Every single detail to me matters. It's about the content. Like, being a creator is about producing quality content. Exceptional quality. I will not give you anything that's not exceptional quality.
Monetize it, build a business around it, be an entrepreneur. This is what I'm really proud about. We just hit two hundred and million dollars made for creator entrepreneurs. That's insane.
Didn't you only hit a hundred million earlier this year? Yeah, like maybe six months ago. That's crazy. You eat shit for so long as an entrepreneur, when it finally starts to work, it's just like, "Holy shit.
Wow, this is like one of the best decisions I could have ever made for my life." I will out-compete and out-execute every single one of you guys. If you beat me at this, then good. I promise you, you won't.
I care so much more deeply about this customer. I believe it. I believe it. If you're worried about giving out your secrets, that means you're not fucking good enough at what you're doing.
Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. [upbeat music] Today, we're speaking with John Hu, who you may know as JHoovie.
Uh, he makes really good content, especially on YouTube these days, about being an entrepreneur, the work that goes into being a creator, and building his company, Stan.
Uh, which Stan is essentially a link in bio tool, but what makes it stand out is that, yeah, you, you know, you put all your links to other socials and podcast appearances and whatever on the page it links to, but that page is also a storefront where people can purchase your digital products directly, and I'm sure there's probably some other things I'm missing, uh, that you'd want to point out, yeah?
Yeah. It's basically your all-in-one monetization tool as a creator or an online entrepreneur, right?
So your courses, your community, your calendar bookings, any sort of digital product you wanna offer, any sort of SKU you wanna sell for your business or service you wanna offer for your business, you host that all within Stan.
So rather than paying for, you know, four hundred dollars for a clunky website, and then a course hosting platform, and then a community membership platform, it's all just within your Stan surface, just twenty-nine dollars a month.
Yeah, a great deal. Um, okay, we'll get more into Stan in a second, but I do wanna talk about your content because this is how I found you probably about three years ago, uh, when I- I-I- I had swore off TikTok.
I knew I would get addicted to it, but I had to do TikTok for, um, the, the last company I worked for, and I found your videos. I was like, "These are really good.
This guy's killing it in this kind of, like, building in public niche." And I think this is when you, like... I don't even know if you had any employees yet. You were just starting to kick off. Yeah.
Um, how much of your early success do you think was due to your, like, personal creator brand and presence? I think the early days of the entirety of my success was due to building an audience online.
Like, how else do you differentiate in an incredibly competitive market?
Like, whoever's listening here, when you think about it, like, the reason why you're listening to this podcast and investing in build- building your own audience is because you need to own your own distri- distribution, and also build your own differentiation, right?
When I started Stan, I, I built it to solve my own needs as a creator because it was so clunky to have a Linktree into, you know, a s- you know, a Calendly and a Kajabi and blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, and it was...
The conversion was really bad, all that kind of stuff. If you're thinking about, like, building the business of Stan, like, there... Uh, you, you know, you mentioned since a link in bio tool.
We don't really see it as that, but- Yeah.
The market s- sees it as a link in bio tool, and there were 15 other Linktree, link in bio tools out there, so why is Stan now so much more successful than all of those other companies that had a decade's worth of first mover advantage?
Mm-hmm. I would argue two reasons. They all... They come from the same root, which is, one, we have differentiated distribution because we understand creators as creators ourselves. Like, right?
We're made for creators, by creators.
But more importantly, if you think about how we've built and who we are as people and human beings, AKA our values, we are the creators, so we're truly the most creator-first company, so we build the best tool for creators.
We speak the best to creators.
And so all of that roots out of the fact that I started as a creator myself, so it's much, much more authentic than just some, like, random tech bro being like, "Oh, I wanna make money in the creator economy," which is what we've seen for so long.
Yeah. Well, so when you started, um, your... I mean, s- still to this day, your production value has always been really good. Your editing has been really good.
I was watching some of your first TikToks where you're like, you know, it's... Y- you, you clearly had this great pre-production mind and, like, post-production ability. Did you- Sure...
do you have any background in that? 'Cause you, you were, like, a finance guy for a little while before, right? Uh, yeah. W- first of all, thank you for the kind compliment. Yeah. [chuckles] Of course.
Um, I think we're all just wired differently in terms of our style of content, and that just so happened to luckily be mine. Mm-hmm.
Um, 'cause actually, before being a creator, I was, as you alluded to, a, a finance hardo. And actually- [chuckles]...
one of the reasons why I loved being a creator, 'cause I just, I just kinda randomly popped into it- Yeah... 'cause I was just doom scrolling on TikTok back in the day during COVID.
I was like, "Oh, I, I kinda wanna try this out." I'm bored. Why don't I do this? Exactly, right? It was just, um, you know... I, I asked myself, "How can I add value to this world?"
And for me, that was through the lens of career coaching, as in how do you, as an un- underrepresented minority, get your first dream job? 'Cause that was just my personal story of breaking into a job- Yeah...
at Goldman Sachs with literally zero connections. And so I just posted about that. And so in that context, I... It was the first time in my life I learned that what being creative meant.
Like, I know that sounds really silly to say that. I was like 25, 26 at the time to, to be that naive. You hadn't, like, taken art classes as a kid or whatever. Exactly, 'cause I, I didn't get to do that as a kid, right?
