In today’s episode, I’m joined by Claire Venus for a really thoughtful conversation about Substack, what makes it different from other platforms, and why so many creators are craving a quieter, more intentional space online. Claire shares how she went from working in festivals and events to building a business around Substack, and how her own desire for a non-algorithmic place to write turned into a thriving community and membership.

We talk about what Substack actually is, how it has evolved over the years, and why it is not as simple as “just start a paid newsletter and make easy money.” Claire breaks down the reality of Substack’s 10% fee, the risks of low-ticket high-volume models, and why so many creators can burn themselves out trying to do too much. We also get into where Substack fits into a larger business ecosystem, whether it should replace your email list, and how to think strategically about using it for lead generation, self-expression, community, or paid offers.

This episode is a really honest look at what Substack can be, who it makes sense for, and why not every platform is the right fit for every business. If you’ve been curious about starting a Substack but also side-eyeing it a little, this conversation will help you think through it with a lot more clarity.

What you'll learn

1. Claire’s journey from the events industry to building a business around Substack
2. What Substack is, how it has evolved, and why it feels different from traditional social platforms
3. How creators can grow on Substack without relying heavily on algorithms or viral content
4. Why many creators are craving deeper connection and longer-form attention online
5. The reality of monetizing on Substack, including the 10% platform fee and subscription model
6. How Substack fits into a larger business ecosystem alongside email lists, courses, and memberships
7. Who Substack is best suited for and why it’s not too late to start using the platform

Resources & Links:

1. Visit Claire's website
2. Join Claire's 11,000+ subscribers
3. Get Claire's book: "How to Build a World Class Substack"
4. Follow Claire on Instagram
5. Scalability
6. Overflow Mastermind
7. Kajabi 30-day free trial + 2 bonuses
8. 150 Free Hooks
9. IG University
10. 30 Days of Manychat Pro FREE
11. Learn how to run successful paid ads

Some of the links mentioned are affiliate links, which help to support this podcast at no additional cost to you!

Connect with Mya:

1. Follow on Instagram @myanichol
2. Join my email list
3. Check out my website
4. Watch this episode on YouTube
5. Read this episode in blog format here

More about the Radical Disruption podcast:

Are you wanting to make waves in your industry, push the envelope, and change the way things are done in a radical way? Are you looking for tangible, tactical, and actionable steps that will help you build a sustainable business that stands out? You’re in the right place!

Radical Disruption is home to the disrupters. Here, you’ll learn how to take your business to the next level, break the status quo, and build a disruptive business.

Nursing student turned business and social media expert and host Mya Nichol (hey, that’s me!) shares the real and raw of the crazy journey of entrepreneurship and building a multi-six-figure business.

Through solo episodes and special guest interviews, you can expect honest conversations about throwing out the traditional way of business, scaling in a sustainable way, and becoming the go-to expert in your industry. It’s time to build a disruptive business. See you on Tuesdays!

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00:01.56

Mya Nichol

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I have a very, very, very, very special guest here with me today who is near and dear to my heart. This is Claire. She is one of my students and we have chatted back and forth and I've had the opportunity to support her in her business so many times over like the last two years, you would say.

00:21.45

Mya Nichol

um And she is just an absolute joy. And I'm so excited to have her on. And she is an expert in Substack. And so that is going to be our conversation today is around that. But I'm actually going turn the time over to her to give a little bit of her story and how she started her business and how she has become a Substack expert.

00:41.66

Claire Venus

Oh, thanks, Maya. It's so nice to be here. I so love that we get to do this. I was just saying like, this is the first time we've actually met in real time because everything else has been, I've been in the courses or on calls or on asynchronous stuff. So this is so beautiful that we can have this conversation and it feels like a moment. It feels like subsects having a moment. So yeah my background is in festivals and events actually and then in the pandemic when I was pregnant with my daughter all of my work was cancelled so I was like okay like what is the next thing that I'm gonna do and I'd always had this vision of speaking to a global audience so I'd worked abroad and I was curious about having international clients to be honest and what that would feel like so I was really open to opportunities and what might come around and I kind of I found your work and I was working with some mentors about around building a global business and what that might look like and I think at that time I wasn't really sure how my skills would transfer to being online I love to write I'm a creative producer I can fundraise so it was like how am I gonna self-express in a way that works for an online audience and is of value to them so there was a whole lot of experimenting and Lots of mentoring and fun things like that.

01:50.64

Claire Venus

02:02.37

Claire Venus

My husband also said, i think me and you should go on to Substack. I think it'd be really nice for us. So Yeah, my daughter was about two years old. I decided just to write on Substack. I was really craving a non-algorithmic space to just self-express.

02:16.65

Claire Venus

And so for me, it was this space of, is it a blog?

02:17.11

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

02:20.85

Claire Venus

02:29.75

Mya Nichol

I love that. And when did Substack actually launch their platform? Like, was that like, were you like very new on that platform? Like, I guess, were you kind of like a founder of Substack being on the platform at that time?

02:41.91

Claire Venus

02:46.04

Mya Nichol

Okay.

02:48.07

Claire Venus

03:00.48

Claire Venus

And I don't feel like I really understood what they were. Like I did have a blog, but I didn't really have that readership.

03:03.70

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

03:06.16

Claire Venus

I didn't have that cozy community. And I definitely found that on Substack. So it's It was really interesting with discoverability back then because they didn't have the social media elements. You just had your posts, you had your publication, and then you had the comments on your posts.

03:20.62

Claire Venus

And so comments were really thoughtful. The attention economy just seemed really stable. Like it didn't feel like anyone was in a rush. It felt like they'd really read your words. So it was beautiful. And they described it at that time.

03:32.46

Claire Venus

as a platform for writers to get paid. So I was like all in on that. And now it's different. It's shifted. It's evolved. You know, it's a new engine for culture. There's a lot of creators on there. There's video, there's audio, podcasting.

03:44.97

Claire Venus

There's a social media feed. There's all sorts of things. And I think I've just kept up, really kept up and evolved my business because I saw an opportunity there as well.

03:53.84

Mya Nichol

Yeah. So w w at what point did you start to grow that sub stack and then decide that you wanted to also teach sub stack?

04:02.94

Claire Venus

Yeah, so it felt like there was this enormous calling where I was on a platform where things were being done a certain way and there was a bit of a purist mentality to being a writer.

04:14.24

Claire Venus

So like a proper writer would use proper grammar and like all of that. and You know, I just I mean, my spelling's not always been great. You know, spellcheck exists for a reason. And I just was a bit like, but what if we added more color?

