This Devin Nash video is from 4 months ago, long before the Logan Paul cryptozoo scandal came under light. Devin Nash is a fantastic content creator that teaches his audience how to grow their following with marketing and branding techniques.

Not in this specific video, but a few times before, Devin has mentioned the concept of 1,000 true fans. Searching for it on Google, you can find this essay.

The premise of 1,000 true fans is that over the course of a year, if you can get a true fan to spend $100 a year, you’d make $100,000 a year. For reference, $100 a year is about $8-9 a month or about 28 cents a day.

If you think about how easy it is for us to spend money, you can imagine it in reverse, which is thinking about all the ways you can ask for money. It’s not possible to take advantage of every single opportunity. But it is possible to examine the world around us and see what is succeeding at taking $100 a year from us.

I like asking a silly trivia question which is, who is the most subscribed to person in the world? I hint that I bet that they are currently subscribed to this person. Who has the most subscribers? Jeff Bezos. Amazon. From individuals, to families, to business, there are tons of Amazon Prime subscriptions. And each of those subscriptions is $14.99, or $139 a year. Granted, Amazon’s combination of service, products, and portfolio is second to none, which is why they are the most subscribed to service.

That is merely the ceiling. Examining the problem from the ground up, we can see that to establish a true fan, we simply need to create enough value for them to contribute $100 a year. Breaking these numbers down and up can expand our optimism for what is required from us to build a niche career. If I can get 10,000 fans to contribute $10 a year, I’d make the same $100,000. If I can get 100 fans to spend $1,000 a year, I’d make the same $100,000.

While scrolling YouTube shorts the past month, someone new came into my feed. I know him as “stay flexy” which is his signature sign off. Googling his catchphrase links me to his Instagram, movementbydavid. David is a flexibility coach and fitness trainer, a niche I didn’t really think about before seeing his videos. David now boasts 1.2M Instagram followers and has me scrolling through all of his short form content. His niche is incredibly narrow, yet applicable to so many different kinds of people in life. He targets young, old, flexible, and inflexible with his informative videos. His low budget, low angle camera setup grounds him as a relatable friend. And his content is supreme proof to me that the only thing you need to succeed as a content creator is great content and a great drive.

Aside from content creation, David has a free e-book and is formulating supplements with other professionals. His route for monetization is a genius one, focusing on free educational content to build up his audience and credibility, before moving forward and taking on a business risk that is building a supplement brand.

The post is primarily about the possibility of finding a niche audience and making a sustainable living by capitalizing off of that fandom. The techniques involved, while briefly touched on, can vary broadly and require individual examination. In general, dedication to the craft and incremental improvement are the basis to growing fans. More technically speaking, engaging fans uniquely, offering knowledge or experience from a personal level, and providing long term value can separate someone from someone with 1,000 fans and someone with 1,000 true fans willing to spend $100 a year on them.