Ep. 54: She built a 150K-member, $1M/year community ft. Grace Ling
<p>This week on The Creator Spotlight Podcast we are joined by Grace Ling, founder of the thriving Design Buddies community, which turns five years old this month, has over 150,000 members, and generates $1 million in annual recurring revenue. She is also a talented content creator and has found particular success on LinkedIn where she has nearly 50,000 followers. She is also the cohost of the How Creators Make Money podcast.</p><p>__</p><p>Follow Grace on <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.instagram.com/irungracepace">Instagram</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/graceling/">LinkedIn</a> </p><p>Check out <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://www.designbuddies.community">Design Buddies</a> and <a target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" href="https://howcreatorsmakemoney.com">How Creators Make Money</a> </p><p>__</p><p>00:00 Introducing Grace Ling and Design Buddies</p><p>01:52 What is design?</p><p>03:30 What makes the Design Buddies community different?</p><p>05:46 The first 1,000 members</p><p>08:31 The first 150,000 members</p><p>12:00 Maintaining a healthy community at scale</p><p>15:46 $1M in revenue — what’s the breakdown?</p><p>18:18 Rizz as a service 20:39 Gatekeeping, use it wisely</p><p>22:40 How to spend $1M</p><p>24:49 LinkedIn’s untapped potential for growth</p><p>35:51 A lesson in diversifying your revenue as a creator</p><p>39:37 How Creators Make Money, the podcast</p><p>42:16 The two labor models of content creation</p><p>45:00 From creator house to party mansions</p>
