As a product manager for Patreon, Ashley Tuccero works on tools and features for creators at every stage of their journey on Patreon. She has been at the center of making Patreon’s core features — posting, fan relationship manager, and insight tools — available to new creators without needing to set up paid membership, and for existing creators to bring more of their fans to Patreon.

In this episode, Ashley discusses how you can use these creator tools to connect with your community in a deeper way and grow your creative business.

Having pivoted from acting to full-time content creation — across podcasting, streaming, YouTube, writing, and coaching — Ethan Saks, co-host of podcast Lords of Limited, shares how he does it all. Getting paid to do what you’re passionate about sounds great. But how do you achieve that while trying to grow your online community and showing up as a parent?

In this episode we chat with Ethan about how he and co-host Ben Werne, navigate the tremendous changes that come with life as a full-time creator.

By offering a free trial, you can invite your audience to try out one of your paid membership levels for free for seven days, before committing. This short, but immersive, experience gives curious fans a real taste of your membership — one that can inspire them to sign up for the long term.

In this episode, Norma O’Mahony, a product manager on Patreon’s Growth team, walks through how free trials work, data illustrating how free trials improve creators’ earnings, and tips for getting started.

Through their YouTube channel and podcast, Foundation Disc Golf became leaders in the flying-disc sport and surrounding industry. The company’s membership business blends retail sales of gear and apparel with audio and video content — all designed to encourage their passionate base of disc golf fans of all levels.

In this episode, co-founder Hunter Thomas shares how members get to select the topic for an exclusive video that he and his team make each month, plus their approach to hosting live, pop-up events in different cities.

Need a boost of encouragement? In this episode, we revisit top tips from Hot Topics: Doubt, a Patreon workshop on contending with uncertainty. Abigail Thorn, actress and creator of the web show from Philosophy Tube, and rapper Ben Miller, known as Wrekonize, share their strategies for how to deal when things get spicy.

Listen for highlights from their conversation on anticipating, weathering, and even thriving in times of doubt.

Filmmaker Alan Seawright is the co-host and co-creator of the video series Cinema Therapy, along with his best friend and former college roommate Jonathan Decker. The series combines Alan’s filmmaking prowess with Jonathan’s expertise as a licensed therapist. Together, they geek out about movies and break down the mental health and relationship dynamics at play.

Cinema Therapy formed out of necessity and opportunity in 2020 after Alan moved his family to Los Angeles — only for the entire film industry to shut down. The collaborators built their audience on YouTube first and added membership on Patreon in September 2022.

In this episode, Alan shares fresh ideas and energy from their launch, as well as their vision for the show’s ongoing growth.

A new suite of Patreon features improve the membership experience and help creators turn casual page visitors into members. These include a way to highlight tiers, as well as improvements to the experience listening to audio and video on Patreon, with a sleep timer, playback speed, and closed captioning. In this episode, Johna Seo and Vivian Chen from Patreon’s Product Marketing team serve as your guides to these new features.

For more details about Patreon Video and how it might be a fit for your creative business, listen to “Goodbye unlisted YouTube links, hello Patreon Video” on Backstage with Patreon.

Hosted by Ryan Jon and Toni Lodge, Toni and Ryan is a hit podcast known for rude jokes, subtle sexual chemistry, and unfiltered commentary and stories. By developing a close relationship with their audience, this Australian duo successfully made the leap from TikTok and Instagram Reels to building a community with thousands of members on Patreon. One thing that helped fans become members? Members get to the chance to interact with the show, “approve” each new episode, and get personalized shout-outs.

In this episode, Ryan details his journey from working in radio to going independent as a podcaster and the lessons he’s learned along the way on making your own chances, using your in-between time to engage with your audience, and just how many chicken nuggets is too many to eat at one time.

Known as the Creator Coach, Josh Zimmerman has spent 14 years guiding television networks, production companies, YouTubers, and other creators on how to grow and succeed. While helping clients navigate the ins and outs of their businesses (like navigating digital rights, production processes, and managing partners), he’s seen over and over again how things like stress, anxiety, and feelings of overwhelm can compound into a paralyzing — and rampant — condition for creators: burnout.

In this episode, Josh digs into circumstances that lead to burnout and how establishing healthy routines, daily action plans, and frameworks for when to say “yes” and “no” can help tame it.

At a recent live session hosted by Pull Up, Patreon’s incubator and community for creators of color, three Black creators — musician KAMAUU, founder of #SmartBrownGirl book club Jouelzy, and culture-maker Jade Fox — shared their insights and experiences with growing their creative businesses.

In this episode, hear five takeaways from the event, on navigating tiers and content, boosting audience engagement, finding your healthy balance, and valuing your work as a creator. To learn more about Pull Up and join the community of creators of color, go to https://pullup.patreon.com/

The Discord integration for Patreon helps creators build online community with secure text chat that works on desktop and mobile devices. With flexible controls for different membership levels, special roles, and access to exclusive chat rooms, it’s one of our most popular integrations. Patreon recently released a major improvement for how we keep active members in sync with Discord role access.

In this episode, Patreon Product Manager Eric Fong sheds light on the creator feedback and planning that went into the recent updates, and steps you can take if you want to start using Discord and Patreon together.