Mm-hmm. 'Cause of my cultural background- Yeah... and the pressures I had there. And so, um, the...
W- when you see my creativity manifest even in, in my, like, hardo entrepreneurship content, it's through the lens of kind of, like, the editing and the production and, like, the funny jokes we make and stuff like that.
Yeah. Um, I'm curious how you define the term creator. This is something I always ask people- Yeah... and everyone always has a kind of a different answer, and I, I find that really fascinating. I believe we're...
All human beings are creators. Mm-hmm. It is, is, is the broad term I would... Like- Well, no, I would say- Yes... in...
I mean, I, I agree with that, um, but, like, in the, in the internet sense, in the sense that, that- In the internet sense...
we are d- in, you know, Creator Spotlight, in the sense that, like, Stan serves creators, I think, is what I'm- Sure... actually most interested in.
So, so how we specifically define it, who we look to serve very intentionally, are those who look to be entrepreneurs within their- Mm...
creator journey.So those who are putting, staking a flag somewhere on a hill and saying, "This is what I stand for. This is how I serve others." Yeah.
"These are my values, and this is me, despite how terrifying it is to put myself online or to, to really shoot my shot, I'm gonna go out there and build this for myself." So that's how we define creators.
That's who I personally look up to. That's who we love getting to work with and help. So that's how we define it. Yeah. That's really interesting.
Um, I, I like that you used the word entrepreneur right away because e- earlier this week, I did another interview with this guy, Adam Ryan. He runs Workweek. Um, I don't know if you're familiar with it.
It's kind of like a network. There's, you know, another thing where I'm probably butchering the way he would define it, but it's, um, you could think of it as a network of newsletters, B2B business creators- Cool...
newsletters.
And I asked him if he thinks that creators are necessarily entrepreneurs, and he said no, which I, I found int- fascinating because I kind of veer more towards you, where, like, my definition is, like, a creator is somebody who is making content for the internet for an audience beyond people they know in real life, right?
That's the most basic- Sure... version. But then I think more accurately, they're also trying to, like, monetize it, build a business around it, be an entrepreneur.
Um, but his take was like, it's not necessarily an entrepreneur, it's about the content. Like, being a creator is about producing quality content and, like, that's the tip of the spear. That's the point.
Everything else is secondary. But I think your definition also is really arguable. Yeah. How I think about it is it's actually a spectrum. We call it the artist to entrepreneur spectrum. Mm.
And so you have some people, let's say a Van Gogh on one extreme end, who's purely there for the intention of the art- Mm-hmm... uh, to the detriment of his audience, right?
Because he wasn't successful till post- Yeah... postmortem. Famously. And then you have someone who's, like, more middle-of-the-road spectrum, like a Taylor Swift, who's v- very talented in both. She's...
I mean, she's a killer in the best way. Like- Mm-hmm... the way she clearly understands her audience, deeply empathetic, but also just, like, shows up every day for that Eras Tour and just an insane marketer.
Like, she's somewhere, you know, farther along the entrepreneurship spectrum. So it just, it's, it just, it... At the end of the day, it comes down to, like, what are your values and your intentions? Yeah.
No, that makes sense. Um, I wanna go back a little bit to your early days making content again. How much, like, up to now, too, how much time were you spending on content then when, like, the whole- Mm.
I mean, you were building the company as well, right? So that was your, that was part of it.
But, like, it was so important for you to make this content and, like, get the distribution of your ideas out there, whereas now it's still quite important.
I watched, uh, too many of your YouTube videos on 2X speed last night [laughs]. Um, but it's still obviously so important and, like, a big part of what you do. But I imagine you're spending less time now.
So how much time were you actually spending on this content at the beginning, and then how has that shifted to now with your priorities shifting? Yeah. I think,
I think this is the natural progression of a career entrepreneur, um, de- depending on how much you wanna scale your business.
I think I was probably, my mind energy, 60% of it at least was being consumed by content- Mm...
and the obsession you have around content, especially when you're starting early on, of like, every minute detail and how you show up in the world and all that kind of stuff.
Um, and that was probably the case for the first one or two years. Mm-hmm.
Especially because I, I had my main JHoovy account on TikTok, and then the first way we got distribution for Stan was I started an entirely separate account called Coach Hoovie- Mm...
and posted every day on that account for, like, two months and built, like, another following base of 20K there just to drive leads for, for Stan as a business.
I would just coach people on how to monetize, and then folks would follow us and s- and, and sign up for Stan.
Um, and so content initially was, was, um, the most impactful thing that I could personally do for the business. And then Stan's at a scale now, right? We serve... We just hit $200 million made for creator entrepreneurs.
That's insane. Didn't you only hit 100 million earlier this year? Yeah, like, maybe six months ago. That's crazy. Like, we've...
A- and the other cool stat that I saw yesterday that, um, one of our lead creators posted on our social media account, and this'll allude to your answer, too. Yeah. This is what I'm really proud about.
We, we just hit 11,000 people who have made at least $1,000 on Stan. Wow. And this is, like, this is our mission manifesto, empowering anyone to make money for themselves, is just like, holy cra-
Can I swear on this podcast? Yes, of course. Yeah. Holy shit. [laughs] We are going to build the middle class up brick by fucking brick if we have to. Yeah. Like, this is what we're proud of.
But all that to be said, what I alluded to there around kind of, you know, one of our lead creators is, um, if you think about how can I best serve this organization and this mission now, it's like I, I actually see content as my unscalable time.
I actually create content so... Like, I carve out 30% of my time, where- Mm... my co-founder and I used to argue about it all the time. He's like, "You shouldn't be making content anymore.
It's not the most scalable thing." Yeah. I need you here in the weeds with me. Right? Like, 'cause y- you think about how do you have leverage on an organization over time?
It's not by driving customers, it's by hiring awesome people who are better than you to drive- Yeah... more customers.
And, you know, we've, we've now hired a bunch of awesome creators who, who create content on, you know, the organization's behalf who are much better than me at it. Mm-hmm.
Um, but I still do it because, one, I, like, fundamentally enjoy it. It's why I got into the business in the first place, is 'cause I, like, resonate deeply with the journey of being a creator myself.
And then two, it just, like, also connects me back to the customer constantly, 'cause I think one of the struggles that a lot of... You'll see this in a big Fortune 500 corporation like a- Yeah...
Comcast or U- United Airlines. Like, those CEOs are so, not, not, hopefully not intentionally, but those CEOs are so far disconnected from their end goal customer.
That's why there's so much pain in that customer experience, rather than like, for me, the joy of this is, like, getting to be close to the customer and, like, getting to be in the weeds in the journey with, with folks.
So that's why I still create content, but it's, it's gone from, like, 60 to 70% of my obsession to, like, 20...
I wish it was more, but like, y- 'cause I, I wish I could be posting more, but maybe 10 to 20% of my time at most. Yeah. Which is a shame because I, I wish I could be cranking content. Uh, you're really good at it.
Um- Thank you... the, so talking more about the service side of the business, I listened to your podcast appearance with Abigail Pugh, I think, who's kind of a really, a Stan success story, I understand. Yes.
Um, but I think- Her and her brother...
I remember her saying something about, like, when she reached a certain amount of revenue made through Stan or something, you guys, like, flew out and, like, surprised her with cake or something like that.
[laughs] So to me, this is, like, your version... I don't know if you would do this for everybody or, or whatever, so it doesn't really sound scalable.
But I'm curious about your version of this kind of like YouTube's gold and silver plaques, like how you are engaging with and, like, celebrating your creators- Yeah...
in that way, which is really smart.It all roots from a fundamental value of ours, which is spark joy. Mm-hmm. Which is like I don't... At this point in time, like I'm not really doing this for, for the money, right?
Like I- Well, you're profitable also, right? By the way, just as an aside. Yeah.
Yeah, because like what, what you, you, you eat shit for so long as an entrepreneur, when it finally starts to work, you build this self-agency and belief of like, "Oh, like if this doesn't work out tomorrow, like I'm gonna be fine."
Yeah. Like personally for me, that means like I can go make a small amount of money and live in Bali and surf the rest of my life and be totally happy. [laughs] Yeah.
But specifically in this context then it's like, "Okay, so why, why am I still doing Stan? Like what matters to me?"
And for me and a lot of the team, Stan is obviously a vehicle for us to get to financial independence with the rest of our customers, but it's also just a vehicle for human connection.
And s- and so to spark joy for us is really important as a core value because everyone on the team is a fucking killer in the best way.
Like we're here to make sure we hit this mission, help as many people as possible reach the goals that we've reached ourselves. It's... 'Cause it's such an incredible feeling.
But on top of it, it's like are we just gonna stress the whole way through or are we gonna have a good time and build meaningful relationships?
Because my hope for the team and all of our customers is like we get to look back in the golden years and be like, "Wow, this is like one of the best decisions I could have ever made for my life." Like- Mm-hmm...
you know, reach financial independence, um, met some incredible people along the way, grew immensely as a human being. And so then I give all that to context to then cascade down to the example you gave for Abigail Pugh.
So for those of you who don't know her, Abigail Pugh is an amazing success story. Um, four, three, three and a half to four years ago, her husband had a stroke, and this is like peak TikTok days, and lost his job.
And she was at home with her one-year-old, and she did what any mom would do. Sh- she was supermom, and she said- Yeah... "Fuck it. I gotta take care of my family." She started posting and ripping content on TikTok.
Obviously, first few videos didn't do that well, but over time- Yeah... started posting about... She had been doing UGC as a side gig.
And sh- basically, essentially, over the course of six months, she built this audience and started to monetize, where she was actually the first creator on Stan, 'cause we were very new at the time too- Mm...
to reach a million dollars made on Stan. Wow. Has been... And she retired her husband, who like now gets to be at home and a present dad.
And she herself, I was-- I sent her an audio message yester- uh, two days ago, actually. Um, she posted a video and she was like, "Real success is getting to be present with your family on a Monday at ten AM." Yeah.
And it was like a, you know, a, a video of her and her family like on a walk.
And the way that she's teaching not only how do you serve your community, how do you serve others, and also serve yourself and, and prioritize the right values in life, like she is to us what a Stan entrepreneur means.
Like she- Mm... is what we stand for. So flying out there to surprise her was a literal no-brainer.
