The Daily Druid is Growing!

Things may seem slow around here, but only because big things are happening behind the scenes. the Daily Druid is evolving and growing into something much bigger and more exciting.  This is one of those real-talk posts.

I started The Daily Druid as a blog, to share what I’ve learned about the game and becoming a DM. But I ran into issues managing the website with a difficult page-editor plugin and got discouraged. It shouldn’t take more than an hour to post a blog that’s already written. I was also battling some imposter syndrome and anxiety about what kind of video content I would be able to produce to really make this successful.

But then I remembered to go back to my roots and what I know. I’ve never been one to make videos of just me and my knowledge. But I’m great at doing videos with other people, chatting about a topic, asking questions, and discussing business and marketing. Ok great! That’s a video format I can work with.

Around that same time, I started to question the negative self-talk I’d been feeding myself for years, that I am not an entrepreneur. I had been thinking for years that I’m not disciplined enough to have my own business…that I work better in a situation where I have a boss and someone to be accountable to. All these mental gymnastics were stalling me from making progress with the the whole Daily Druid project.

In the meantime, I took my annual summer trip up to Lima, Ohio to a little conference called Social Media Week Lima (pronounced like the bean, not the city in Peru). The evening before the event, as we always do, old friends gathered in the lobby of our hotel for some drinks and laughs. And I met a guy named Terry Weaver who would be speaking the next day about not burying your genius. I told him the story about the blog, and the issues, and how historically I tend to take on projects or hobbies and move on to something else within a few months. And he gave me a piece of advice that changed everything.

Paraphrasing, in order for something to last, you have to surround yourself with people that will keep you going when you get stuck. So simple, right? But it was a profound moment for me to look back and realize I’ve always tried to do things on my own. I’m fiercely independent. And that needs to stop. This new realization was astonishingly motivating.

Over the next two days while learning from brilliant people, I found a new theme for the website and overhauled the whole thing to make it much easier to use. Time to stop letting stupid technology hold me back. I started to think bigger as well.

I really started to think about the important big questions. Who is my audience? What are my goals? How do I plan to make any money off this? What’s the business model? How can I bring value to this industry and community if I’m not really an expert myself?

And then I started to think about my own skills. What am I good at? Well, I’m great at networking. I’ve got an MBA, a solid foundation in business and marketing, and I’ve been essentially coaching social media marketers for 10 years. If I’m honest with myself, I’m not going to produce any kind of resources for DMs that will be any better than what’s already out there. But I can potentially help the people with TTRPG businesses improve their visibility, marketing, and get better results. And I’m great at bringing in the people who are experts to teach the things that I don’t know. Remember, I don’t have to do all of this myself!

And what could potentially happen if I create a space where D&D creators and business owners start helping each other, teaching the lessons that they’ve learned, sharing what works and what doesn’t work, and inspiring a new class of entrepreneurs? Big things. Big things could happen. And that’s super exciting.

So I’m excited to announce the expansion of the Daily Druid. I’ll be creating a show that highlights the creators and commerce of D&D (and TTRPGs more broadly). It will be broadcast via podcast and on YouTube. And coming soon after that, an email newsletter and I’ll find a way for this freelancing and entrepreneur community to have a private space to have the hard business conversations so we can all have more success.

But first, I need to make connections, so I’m heading to Gen Con in early August to meet creators, dungeon masters, and vendors at the Expo. If you are a freelancer, creator, or business owner in the D&D/TTRPG space, and would like to share what you’ve learned in your business journey, let’s chat!