The Story
Thomas Frank has made over $2.5 million selling Notion templates. His main channel has nearly 3 million subscribers with 180 million lifetime views, but his smaller niche channel Thomas Frank Explains (230K subscribers) drives most of his template sales.
Thomas started blogging in college after getting rejected from writing for Hack College. He took that rejection and started his own site, College Info Geek. He started YouTube in 2014, posting weekly videos until the channel hit 1 million subscribers. But success brought pressure - every video needed 100-200K views, sponsors expected results, and it stopped being fun.
In 2020, he made some Notion videos that did well. He wanted to make more niche tutorials but they didn't fit the main channel's brand. So he started a brand new channel from scratch - and started having fun again.
Key Insights
The Launch Strategy
- •Creators Companion: Started at $3K/month, scaled to $15K/month in 6 months
- •Ultimate Brain: $90K from a waitlist of just 3,200 people in 30 days
- •Made a 45-minute video walking through the template - "the whole video is an ad but it's still educational"
- •Revenue jumped to $100K/month after that video
Learning by Observation
- •Thomas never takes courses - he deeply observes people he admires
- •"When you do that over time you just kind of observe what people are actually doing at a world class level"
Building Products You Use
- •Creators Companion was an evolution of their own YouTube management system from 2018-2021
- •Ultimate Brain started as a task management template Thomas made for himself
- •Just polish it up, add features, package it, and sell it
The Customer Funnel
- •YouTube Content Types:
- •Build guides (teach how to build something, include free template)
- •New feature releases
- •Fundamentals/beginner content
- •Listicles ("10 ways you're using Notion wrong")
- •Call to Actions:
- •Pitch paid template
- •Pitch free template → email list
- •Resource page → email list
- •Email Autoresponder:
- •Send free templates
- •Offer discount code for premium templates
Pricing Strategy
- •Started at $99/$149 for Creators Companion
- •Now $149 for Ultimate Brain alone, $229 for full bundle
- •Did a price increase - volume dipped but overall revenue went up
The Power of Niche Channels
"The power of a niche channel is you're not trying to interest people in you. You're building content about something they're already interested in."
Thomas models his strategy after Zapier - cast a slightly wider net around your niche to bring people in, then show them your specific solution.
Tools
- •Notion - Product and internal use
- •Circle.so - Customer support/community
- •Lemon Squeezy - Point of sale (handles taxes as merchant of record)
- •ConvertKit - Email marketing
- •Pipedream - Automation (like Zapier but for developers)
Key Advice
"It doesn't matter if you get harsh feedback because you're going to learn from it. Start building friendships with other ambitious people. Become a fan first - share their stuff, comment, and eventually those lead to friendships and a network that helps you succeed."
Resources
- •Thomas Frank: https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasFrank
- •Thomas Frank Explains: https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasFrankExplains