The Creator to Creative Ladder

maybe the best blog I've ever written about being a Creator

There are 3 levels of being a creator:

1) “The Nobody”:

You’re just starting out and your only audiences are your friends and family. Beyond your inner circle, people have never heard of your name, and they have no idea what your average work is like.

Here, your main goal is to make “an impression”, reminding people that you exist and are creating (best if you have a clear cadence so people know when to expect your content).

Your strategy at this level is to stay CONSISTENT. That’s it. Practice showing up even if you’re not putting in the best work. Pin your name to people’s heads.

2) “The Creator”:

You have a sizable audience and start seeing consistent growth. You kinda have a reputation here as “the diagram guy” or “the productivity guy”.

Having a reputation means people have a certain expectation for the quality of your work, which if you don’t meet consistently, might lose you many fans.

Hence, your goal here is to live up to these expectations, reassuring people that you will give them what they sign up for.

Your strategy at this level is to focus on CONSISTENT IMPROVEMENT. Showing up isn’t enough. You have to show up with a good performance. Better yet if you can exceed people’s expectations - something remarkable so they can go tell their friends about you.

3) ”The Creative”:

You have a massive audience, a super strong brand, and usually a team behind you so you only need to focus on the CREATIVE part of being a creator.

This is the dream of most people when they say “I want to become a creator” - utmost freedom to create what they love.

The Creative’s goal is to create great work - work that they enjoy creating and will be proud of looking back.

The strategy at this level is simple: focus on QUALITY PRODUCTION only. You don’t need to show up consistently because your brand is already so strong that even if you take a 3-year break and come back, people will still be crazy to see what you’ve come up with.

Examples of Creators who have made it to the Creative status are Casey Neistat, Tim Urban, and most famously in the Vietnamese creator scene - JVevermind.

You can only know if you’ve made it as a “Creative” when you disappear for a minimum of 1 year and people still care about what you create when you come back. There’s no other way to validate the “Creative” status.

JV - 1 of the most influential Vietnamese bloggers came back to YouTube after 2 years

The Distribution Game

Usually, the people who can function comfortably at the “Creative” level have built a massive distribution engine (aka an email list). They know that when they come back, they can reach their audience directly, not via some arbitrary social algorithm.

Look at Tim Urban (who writes “Wait But Why” - a blog with 600,000 email subscribers), who disappeared for 3 years, came back with a book launch, and people are still crazy about his comeback.

Granted, the expectation of quality Tim has set for his work is so high that people KNOW whatever he creates will be good (especially if he’s taken 3 years to work on it).

But without that email list of 600,000 subscribers, I assume it would be A LOT harder for Tim to promote his book.

Not to mention the fact that in those 3 years, he still had to keep his social media active with reposts from previous writings.

Tim’s email list and reputation as “someone who just delivers great work” are not the result of his obsession with quality only.

If he only cares about quality in the traditional sense that people think about creativity, he would probably hide in a wooden cabin in the forest, brew on a book for 3 years, and only when he’s ready, release the most mind-blowing best-seller to the world.

Tim’s email list and reputation are the result of (1) an obsession to produce quality content, yes, but also (2) a discipline to ship them frequently (92 long-form posts in 7 years), and (3) a distribution channel to ship them efficiently (an email list).

The 3 codes

So basically, there are 3 codes every creator has to break in order to achieve the “Creative” status:

1. The quality code

2. The frequency code

3. The distribution code

Your reputation as a creator is determined by the quality of your idea combined with the frequency you show up (how often do you remind your audience that you’re still here).

Social Creators without an email list know for a fact that they cannot take a break. Because if they do, the algorithm will kill them and the audience will forget them.

Interestingly, 2 out of 3 codes a creator must break belong to the “Distribution” camp (How frequent and how efficient can you ship?), and only 1 belongs to the “Creation” camp (How good is your work?).

This is a fact not many creators are comfortable with.

They want to believe that to become a great creator, they just need to focus on the quality of their work, like what Tim Urban did in the past 3 years, or what Quentin Tarantino always did for many years before coming back with an Oscar-worthy film.

The reality is most of us have not achieved the “Creative” status (me included).

Quentin Tarantino never has to worry about the distribution and promotion of his work. There are major film publishers fighting to do the work for him BECAUSE of his reputation as “someone who just delivers great work”.

When you’re starting out, people don’t know who you are, or what your work is like. You have to compete with creators who are already 1 to 10 years ahead of you for people’s attention. You have to be in charge of ideation, creation, AND distribution.

You really have to think like an “independent media company”.

Only when you accept the Creator-to-Creative Ladder, and embrace the strategy at each level, can you truly ascend the ladder.

To recap:

3 stages of being a creator:

1. Nobody → Consistent.

2. Creator → Consistent Improvement.

3. Creative → Production Quality.

This post is inspired by Colin & Samir’s “Did Mr. Beast ruin YouTube?” podcast and More To That’s “The Arc of the Practical Creator” blog post. (Hopefully, I get a reply from them haha)

Personal Story

The scariest thing about trying to ascend the ladder is, you usually have to do all of these alone.

That was me 4 years ago when I started writing.

No mentor’s guidance. No peer support. No formal training in being either a creator or creative.

I had to figure everything out through self-education and experience.

I listened to every podcast interviewing my favorite writers. I consumed everything I could find about the Internet culture, the creator economy, and the creative process. I designed a challenge for myself to overcome the fear of writing in public. I used my own money to INVEST in a writing course, which is still the biggest investment I’ve ever made in myself ($800).

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned from this journey of being a creator is you don’t have to do all of these alone.

That is why, 1 year ago, I created Writing On The Net for aspiring writers who are starting their blogging journey - the “nobody”.

In Writing On The Net, I condense EVERYTHING I have learned about writing online for 50,000+ people for the past 4 years, in 6 weeks of intensive learning, writing, and community building.

• You will learn EVERYTHING I know about being a blogger.

• You will put the lessons into practice EVERY DAY with our 30-day writing challenge.

• And you will do it in a community of 100 supportive Vietnamese bloggers from all over the world.

With this program, my team and I have helped more than 100 bloggers overcome their fear of writing in public, and build their own sustainable creative system.

You can figure all of this out by yourself, just like I did for 4 years. But if want to save some time (6 weeks instead of 4 years), or want to do it with other cool, inspiring writers in a carefully structured experience, you can join us here: