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I've been remote before remote was a thing. I've been creating before there was a term creator, and it helped me build million-dollar businesses. And what I saw over time, people are tired of information.

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They need activation. They need implementation. Just having the ability to take something that works well and get repeatable results, that's the definition of a system, period. I think efficiency is a poor goal, right?

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It's more about like, well what's the idea? Who is the audience? And what is the shortest distance between those two points? The more you have systems, the more creative you can be. The most important thing is-

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Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. My name is Francis Zier, and today we're speaking with Ken Yarmosh. Ken brands himself as the remote solopreneur, who's been working this way for about two decades.

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Uh, his trade broadly is in consulting other entrepreneurs in building their audience and monetizing the accompanying attention.

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I often frame creators as existing on a spectrum from pure artist to pure business person, and Ken being a game conversation partner, I took this as an opportunity to test his more business-driven perspective against my more artist-driven perspective.

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We had fun. In my preparation for this, you... I found that you brand yourself as the remote solopreneur, and this is a term you claim to have maybe invented even. Is this correct?

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Uh, positioning and languaging right out the gate for the win, man. Uh, I definitely own that term. I have the domain, I've got the T-shirt, and, uh, it was sort of combining two concepts, right- Yeah...

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that like intersected in my world in this new business. I'm sure we'll go through that a little bit more. Yeah. So this is something you've been doing for, for l- longer, longer than I've been working.

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For like two decades you've been this remote solopreneur. [laughs] Thanks for outing me right away. I do affiliate for people You look great. Look, you look great. Yeah. Uh, this is not a dig.

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Keep it, keep it, keep it coming. Keep it coming. [laughs] But, but right. This is, this is... I mean, this is something that you've been like claiming and doing and practicing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, um, so I- it was.

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Let me just, without going into like when I was seven years old, uh, I've been remote before remote was a thing. Mm-hmm. And I'd been creating before there was a term creator.

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I feel like solopreneurship kinda got a rise, and I didn't like the way the term was being used, which is probably a whole nother topic for maybe not this show. Mm-hmm.

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Um, but I also had been remote, like I guess, like well before 2020, and I felt like, you know what?

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I think there's a different way to build businesses in the future, and I think kind of creating an identity is really powerful, and so I created this thing called the remote solopreneur.

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Now people literally started calling themselves remote solopreneur, which when you kinda move from like, "Okay, I'm a consultant," or, "I'm a creator," to, "I'm a remote solopreneur," you kinda know that you got something that's interesting.

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Yeah. Um, okay.

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Y- you said something there that you also said when we first chatted, which is that you were a creator before creator was a word, and in the way that, you know, you're talking about kind of abuse of the term, uh- Yeah, yes...

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remote solopreneur. I'm really interested and pedantic about the word creator, and I like finding new definitions and stretching it. Yeah. So what do you mean when you say you were a creator before that was a thing?

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I have been on the internet when no one was on the internet, and going back, and I think actually, you know, at the time of this recording, uh, AOL finally, like the dial-up internet version- Mm...

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just finally went offline, which no one knew. Oh, yeah, I know that. Yeah. Yeah, it's cr- it's crazy. It was, it was actually yesterday. And having been early on in technology always being a big part of who I am,

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I created the first websites when you had to hand code them- Mm-hmm... and FTP them onto a server. Right? I won't go through that whole- I don't know what, I don't know what FTP means. It, uh, thankfully, okay.

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But it basically made it inaccessible to create things online until things like Blogger came around, where you could like press a button and your words, even if you didn't understand technology, could go up online.

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So I've always been someone who loves educating, and a lot of how I built my business is about education through content, and it helped me build million-dollar businesses when the way to monetize those businesses, and there's a lot more ways today, were largely around consulting, right?

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Mm-hmm. And largely around things of that nature. Now we have so many different ways to do this, but it's always been through content.

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I actually push back on the word creator in a more traditional sense, because everyone thinks that means you have to be a beautiful Instagram model. [laughs] Right? Um- Well, see, okay.

