1000 Thank You's

For the entire 20th century, if you wanted to survive as a musician, artist, or writer, you had to be a megahit—otherwise, you were starving. The corporate middlemen took almost everything.

But in 2008, long before Substack, Patreon, or the modern creator economy existed, Kevin Kelly (the co-founder of Wired magazine) wrote a legendary essay titled "1,000 True Fans." His thesis was simple: you don’t need a million casual followers to make a living; you just need 1,000 true ones. A true fan is someone who will buy anything and everything you produce. With just 1,000 true fans, you can bypass the gatekeepers, retain your autonomy, and completely support yourself.

One of the central principles I’ve taught and written about in the past is that you should not try to be for everyone. Yet, the world constantly screams that we need to scale. We are told we must follow a specific, hyper-growth template to be considered successful, and if we don't, we are failing to reach our potential.

Over the last year, I listened to those external messages. I made some intentional decisions to try to scale the content and resources I’ve built over the last ten years. I stand by my reasons for entering those partnerships and willingly giving up a level of control over the business I had built; I truly believe I have the best content on leadership and culture for coaches and athletes in the world, and I wanted to get it to more people.

But while I wasn’t necessarily trying to become a mainstream megahit, I definitely steered away from simply serving my core 1,000 true fans.

I’ve learned a lot of heavy, important lessons through this experience—lessons on business, partnerships, delegation, the responsible boundaries of AI, and ultimately, what matters most. Yet, anytime I’ve chased scale over depth, I’ve felt derailed from my true mission: to grow and to serve every single day.

I am writing this less than a month after publishing my new book, The Culture Captain, and it has officially sold just over 1,000 copies. That is more than twice as many copies as The Culture System sold in its very first month.

I won’t lie—a part of me was initially disappointed when I saw that number. After the compounding success of The Culture System over the last few years, I had hoped for an even bigger launch.

But that unmet expectation was exactly the reckoning I needed. It was a stark reminder to practice radical gratitude.

When I looked at that number again, I realized something beautiful: 1,000 copies means my 1,000 true fans showed up.

I am deeply thankful for the true fans of my work over these last ten years—the ones who listen to every podcast episode, buy the books, invest in the courses, send me emails and texts sharing how the work impacted their programs, or those who simply continue to read and engage with this community.

Moving forward, you can count on me to focus entirely on depth over scale. I am returning to where I started to deliver direct, uncompromised value through my once-a-week newsletter, featuring an article, a podcast episode, and our practical tool of the week.

Thank you to each and every one of you who has been a part of this community over the last decade. I am incredibly grateful to be in your corner.

—J.P. Nerbun

P.S. *My new book, The Culture Captain, is available now on Amazon. It provides the definitive 4-level framework to turn your players into self-driven leaders.