Monetization

How To Find Your Unique Genius (And Monetize It)

by · Published Jun 28, 2024

If you’ve consumed any content from The Leap (or from our parent company Thinkific), then you’ve probably heard the term “unique genius” at least a few times. 

So, what exactly does the term mean? And, more importantly, is it monetizable? (Spoiler alert: the answer is “yes”).

In this article, we unpack the meaning behind the term, how you can find your own unique genius, and how it can start earning you money.

What is “unique genius”? 

So, what does “unique genius” mean? The term was coined by creator tech company Thinkific to refer to the singular value that a creator — specifically, a creator educator — brings to their audience. 

“Unique genius” is so much more than a creator educator’s value proposition. It’s the singular combination of qualities specific to each creator that makes them uniquely valuable in their audience’s eyes and within the creator economy. These qualities include a creator’s specific knowledge, expertise, and personal experience, alongside their individual perspective, their style of teaching, and their personality. All of these factors come together to form a creator’s unique genius.

A creator’s unique genius is key to their success — i.e. their profitability — within the creator economy. There are tons of creators and creator educators out there, occupying every niche, no matter how obscure, from finance to crocheting to baseball card trading. Within a packed market, it’s a creator’s unique genius that sets them apart from the competition. You can also think of unique genius as a creator’s “secret sauce”: it’s the thing that makes their content special, and it’s also the thing that no one else can replicate or provide.

Earlier this year, Thinkific transformed its unique genius concept into a brand new podcast aptly titled, Unique Genius: The Business of Creators. Released bi-weekly, the podcast is catered towards creators and enables them to learn from their peers how to run and scale a sustainable creator educator business.

How to find your unique genius in 4 steps

So, how does one go about finding their unique genius? If you’re in tune with yourself, you likely already have an inkling of what your unique genius could be.

Nonetheless, it’s still helpful to take a methodical approach to finding your own unique genius. Here, we’re outlining how to find the “knowledge, expertise, and personal experience” portion of your unique genius. Once you’ve discerned the kind of expertise you can bring to the table, the rest of your unique genius — i.e. your point of view and personality — will come naturally.

  1. Identify your passion and expertise
  2. Research the market and your competition
  3. Assess your topic’s monetization potential
  4. Define your target audience

Step 1: Identify your passion and expertise

First, you’ll want to start thinking about the topics that you’re passionate about and knowledgeable in. This could be a special interest that you have (like physics or fashion), a skill (like cooking or writing), or a hobby (like knitting or fixing up old cars). The main thing is that you’re enthusiastic and experienced in the topic. This is because your visible interest and expertise are key to creating better and more consistent content, and connecting more effectively with your audience.

A content creator in the beauty niche who has identified their unique genius and is creating beauty tutorials to earn money online.

As a creator educator, your followers want to learn something specific from you, so you’ll want to stick to a specific category, topic, or niche. However, it’s important to remember that there are likely thousands or other creators occupying the same niche or teaching their followers about the same topics. To identify what you’re really passionate about, you can ask yourself the following questions:

  • Why should my followers learn this from me instead of someone else?
  • What makes me, my content, and my perspective unique?
  • What knowledge or expertise do I have that will make me stand out within a category, topic, or niche?

Step 2: Research the market and your competition

Before committing to your area of expertise, you’ll want to conduct a little market research to ensure that there’s an audience for your content.

We recommend starting by conducting some keyword research into the topic you’re interested in. SEO analysis tools like Semrush and Ahrefs can help you with this kind of research. Ideally, you’ll want to find a sweet spot where your related keywords are getting lots of searches, but aren’t yet saturated with too much content.

Next, you’ll want to check out the competition, i.e. creators creating content within your area of expertise. Examining the content landscape on various social media platforms (and especially the platform(s) you’d like to use) will allow you to see what type of content is out there and what audiences are responding to. 

While it’s important to look into what the competition is doing, it’s even more important to notice what they aren’t doing. This will help you identify gaps in the market where you can provide your unique expertise and perspective.

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Step 3: Assess your topic’s monetization potential

Next, you’ll want to assess the monetization potential of your area of expertise. After all, you do want to monetize your unique genius, don’t you? Here, you’ll want to see whether there are opportunities within your category for monetization, whether they’re brand sponsorships or digital product sales.

This step will require additional research. Again, we suggest looking into how content creators within your topic are monetizing their expertise. Are they selling digital products, partnering with brands, or earning ad revenue?


Step 4: Define your target audience

Now that you have a handle on your area of expertise, it’s time to define your target audience and hone in on your unique value proposition (i.e. your unique genius).