04:26.16

Claire Venus

What if we added audio? Like, what if we added some of these other elements that we love to consume? Why does it have to be this purest writer's platform? So I started this email series called Stay Creative on Substack, and I used to send it every Friday.

04:38.94

Claire Venus

And, it just got really, really popular. And so that was housed within the publication that I'd started. I was still doing other bits and bobs in my business, but it had this energy about it.

04:49.87

Claire Venus

So I thought I'll put a class on. I'll see if anybody wants to come to a class and learn about Substack. I'll explain obviously what it is because people really hadn't heard of it at that point. And loads of people signed up to the class.

04:58.55

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

05:00.23

Claire Venus

And I remember like I was learning from you at that time. And I just was feeling into this place of like, I think this actually is the thing that I'm supposed to do. And I feel so passionate about supporting writers, creatives into a platform where they don't have to pay for a website. They don't have to figure out a complicated WordPress template. They don't have to pay anybody. Like they can just turn up and write and it's free. And so, yeah, so it was like one of those things where it just outgrew the Friday email that I was sending. And i was like, this is just going to be a whole thing. So it's a publication now called Sparkle on Substack. So It's a weekly newsletter and a membership within that publication. But it honestly went bananas, like from the off. It was just like energetically, it just felt so aligned and so good to do. And i thought I would run out of ideas, but I just never have.

05:48.82

Mya Nichol

I love that. And that is like, that's been my business journey too. Cause like, I was like just posting on social media and then I was, you know, talking about like how to grow on Instagram, no intention of ever like being able to like teach Instagram. I was just something that I was very interested in of like, how is the algorithm working? And like, Oh, like this is working and this is not working. And as I shared that people were like, wait a second, like,

06:12.01

Mya Nichol

you're actually really good at this. And then I was like, wait a second, I am actually really good at this. And then that's kind of how my business started. And so I love that that's your journey as well. um so Something I'd be curious to know is you said that, you know, it continued to grow and grow and grow, but Substack not being a so a typical social media platform where, you know, the algorithm is showing your Substack to, you know, large amounts of people and you probably are not going viral. Like, how did you actually grow that? Were you leveraging a different social media platform? Were you leveraging blogs? Like, how were you growing that audience?

06:47.48

Claire Venus

Yeah, so inside of Substack, they've got a tool called recommendations. I think Kit have got something similar as well. So we would recommend the people that we thought our audience would like to read or like to be in community with.

06:53.66

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

06:59.48

Claire Venus

And so that tool really helped me to grow my both of my publications and because it it kind of compounds over time. So if somebody new came to the platform, learned from me or liked my writing, they would recommend my publication.

07:14.75

Claire Venus

And then every time they posted about their sub stack on another social media or through that email list, at the point of sign up, people would then also be recommended mine as well. So that helped me grow massively.

07:24.94

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

07:26.78

Claire Venus

There is a social media element to it. And I think I am just a natural community builder. Like I worked in grassroots community events and I just love community building so I've done lots of things where I've brought people together and been like hey should we try this like let's do a month-long challenge let's do a pop-up summit like let's do all of these different things and then if people have wanted to work with me we've got Substack Live now as well so if people have wanted to work with me there's been a lot of yeses and So it's felt like it's felt like my place of work, but it's also felt like i because of your teaching, and I've had that strategic sort of view on it in terms of how I'm spending my time, because it's so easy to just get busy in replies and busy with questions.

08:09.00

Claire Venus

service and busy with all the things and then just be like actually my eyes are just like gonna collapse now you know what I mean like it's like we've got to be so mindful of the screen time so I think being so conscious about what I wanted the platform to be and then also off platform what I wanted my business to be so yeah

08:15.70

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

08:22.85

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

08:26.84

Mya Nichol

No, I love that. And you've always been so strategic in the questions that you've asked too. And i would definitely agree that one of your biggest strengths is community building. And I've learned so much from you and in just the ways that you are creating spaces for people to come together and to ask questions. And that really is a skill, that is something that you don't totally have to learn. And so I think that that is definitely one of your superpowers. And I think that that is ah probably a huge reason why people come to you to learn about Substack because they want that community. And I think that that is something that is very unique about Substack. It it is it is a very tight knit community. Yes, you can build that on platforms like TikTok and like Instagram, but it is a lot harder to do. So I'm not saying that it's not hard to do on Substack too, but I feel like it's just a different vibe in general. Like when we're talking about short form, you know, TikToks in reels versus like Substack where like you were saying, you know, you

09:24.50

Mya Nichol

you do have a different level of people's attention, which I think is in today's world, like that is something to definitely be thinking about is like, how can we get people to stick around, to read our words, to hear what we have to say in a longer format, especially with AI, like kind of taking over short form platforms. I think that every creator now needs to be thinking about like, what is that platform for me where I am going to be able to settle down and build more of that tight knit community, and whether that's free or paid, but also being able to earn people's or I shouldn't say, I guess it's a combination of earning and winning people's attention for a longer span of time. um

10:08.22

Mya Nichol

10:33.59

Claire Venus

Yeah, I get it totally. And I think that's it, isn't it? Like we can spot captions on Instagram written by ChatGPT. We can also spot articles written on Substack written by ChatGPT. Like it's so obvious, right?

10:44.06

Claire Venus

And I don't know if that'll always be the case, but I think we've got to that place where we're like, okay, we can use these tools, but actually the real heart and soul of who we are, it needs to be us.

10:44.98

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

10:54.22

Claire Venus

Like it needs to be articulated by us. And we need to also observe the environment and the things that we want to say about our environment and those real feelings, because that's the resonance. That's what breaks the fourth wall with our audience.

11:05.72

Claire Venus

You know, that's what smashes through the screen and has people being like, Oh my goodness, me too.

11:06.33

Mya Nichol

yeah

11:09.48

Claire Venus

So yeah. So there's a lot going on for us at once, I think as creators, because, you know, if you think about our parents or our grandparents and the way that they were in the world, like they weren't being asked to be plugged into all of this stuff and like, you know, look at follow accounts or like reply to all of these endless comments.

11:25.12

Claire Venus

it so It's a lot. So I really liked the curatorial side that sub stack allows.

11:26.71

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

11:30.35

Claire Venus

So, you know, you'll see somebody write a beautiful post and invite their audience in, but then paywall the comments. And I think good for them. Like they've been responding on Instagram for like 10 years.