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Wait, I, I wanna interrupt you here. Yeah, please. To me, like that is kind of a dated version of it that, that is more related to influencer rather than creator, that maybe is like a seven, eight-year-old term now.

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'Cause for me, um, I, I, I've talked about this before on the podcast, like I don't really like to use the term influencer, right? Sure.

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I use the term creator because I think influence is something you wield, something you can, you can have, and something you can sell to, uh, to advertising partners.

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But creator, right, like dates to, as we use it now, dates to 2011, and it's a term that replaces YouTube user for YouTube. YouTube starts using this term. Um- Sure...

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and now, right, like my typical definition I use on this show is, um, somebody who is creating digital media for distribution on digital platforms in earnest, trying to grow an audience for it.

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Um, and then third, they are somehow monetizing it. Sure.

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So it's basically like a type of independent media entrepreneur using the internet, um, which then that can stretch into like is, uh, you know, 404 Media, Hellgate, these are some of these newer, um, like cooperative, uh, media companies.

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Are they creators? I don't really know. Th- maybe these are just traditional media companies. Um, are you a creator? I don't really know. Right? Like what's your... Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

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So, so, so, so I think that's, this is interesting and I appreciate the nuance. What I would also say to you is I appreciate that you're actually trying to define it the way it should properly be defined.

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I'm not trying to fluff your feathers up. You're already inviting me on the show. No, no, no. I, I want- I hear... Yeah... I want, this is like an argument I wanna have. Yeah, yeah.

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But I'm saying like I appreciate that there are educated conversations around it, because a lot of people just take words and use them for their own-... monetization, their riches, their- Yeah...

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glory and all the things, right? So I appreciate that you've actually spent more than 30 seconds thinking about what that word should mean.

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And what I'm trying to saying is that unfortunately there aren't highly educated, I even gave you credit for a couple words you used beforehand. I said we're gonna be best friends, [laughs] right?

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We won't have to- we don't nerd out with, uh, the rest of the guests. But there are a lot of people that are not us that hear the word creator and still associate it with the thing that I mentioned. Sure. Right?

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So I agree with your... I, I don't disagree with your, uh, definition, it's just that I don't think that that is the mainstream identification of that word. Yeah.

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And I do think the people at the extreme example of what I just mentioned are what a lot of people who are not listening to this podcast are thinking about when they hear that term. Mm.

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So I'm saying that ultimately for me, there is an element, again, there's different ways to monetize it, but I think I agree with everything you said up there.

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Maybe to the extent that I don't know if it's always about media. Mm. It is different kinds of mediums, right? It is about content, it is about video.

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Um, but maybe it's not just simply about that kind of conventional media business, or maybe the, the newest version, the modern version of that.

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That would be where I would say, you know, there's maybe a little bit room for more discussion. [whooshing sound] Hi there. My name's Tom, and I'm the producer here on Creator Spotlight.

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I promise we'll get back to the episode in about 30 seconds, but just before I was sitting down to edit this episode with Ken, I was looking through our YouTube analytics, and you can see here 72.1% of you that regularly watch our channel are not actually subscribed.

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[laughs] I thought that was mad, first of all, but then I thought, "Well, that's kind of how I use YouTube." I watch the same creators every week, but s- YouTube just keeps recommending them to me.

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I don't actually need to hit subscribe. The difference here is we've got some new content coming out soon.

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So we've got this regular weekly episode we do, but we're also gonna start putting out breakdown videos, highlights, and just some new formats that are gonna shake things up a little bit.

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So make sure you're subscribed, and we'll repay the favor by trying to improve the video quality every week, put out new innovative formats, and listen to your feedback in the comments.

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So scroll down, hit subscribe, leave a comment how you think we can improve the episode, and we'll do what we can to give you the best content possible. Thank you. So another...

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A, a framework I like to use for creator economy is this kind of creator, this artist to business person spectrum, where right in the middle is the creator entrepreneur. And you are an MBA guy, Wharton, classic.

