This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Today we're gonna hear a true confession from a listener, a side hustler out there, who has built up a successful Patreon account where he has fans who have committed to pay a certain amount each month. I'm not sure if it's five bucks or 10 bucks, 25 bucks or more each month, but he's got all these fans that have committed to making these payments. And he has stopped delivering updates to them. So this is a little bit of a dilemma, right? Because people chose to support his work and then I don't know if he got burned out or something else.
We're gonna hear a little bit from him about what happened. But basically he got in a situation where people are still paying, but he's not delivering updates as initially promised. And so he's kind of like, what do I do? Do I just cut off all these subscriptions? Do I try to force myself to go back to do the work?
Is there something else? So I thought this was interesting. It kind of connects to the emotional labor of running an online business or just anything where you have promised certain content over time. And I've been in this situation myself, not quite with Patreon, but over the years, I've started various programs and sometimes it's been a struggle to continue producing the initial content that I was motivated to make, you know, months go by, maybe years and I'm not as motivated. So what do we do about this?
Without further ado, quick little shout out to our sponsor and then let's hear this listener question. Stay tuned. [Music]
I enjoy the show and hope you can help with an unusual problem. This is awkward, so please don't use my name. I'm an independent musician with a Patreon that a bunch of my fans signed up for.
The money is around 1500 to 2000 a month. Not huge, but it pays most of my rent. I started it during the pandemic when I wasn't able to tour. It was great at first. I loved offering live streams, Q and A's and special bonus content for my supporters.
Some people stop paying after a few months but a core group has been steady month after month. So what's the problem? The problem is I've stopped delivery. After a while, I couldn't think of anything else to say during Q and A sessions and I'm a musician, not a writer. So I never really loved writing a bunch of posts but now it's been three months with nothing delivered and I feel guilty.
Part of me thinks the answer is that I either need to suck it up and get back to work or just close down the whole Patreon. But I'll be totally honest, I need the money. What would you suggest? [Music]
You know, this reminds me of so many failed Kickstarter projects. I'm not saying this particular Patreon campaign is a fail but a lot of Kickstarter projects get funded.
People have paid a lot of money and then they don't actually receive what was promised. Here it's a little bit different because people are continuing to pay. So presumably if they're unhappy, they might go and cancel and I think eventually they will. But sometimes people don't notice or sometimes they're like, well, you know, I like this guy's work. Maybe it's not coming on a weekly or monthly cadence as promised, but hopefully he'll get back to it.
So it's a little bit different than that. Still, I think your question here is, these are your true fans, you know, what do you want to do for them? And you have a couple options. One, you could just be really upfront with them and say, hey, I'm a little bit stuck. If you want to cancel your pledge, you know, please feel free to do that.
Remember, they can already do that already. So it's not like you are preventing them from doing so if anybody wants to cancel, they can. But you might find just a simple explanation along with like, okay, what's coming up? Like, it's okay to be stuck but you probably should have some sort of promise of like, what's coming next? Here's the timetable that will work for me.
Here's how I do want to adjust or here's the new content or songs or whatever the work is, live streams, you know, bonus content, et cetera. Here's when I think it's gonna start coming again. Here's what it will be. Just, you know, being really open. I think that kind of transparent communication is gonna help you.
Or you could close the account and just, you know, stop taking the funds. But as noted, the caller needs the money. So in this case, I would try to work with the situation and just be a little bit more communicative. I think good communication goes a long way. People have all kinds of issues.
You know, we're all on a journey, right? But good communication is important. So that's what I think. But you're already on the right track by calling in and leaving this question bravely. So thank you for that.
Listeners, thank you for being out there as well. sidehustleschool.com, access resources and notes pages for every single episode, 3400 plus. You can download or stream them as well. You can do whatever you want. You know, it's your community.
And I'm so glad that you're part of it. New episodes dropped seven days a week. My name's Chris Guillebeau. This is Side Hustle School. [Music]