11:41.15

Claire Venus

Like they're an incredible writer.

11:41.59

Mya Nichol

yeah

11:43.19

Claire Venus

They've written bestselling books. Paywall the comments. That's awesome. Like I love that. So I think the model with it is, you know people come to me and they're like looking for a blueprint and I have to say there's no blueprint what I'm going to get you to do is really listen to your own voice in all of this and evolve because that was my journey like I didn't come on being like this is how I'm going to approach Substack I just came on and then express myself and then things kind of ran from there ah so I think there's real value and real reconfirmation of trust in that process like as a creative um

11:58.93

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

12:03.61

Mya Nichol

yeah

12:15.23

Claire Venus

process for people and it's a gift as well because you know it's like people want to be like oh not another platform like I already did blue sky and like I tried this ah and it's like no it's not about that it's about a whole ecosystem that feels good that works for business but also works for self-expression and community and you feeling like you've got some say in what we ring fence, you know, and how to take people deeper in it all.

12:36.69

Claire Venus

So yes, you can be strategic. And, you know, if people come to me and they've got a huge Instagram audience, there's definitely a way with that. And there's a way of them taking that permission slip because they love the platforms that they're on.

12:49.14

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

12:49.27

Claire Venus

Like they've built something really special there, but they also want to honor themselves longer term and the legacy for that. There's this really interesting piece at the minute around I'm not sure, I'm not sure how long we're supposed to be subscribed to people for.

13:03.65

Claire Venus

So I'm just sitting with that question, you know, when, because it feels like nice to sort of be, have been on someone's journey with them, whether it's on socials or on Substack and you, but then it's like, do we hit a point where it's like, I actually don't know anymore.

13:19.02

Claire Venus

Like maybe I need to make space for three new people or maybe I will be subscribed to this person for the rest of my life but none of us really know that yet so I'm really curious about that because I think it also pushes back on the amount of content that we've been asked to create on social to like do well we don't have to do that on Substack and we don't have to do that in life I think we think that we do so I'm really interested in that space too

13:27.74

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

13:35.29

Mya Nichol

Yeah. well Yep.

13:43.30

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

13:45.63

Mya Nichol

No, I love all of those slats. Something that you mentioned was, you know, if you do have a bigger audience on Instagram, leveraging that to grow your sub stack. And I feel like for me being in like a lot of what the algorithm on Instagram is feeding me is other things.

14:02.04

Mya Nichol

Instagram experts, other business coaches who do have relatively large audiences and they're moving over to Substack and they're leveraging that. And one ah one person in particular, I followed her journey now and I think she's been on Substack for around a year and she's really, really amazing. All of her content on Instagram is amazing. And when she moved over to Substack,

14:22.04

Mya Nichol

ah Don't quote me on this, but I want to say she made within like ah she had built within the first like three months of moving over to the platform up to $20,000 a monthly recurring revenue from being on Substack and using the paywall inside of Substack.

14:36.22

Mya Nichol

And that is obviously like really amazing. And I totally believe obviously the fact that she's made that amount of money, but what i feel like there's almost like this barrier to people joining Substack because they're like, well, you know, they look at people like her who are moving into Substack and saying, Hey, move over to Substack. You, you know, you can make all this money. um But I think there's almost two layers there. Number one, that it's not just about the money, but also number two, like they're looking at people who have these huge audiences. And they're like, well, of course she's going to move over there and make that amount of money because she has, you know, 100,000, 200,000, 300,000 followers. And so what would you say in terms of, you know, people who are on Instagram and they love the platform of Instagram, they don't necessarily love like the like you were saying, the constant creation and creation and creation and creation, like they still want to be on Instagram, but they don't have a huge audience. And so then they're thinking thinking about Substack and they're thinking, well, I don't have, you know, a huge audience on Instagram to leverage, to grow my Substack. And I don't want to be on another platform just to be on another platform. What would you say to that person?

15:40.34

Claire Venus

Yeah, I think that's such a good question. And, you know, because I've been building there a while and I've worked with lots of people, I see the other side of it as well, like the other side of the dashboard and what's going on. So creators pay Substack 10% of everything they earn.

15:53.14

Claire Venus

So obviously at scale, that is a lot of money that you are giving to Substack for exactly the same service, right? So like if you're building for yourself and you're building for your business, you really need to think that through because It's great to say that's 20,000 monthly recurring revenue, but how long is that going to recur for, right?

16:10.59

Claire Venus

So you would teach us that inside of scalability. You'd be like, okay, like, how are we looking at this? Like, what is this looking at longer term? Because there's a strange economy inside of Substack where a paid newsletter, you know, is anywhere between maybe like $5 and $10 a month.

16:17.50

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

16:24.92

Claire Venus

Maybe like $50 to $100 a year.

16:25.33

Mya Nichol

Yep.

16:27.16

Claire Venus

It's low. And so the information that you might be giving away in there could be written, could be video, could be audio. And people in my circles, what they've felt is, well, I just need to do more.

16:38.24

Claire Venus

So if they're not doing audio, they'll do audio. If they're not doing video, they'll do video. And I'm looking at it going... but that's like a course, right? Like you've just created a course, but you've drip fed it through your paid newsletter and those economies don't make any sense.

16:46.94

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

16:51.02

Claire Venus

So I think there's this really interesting interesting piece and we have this breakthrough in scalability when we were chatting about it because I didn't see sub stack as my low ticket. Like I just hadn't really clocked that that was what was going on because it was really fruitful and I was serving people in all the ways, but I was also on the road to burnout.

17:04.06

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

17:09.15

Claire Venus

It was insane. You know, the amount that was coming in and and the amount that I was holding, Whereas now my business ecosystem all links up and talks to each other and it just feels far more sustainable.

17:20.34

Claire Venus

So there's definitely that piece. And I think people will always have shiny object syndrome, but you've got to ask yourself if subscriptions are forever, like until one of you turns it off, either the person subscribing or you, like, what does that mean to you?

17:33.58

Claire Venus

Like, what do you want to do forever? Like, is that five years, 10 years, 20 years? Like, what are we doing here? Because Just because something sounds good does not mean it feels good.

17:39.77

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

17:43.57

Claire Venus

um So, yeah, so that's like my point on the biggest stuff, because it can look really shiny and impressive. But all you've done is a launch. Like you don't know how long that's going to last. So, you know, I'm four years in now.

17:53.85

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

17:55.60

Claire Venus

So I know how long this lasts. Like I'm in it like year one, year two.