And now at scale, of course, we're actually launching next month, like our version of like the 100K to 1 million class as well. Yeah. Um, but, but we do lot m- a lot more fun stuff than that. Yeah. Yeah. No, I imagine.
Um, okay, I think you talked about, talked a bit about this on that podcast too, where like, and I agree with this, where like being a creator, succeeding, succeeding as a creator just comes down to like consistency, right?
It's, I mean- Yeah... I think it's like you post, analyze, learn, tweak, repeat, and that's it. The... There's no really other advice than that.
Um, but I am curious, uh, whe-whether it's like, not necessarily just production, but like how they're building the business, et cetera, other commonalities you've seen between really successful creators through Stan.
Well, you know what I've realized when I work with a lot of new creators and entrepreneurs is they're, they're looking for like a playbook that never ends.
They're like, "Oh my god, give me-" [laughs] They want the quantity. They want like seven different things that they need to go do. Yeah.
And I've realized that success is a, at the highest levels, is a function of saying no and focusing. Yes. And the answer is exactly what you just said.
It's th- there's only one thing that matters at the end of the day, which is every day you show up and you post, and you push yourself to post, and then you go back and you observe.
The next week you say, "Which of my seven posts yesterday or whatever it was yesterday performed? Why? How do I double down and iterate on that pattern?" Mm-hmm. That's literally it. That is... That...
If everyone, if anyone here is looking for the success formula, I will personally bet you $100. Like DM me. I... Like maybe even $10,000 because I'm so like strong and convicted on this bet.
If you commit to posting for the next year and a half and doing this, you won't be able to take the bet on $10,000 from me because you will have accrued so much more value than that. Yeah. Yeah.
If you truly do this every single day for the next year and a half. That's like promise to you if you bet on yourself. Yeah. Well, it's the same, you know, it's, it's the same as like running every day. It's you can...
Obviously you'll be really in really good shape if you run every day for a year and a half, but- Yeah... it's [chuckles] really hard to, to show up every day. Um, I wanna hear about your own Stan store.
So I went to your Stan store. [laughs] And there, there is a, uh, a free content calendar you can download. I downloaded that just to give it a try.
There's also a $999 one-on-one coaching session that you're not currently offering and a $199 ask me anything where somebody can send in a question. Sure. You'll record like a video answer.
Um, yeah, tell me, tell me about your Stan store, your own Stan usage experience. [laughs] So I actually...
Anytime anyone actually orders something from me, I have to refund them, and I'm just like, "Sorry, I actually don't want to take your money."
[laughs] "This is like just a demo so people can see what you can do with Stan." Yeah. I was wondering. Um, yeah, I, I, I had to... I kept jacking up the price of the coaching call so no one would book me.
People kept booking me. I'd be like, "Please stop." [laughs] So I, I made it like zero so you can... And again, it sounds like- Yeah...
I gotta make the other one zero too, so no one else can book me even for an ask me anything. Um, because essentially in that, when people go to my account, I just want them to see what you can do with a Stan store.
Exactly, which is why I, why I went to it, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
So, so, so that's just what it is, which is like whether you guys wanna give out a freebie, including building out your Beehiiv, like the way that Stan and Beehiiv work really well together is- Mm-hmm... Stan's the...
Stan, we've tested it thoroughly. Stan- Yeah... there's no better converting, uh, kind of link in bio storefront than Stan.
And so if you use a freebie on, if you give out a freebie on Stan, you can connect it to your Beehiiv. Mm. Um, that's gonna be some way you use it.
If you wanna do one-on-one s- like any sort of client service bookings, if you wanna sell a course and then a community, like it's all gonna be there on your Stan store, and that's, that's what we wanna show people.
Yeah. Nice. Um, okay. What is your vision of the creator economy?
Getting back into kind of this like what is a creator thing, I'm really curious about like how you conceptualize this thing that is the creator economy.I live by this quote that Naval said a long time ago on a tweet, which is, "Eventually everyone will be in the creator economy."
Mm-hmm. It goes back to like, I believe all humans have creative potential and are creators if they'd like to be. Um,
where we think about the creator economy and how we can serve the most and what we're most excited about in like, let's say, the next five to 10-year horizon, is the creator economy is just...
Creators are just the first kinds of entrepreneurs who are realizing that the internet is the new distribution channel. Yeah. Right?
So what we are here to serve, and what we will do better than anyone else, is serve entrepreneurs who are looking to build their own business online.
There is no one who understands funnels and optimizations and conversions and which product and SKU you should sell. No one has more data than us. That's what we would do exceptionally, exceptionally well. Mm-hmm.
So if you're a small business owner, you're, you know, a service provider, an online business builder, whatever you're trying to do, whatever empire you're trying to build based off of your own media distribution, like we are super excited about the entrepreneur's economy within that.
Yeah. Um, 'cause there will be artists who make cool videos and have no intention of monetizing, what have you. Like, we're squarely focused on how, um, the internet media ecosystem is gonna eat the rest of the world.
Like, that's where all of our attention is. Yeah. So are you familiar with like, uh, Richard Scarry? He's this like children's book author. His Busytown. You've probably seen like an image- No... of this or whatever.
So it's like, it's like a classic children's book, but he... There's these illustrated things and it's like a little story about it.
But think of like a town square with all these illustrations of like, um, you know, like th- there's the, the shopkeeper labeled, there's the blacksmith, there's the, the baker, whatever.
