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# The Asset-Creation Business
- URL: https://creatorscience.com/assets/
- Published: 2024-11-01T12:07:09.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-10T02:54:15.000Z
- Description: An important shift in how you view, prioritize, and create new content.
- Author: Jay Clouse
- Tags: Content Strategy

Anything you own with any value is an asset**:** your phone, laptop, car, and even your home (if you own it).

Some assets hold their value, others become *more* valuable, and others lose value over time.

We factor an asset's value (current and future) into our decision to purchase it or not. That's why many people won't buy a new car but will invest in real estate; they see cars as depreciating assets and homes as appreciating assets. It makes more financial sense to invest in an asset that holds its value or appreciates in value.

> Creators are in the business of creating assets. 

This is incredible – we *create* value from nothing. Well, technically, it's not "nothing" – we "purchase" these assets with the time or capital it takes to produce them, so they still have a cost.

And like other assets, your content also varies in terms of whether it maintains, increases, or decreases its value over time (and to what degree).

> But most creators don't consider cost and value when prioritizing content creation.

Consider these different content assets:

1. An Instagram Reel
2. A YouTube video
3. A video-based course
4. An email broadcast
5. An email sequence
6. A post on X

Six different assets, each with a cost to create (time or money) and each with a value in both the short and long term.

### **Instagram Reel**

**Cost**: Time and/or money to produce the video  
**Short-term value**: Audience attention, engagement, and growth  
**Long-term value**: Minimal; mostly dependent on the value of the followers it attracted

### YouTube video

**Cost**: Time and/or money to produce the video  
**Short-term value**: Audience attention, engagement, and growth  
**Long-term value**: Variable, but potentially quite high if the video continues to attract viewers

### Video-based course

**Cost**: Time and/or money to produce the course  
**Short-term value**: Variable, but potentially quite high with a successful launch  
**Long-term value**: Variable, but potentially quite high if it continues to convert customers (such as a [Signature Product](https://creatorscience.com/signature-product/))

### Email broadcast

**Cost**: Time and/or money to write the broadcast  
**Short-term value**: Audience attention, engagement, potentially product sales  
**Long-term value**: Minimal, unless captured and published as an evergreen asset (like the essays on this blog)

### Email sequence

**Cost**: Time and/or money to write the sequence  
**Short-term value**: Variable, but potentially quite high if it converts to action  
**Long-term value**: Variable, but potentially quite high if it continues to convert

### Post on X

**Cost**: Time and/or money to write the post  
**Short-term value**: Audience attention, engagement, and growth  
**Long-term value**: Minimal; mostly dependent on the value of the followers it attracted

In these examples, there are both **written** and **video** assets that will require the *same* type of creative input (e.g., the Reel, YouTube video, and video-based course). Similar costs but much different long-term values.

You can think of the distinction between these assets as **perishable** and **non-perishable assets**. Does the value persist, increase, or does it diminish?

> Viewing your content as an asset impacts what you create.

That's not to say you NEVER invest in creating perishable assets – they serve a crucial role in new audience discovery. Without that, it's difficult to build an audience; *hopefully,* those audience relationships increase in value over time. But that will be *much more likely* if you've prioritized the time to produce *non-perishable assets* on the backend (in the form of products and sales systems).

This is why I emphasize [restraint](https://creatorscience.com/restraint/) in joining discovery platforms.

[The fewer discovery platforms you join](https://episodes.fm/1498801064/episode/MTM0Zjk5YjYtOTJmYi0xMWVmLWJjMDEtZGZkYTA1ZmQyNGJh?ref=creatorscience.com), the fewer "mouths" you have to feed with perishable content. You can master a small number of discovery platforms while dedicating most of your time to creating non-perishable assets.

👋

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