17:59.13

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

17:59.72

Claire Venus

Like I think I thought in my head, you know, for the membership, it'll probably be about eight months and the monthlies would churn. It's much lower than that. the annuals tend to stay another year. So it's like one of those weird things with memberships, isn't it?

18:11.76

Claire Venus

How it all plays out. And mine definitely is a membership on Substack, whereas, you know, the paid newsletter model is different.

18:13.14

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

18:18.24

Claire Venus

But for the people who are looking for something different, which is acquire a quieter space, more of the attention economy that we've spoken about and more of this intimacy with our audience and actually people who can really get to know that audience like you can see what they're reading you can click on their profile and really understand what they're about you're not trying to decipher it through a highlights reel like instagram offers you actually see like the nitty-gritty of it all and even some of the massive creators like jenna kooch has been on the platform a couple of months now Like, I feel like I know Jenna ah more than I ever have.

18:52.08

Claire Venus

Like, I don't know Jenna, she's not my mate, but like, I'm just like, oh, wow. Like Jenna feels like this about this particular topic, you know? So it, and that's because of the attention economy and the longer form writing that's possible.

18:58.92

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yep.

19:04.88

Mya Nichol

yep

19:04.92

Claire Venus

And it does feel like we as entrepreneurs and creatives have been waiting for this, you know, we have been waiting for a space where we don't have to perform we can self-express and people meet us at that place so that's what i feel i'm quite an evangelical about it though maya as you know

19:23.00

Mya Nichol

No, I love that. There was something that you said that I want to circle back to. You said economies like this don't make sense. And you were referring to having, you know, video and audio and written.

19:35.57

Mya Nichol

Can you expand on that a little bit more? Because you were talking about, you know, the 10% that Substack takes. Are you saying that, you know, it doesn't make sense to have that on Substack because that is basically a course and you might as well host that off of the platform of Substack?

19:50.62

Mya Nichol

Can you just expand on that little bit more?

19:52.02

Claire Venus

Yeah, for sure. Definitely. So everybody will have like a standard m conversion rate between free and paid. So the average is between sort of two to five percent.

20:00.17

Mya Nichol

Yep.

20:03.46

Claire Venus

And that's what I see and what my colleagues who also do this work see. Substack haven't put those numbers out for a while, but sometimes there'll be a higher conversion percentage and then the creator wants to keep that conversion.

20:16.69

Claire Venus

So like 10% of their subscribers are converting to paid and that's sort of staying steady.

20:20.54

Mya Nichol

yeah

20:21.45

Claire Venus

So like that's a stat people try and look at, but in reality, like you would need your free subscribers to go up and then everything else to stay steady and the conversion and the nurture to all kind of work within that.

20:34.34

Claire Venus

And I think this is the mistake people make. So after a little while of doing the work and loving the work, they're like, well, I want to reward my community more. I want to give them more. Like I want to do more.

20:45.11

Claire Venus

I want more paid. I want that conversion to be higher. And that's like the shiny object syndrome where you haven't looked at the the stats and the figures behind it all. Because actually, if you're feeling compelled to offer something as a business owner, then that should look different.

21:00.56

Claire Venus

You know, that should be, okay, like, if at scale that's so bestseller is something that people really want when they come to the platform so that's 101 paid and then you get a special check mark for that and then you get a thousand and one paid so I was on my way to a thousand and one paid and I was like wait a minute, like, what am I actually doing here?

21:19.59

Claire Venus

Because all of the work that I was doing to get there was exhausting. And because I am really high touch and I love that in my business, I'm like, I just do a course over here and make five times as much money and give people exactly what they want, but in a more intimate container, which means more to me.

21:36.66

Claire Venus

So I think it is really understanding your business model and how you want Substack to fit within it, because it doesn't have to, it can be lead generation for sure and it can be low ticket for sure, but I don't feel like low ticket, high volume makes sense on Substack because you're like, you're building it all as you go and you don't know how long people are going to want to stay for.

21:58.34

Claire Venus

None of us do because it's a brand new model. So I just think there's a bit of a cautiousness there and then,

22:03.12

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

22:04.46

Claire Venus

I've just seen a lot of people burn out Maya, you know, and you've probably seen the same and it just makes me really sad because I don't think anybody particularly asked for more. The person just hadn't quite got the self-worth to a place where they realized that they didn't have to do more to get more, you know.

22:18.78

Mya Nichol

yeah No, for sure. Wow. That was, Ooh, that was powerful for sure. And something that i I'm not going to lie to you. i have been very hesitant about Substack for mainly the main reason for me has been the 10% that they take. Um, because I think about, you know,

22:38.26

Mya Nichol

What like I think, you know, as a newer creator, you're looking out a platform that is free. And I say free with air quotes for those of who are listening on the podcast because they are taking 10%.

22:46.25

Claire Venus

Mm-hmm.

22:50.06

Mya Nichol

And so I think that there is that appeal to it where, you know, if we're looking at a platform like Kajabi orpodia or or, um you know, teachable or whatever, like where you have to actually pay to utilize that platform. Like, I think there is definitely like if we're looking at it from like a monetization perspective and not from like a community building or a lead generation perspective, just strictly from monetization.

23:14.26

Mya Nichol

I think that there is that appeal to Substack because you you are getting in for free. But then I think about exactly what you're saying, you know as you scale this low ticket to high volume, which is like kind of the dream that's being sold right now, at least in my like in my space, what I'm hearing with Substack is that dream of, you know like let's scale this you know low ticket to high high volume, which I see a lot of things there. Number one, doing ah high volume is really, really hard. Like high volume, high visibility, that is a really hard game to play. It doesn't matter we're talking about Substack. It just, in general, it's a really hard game to play. Not a lot of people win at it. um

23:50.04

Mya Nichol

But also too, like that 10%, like that for me has been like a huge hangup of like, why would I give that 10% to Substack when I could, you know, be on a platform like Podia, like Teachable, like Kajabi, where if I'm looking at it, like on a yearon year on, year in, year out basis, like I'm paying way, way, way less.

24:09.53

Mya Nichol

in a subscription to a platform and making so much more. And I'm also being able to really customize more of the experience because Substack is really designed to be more of like that newsletter written platform. Yes, like you said, you know, there is the audio, there is the video, but like Substack is not...

24:27.94

Mya Nichol

optimized for that, um, in the sense of like, it's not built to be a course platform. Right. And so I think that that, that for me has kind of been like the hangup of like, how does this fit into like my ecosystem?