All these very classic jobs, right? And I've seen, uh, people joking on Twitter like, "If your job isn't listed in Busytown-" [laughs] "... it's not a real job."
And then I've seen this specifically too about like creators. Like, you know, there, there's no creator listed on there. But I've been thinking about this.
It's something I've been like s- kind of stewing an essay idea on where like, okay, well, the creator actually is in there maybe, but as like, you know, teacher or as like- Mm... baker, but like baker teacher.
I don't know. So I'm interested, kind of what you were just saying about like, you know, uh, the creator economy is, in your vision, is just people building businesses online. Like, what are the translations?
Like, what are the translations to like actually the real, very simple, classic- Yeah... job that is there on the Busytown map? So I have two answers for you that can help you rationalize this.
One is every restaurateur, blacksmith, nail salon owner, whatever it is on that Busytown, they're all now using social to drive leads for their business. Mm. And so Stan is the best point of sale for all of those people.
So like, it's, it's just like we're reframing what a creator is and no, it's just a marketing dis- social media's just a marketing distribution- Yeah... channel.
Same way like before they would use newspaper, organic word of mouth, now you're using social media. So like that's how I would reframe just in general.
Like, everyone in Busytown, their new marketing medium is just social rather than like going out and yelling in the town square. The second piece of that is I think the nature of work is changing, right? Mm-hmm.
Like, this AI stuff terrifies me existentially, but like, and part of that is like gonna be robots who are just gonna do the manual labor that like we as humans are fundamentally too lazy to do.
[laughs] Like, those are really fucking hard jobs. And so the nat- You ask yourself then like what will be valued, what, what will not be commoditized, right? Yeah.
Like, we will commoditize the hard manual labor because obviously no one wants to do that, and that's where like, you know, tech will take us.
And so what will be the new things to be valued in Busytown square from human beings? Like, what are we disproportionately good at? Still for now it's creativity and human connection, all that kind of stuff. Yeah.
Good answer. So when you...
The one of the last annual ARR, annual recurring revenue numbers you shared was 30 million, and I went back through like the videos and the articles where you talked about this growth, 'cause it's this amazing growth, right?
You started 2023 at 1.7 million. You ended it at 14.7. Um, you've more than doubled it this year in 2024. But I wanna go back to kind of when you go...
That year of going from 1.7 to 14.7, you said in one of your videos that it was a, about a shift to systems thinking and kind of learning to scale thing, scale things. I'm not necessarily...
I don't need you to like rehash what you said in that video, but I'm interested in if you've applied that kind of systems thinking to your work as a creator, or if you think- Mm...
there are productive ways that creators can kind of shift into a systems thinking mindset. So the first thing to define is what does systems thinking mean? Yeah. Which I still don't really know. Yeah.
It's just some big buzz- business buzzword consultants- Yeah... will pay you a lot of... will ask you to pay a lot of money for them to just tell you abstract concepts.
The way that I currently define systems thinking, the best mental metaphor I have for you is something does a mis- something does something for you in your sleep. Mm-hmm. So like even if you were to take...
For the creators out there right now thinking about their businesses, um, i- if you were to take three or, to six months off your business right now, would it collapse entirely? Mm. And if it would,
you don't have a full system pro... And, and to be clear, I don't think in many ways any creator business you can take off that much time. No, when it's led by- It-... a person. No.
But, but the mental model is really, really helpful around like, okay, what are things that I can have do stuff for me while... so that I can go do net new things?
So I'll give Stan as an example of this, and then hopefully you guys can extract like metaphors for your own businesses. So like when I first started, I was the one driving sales, right? There was no one else.
[laughs] It was just me begging people to use Stan. Um, lots of cold DMs.
And now we have a system of incredible creators and sellers and salespeople who we have, um, a weekly process of, uh, like, you know, weekly mor- morning meetings to like talk about pipeline, and then we have managers who like...
Basically, it's a system of awesome people- Mm-hmm... who day and night are compensated and incentivized to go perform this task.
And if we're hiring well, then we're hiring people that are even better at, I mean, doing this. So the system is not only, um, working at a lo- 10X scale to me.
Like, even if I was an amazing seller, if you hire 10 decent people, they're gonna outsell you by volume. So it's not only are they creating more volume for you, but they're also ideally better than you. Mm-hmm.
Um, and so then that allows and frees me up to then be like, "Okay, what can I do with my time now, now that I'm not, you know, doing one-on-one sales calls all the time?" 'Cause time is the zero-sum game we're playing.
"Oh, that means I can be more creative and focus more on the content or the..." In, in this case, for Stan, it's the brand.Um, right, how can I really build a brand that we're all really proud of?
And that's a creative exercise. And so that... If you think about, like, the comp to a c- a creator themselves is like, "Oh, like, what am I spending a disproportionate amount of time that takes energy from me?"
So a lot of people will be like, "Brand negotiations," or like, "Checking my email every day," or like, "Responding to DMs." And then you're like, "Okay, how can I automate this?"
Or, "How can I build a system around it?" So it's either like, "I could hire an EA." There's all these... Or, "I can figure out an AI solution that does something for me."
And so it's all about figuring out, okay, what are the things that I don't like doing or that would... What are things that I could better...