Ask yourself who exactly your content will serve, and what kind of pain points it will solve for them. Be as specific as possible when defining your ideal audience, as this will help you optimize your content and marketing strategy.

Remember, your unique genius is what makes you you. And it’s also what sets you apart from other creators within your category. So, with this in mind, you’ll definitely want to let your unique personality and perspective shine through in your content.

A beauty creator who has identified their unique genius and is monetizing by creating makeup tutorials.

How to monetize your unique genius (plus creator success stories)

Now that you’ve defined your unique genius, it’s time to monetize. Before you can start raking it in, however, you’ll need to figure out just exactly how you’re going to monetize. This means looking into which monetization avenues most suit your expertise.

In this article, we’re focusing on monetizing your unique genius through creating and selling digital products. It’s important to note that some digital products are better suited to some niches than others. For example, fitness instructors would get the most out of selling workout memberships, while food experts would earn more selling e-cookbooks.

The way you decide to monetize hinges on your area of expertise, so you’ll want to do a little (more) research into your competition to see what kind of digital products are (and aren’t) working for them.

Need some inspiration? We’ve compiled a few of the most lucrative digital products below, along with examples of real-world creators from various niches who are raking it in online.

Digital products you can create and sell

  1. Mini-courses
  2. Guides
  3. Challenges
  4. Online courses
  5. Subscriptions and memberships

One of the most lucrative ways for creators to monetize their unique genius is by selling digital products. Need some convincing? Well, the numbers don’t lie: the digital media market is set to hit a staggering $848.5 billion by 2027. That means the market for digital products is booming. So, there’s no better time to take your own slice of the massive pie.

If you’re unfamiliar with the digital product game, a digital product is anything you can sell online as a downloadable file. These include everything and anything from templates and printables, to online courses and subscriptions.

So, why are digital products so popular among creators? Because they’re a great source of passive income. Here’s how it works: a digital product only needs to be created once before it can be sold (i.e. copies of it can be downloaded) endlessly. In other words, you only need to put in work at the front-end of the process, with no need to upkeep an inventory or deal with shipping logistics. That means, once your digital product is published, you can focus on other, more important things — or just sit back and watch the dollars roll in.

As a creator, there are lots of different digital products you can create. The ones that will be most lucrative to you will depend on your area of expertise. Below, you’ll find some of the most profitable digital products alongside success stories from the creators who’ve made bank selling them.

Mini-courses

Mini-courses are powerful income-generators for creators of all kinds. They’re also a great way for creators to break into the digital product game, especially if they’re experienced with creating short-form content.

This is because mini-courses are essentially bite-sized online courses made up of short-form content. Mini-courses are designed to help your audience achieve a specific learning outcome, usually honing in on a smaller, very specific topic than a full-length online course.

All this means that mini-courses are easy to create (for you) and easy to consume (for your audience), making them an all-around win-win product. And because they’re so versatile, mini-courses are suitable for creators within virtually any area of expertise.

Click here to start creating and selling mini-courses with The Leap. It’s free!

Take it from creator Andrea Casanova (@latinapreneur). In addition to being a marketing genius, Andrea has made a name for herself within TikTok’s vision-boarding niche with her engaging vision board tutorials and templates.

What sets Andrea apart from the competition (i.e. what defines her unique genius) is her willingness to get real about her personal struggles, while detailing how vision boarding has helped her overcome them.

In addition to her popular TikTok tutorials, Andrea offers her audience a vision-boarding mini-course. Created with The Leap’s AI-powered mini-course builder, “Making a Vision Board That Actually Works” walks users through the vision-boarding process, from creating affirmations to choosing visuals, so they can turn those dreams into reality ASAP. 

Andrea’s mini-course made $8,000+ in about 30 days, and she only spent two hours creating it with The Leap before promoting it on TikTok. That’s the power of manifestation!

andrea casanova latinapreneur vision board mini-course the leap

Want to create your own first mini-course today? You can with The Leap’s AI-powered digital product builder! Try The Leap for free now.


Guides

Next up are guides. A guide is an educational product that helps your audience form an opinion, make a decision, or take action. As digital products, guides can contain written as well as video content.

Guides are great for creators whose area of expertise is more cerebral. Think marketing, content creation, or finance. Typically, guides won’t be as effective for creators whose knowledge involves more hands-on engagement like fitness or knitting. (For these, you’ll want to harness the power of the tutorial, which you can also create using The Leap’s AI-powered digital product builder).