24:32.57

Claire Venus

no

24:38.50

Mya Nichol

Um, because I do have. memberships on other platforms. And so like, for me, that has always kind of been like that holdup of like, but like, wait a second, where does this fit? You know, if I'm not going to join Substack to do the low ticket, high volume, like where does that fit in? And now, you know, as I'm talking to you and the more that I've looked into Substack over the last, you know, two or three months, and actually even have a sticky note right here on my computer of like things that I want to talk about on Substack, because I do want to launch my Substack. I'm really recognizing that it is more of a lead gen platform and exactly what I was talking about earlier, where we were talking about, you know, this earned attention and winning people's attention and having a space where you can communicate with people in longer format. Like that for me is kind of the appeal now for Substack.

25:22.74

Claire Venus

Yeah, definitely. And you know, there's the email economy piece of it, because people with sub stacks are sending emails, right? So then you've got to work out as a business owner, okay, well, if I already send a weekly email, though, and then this is another one, and that same person is subscribed to both, like, how does that piece of it work?

25:40.29

Claire Venus

There's also the piece that people can disable email completely.

25:40.34

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

25:43.61

Claire Venus

so people can have an app based experience.

25:44.45

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

25:46.19

Claire Venus

So I have an app based experience. And I have had an app based experience for like two years, maybe longer, because I would go insane, like literally, that would be so much email to deal with.

25:55.35

Mya Nichol

yeah

25:55.83

Claire Venus

So mine is all on the app. So mine is so like, it's a social media experience, really. But obviously, as a creator, I go onto my laptop, and I create my posts. And you know, last week, I did a video post that did really, really well.

26:08.64

Claire Venus

So Substack video pulls through to YouTube. So that's how I'm growing my YouTube channel. So every time I do a live, the feed gets pulled through to YouTube and it auto creates YouTube shorts.

26:19.04

Claire Venus

And then I can see with those shorts, okay, like which one did better and I can just repost that to trial real. So like, it's a bit slapdash but obviously it's that piece of going well I don't I'm not creating content for like 17 different platforms I don't even know whether there are 17 but I'm just thinking about okay like if people are searching hashtag substack on Instagram like mine might come up and that might be interesting interesting to them and it does happen so I think there are those tools within the platform that are really cool that I really like to use But there's definitely that piece of like, don't just have one to have one, like just have your presence there so you can be tagged and stuff because that sort of stuff is going on.

26:25.93

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

26:35.97

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

26:49.75

Mya Nichol

yeah

26:58.53

Claire Venus

And then work out what you want it to be.

26:58.78

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

27:00.49

Claire Venus

There's definitely this clash of the entrepreneur, like the seven figure founders have like come in and are like trying to like, teach everyone how to do it but they're not telling everyone that they've had a successful business for like 20 years before that you know so it's like that weird space at the moment that everyone's complaining about because people genuinely just want to read words like that's what they're there for so it is interesting and because i think

27:21.08

Mya Nichol

yeah

27:24.34

Claire Venus

every platform has potential, but not every platform has potential for your business. Like sometimes we've just got to be a bit like, you know what, like that's not the one for me right now.

27:29.24

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

27:33.14

Claire Venus

Like we don't need to have FOMO, we can just decide. um And also like as a reader and a listener of other people's work, maybe that's a lovely thing.

27:36.73

Mya Nichol

yu

27:42.68

Claire Venus

Like I definitely feel like there's a lot of pleasure on Substack for me as a reader. Like it's a beautiful space to read books really well thought out writing it's a beautiful space to listen to people read their own writing like I really like that stuff and for me that I've got a ah lot of colleagues that have Substack front and center in their businesses so it feels nice in that way as well like I feel like we've built it together so that feels pretty special

28:07.13

Mya Nichol

I love that you said not every platform makes sense for you. who would you say, and maybe you don't have something off the top of your head, but like for Substack in particular, like, is there, any type of business, any maybe product that people are selling, maybe even a specific niche where you're like, Substack just simply might not make sense? Or is it more so like a individual internal, like the way that you want your ecosystem and your business to work and to feel like that's kind of more of how Substack doesn't fit in? Like, can you expand on that a little bit more?

28:40.86

Claire Venus

Yeah, so definitely worked with some clients that have tried the paid newsletter thing. And actually, what was really difficult for them was educating their email subscribers who are really busy people in their own right on how to use Substack.

28:53.30

Claire Venus

So that was a real block.

28:54.20

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

28:54.78

Claire Venus

And then so they tried it on Substack and they moved to school instead. And they just love the community elements of school. So they wanted to do it.

29:00.41

Mya Nichol

yeah

29:02.20

Claire Venus

Right. So like that's what they want. They came to me for they wanted to do it. But then in doing it and having all the admin because there's admin with everything. And this is the low ticket argument as well. You know, I'm like, yes, low ticket, high volume.

29:13.28

Claire Venus

But that's a lot of admin, guys. You know, like you're going to get emails all over the place about all of the things like people get so confused.

29:19.77

Mya Nichol

yeah

29:20.97

Claire Venus

used So easily, especially with Substack. um And also because once Substack has the email address, so obviously we gather the email addresses, but Substack also has them.

29:32.11

Claire Venus

Substack can email them and people get really annoyed about that. So if they're subscribing to you, like, and this is the only place you have, say it's like you're treating it like a blog or you're treating it like an email sort of platform.

29:35.86

Mya Nichol

and then

29:43.93

Claire Venus

And then they start getting emails from Substack about all this other stuff that Substack are doing or all these other people on the platform.

29:48.38

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

29:49.97

Claire Venus

People are like, wait, what? Like that would be so weird if like Flowdesk just started email me about what this other creator was doing. So it's a totally different engine.

29:59.42

Mya Nichol

m

30:00.01

Claire Venus

But sometimes people see things they don't want to see.

30:00.38

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

30:03.29

Claire Venus

It's like any platform, right? Like we've got, we've really got to curate those feeds for our nervous system and our sanity. So, I think it's just going in with your eyes open and being like, okay, as a business owner, this is how I see it.

30:15.48

Claire Venus

But also as someone who wants to connect online and creatively express, and we know that business and personal can like blend as well. Like maybe there's something interesting there. So, I definitely always encourage people to self-express first and then bring the business layers into it.

30:30.57

Claire Venus

um

30:30.81

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

30:31.61

Claire Venus

Sometimes people are just hungry for that bestseller checkmark. And I don't know, like I've got a bit cynical over the years because I'm just like, you know, like it's not like winning the lottery, right? Like it's just it just means you've got 101 people paying you.