Or what I, what are things that I could be doing that could better serve my time? Mm-hmm. Okay, so what do I...
How can I remove things off of my plate, either by hiring someone or building some sort of software solution or automated solution, having an AI agent, like, whatever that is.
That's kinda the mental model I would give for systems thinking. It's just like- Yeah... how do you replace yourself with something that's reliable? That's useful. How big is the team right now?
Um, we're, like, 45 soon, but we're gonna grow to... Our plan is to try to go to 100 next year, so we're really gonna go growth on.
'Cause we just have a lot of conviction that, like, we have the best product out there that could help a ton more people if they knew about us. Mm-hmm.
'Cause actually, very few people know about what Stand is and how, just how helpful it can be and how helpful we can be. So that's what we're looking to do next year. Yeah.
So I did watch your video, "My Startup Is Flatlining: Here's My Plan to Fix It." And you were talking about, about this a little bit, how you're really trying to scale your marketing function.
I looked at your Notion job board. I think there's 16 roles on there right now.
There's like, uh, some of the highlights to me were, you know, Stand Creator Search, head of creator marketing, head of growth marketing, and, you know, uh, the kind of the headline one, professional memer.
[laughs] Um, and in this video, too, you're talking about how, like, you've had this very organic growth function so far. You haven't really been spending on paid advertising, I think not at all, et cetera.
Um, tell me about these bets you're taking and, like, the teams you're building. Like, what these, you know, 55 more people you're gonna hire within the n- within the next year are.
Like, what these teams are and what you want them to accomplish. Yeah. So the central premise is that 90% of the market who could benefit from us and save more money, way...
ma-make way more money using a way simpler tool, don't know that we exist. And so the question is, how do you... It's just, what I've realized marketing is just, like, telling people that you exist.
[laughs] Um, I know that sounds really dumb, but that's... I was like, "Oh, wow." [laughs] Yeah. "We need to do that."
Um, and so the bets in terms of, like, let's say doubling the size, about half of those people are on the go-to-market function. Mm-hmm. Which means, like, how are we getting the word out more about Stand?
So that's like, uh, you mentioned head of creator marketing.
That person is specifically gonna own how many impressions and views we're getting through the lens of the creators that we work with on a third-party partner basis.
Or like, the professional memer, which by the way, if anyone loves making memes and wants to make them about entrepreneurs and helping entrepreneurs feel seen, and also, like, laugh about the struggles that is this job, um, please apply.
That's, like, in our own internal content arm. So it's like, their job is to, like, grow the brand of Stand through the lens of the content we make and, like, own having a meme account for Stand. Um,
so all of those hires are about, like, getting the word out about Stand. The other half of the hires are about fulfilling the promise of Stand. Mm-hmm.
So what we mean by that is, like, if you're marketing something, you ha- ideally, you would have a product and an, a, a, a customer experience that matches, um, what you want to provide the world and you're saying you provide.
Mm-hmm. And so for us, if we're gonna scale marketing, that means we're gonna scale our customer base.
So the other half of this is, like, we wanna make sure that we have full coverage on taking really great care of our customers. So that means a lot of those hires are gonna be, like, servi- support-based people.
So like- Yeah. Yeah... when you join Stand... By the way, check our Trustpilot rating versus anyone else in the, in, in the industry. Incredibly proud of it, right?
So, like, all the five-star ratings we have, and they all say two things. One, "Stand is the simplest, easiest way to start an online business. I wish I had switched to it sooner."
But two, "What makes Stand special is how incredible the service and support is. They're always there for me." And so we will make sure that we have people here to take care of you guys as you sign up. So it...
That's, that's really what it's focused on, and then there's, you know, a couple more engineers to just continue building out a great product for, for everyone. So yeah. Yeah.
So something interesting in there you said was that it's about, you know, getting the word out and telling people that they can save money, which I think goes...
B-but the other problem, which goes back to what we were talking about earlier, is like, not just that, but, like, the people who, you know, you have to educate them on how they can make money.
And so I wanna talk about digital products as well, which, like, I personally don't really buy many digital products. I have a lot of, like, subscriptions, you know, newsletters, podcasts, whatever. Yep.
I've bought one-off digital product, product, projects once or... products once or twice. I think the last one I bought was when I was trying to get this gig doing Creator Spotlight.
[laughs] And I bought a list of Beehiiv newsletters for, like, $8 [laughs] that I found on, on Reddit.
But I guess what I'm asking is for you to kind of, like, explain the digital product market to me and, like, where the biggest opportunities for growth are. 'Cause it's just not something I think about so much every day.
I'm more in, like, the business of thinking about subscription businesses. Sure. And I would ar-argue, I would categorize your podcast subscription, newsletter subscriptions as digital products. Okay, yeah.
The product is just the weekly newsletter content that they're serving you. Um, but I think you're talking about more so kind of like consumable digital products people want.
Yeah, which is the stuff that, it, and from my impression, is, like, a big bulk of what Stand, what sells for Stand.
It's about 65, 70% is, like, one-off course purchases, and then the rest are these subscription-specific community, um, and, and, and- Mm...
kind of newsletter subscriptions is, is what a lot of people make recurring revenue off of. Um, the opportunity now that we're seeing a lot of people shift into that I highly recommend is lower-ticket mini courses. Mm.
