A few weeks ago the most upvoted app on Product Hunt was a simple website that curated the best Youtube channels to learn new skills called Channels Stack. The website organizes hundreds of popular Youtube channels into defined categories that help you learn. Simple enough.
One of the most popular new-ish newsletters today is one that has little original writing. The Browser is a daily email from the result of a person who reads 1000 articles a day, picks the best five, writes a short summary about each one, and sends it out to his list. Paid subscribers get access to his curation every day and free subscribers get an email once a week or so. Interestingly enough, many of the articles linked to do not have a paywall. For example, the first article in February 25th’s Browser is one about golf and Brooks Koepka and it directs you to the non-paywalled article at GQ.
These two examples clarify interesting trends going on in marketing, content creation, and community building.
First, the amount of content to consume is endless and the conundrum of where to spend one’s valuable time is only getting more complex. Every day there’s a new podcast published, or blog post to read, or a book recommendation to order on Amazon. The amount of content out there has gotten so vast the market for credible curators is growing. Also, the amount of evergreen content on the web creates a large opportunity for folks to have delayed discoveries. For example, I recently found two “new” podcasts (for me) that started back in 2018.
Two, curation is an amazing way to generate eyeballs. If you’re not going to create the content, the second best option is to curate it. For ChannelsStack to generate so many upvotes and eyeballs through a simple packaging of existing content, that alone proves the validity of curation. If you don’t believe that, look at The Browser. The editor is charging people money, who are not only paying him, but raving about his site, in order to be directed to a free content on another website. Last week, we interviewed Andy Powell at CallRail, he shared his origin story around how he curated BMW body shops into a million dollar plus business, which helped him bootstrap CallRail.
Three, curating great content of a particular niche is an amazing way to build community. Hook folks with the time saving curation but offer them something else in advance.
Four, use it as a way test market interest and engagement. You’ll know shortly whether your approach or industry or niche has legs. From the examples above, it’s clear people want to learn new skills and people want to save time exploring the latest and greatest articles on the internet.
Curating the most interesting content and people is a great way to make positive momentum towards your go-to-market goals and the ways to do it are limitless.