Who a Subscription Is For, and Who It Isn't
I took a quick look through the subscriptions of famous athletes around the world.
World-champion-level athletes have opened their own places on Patreon and Skool. But the more of them you look at, the more you find that have stopped updating.
01 Famous, and still not growing
A famous athlete with a lot of followers. So a subscription should make money. That's the thought you start with.
But the members don't come the way you expected.
The reasons differ from person to person. It doesn't bring in the money you hoped. You're busy every day. The motivation doesn't last. Something along those lines, I think.
I won't call it failure. But there are people who tried, didn't make it work, and stopped.
02 You can see the numbers
For famous athletes, how many people pay for their subscription is fairly easy to find out. Put it next to their Instagram following and it's "oh, that's all?"
From there, you can roughly picture the income.
In most cases it doesn't reach $10,000 a month. $5,000 if they're doing well.
Plenty of people will say $5,000 is enough. That's fine. But measure it against the work it takes, and the story changes.
03 It just wasn't a fit
Why does this happen? Because a subscription wasn't a fit for them.
The people a jiu-jitsu subscription fits are the ones who want as many people as possible to see their technique. People with a very strong drive to sell it and earn from it.
That's a difference in philosophy, in concept, in how you think.
Start it lightly, on a whim, thinking "maybe I can make money on Patreon too" or "maybe I'll get fans," and you won't earn what you expected.
04 Can you keep posting every day?
What a subscription needs is to keep going.
People who can keep uploading two or three videos a day. People who simply love digging into technique.
Of course, strong athletes got strong because they dug in. But turning that into a video every day and putting it out is a different thing.
It's for people who want to keep going more than most. That's the absolute requirement.
05 So, on demand
Then should everyone give up? Not at all. I think on demand is worth doing.
On demand means selling one item at a time.
Even if updating every day isn't you, you can bundle 10 or 20 of your techniques and sell them as a package. That way you don't carry the weight a subscription puts on you. Package each concept and sell it.
06 It won't sell just sitting there
That said, making it and leaving it there doesn't mean it sells.
What concept is the package about? Put out a video on YouTube that explains it, post it on social media. Get your fans curious, and tell them, "this is where it's sold."
That's what I'd do.
07 In your own language, to the world
Recently, I built something called SubPro On Demand. Anyone can sell their instructionals one at a time.
And you can stay in your own language. Portuguese, Japanese, English. It reaches the world in translation.
If you want to try selling one at a time, take a look.
Subscription or on demand: if you're an athlete or instructor unsure which fits you, come and talk to us.
I'm Japanese, but English is no problem for me in writing. In chat I'm very fast. WhatsApp or anything else is fine. I'm a little slow when I talk.
SubPro CEO
Hiromichi Fujiwara
Want to sell one at a time?
Sell your instructionals one at a time, on a site with your name on it. Talking is free.