So I think there will always be space for, like, you know, high-ticket, thousand-dollar, like, really involved courses that have, like, maybe coaching paired with them, what have you.
What we're seeing a lot of the market shift to, um, and a lot of really cool products coming out of it, is, like, we're talking nine to $47, like, m- hour-long mini courses, 30-minute little packages.
And I'll give two, um, hilarious examples that, that are so cool, um, that happened just this week.
So one of my favorite pastimes at Stand is every day we have a, a Standaly- we call it Standalytics, we have a chart that comes out. Mm-hmm. And part of that chart is the top 20, uh, GMV... people who made money today.
And I love going into that personally and just seeing who that is, 'cause there's always new creators. That's awesome.
There's two creators who-who'veWho are on the list that we, we've never spoken to, um, you know, didn't even help ramp up. They built their own standsters and all that kind of stuff.
Um, one of them specifically has been crushing it, like five figures plus in like two weeks, um, selling a like $7 makeup guide. Mm-hmm.
And there's a ton of lifestyle creators basically like they're just realizing, "Oh, these routines I'm doing in my videos, I can actually just repackage as like a $7 little like 10-minute video course and sell that."
Mm-hmm. And so they've been doing so well, and it's so cool to see. And so it's like hair, lifestyle, makeup, anything around beauty especially is doing really, really well in these mini course packages.
Um, and then the other thing, um, that we saw this week that was so cool was there's specifically someone who does strip pole dance fitness. Yeah. Yeah. And she has four different packages.
They're all like in the $20 to $40 range. She, once again, crushed it, five-figure week as well.
The last week just joined too, and it's just like her different kinds of exercises around like strip pole, like exercise, which seems insanely hard. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
So point being is when you guys think about like how do you package a digital product, it is just like whatever is your consumable thing that you can teach, even if it's already a video you've technically made, how do you just turn that into a little consumable product that someone can buy off the shelf?
Mm-hmm. That makes sense. It's almost like, uh, when I think of, you know, being a kid in the early 2000s and like we were buying, you know, boxed software. It's like a reversal- Yes... of like subscription businesses.
Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Like you would go and buy like Rosetta Stone or whatever other thing- Yes... you know? Um- That's exactly the way to think about it. Yeah.
Something I think about a lot is that attention is a limited resource, and the creator economy, right, is not fully but like in large part kind of two overlapping things, the attention economy, right? Um,
does that worry you, this idea that attention is a lim- is a limited resource that like only, you know, there's only so many people spending so many hours looking at their phone or whatever each day.
Like, to me, that seems... that's like a limit on the reach of the creator economy, which I think about as somebody who, you know, has a stake in a company that works in the creator economy.
It's, it's something that I often think about and don't have an answer to. Um, so not really a specific answer, but I'm curious your thoughts on attention as a limited resource.
Uh, I think about the zero-sum game of attention all the time as well, but I don't worry about it in the short term for any of us because we're still in such early days- Yeah...
both in terms of business scale, but also in terms of market adoption. Like, it's not going away anytime soon. It's just increasing, right? 'Cause the content on, um... a-and I'll give you a flip side example of, of why.
Um, the content on, 'cause c-content on social and it's just getting better, like, 'cause it's just the mass market innovating and, and TikTok versus Quibi is a great example of that back in the day.
Um, the better way to flip side it, talk about it is, you know, who should worry about this ton and who does is the CEO of Netflix. He's talked about it for like years now.
Ne- he's always said Ne- he's like, "Netflix's greatest competitor is not Hulu, what have you." [chuckles] We actually spend, don't spend that much time thinking about it. We...
all of our time is like we're competing with YouTube and TikTok, and so a-a-and we've seen how, how hard that battle is to win versus, you know, 10 million incentivized creators versus like, you know, just a centralized studio.
Um, point being to all of that is we're still such in the early days of this that I'm personally not worried about that, but talk to me in, you know, four or five years, I'm sure, you know, the macro trends might shift or what have you.
So... That makes sense. So I first knew of you as a TikTok creator, and you still kinda do both TikTok and YouTube, but it's mostly YouTube. You don't do as much TikTok anymore.
I'm curious how you feel about platforms, not just TikTok and YouTube, but I know you've, you know, you had a newsletter. I don't think you've written for it for a little while now. How do you...
how are you personally looking at platforms right now, and what are kind of the leaders and the laggards for you? Yeah. I, I actually haven't made a TikTok in over two years now, which is crazy. Wow. Um,
this is how I think about the different platforms. Um, every platform has trade-offs. Mm-hmm.
I will tell you a couple different stats that should help people think about, and then it'll fit with how they want to create in this world. Um, we've s- we see all the data on conversion.
The top platforms by conversion, if I were to rank them, YouTube by a mile, then LinkedIn. Tons of alpha on LinkedIn, guys.
If you're not creating there and using a standster to convert, like you're missing out on so much easier revenue if you're kind of in the services knowledge economy. And then from there, it's Instagram and then, um, I...
like Twitter's pretty crappy. Yeah. A-and then TikTok is kinda like around that place too. But the flip side of this, TikTok's incredible for top of br- for top of funnel brand awareness.
And so there, there are flip sides to that, and different platforms are, are, are strong at, at different things.
