling time for money in my (not very lucrative) local business.

I'm gonna spend more time with the books and figure out how else I can give value.

Thanks for everything