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!Links & Resources
Substack
ConvertKit - Email Marketing for Online Creators
Ghost: Turn your audience into a business
Blog Tool, Publishing Platform, and CMS — WordPress.org
OnlyFans
Dan Runcie’s Links
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Twitter: @RuncieDan

Instagram: @RuncieDan

LinkedIn: Dan Runcie

Episode TranscriptDan: [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