As a creator in the realm of digital marketing, Manu Muraro (@yoursocialteam) has harnessed the power of the guide to help her audience master the art of the Instagram Reel. Titled “Making Feed Posts Perform Like Reels”, Manu’s guide teaches users how to use Reels to boost their feed posts, providing tried-and-tested strategies to increase engagement and reach on the IG feed. 

Manu created this guide using The Leap’s AI-powered digital product builder, and offers it as a lead magnet to build her email list.

Making Feed Posts Perform Like Reels yoursocialteam manu muraro mini course

Want to write your first guide today? The Leap’s AI-powered authoring tool makes it easy. Try it for free now.


Challenges

An online challenge is an educational product that helps your audience achieve a goal within a specific time frame. Challenges can be held live, but don’t always need to be. Either way, they usually run between five and 30 days in length.

Due to their involved nature (and especially if they’re live), challenges typically require more commitment and preparation on your end. However, paid challenges can also be incredibly lucrative because people tend to love live events.

Challenges are great digital products for creators within a variety of categories, from finance to fitness. Essentially, if you can help someone achieve a discrete goal within a set amount of time, you can profit off of online challenges.

Just ask personal finance and lifestyle creator Melanie Laurene (@yourinternetbigsis). Alongside seriously aspirational lifestyle content, Mel’s personal finance advice is some of her most-watched educational content. So, it’s no surprise she decided to monetize her expertise with an online challenge.

Created with The Leap, “Money With Mel: 14 Day Expense Tracking Challenge” helps users learn the benefits of expense tracking by asking users to track their expenses for two weeks. In the end, users feel empowered to take control of their expenses, with the goal of feeling more financially grounded.

Want to start monetizing with online challenges? Create and sell your first online challenge today with The Leap. Try it for free now.


Online courses

As their name suggests, online courses are similar to mini-courses, but are much longer in form and cover much broader topics.

It’s not surprising, then, that online courses require much more time and effort to create than mini-courses. They also tend to have higher expectations attached to them from the customer’s viewpoint. Those expectations might include private communities, live calls, Q&A sessions, bonus content, and more.

Because they’re so involved, online courses are usually some of the highest-ticket items within a creator’s product offering, typically being priced between $500 and $2,000 — or more. That’s a big chunk of change!

Florida-based creator Lola Melani transformed her photography hobby from side-hustle into full-time job via online courses.

Through her Thinkific site, Lola Melani Academy, the creator offers 11 courses that help burgeoning photographers master the craft, from capturing draping to creating the perfect lighting. Over the last three years, the creator has made over $300K in revenue solely selling online courses through Thinkific.

photography courses Lola Melani Academy

Ready to build your first online course? Thinkfiic can help you with that. Try Thinkific’s online course builder by starting your 14-day trial today.


Subscriptions and memberships

Finally, we have subscriptions and memberships. Subscriptions and memberships are content, tools, or services that users subscribe to for a monthly fee. Because of this, memberships are a reliable source of recurring income.

Subscriptions and memberships are great digital products for creators who want to monetize their regular content, or who have audiences that want to frequently and continuously use their services. For the former case, think of writers and critics who send out paid newsletters and, for the latter, think of workout memberships that give users access to livestreams and pre-recorded classes.

North Carolina-based creator Kristen Bousquet helps other creators monetize their online influence and creativity. And she uses a monthly membership to do so.

Through her membership program Soulcial Suite, Kirsten offers subscribers access to all the information they need to grow their business as well as their own private online community. In return, Kristen gains consistent revenue from her subscribers month after month.

Kristen created her membership program using Thinkific. Currently, it has over 134 members and brings the creator over $4K per month in recurring revenue.

soulcial suite kristen bousquet

Want to start earning a recurring income selling memberships? Thinkific makes monetizing memberships easy. Start your 14-day trial today.

Monetize your unique genius today

So, now that you know how to unlock and monetize your unique genius, the ball’s in your court.

It’s up to you to pin down your unique genius, but we can help with monetizing. The Leap makes it easy for creators to transform their knowledge and expertise into best-selling digital products. The platform doubles as a mobile-optimized link-in-bio storefront and AI-powered digital product builder, which lets you build, sell, and market your products from one place.

What’s better is that The Leap’s generative AI-powered authoring tool enables you to create engaging digital learning products — like mini-courses, guides, challenges, and tutorials — in just minutes. Because it’s so easy to use, The Leap empowers you to turn your digital products into lead magnets, which helps you grow your email list and your profits.

The best part? The Leap is 100% free to use.

Want to start monetizing your unique genius with The Leap? Try it for free today.

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Further reading

kelsey mclellan
About the author

Kelsey McLellan

Kelsey McLellan is a writer and editor based in Toronto.
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