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Um, and so- Oh, I, I gotta at least correct you so that people look me up. I s- didn't have to get the MBA. Oh, okay.

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I snuck into Wharton, but I went in through the engineering school, so I did all the fun Wharton classes without having to actually do finance and accounting and all those things. But essentially, yes.

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But you are very good at these things. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. This is what you do. Um, okay, so you know, terrible fact-checking on my part there. I appreciate your live fact-check.

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Uh, but, but, but the point is, is like you are very good at the business side of this and you understand it really well. Sure.

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Um, and so I think w- in, I mean, in Creator Spotlight, I try to bring people on each side of that spectrum together and, like, try to educate people who are on the more artist, journalist, whatever side, um, the, the con- the content for the content's sake.

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I try to teach them how to build sustainable businesses, and I think on the other side I try to like, uh, like, "Here's how to produce quality content. Here are some of the modes of doing that."

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I wonder if you agree with this sort of way of looking at the creator economy or if you see flaws in it. Man, you're getting philosophical with me today. Okay.

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You gave me some prep questions [laughs] and, uh, we're going even deeper. I appreciate it.

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Um, yeah, I, you know, I think that if we, if we think about the artistry and then we think about, I think you were kinda calling it the creator operator on the other si- on the extreme side. Mm-hmm.

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And then- Well, so it's, uh, it's, it's more the artist, the business person, and then in the middle is the creator or the entrepreneur, the creator being a subset of entrepreneur. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

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I really see myself precisely in that middle, honestly. Yeah. Right? Because... Yeah.

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And, and this is why, like, we'll get into it more, so I, I would agree with you, like, uh, it's not s- like, we already had some fencing going on, right? But I would [laughs] agree with your, your assessment there.

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But I care about all of those spectrums a lot. Mm-hmm. And I think that is the unique part of the person that maybe sits in the middle. I've worked very hard at my craft.

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Because I did go to university and college at a very high level, I really was an academic- Mm...

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who then coming into this world and trying to, like, convey my thoughts out, I had to rewire my brain to actually make all of it more accessible.

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I work with people who are legitimately big audiences, but also PhDs, and everyone universally has one of those two sides of the problem. Mm-hmm.

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It's either, "Okay, cool," like, "I'm great at the artistry and getting that attention," or, "I'm really, really sound operationally, but I'm not really someone who understands both," and that is actually why people like me exist.

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Yes, absolutely. Um, okay, the last thing I wanna say on this spectrum, uh, is I think it's a difference of motivation where...

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And this is, uh, Matt McGarry is another great example here, but also a great example of how these motivations can shift.

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And so the person on, let's say, this artist side, the content for content's sake, they are making content for its own sake, and then hopefully finding a way to monetize it. [laughs] Yes.

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Whereas the person on the business side is figuring out a way, they ha- they have a way that, that they wanna make money, and they understand they have to make content to do that, like with Matt McGarry. Yeah.

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Yeah, so if, uh, can I, can I give you something here? Like, if I... 'Cause I've worked with, uh, everyone across those. Yeah.

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I would always love the artistry side, and taking the artistry side and sort of showing them- Yeah... the business side, I think...

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I don't wanna say this universally, so I didn't mean to interrupt you, but I wanna say- No, no, no... universally that.

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I feel like people who maybe do, like, I'm that operator type per- Like, they sometimes are opportunistic- Yeah... and trying to go... Like, I don't wanna call them ambulance chasers. [laughs] I agree. To some extent.

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Well, some of them are. [laughs] But there are, but exactly. That's my point.

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Like, there's a bunch of people there who is like, "Okay, uh, I'm really good at this thing and I need to get distribution," versus like, "I created something, I created a format that no one's ever done before, and I just did it for the beauty of it, and I just happened to maybe make some money at some point."It's a lot easier to add the monetization than it is to add the distribution is really the key thing here.

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Yes. I would totally agree. Um, okay, we should talk a little bit about what you actually do and get out of- [laughs]... the weeds here a little bit. Sure.