Instagram's really solid kind of as a catch-all, and then if you're writing, it's, you know, LinkedIn and what have you, and, and I, I imagine Twitter kind of converts at least well for newsletters to sign up, not so much for paid conversion.
Mm-hmm. Um, in that, personally for me, um, it's just aligning like what kind of content do you wanna create.
So I, I personally love making video content, and I, I wish I had more time to do written content 'cause I would, would do the newsletter more often. Yeah. Um,
but for me, like YouTube, the trade-off in YouTube having such high conversion is that it's a grind to succeed.
Someone once told me like, "Treat YouTube as a labor of love," especially if you've been like tricked by TikTok to think it's super easy to build a following base 'cause you can grow overnight. Like YouTube is not that.
It's a grind. It's a commitment for like two plus years of like nothing. Um, so if you think about the opportunity today, I'd say where the alpha is the most is LinkedIn. Um, we have tons of creators.
So, uh, both Justin Welsh and Dan Koe and Mac Greer, like all the big names are, are using Standster now on LinkedIn to convert, and they're converting way better than their old legacy platforms.
Um, but they're see- we're seeing through them their own success, but also their clients' success.
Like LinkedIn is the place to be if you're writing written content, um, which I imagine most of the folks listening to this are, are doing. So... Yeah.
Um, just yesterday, I wasn't necessarily gonna ask this, but I saw some people tweeting about this yesterday, that building in public was a psyop and that like it was just a way to get people to, to give up their, their alpha or whatever, you know.
I think that you would strongly disagree with, with, with that. Um-Argue against building in public is a psyop. What is, what, what do you mean by psyop?
I think, I think by psyop, I think the, the, the tweeter, 'cause I specifically I'm quoting the t- a tweet. I think they meant that like, well, I mean, psyop always kind of is a vague thing, that there's no they, right?
But I think they mean that like, it's a way to get somebody to give up their secrets and like to show like- Oh...
here's the thing that we're doing, and then it's easy to copy for people who like can just move quick and copy a thing. Yeah. I'm sure it depends on the person, the industry, and niche.
Like, if you're building some sort of defense tech thing, then probably don't build in public. [laughs] Yeah. Or like some AI's like IP-driven business.
Um, at the end of the day, why I've never worried about building in public... And by the way, one of my favorite stats, I'll, I, I've never shared this pub-publicly before. One of my favorite stats is, um,
the reason why I never worry about any of our competitors is 'cause you can see which readers open your newsletter the most, and I post publicly my shareholder letters and everything. Yeah.
And every, like, I've got so many great readers who like read it like, you know, one, two, three, four times, and then you'll see like, @domain name, competitor's been really shady to us and shamelessly copies us, @competitor name.
Ac- And it's like thirty-five, forty-five reads, like sixty-five opens. Point being is, I don't ever... I hope to be a case study for everyone around building in public. Yeah. Yeah.
Yes, you should totally be mindful of what you're sharing and all that kind of stuff, but if you're thoughtful about it... Like, I've never worried about sharing all of our... I'm so- For you it's kind of a moat, right?
Yeah, to some degree. But, uh, the reason why I don't care about any of it, and I share all of our vulnerabilities too all the time, is 'cause I will out-compete and out-execute every single one of you guys.
Like I, I don't... If you, if you beat me at this, then good. That's a good thing for the creator economy mission. I promise you, you won't. I, I care so much more deeply about this customer.
It is me, it is my friends, it's the people that we serve. But like, I will... If, if you're worried about giving out your secrets, that means you're not fucking good enough at what you're doing.
Like, I will give them out to the day that I die 'cause I don't care, 'cause it helps build up the entire economy, and I will out-compete the shit out of anyone who, who tries to copy us. Like, and we, and we will.
We have. Yeah. We will continue to do so. Banger. So that-that's personally how I feel. No, [laughs] I believe it. I believe it.
No, I mean, it's, it's funny listening to you here in a, in a live setting after I literally probably watched like three hours of your content yesterday, but like on 2X speed. It... I, I felt insane afterwards.
I was like, "That was too much knowledge." [laughs] Um, but it's funny talking to you now because like on these videos you're very like telegenic. You've got this like way of talking down.
You've got like the, the hand motions, et cetera. Not to mention o-obviously the post-production, the graphics and stuff.
But it's funny because you just are that guy, like talking to you [both laughing] now specifically that answer. Um, yeah. Okay. I think, I think we'll end it there.
Is there anything you would want to leave our audience with? There will be many times where you will question yourself. You will feel so stressed, s-
maybe on the verge of insanity, maybe on the verge, like verge of quitting, questioning yourself in all these ways. Um,
I think about this chart all the time, and it just says, "This is pointless," and it's like right before you end up being successful. And I just want you guys to remember that.
Like bet on yourself, continue, persist, never give up. Never ever, ever, ever, ever give up, and I promise you, you will find success on the other end.
'Cause there are so many times in my journey where I've questioned so much. I've wanted to quit. I've had to go on sabbatical or whatever it is 'cause I was so burnt out. Please don't be like that.
Please find a healthier relationship with work than me. Um, just don't ever quit, and I'm so excited to see whatever success you guys bring into this world. Perfect. Well, thank you for coming on. Cool. Awesome.
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