30:43.89

Claire Venus

Like that's it.

30:44.57

Mya Nichol

yeah

30:44.97

Claire Venus

Like, I don't know, like... obviously that is amazing. Like that is an incredible thing to have 101 people paying you and people might be listening and being like, that would be amazing. And it is amazing. It totally is. But then as soon as that happens, people are like, oh, now what?

30:58.73

Claire Venus

Because what if they leave and when will they leave? And then I've got got to replace them. So yeah, I just think it's that piece, isn't it?

31:03.32

Mya Nichol

yeah Yeah, no, I love that.

31:05.59

Claire Venus

Like loving the life that you're in and then loving the extension of what online is in relation to that life. Like this is me as a writer speaking, but it's like, it's got to make sense.

31:17.45

Mya Nichol

Something that you mentioned was email versus app experience. Can you expand upon that a little bit more for someone who's not super familiar with Substack? Like, what does that look like?

31:27.79

Mya Nichol

You were saying, you know, you've been app based for two years now. What does that mean?

31:33.43

Claire Venus

so I just turn all of the notifications off so you can just toggle it used to be called smart notifications I think they've called it something else now but you just toggle all of those notifications off so I don't get any emails from anybody that writes on Substack or Substack themselves I just have an app-based experience where I read newsletters like I can listen to stuff on there I can join in with notes which is Substack's inbuilt social media I can press go live and go live with a colleague um and have people watch that.

31:49.49

Mya Nichol

Mm-mm. Mm-mm.

32:02.07

Claire Venus

So for me, that makes more sense. And then as a cur curator and a creator, I open my laptop and go to work. Like, so it's like, I think it's that boundaries piece as well.

32:12.22

Claire Venus

Like tend to be social on my phone and like reading things. But then when it's me in the driving seat and it's about me and my business and my self-expression and like collaborations and all that stuff it's like a desktop based experience but yeah people often say I'm so overwhelmed with all the emails and I'm like you know you can just turn them off so but then again you know creators don't like that because then if someone's turned off their emails and they've moved that email newsletter to sub stack but someone's having an app based experience that you know it kind of muddies that water as well

32:42.65

Mya Nichol

Yeah, can you talk more about, like you were saying before, you know if you have an email list and then you come over to Substack, now you're trying to think about how do I a integrate Substack or like what do I do with my email list? Can you talk about, you know for someone who is listening and someone even like me, but I would say majority of people who are listening, they already have an existing email list, whether that is through Kit or through Flowdesk or through even maybe their platform like Kajabi or whatever.

33:08.86

Mya Nichol

What would you say is like a really great strategy? And I know it's going to totally vary based off of each person, but like for someone who's coming into Substack with an email list, like what do you generally recommend?

33:21.78

Claire Venus

Yeah, so as like as a business owner and working with business owners, we need the email list that links to the CRM. um So I always talk about this CRM being customer relationship manager.

33:32.10

Claire Venus

So I can see what my customers have bought inside of Podia. I can email them, I can tag them, I can have them run through nurture sequences. I can understand their behaviors, right?

33:42.97

Claire Venus

Like that's all on there.

33:43.23

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

33:44.49

Claire Venus

And then with Substack, obviously it's more complicated for me because I've chosen it to run my membership from because my membership is about Substack. I always say if I didn't run membership about Substack, it wouldn't be on Substack.

33:55.46

Claire Venus

It would be on Podia because I've already got that system. So for me, it's about, okay, like those are the emails that are to my customers.

33:58.07

Mya Nichol

yeah

34:02.58

Claire Venus

And then I still do lead gen through like lead magnets and like free classes and stuff that people can sign up to on my website. But I also have those in my Substack welcome email as a business owner who runs a membership site.

34:15.27

Claire Venus

I've also got a paid newsletter on Substack and that is very different. So for me, that is just a space that people can gather around. And I do see it as that community space and people can pay to be part of paywalled comments or like paywalled content and stuff that I have there so that's probably more similar to people who have their business elsewhere and want to self-express and do something for community inside of Substack and there's also that piece within Substack that people get really excited about paying for multiple Substack publications because it's new and it's shiny and it's like oh really just want to read behind the paywall like people are really good at leaving us hanging and then wanting us to cross over or you know value stacking so it just sounds so good like if you if you join now you know it's 50% off and blah blah blah and then the subscription overwhelm happens where they're like You know what is like, it's like, why am I signed up to all of these things?

34:55.38

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

35:07.96

Claire Venus

So there's definitely that piece in our audience that I think that it's interesting for me to measure because as a business owner, if they come not through Substack, it's actually better for me as a business owner to guide them through my resources.

35:21.40

Claire Venus

But if they're already inside of Substack, they've already signed up to a ton of things.

35:22.01

Mya Nichol

on

35:25.74

Claire Venus

And they usually come into me when they're quite overwhelmed.

35:26.46

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

35:28.62

Claire Venus

They've been trying to start their own thing. Like they've got too many voices in their head. They've read too much amazing writing.

35:32.80

Mya Nichol

Yep.

35:33.98

Claire Venus

And then they've got imposter syndrome. So there's all those bits as well.

35:38.14

Mya Nichol

Now that's super interesting. So would you say like for me, for example, you know, where I've had my newsletter list, I have a lot of subscribers to keep my newsletter list as is, and then do sub stack on top of that, or basically use sub stack as a replacement.

35:54.55

Claire Venus

Yeah, no, definitely not a replacement for you, because I feel like you've got like you've got something really special that works and works really, really well. So like that storytelling that you do in your weekly newsletters, which I read, like I love, I feel like that works so well.

36:08.87

Claire Venus

And it is all building towards an ecosystem that you have like it's not random like those stories mean something to us as business owners receiving them so that is already its own ecosystem and I feel like Substack for you I mean it depends because you know sometimes people will just be like ah

36:18.04

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

36:26.12

Claire Venus

i just want to write about homesteading or i just want to write about home educating and it's like not to do with business but it's like a place to talk about the same topic and just see where it goes there's this beautiful invitation to not have it all figured out and to be like i have felt called to write poetry to like record some audio voice notes from my walks like whatever it is that is just different to the strategy that we have for business so maybe that and i do see that with some of the entrepreneurs that have come onto the platform it's been really interesting to me because

36:30.71

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

36:35.99

Mya Nichol

lu no yeah

36:48.47

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

36:51.00

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

37:00.57

Claire Venus

Oftentimes, you know, Substack will invite people to come onto the platform. And in the olden days, they would get like a six figure package to come onto the platform to bring their newsletter subscribers with them and to be supported, to grow.