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Um, so tell me what are all the ways you currently make your living? Uh, yes, really good question, man, and it... I think this is the beauty of the model, right? Mm-hmm.

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That if you have attention, you have different ways to take that attention, capture it, and produce money. And I already told you before, we don't have to out me dramatically.

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You already told people that I'm, you know, 77 years old. [laughs] Um, but I do have a- a f- a large family. I've got a cost of living that was informed by making a lot of money in previous businesses- Yeah...

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exiting those, coming back to zero again. Lifestyle inflation's hard to deflate. Right. Exactly. So, and I honestly have always been very smart about it, but I'm saying, like, I've got the first world problems.

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I've got all the things that you'd expect someone would have. So my model, if we kinda think about what people do that come on this show, there's, you know, sort of like all the C ways of making money.

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There's communities, there's coaching, there's courses, there's cohorts, you already mentioned that once. Mm-hmm. And there also is consulting.

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And I think the people today that are successful understand all of those elements and understand when to activate them and when not to activate them, and that's why I'm really good at what I do.

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I don't like to bundle it, and, and this is the thing that's actually something you have to listen to in the signals in the market.

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You know, you tell someone that you run a community, and they're like, "I've tried those before, and they don't work"- Yeah... or, "I don't like that."

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You told, tell someone that you wanna, you know, do some consulting, they might say, "Oh, well, uh, I'm not gonna go pay, you know, McKinsey level rates."

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Obviously, that's an extreme, but, you know, you get the, the, uh, the point.

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So how do we build something that doesn't get someone wrapped up in the, the delivery mode that allows taking the content that we're creating, the artistry- Mm... and puts them where they need to go, right?

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At a very base level, what I help people do today is scale their businesses. That includes what you think, I think the word that you used, creators, right?

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Which we'll get into more, and I think we have some more shared definition around that, as well as people that are using content and to generate business and interest, but aren't doing it under the traditional creator model or the, the model that you just described.

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It's a little bit different, but I believe actually adding the consulting part is actually the fastest way for a lot of people who are creators to generate income and have a living- Mm...

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until they can build the other parts of the business up, which I'm sure we'll go into more. Yeah. Okay.

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So, uh, this goes back into this kind of conversation about, about marketing, where it's like your model, you know, this, this my three definition, definition, three-part definition of creator, where it's the making the content, uh, growing the audience and monetizing it.

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Um, for you, like the primary monetization is never gonna be advertising or subscription, and the type, it sounds like the type of people you work with, your clients, it- it, that's also true.

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Like, these are people who are marketers and consultants and help other people market.

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And, and there is a segment there that aren't really the word creator that we described, and part of why I also work with that segment is that they don't understand how to take their artistry and make money- Yeah...

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out of it. But yes, I would say, I would largely agree with what you sa- you know, said there. Mm-hmm. Um, okay, so I still... We didn't quite answer the question, which is like, what is y- your revenue pie?

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What are- Yeah. Yeah... the different percentages? So, so, and, and that's why it's, it, it doesn't cleanly fit into a- any of those certain buck- Yeah... buckets, right?

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Uh, but essentially what I do is I help people who need, you know, who are unclear on offers, they're unclear on the systems, they're unclear on the monetization, the revenue, accelerating pipeline, right?

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I sat in their seat before, which is also a very powerful thing that creators can do- Mm-hmm... is they can speak to their former selves. Right?

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If you could do that, that's actually a, uh, an unfair advantage that I have. So the, the buckets there is it's really one bucket with different segments- Yeah...

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of people who pay me for additional private level of access or additional a- you know, sort of like, "I need help with this part of the business," to people that are just like, "At this stage, I have yet to define what an offer looks like.

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I don't really know who I'm targeting"- Mm... "and I don't know what the foundational mechanism is to convert people into any kind of revenue." Right? So there's sort of...

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It's more of that than it is about, oh, it fits neatly and precisely in that- So, so, so what I'm hearing- Yeah... is it, it's all kind of broadly consulting with different degrees of, like, one-on-one touch. Yeah, yeah.

