020: Dan Runcie - From Sending Newsletters to High-Paid Consulting

Jan 4, 2021

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Dan Runcie is the founder of Trapital, the newsletter that breaks down the business of hip hop. We learn all about his favorite hip hop artists, of course, but he also shares what indie creators can learn from the world of hip hop and so much more.

Having switched from a lucrative paid newsletter to a consulting business, Dan explains the thinking that went into his new business model, and what it means for anyone trying to monetize their newsletter.

Dan shares his opinion on Substack—the out-of-the-box newsletter service that seems to be everywhere these days. You’ll find out why Dan started Trapital on Substack, and why he later switched to ConvertKit.

You’ll also learn unexpected insights from the world of hip hop, including lessons indie creators can take from Beyoncé’s sales funnel, and why Master P’s cutting-edge albums in the ‘90s show that consistency might just matter more to creators than quality!

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Dan Runcie’s Links

Episode Transcript

Dan: [00:00:00]
If they’re using Gmail or using any other service, they see my face in the icon come up, they see my name there. And it’s a familiar thing where it is coming from a person. I want to make sure this reads like an email you would get from someone, not just like a marketing email. So I try to make sure that even though I am sending the email, it’s not just the straight copy from the essay, they are getting something that reads like a note that they would get from a friend.

Nathan: [00:00:33]
In this episode, I talked to Dan Runcie who runs Trapital, which is the newsletter that breaks down the business of hip hop. He’s really fun to talk to. We learn all about his favorite hip hop artists, right. Specifically what indie creators can learn from the world of hip hop and so much more. So let’s dive in.

Nathan: [00:00:50]
Dan. Welcome to the show.

Dan: [00:00:51]
Nathan, thanks for having me.

Nathan: [00:00:53]
Yeah. Well, I want to dive right in. You have a love for specifically the business of hip hop and I would love to hear from you where, where that started.

Why. You know why you care so much about the business side and, what brought you to this point?

Dan: [00:01:09]
yeah, for me, the love for the business of hip hop really started with loving hip hop. I was pretty early on with gravitating towards this culture and. It was deeper than music. I mean, I remember elementary school. I was really getting into different artists who were the people that are making moves, but it’s also the people that were making movies behind the scenes.

Right. I was very interested in the persona of someone like a show ignite or someone like a Puff Daddy and the people that were both being very deeply involved with what was happening. But. Pulling the strings and making things happen and all of the criticism and successes that both of those people achieved.

And I think as I continued to grow up, seeing what that was like at the time, I never truly saw that as a career path for myself, but I was intrigued with it. So it was almost like a hobby and something I pursued and kept up and would always talk about with friends pretty much all through life, but it wasn’t until.

Let’s see, six, seven years ago. And this was when I was in business school. We were doing case studies on all different type of topics. And one of them that stuck out, we did this case study on Beyonce. He had just released this surprise albno one had done albums, surprise albums like that at that particular timeframe.

And it was this huge marketing case study on how these things happened. And it was a case study that was done by Harvard business school. It spread across to other schools. And that stuck out to me almost like a reminder, like, Oh, Hey, you know, this is something that is huge. And. It stuck out for a few reasons.

One, the topic, the subject matter, I’ve been a Beyonce fan since the Destiny’s child days, but second, it stuck out to me just how big of a deal that case study was, how it was from a business perspective. And there weren’t that many articles or breakdowns that were talking about hip hop artists or.

Artists in entertainment that we’re doing and making the same type of strategic moves that other industries were making in the type of jobs that I was working in and was playing into working thereafter. So for me, it was really an opportunity to look at that. And that was how I had started doing some freelance writing on the side.

Started a blog. It was a personal endeavor just to explore hobbies, my own interest topics that snowballed into publications, reaching out where I started writing for them. But then that snowballed again into writing for more and more reputable spots. And then eventually I saw where media was going. I saw hip-hop’s continued rise and said, you know, I have an interest for this.

I clearly have some skills that ability to convey these thoughts. Well, let’s merge these two together and started diff publication focused on the business of hip hop and that CellTrak capital was born.

Nathan: [00:04:05]
Yeah, that’s awesome. So I’m just imagining, you know, you in elementary school with the love of music, but then you’re actually diving in like, You know, when, when something happens or when someone makes a move, you’re diving into the story behind that. Are there any early ones that really stand out to you that you know of an artist making some move where you’re like, wait, Whoa, what was the deal there?

Or that you were fascinated to hear every little detail about.

Dan: [00:04:31]
fascinating. One to me when I was that age was Master P So I remember this was around the time where I was really starting to buy CDs and I bought a single. Of make Em Say Uhh so not even just the alblike the single, I just had like one side and then maybe like a B side album with it. And I played that single.

I don’t even know how many times. And That stuck out because master P wasn’t just an artist that had this record label behind him, his whole business model. And how he went about just running and being so popular for that stretch in hip hop was so monumental for people across the entire country. He was putting out an album from him and his group every other week.

And. They did not go on tour at all. During this stretch, they just monetized their ability to market extremely well, made sure people knew there was a style and a cover of what that No limit album looked like. There was a distinctive sound. And to be honest, even if the music itself wasn’t always the best they mastered the art of branding.

So when I think about that fast forwa...