37:10.87

Mya Nichol

Interesting.

37:12.89

Claire Venus

And then they could decide like after a year what they wanted to do. Whereas now the team support them in an acquisition for sure. But there are a lot of people just come in anyway, right?

37:24.14

Claire Venus

Because it's gone more mainstream and they've heard about it, but they're going, I just want to write. Like, I'm not telling you when it's it's on a Tuesday. I'm not telling you it's twice a week or once a month. Like, I just want to write.

37:34.23

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

37:35.08

Claire Venus

Like, I'm having this human experience of wanting to write here and now. And some of those people have blogged before and I've read their blogs and stuff. But other times it's like, wow, you just had an awakening and like, this is who you are.

37:47.40

Claire Venus

So I love that because I just think it's just, it means so much more, you know, like it just feels like we're constantly evolving, aren't we, in terms of how we consume the internet.

37:52.38

Mya Nichol

yeah

37:57.39

Claire Venus

But it feels like a special time to be on there when someone's like, I just had to write this and send it out today. i'm like, oh good, what is it? Yeah.

38:05.34

Mya Nichol

No, I love that so much more of like you've been saying just that self-expression platform and if that is, you know, not even necessarily like looking at like what are my content pillars and like what, you know, what offers is more of just like what do I want to talk about and if that doesn't apply to my business like it's okay and like that.

38:10.23

Claire Venus

I think so.

38:16.59

Claire Venus

Yeah.

38:22.39

Mya Nichol

I think that also is so unique too because like you were saying with Jenna earlier, you know, you feel like you know her on a a level that you've never known her before. And I don't know what she's talking about on Substack.

38:32.89

Claire Venus

yeah

38:33.16

Mya Nichol

I haven't i haven't read any of her Substacks, but it's probably due to the fact that she's probably talking about things on there that she didn't talk about, you know, on her podcast or on Instagram where, you know, she has more of like the content pillars to be following and like the things you really have to do

38:46.83

Claire Venus

Hmm.

38:48.56

Mya Nichol

on platforms like Instagram and TikTok in order to be successful. Whereas like Substack, you do have that like more um ability and freedom to have that creative expression because it isn't so algorithmic algorithmic based, which I think is really, really cool. And something I would love to hear more about from you is, you know, since you have worked with so many students and you know, help them to grow their sub stack. What is like a case study for you that kind of stands out as like, you know, really something that was either like really cool or like really unique that you were able to help this student achieve?

39:25.37

Claire Venus

Yeah, I love that. And I think for me, it's that piece of being properly paid. Like there's definitely those glimmers that come in where someone just feels like they are being properly paid for their words.

39:35.85

Claire Venus

And that means a lot. So some of my clients have like, you know, written beautiful long captions on Instagram for years and then continued in the comments times four. Like that's been where they've poured everything into.

39:48.01

Claire Venus

And then because tech was a bit of a barrier and it was like Instagram was easy and people were on there and then they felt so sad when things changed and you know the people that followed them weren't seeing that stuff so that has been so refreshing for them and then for them to achieve like bestseller status at like over a thousand paid subscribers just being able to do what they love like that is amazing for sure and then also i think when people figure out the pieces right so

39:48.56

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

39:53.74

Mya Nichol

Yep.

40:09.14

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

40:13.94

Claire Venus

I've gone on that journey myself. And like, as a self confession, multi, multi passionate, like, I am passionate about lots of things. And I do love creative pop up projects and collaborations and all this stuff. So like, being able to have a platform that makes that easy, like, you know, to message someone and say, do you want to do a live, and for them to say yes, and not to have to wait to like podcast and, you know, for the podcast to be edited and all that, like, I love the instant nature of that stuff.

40:27.61

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

40:36.57

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

40:37.87

Claire Venus

And I know, that's helped a lot of people get through imposter syndrome or like feeling like they waited too long to like do the internet or what you know whatever that sort of stuff um but yeah the best seller check mark always feels really nice when people get it and they want it and then the stability ah that comes after that and how they're feeling everything when people have notes go viral and

40:47.61

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

40:59.65

Claire Venus

it's been about something that they were really passionate about and you know like there's 20 000 likes on it and they've only ever ever had an audience of like a couple of thousand people it's like it's really big to support people in that um and to support them out of the other side as well and then when posts go viral so posts can go viral as well um and you know we can just have tons and tons of people gather around a post so one of my colleagues Amy McNeigh she's called um she's so cool she's an artist and a writer she had three books out last year all with different publishers it was insane but she wrote an article that went viral on Substack and now it's the name of a book but from for like an indie publisher they're so cute so like speaking to them about the process of that and understanding how that came about and how that commission was and all of that like she's not a client she's a colleague right but I'm just so excited for for them that that exists that we can make art and we can stop sort of second guessing what that needs to look like and like I'm a big fan of art in the way in the places that we are live ro really you know I don't live near any big galleries or theatres anymore so being able to read something that truly moves me by someone that is in my membership like I just love that I just think it's gorgeous

41:10.97

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

41:48.98

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

42:09.41

Mya Nichol

I love that so much. And to me, I don't know, maybe, hopefully listeners are feeling this way too, but like, it almost feels like just like a place of like, just like calm of like, people are there to like actually support people and like, they're not there to just like chase the algorithm.

42:26.37

Mya Nichol

And like, of course there's gonna be people who are on there to like chase, like you said, the best seller status because they wanna make money and whatnot. But I love that it is like that platform of like, just everything that you're saying, I'm like, people are actually there for community and like for community to just have community and not to have community to then like build their business, if that makes sense.

42:47.70

Mya Nichol

And not to say that there's anything wrong with that, but I feel like in a way, Instagram has become this very like business platform of like, you know, everything is so strategic down to like, you know, the amount of time that you're spending in the comments because like you want to make sure that you can scale your business.

43:03.91

Mya Nichol

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. And like, I obviously am on the platform and that's what I teach, but I love that, you know, there is this opportunity for us as creatives to be on a platform where, you know, we can have,

43:07.75

Claire Venus

Yeah.

