How Anne Laure Le Cunff Built Ness Labs
Don't follow your mom's career advice.
Anne Laure has created a fine example of starting from wherever you are — from a Googler to building a mindful productivity lab.?
This week, we are sharing Anne-Laure Le Cunff, PhD 's creator journey ??
Anne is the founder of Ness Labs , a community for people to achieve more without sacrificing their mental health.
Ness Labs has
? 50K+ newsletter subscribers
? 3K+ community members
? 17K+ Twitter followers?
From Google to burnout ??
Anne worked at Google as part of their Digital Health team. After experiencing her first burnout, she quit her job.?
Her second burnout made her realize something MUST CHANGE.
Feeling lost ??
Not knowing what to do next, Anne Laure decided to go back to school.
"It was very difficult for me when the startup failed; I kind of felt like I lost my baby. I had a really hard time getting back on my feet."
Back to school ??
Being interested in how the human brain works, Anne applied for an MSc in Neuroscience in Kings Collage, London (where she's currently studying a PhD).
While studying MSc, she came across a concept called the generation effect.
Practicing generation effect ?? Birth of Ness Labs?
Generation effect is where you create your version of the content you consume that helps retain it better.?
Anne started a blog about what she studied, which gave birth to Ness Labs.
Growth ??
From a personal blog, Ness Labs has grown to a team of 3.
To date, they've launched ??
?? Teeny Breaks: a Chrome extension that helps makers take mindful breaks (launched in Nov 2018)
?? Make Shine: an ebook on personal branding for indie makers & solo entrepreneurs (launched in Oct 2018)
?? Maker Mind: a newsletter for makers to practice self-care, cultivate their curiosity and dare to create (launched in summer 2019)
?? Membership: a community of curious minds (launched in March 2020)
?? Academy: a collection of courses to improve your productivity and your creativity
?? Tell me more: a YT channel to learn about mindful productivity, creativity, and mental health (launched in Feb 2021)
Tools Ness Labs started with (as a 1-woman team) ??
??? Circle for community?
??? Memberful to managing memberships?
领英推è
??? Zapier to integrate everything?
??? WordPress for blog?
??? Mailchimp for newsletter
Revenue model ??
Ness Labs' revenue model is divided into 3 areas
1. Community?
2. Sponsors?
3. Consulting and Coaching?
In April 2021, Ness Labs reached $100K ARR from its private community alone!
Growth strategy ??
Anne focuses on two areas for growth?
i. Twitter?
ii. SEO and google
i. The majority of her audience comes from Twitter
She openly shares her growth, learnings and lessons on Twitter which attracts two types of audience, interested in ??
a. the topics she talks about?
b. how she builds her business singlehandedly
ii. SEO and google?
Some people write on 'trending keywords'?
But Anne's strategy is to write what she likes. She follows the basic SEO housekeeping rules.?
With this strategy, some of her keywords like 'stygian blue' get 50 clicks per month.
If you want to binge on Ness Labs's brilliant content, start here ??
How to find your niche?
'Explore loosely related topics, or two different ones to create a niche.'
Explore as many topics as you want as long as they are loosely related. This, she calls idea sex. ??
A battle of creativity ??
How to be mindfully productive?
Follow the PARI system. ??
And that's it for now!?
We'll be back with another story soon. ??