1,000 True Fans

You don't need to be a mass-market hit to make a good living as a creator or a small niche business. Kelly's math: if you have 1,000 people who are true fans — meaning they'll buy essentially anything you produce — and each one spends roughly $100 a year with you, that's $100,000 a year, enough to sustain a creator or a small operation directly, with no label, publisher, or platform gatekeeper required in between.