The Passion Economy and the Future of Work

Venture capitalist Li Jin left Andreessen Horowitz to start her own firm, Atelier Ventures. She started Atelier to fund a specific vision of the world: a world in which people are able to do what they love for a living and to have a more fulfilling and purposeful life.

In addition to being an investor, Li is a prolific writer and podcaster, producing not only a newsletter but also writing articles for major publications.

Find out whether you should really be writing content every week, or whether your effort is better spent on longer-form, epic articles. Should you be publishing in your newsletter, or in publications like Harvard Business Review?

Li and Nathan don’t just talk about content, they also get deep into business models for your newsletter business, with Li sharing her perspective as the founder of a venture fund. Don’t miss Li’s unique combination of deep investment knowledge and artistic creativity!

Links & Resources

• Andreessen Horowitz - Software Is Eating the World
• LiveJournal: Discover global communities of bloggers who share your unique passions and interests.
• Myspace
• Zynga
• The Nathan Barry Show 028: Packy McCormick – How Much Are 30,000 Subscribers Worth?
• Evernote
• Harvard Business Review - Ideas and Advice for Leaders
• The Nathan Barry Show 023: Tiago Forte – Building a Second Brain & Lessons From a $1M/yr Newsletter
• The Nathan Barry Show 017: David Perell – Mastering Twitter to Grow Your Newsletter and Make Money

Li Jin’s Links

• Newsletter: Li’s Newsletter
• Website: Atelier Ventures
• Podcast: Means of Creation
• Twitter: @ljin18
• LinkedIn: Li Jin

Episode Transcript

Li Jin: [00:00:00]
What are your goals and what is the content that you’re creating and why are people subscribed and reading it? The business model needs to fit what your content is, who the audience is, who the creator is, what the platform is. All of those things need to be aligned. Direct user monetization is totally in vogue in the form of donations, ad hoc payments, subscription payments.

It’s always charging the user for something. 

Nathan: [00:00:28]
Today’s episode is with venture capitalist Li Jin. So Li was at Andreessen Horowitz, and then she recently left to start her own firm, Atelier Ventures. We talked about a lot of things that I find interesting, like business models for your newsletter, for example, should you monetize through a paid newsletter sponsorships or what she does through running a venture fund?

We get into whether you should write content, you know, consistently every week, or should you publish it once a quarter and put out these incredible long form posts we get into writing about, or excuse me, writing for publications like Harvard Business Review versus your own newsletter. There’s so much good stuff in here.

So I’ll just get out of the way and we’ll dive right in.

Li, welcome to the show.

Li Jin: [00:01:14]
Thank you. Thanks so much for having me, Nathan.

Nathan: [00:01:17]
Okay. So I want to dive in and just immediately talk about revenue models, all of that, because you have this tweet that I just loved, that it was like dying, laughing when I saw it. And the gist of it is I have a paid newsletter. It’s my monthly LP update. You were talking about how either those business models is everything else.

And I imagine saying like me, why don’t you launch a paid newsletter? So could you talk through how you think about, you know, your business and what you meant with that week?

Li Jin: [00:01:50]
Yes. So I joke that my LP update, which I send out quarterly as a email is basically my paid newsletter. And I think it’s, it’s basically a riff on the joke that we used to make about a16z, which is the firm that I used to work at the VC firm that I used to work at. We used to joke that it was a media company that monetized through venture capital because a 16, Z as a firm is so prolific in creating content.

They have a podcast, actually, a network of podcasts, the blog. they have a series of different clubhouse shows now as well. they just do a ton of different media and content creation activities. And so people used to joke like, Oh, this is actually a media company that happens to monetize through venture capital.

And I think of myself now as kind of a miniature version of that, where I’m a solo. Content creator. and I monetize through venture capital. Like that is my revenue model. I have a venture capital fund that I raised last year, called . And that is, you know, my day job. That’s where I spend the majority of my time.

And then the content that I put out into the world, It’s free. It’s, it’s mostly free for founders to consume. It’s really designed to help them build companies, and to guide them and their strategies. And I don’t monetize the content at all. And the way that I monetize the content is through investing in the best companies that come as a result of the content creation.

So, yeah, that was, that was the Genesis behind, the tweet. And so the LV newsletter, I mean, the LPs are like the investors in the fund and that’s how I monetize it.

Nathan: [00:03:33]
Yep. That makes sense. And I think once you have this attention, Then there’s so many ways that you can monetize it. I was talking with Trey, remember who wasn’t a past episode. we were talking about how people have alluded to Nike being like they’re just an ad agency who happens to realize that the best model to monetize is through, you know, shoe and apparel sales, but really their core strength is advertising and marketing.

And so I think there’s plenty of examples of people who have, like, the. Have this audience and then an unconventional way of earning a living.

Li Jin: [00:04:09]
Yeah, precisely. And I think to build on that. Like there’s a lot of examples of newsletter writers who do a similar thing where they’re operating a syndicate. Like I think Packy who you’ve had on the show has a syndicate that he invests in deals through. there’s other newsletter writers. I know that angel and fast Lenny Rachitsky is a very active angel investor too.

So yeah, a lot of them are sort of blending different business models because newsletters are such a great vehicle to, to build an audience. To get reader attention, to communicate your thoughts into the world and kind of mind-meld with a lot of really interesting folks. And then the best way to monetize that might not be through a straight up subscription or pay.

Well, it might be having upside in the businesses that they built. and I think. Content creators are having that rea...