Should you try this hidden revenue stream?

I’ve never covered this revenue stream before.

It’s rare that media publishers use it, but Ernie Smith from Tedium has been running a cool experiment that brought it back into focus for me.

Commissions.

Ernie started offering a 15 minute search service to his readers. The idea is that readers can commission a search about any topic. He will research it for 15 minutes and post a thread on what he found (or for $2 more, send it to them privately).

I saw some of Ernie’s threads for his commissions on Bluesky and I wanted to know how this project was working out for him. Was it worthwhile? Where there a benefit beyond revenue? Was he going to keep doing it?

If you’ve been thinking about revenue beyond subscriptions and sponsorships, you’re going to love Ernie’s sound approach to this revenue experiment. Read on!

—Lex

Why Ernie started offering commissions

This wasn’t just a revenue play. Ernie’s bet was that these search commissions could benefit him on multiple levels. 

Get a commission → Run the search → Post the thread → Build a relationship with that reader → Introduce Tedium to new readers

Ernie’s audience has been with him a long time, up to 10 years—Tedium launched in 2015. He thought some of his readers might want to leverage his expertise in a personalized way. Ernie isn’t your average Google user. He’s honed his research skills digging through the underbelly of the internet for more than a decade.

Sharing the thread publicly gave him content that could potentially go wide and attract new audience members. More importantly, the commissions were a way to engage longtime readers with something meatier than a reply or a share.

Of course, these commissions also had potential to earn Tedium some extra cash. The publication has historically made money through advertising, syndication, and tips (plus Ernie gets freelance commissions from his Tedium work). He wanted to explore a new revenue path, using what he’s already built.  

So many publishers focus only on audience growth, chasing more readers or more followers. Ernie’s mindset shift here is smart: find the people already in your base who want to engage more and pay more.

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How Ernie ran this experiment

The price point of $15 may seem low for a service, even a productized one, and it’s unlikely that Ernie will keep it there if he continues offering these. He started at that price in order to attract more readers to take him up on it. So far, he’s had 17 commissions in the last few months.

He used tip jar service Ko-fi as the sales page for his offer. Ko-fi is also where he hosts his tip jar. They have a “bookings” feature that’s designed for this kind of service. Commissioners share their topic or question when they book.

Ernie chose the 15 minute limit to make these asks “well structured” instead of “big and unfocused,” which he said works better for how his brain operates. The original plan was to timebox 15 minutes for the search and then post the thread, which sounded doable and quick. In reality, Ernie says he ended up spending more time on both the research and the thread on a few occasions, especially if the question was already well answered online.

A good thing to learn in validation mode and something Ernie plans to take into account when pricing his next iteration of these.

What Ernie learned from his tests

After 17 commissions, Ernie’s learned that he likes doing these personalized searches and that his readers like them too. He’s also identified a few things he wants to improve if he keeps offering these.

Building the public threads was additional labor
This experiment was predicated on the search being the bulk of the work and the social media thread taking minimal time, but Ernie’s found he needs a bit more time to do it justice. He’s built himself some tooling with Obsidian (his writing app) to make them easier but he’s also thinking about hosting these results on his own site where he can control more about their discoverability and give them a longer lifespan.

Some commissions get bigger than their timebox
He mentioned one case where someone wanted him to dig into Claude Shannon and Marvin Minsky’s Useless Machine. This topic may not seem immediately relevant or difficult but Ernie points out in the thread that Anthropic named their AI assistant after Shannon, so the machine and its inventors have been covered quite a bit recently. Ernie got stuck on this commission with a bout of “writer’s block” because he wasn’t sure what he could say that would be new information for his commissioner.

He worked through it and ended up with a robust thread that will make you want to get in on the $15 price point before Ernie raises it.

Balancing commissions with freelance work can be tough
Ernie takes freelance assignments and said that the timing of some commissions may not be that ideal when he’s on deadlines, especially if he gets more than one at once. He’s now thinking about how to better spread these out or set expectations about timeline with his commissioners.

Now that he’s run a few of these research commissions, Ernie’s looking at how to professionalize and productize this service further. He’s also thinking about adding different tiers that account for how deep a search mission can go or how polished the final results can be presented.

Should you try a commissioned service?

For those who want to try something similar, Ernie recommended looking for quick service opportunities, based on your skillset, that result in something useful or fun for your reader.

Even better if others can benefit from it (like Ernie’s public threads). He likened these commissions to the digital equivalent of selling a t-shirt. It’s repeatable to produce. It makes readers feel a connection to your work. And it’s a one time purchase they can keep for however long they want.

Whether or not the idea of a commission is calling to you, it’s worth tapping into Ernie’s expansion mindset. Finding ways to go deeper with your existing audience will benefit you more than chasing new people all the time. There’s plenty of money to be made there. There’s also tons of value that stronger reader relationships can yield, both in tangible ways like potential sponsor intros and in intangible ways like better word of mouth.

Building for your current fans is often more rewarding than building for strangers.

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