Current Status: The content creation starting line.

So this is it, the beginning. You’re just getting started creating content—or you’re still in the “wouldn’t it be cool if” phase. You might be artistic, funny, love to travel—anything that makes you uniquely who you are, and you want to document that or create something special from it. You might have a good idea of what you want, or you might not, but at the every least you know that you want to start creating content.

We Recommend: Just go for it.

At this stage, we believe you should just start creating. This is usually the biggest hurdle to overcome, that first moment where you actually let go of your fears and reservations and just begin. Choose a niche, simply to give yourself direction. This can be as simple as taking photos of your daily outfits or documenting your fitness journey, you just need a good place to start. Don’t worry about being locked into this for the long-term, but use it as an initial direction to get you going. You will have plenty of room to experiment, in terms of content and medium. Your focus right now is simply to get moving—that’s it.

When You Have A Spare Minute:

Just create. This helps build your momentum and your own comfort level, which leads to more experimenting!

The Tools: You don’t need much.

Right now, you’ll need the essentials, and nothing else. Your phone, computer, a basic website (if you want) via Squarespace, Wix, or the like, and your existing social networks. Experimenting is not the time to spend a ton of money. You’ll want to make smart investments later once you’ve found a voice, brand, and direction you’re really passionate about. Don’t buy a fancy camera yet, the one on your smartphone is good enough. And though we recommend having a dedicated web presence of your own, if you just start with the existing social networks, that is great too. Bottom Line: Create, and keep it simple. During this stage, keep things simple and focus on content. Be resourceful, utilizing free and inexpensive tools. If you content is good, people will find it. As an example, did you know that Craigslist generates one billion dollars of revenue each year? It looks like an early relic of the internet, but people need its services, so they still use it. The same thing goes for your content. If your content is great, it doesn’t matter if you have the perfect name, web design or social handle, people will consume it. The most important thing during this stage is to create consistently. It is the first test in determining whether or not you can do this.

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