Runner and coach David Roche co-hosts the podcast Some Work, All Play with his wife Megan Roche, MD. Both David and Megan have won running championships and earned the title “U.S. Trail Runner of the Year.” On the show, the couple blends their enthusiasm for running with science, digging deep into subjects like training, races, studies, pop culture, and big life decisions, like whether or not or have kids.

In this episode of David discusses what it’s like to work with his spouse (communication is everything!) and shares encouraging lessons and metaphors from the world of sports that translate to life at large, as well as running a creative business. “Start it,” David says. “You never know what’s going to happen till you start.”

When you’re hanging out online, chances are the website you’re using has a process in place to make sure everyone’s playing by the rules, so problematic materials get removed and the space remains safe. Easy, breezy, right? Not always… When policies are murky and your content is suddenly removed without a clear reason, you might be caught off guard and feel like you’re being punished or that you don’t have agency over your own creative work. But at Patreon, with updated content moderation tools, we take a more transparent, creator-first approach to preserving our community guidelines.

In this episode, Senior Product Manager Chris Price offers a glimpse behind the scenes of how Patreon’s trust and safety tools and content moderation processes work, as well as the philosophies that guide them.

To singer-songwriter Rebecca Loebe, music is magical. With a homebase in Austin, Texas, she’s built a global, grassroots fanbase by touring incessantly across the US, Canada, Europe, and Japan for more than a decade. She made her television debut on the musical competition show “The Voice,” in 2011, and in 2017, she started “Team Loebe,” her membership on Patreon. Her fifth, and most recent, album “Give Up Your Ghosts” blends intimate folk, earworm-y pop, and no-holds-barred Americana.

In this episode of Backstage with Patreon, Rebecca shares her tips for immersing yourself in a community of fellow creators and embracing new tools that can help you grow your creative business.

Patreon’s Senior Partner Manager Tom McNeill works with high-earning Patreon creators to help them grow their membership businesses. Previously, he also specialized in supporting creators at the beginning of their Patreon journey, helping them launch their pages. Drawing on years of experience at Patreon, as well as working for music production and management companies, Tom has deep expertise on effective, data-backed ways that creators can promote their work.

In this episode of the Backstage with Patreon podcast, Tom shares best practices for marketing your membership with teasers and previews — methods he’s helped some of the largest creators on Patreon put into practice, which all creators can adapt as well.

Colin Moriarty founded Last Stand Media, a company that produces a slate of videos and podcasts celebrating the world of video games, from classics to forthcoming releases. Their shows include Defining Duke, a podcast focused on Xbox, and a new series, Constellations, which brings together guests from across the network. Colin co-hosts two podcasts: Sacred Symbols, a show all about PlayStation, and KnockBack, which dives into retro games and media.

On this week's episode of Backstage with Patreon, Colin shares how he has made Patreon the core of his creative business as he’s launched new shows and expanded his team, studio space, and revenue streams.

Mimi Xu is the Product Manager in charge of Patreon Video, the new native video hosting service for creators. Mimi has also launched major changes to the design and navigation of the Patreon website. Previously, she worked at Instabase, Dropbox, and Microsoft.

On this week’s episode of the Backstage with Patreon podcast, Mimi walks us through the backstory of developing Patreon Video, including how creator input shaped this feature and plans for additional video features on Patreon in the future. She also shares tips for how creators can effectively use automated teasers to promote your membership and entice new members to join.

Not only is Chris Wade the longtime producer of the massively popular, radical, left-wing podcast Chapo Trap House, he’s also a whiz behind the mic. He co-hosts the music podcast And Introducing, as well as Hell on Earth, a new history mini-series that launched on Chapo Trap House’s Patreon last month, building off of his earlier show, Hell of Presidents.

On this week’s episode of the Backstage with Patreon podcast, Chris shares his wide-ranging experiences, including what it’s like managing Chapo’s Patreon community, which includes tens of thousands of members who rally around the show’s themes and anti-capitalist roots.

Kenna Nelson leads Patreon’s Product Data Science teams, which build the analytics, reporting, and business intelligence that help shape Patreon's tools and products for creators and patrons. Prior to her current role, Kenna worked in data science at Stitch Fix across retention, growth, fraud, and customer service.

Whether diving into your membership data sounds exciting or scary, this episode of Backstage with Patreon will offer you some new tools to help you manage your creative business.

Luke Stratton, also known as Limithron on Patreon, makes beautiful maps and digital resources for role playing games, with a special expertise in pirate adventures. A lifelong artist, musician, and coder, Luke runs an independent creative business and tours with major musical groups, like the Smashing Pumpkins, serving as lighting director for their arena shows.

Listen in to hear how Luke turned his passion for pirates into a new creative business. He shares his approach to using a newsletter, paid digital sales, and a physical book on Kickstarter as funnels into and extensions out of his membership business. Plus, Luke reveals a set of three lessons creators can learn from pirates.

In the inaugural episode of the Backstage with Patreon podcast, guest Jenn Pugh, Product Manager at Patreon, dives into how billing works on the platform and sheds light on ongoing improvements designed to simplify creators’ workflows.

Backstage with Patreon empowers creative businesses on Patreon, with interviews that provide an inside look at the current and future of the platform, and valuable insights from fellow creators.