43:16.41

Mya Nichol

more earned attention and just being able to have that like platform of self-expression, I think is so, so, so powerful. The last question that I would love for you to answer and something that I have been thinking about myself when it comes to Substack is,

43:31.90

Mya Nichol

is it too late to be on the platform of Substack? And like, do you feel like, you know, especially having been on the platform now for like what you said, four years, you feel like this is still a very new platform?

43:40.48

Claire Venus

Mm-hmm.

43:44.46

Mya Nichol

Like if we're comparing this to like, you know, Instagram's journey, Instagram having been around now for so many years and people wishing like, oh, I wish I had been on Instagram, you know, five years ago.

43:54.79

Mya Nichol

Like, do you think that we're going to look back and like, on Substack in four or five years from now and been like, oh, that was like the very, like the people who are on Substack today are like those founding people, or do you feel like we're kind of moving past that?

44:09.48

Mya Nichol

Not to say that there's not a good time, like people should still hop on Substack, obviously. But like, I just be curious to know like what your thoughts are having been on the platform for so long, do you feel like this is still a very like new foundational platform?

44:14.76

Claire Venus

Mm-hmm.

44:24.47

Claire Venus

Yeah. And like they describe it, the founders describe it as like building the plane while we're like inside of it while it's flying.

44:31.48

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

44:31.92

Claire Venus

Right. And you're like, wait, what, what are we doing?

44:33.78

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

44:34.24

Claire Venus

What are we all doing together? So yeah. So it's really interesting. Like I do have, like, I feel like I do have a, like I'm rooting for them, you know, I'm rooting for this to go well, but we're at, I think we're at like 50 million on sub stack.

44:46.24

Claire Venus

And then I think it's like, is it like 2 billion or something on Instagram? I don't even know like how many users, like, so yeah.

44:50.23

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Something crazy like that. Yeah.

44:53.75

Claire Venus

the mainstream elements that you see it's like not what you'd expect so there are celebrities but they're celebrities that have written but like books right and they're like who you know and then there's like top journalists but the top journalists that are really burnt out in their career in traditional media so it's like yes those people you will see those names and it was nice when it was quieter because we didn't have the same levels of imposter syndrome but

45:08.98

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

45:18.96

Claire Venus

hopefully if you're doing the self-development work and the nervous system work you'll work through that and know that you're here to share a voice that is uniquely yours so like now is good next week is good next year is good like whenever you know like it all happens in the right way and and I think you've just got to trust that instinct like it's good to claim your handle for sure like you know in the twitter days where like nobody really you know we came to it a bit late and we're like wait what how do we what do we how do we get our handle like what is all that and i think we've learned from the internet like it's good to get your handle that is your name um like jenna hasn't even got that you know i think she has to have a number one after her name i think noticed was like oh um you know like right but somebody probably just took it and was like I'll have that thanks or maybe someone else called that I don't know but I think it's good to have your handle and have like a presence like a shop window there because I've seen creators have that like I love Rebecca Campbell she's a spiritual teacher and she had a profile there but nothing else for ages and now she's one of the people who's like I wanted to write this for you today like and it doesn't link to any you know it doesn't link to anything else she's selling she just wanted to write the thing so I think that's a good move and I think being a reader on there and heavily curating what you are reading like we should be doing that anyway right online but just being like in these inspiring places or these places that you genuinely want to read like whether that's about

45:26.30

Mya Nichol

yeah

45:45.21

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

45:50.23

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

45:56.17

Mya Nichol

That's so funny.

46:01.75

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

46:21.78

Mya Nichol

Yeah. Yeah.

46:41.22

Claire Venus

farmsteads or home renovations or you know whatever it's about there's all the categories on there to browse through i think that's the thing to do and understand what it is and then like come to your creative self and work that out and you know I've got tons of resources for that they are there but those resources are only going to help you if you feel compelled to self-express anyway like or if you feel compelled to make it fit with your business like there's nothing you need to learn before you start you just start

47:06.04

Mya Nichol

Yeah.

47:09.82

Mya Nichol

I love that. Can you talk a little bit more about what resources you have available for people and where they can find you? And I'll make sure all this is linked down in the show notes as well for those who are listening. But I would love to hear more about those resources for people who are wanting to dive into Substack.

47:23.58

Claire Venus

Oh, for sure. Well, it's really funny because I'll put it back to you because you've got an amazing course called Stacked Inbox and I've got a little guest training in there. It is blowing my mind. This is like the training that I've always needed.

47:35.30

Claire Venus

So I did a little pop up class inside of that about paid newsletters.

47:35.90

Mya Nichol

Oh, yay.

47:39.46

Claire Venus

Right. So that exists. But I think for business owners, like they need to be inside of that course because nobody has ever explained it to me like this before.

47:41.18

Mya Nichol

Yep.

47:47.11

Claire Venus

Nobody has helped me understand how everything needs to work when it comes to email and like people that those emails are being received with. Like I've got some of that from audience development, but it's amazing.

47:57.39

Claire Venus

It's so, so, so good. So yeah, definitely.

47:59.36

Mya Nichol

Oh my gosh. I'm like, I'm going to like start crying over here. Thank you.

48:04.02

Claire Venus

but it is my it's amazing like I've I've tried to do this I've tried to do this so many times like and it just couldn't click and I just I had so much like so many blocks around the instant energy that I like to run with and I just couldn't I couldn't make it work and now I can't so thank you so much and it's not I mean I'm still going through it so thank you for that um so that's there so like definitely that but then

48:05.50

Mya Nichol

I did not prompt her to say that.

48:29.05

Claire Venus

After taking on all the things that I've said um and really coming back to yourself, I do have Sparkle and Substack.

48:30.88

Mya Nichol

you

48:34.84

Claire Venus

So I'll publish there weekly. And there's usually something free weekly to read or there's the archive there if you want to go into that. And then if you are more of a course based person or you like consults, I do those too.

48:47.01

Claire Venus

So you can head over to my website and which is creatively conscious. So that's my business name. and and Maya can link all of that below for you but yeah I'd love to see I'd love to chat to you about what you'd like to be feared like I feel like we're just at the point in life where we can wave our own magic wands like I know that sounds really cheesy but it's like we've learned enough guys like yes it's another platform but it's not that deep like we understand the internet it's just another version of what's possible online

49:12.92

Mya Nichol

I love that so much. This conversation has been so, so good. Thank you for your wisdom. Thank you for just sharing your heart. i absolutely love you to death and I appreciate you and your time and just coming on here and just sharing your journey with us. um you You are such a beautiful human and I'm just so grateful for you.

49:32.29

Claire Venus

Oh, same. Thanks, Maya.