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I mean, that's, that's fair to some extent. I mean, I... It's a combination, and I'm not trying to be overly fluffy here.

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It's a combination of consulting, community, you know, and these different elements that we talked about because some people will say, "I don't want that." Yeah.

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And then the minute they have it the right way, they're like, "I don't know why I didn't want that." Okay. So tell me what the club is. Yeah.

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The cl- so the club essentially is your way to grow without hiring a- in a scalable model, model that uses, uh, lots of different proprietary, systematic, uh, deals that go from marketing, sales, and client delivery.

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I believe those are the three big systems that any business, doesn't matter if you're Apple or you're a creator, need to grow, right? Mm-hmm.

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There's a lot of other components in those bigger businesses, like, oh yeah, we gotta get into HR and people ops and compensation things.

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But ultimately, Apple needs a way to get leads, they need a way to convert those leads into sales, and they need a way to grow and deliver the value with those people over time. Mm-hmm.

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So I think about it primarily through those different systems, and then I have a whole bunch of frameworks that fit in there.

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When a new person comes to me, whether or not they have a six-figure audience or they have a brand-new consulting business, we look at the parts of the systems that are there and that are working well and what's not, what gaps do we need to go fill, and then there's different mechanisms that I have that plug directly into those people- Mm-hmm...

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to help them to get to where they wanna go.

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And I know you wanna get more into numbers, and I'm happy to go into it, but, you know, relative to, like, okay, how long do they stay with you and all these things, there's really some important things there to allow people to grow with me over years- Mm-hmm...

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where a lot of people, and then I'll be quietThey don't work with someone like me for more than three weeks or three months. Yeah. I have people that have been with me for, you know, three years. Yeah, okay.

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So, so it's, it's interesting, and when, when I ask this question I'm a- I'm anticipating like, "Oh, it is a community with so and so many members," and what you're giving is like th- this is the outcome, this is what you...

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It- you're kind of giving the sales pitch to the listener right now of like, "Here's why you should be a part of it." What is it under the bright lights on the surgical table? Like, what are the, the facts of it?

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Yeah, yeah. So, so like I, I think about it as this, and it's, it's, you know, I could do the pitch, but I do a different voice, Francis, right? [laughs] So, um, no, we... I mean, I already have a radio voice.

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My old boss said I had one. It, it's a good one. No, that's part of- Yeah, appreciate that [laughs] We, we, we did an intro and, you know, this is kind of my criteria for picking podcast guests is- [laughs]...

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one, can they speak to these specific topics? Sure, sure. Two, uh, can they speak? Um, and then three, am I interested in spending the time with them? That's kind of the criteria, but you, you've got the voice.

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I appreciate that. So hopefully we'll, we'll check the other ones as well. [laughs] The pre-interview checks were awesome, but hopefully it's delivered on the back end. [laughs] Oh, God.

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So think about it this way, um, and I, I will... You press me as hard as you want to answer this question, but I think this is like philosophically what I'm talking about. Yeah.

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A certain amount of being that remote person before remote was a thing, async. Mm-hmm. Okay?

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So how can I get Francis up to speed without me spending 100 hours with Francis, which is, by the way, gonna cost $100,000- Yeah...

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'cause that's like what I charge those people that are like getting, like me giving them the spoon-feeding for all the things, and I still work with multi-seven-figure businesses.

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So there's a, an async element of systems, consumption on your own time, 'cause I legitimately have clients around the world, right?

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I stopped counting how many countries, but it's a large number of countries that I have, um, with obviously a focus on the US, Europe, but I have people literally in South, uh, Asia and so forth, okay? Mm-hmm.

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So there's like an async component of it to let you learn on your own time and at your own speed.

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Then there's a live component where you get this face, and I'm walking you through these things, and we're solving problems. And I talk about it from this standpoint.

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There's a difference of watching something on YouTube and trying to get in shape versus someone sweating on the mat with you. Yeah. So I believe this is a component that is why courses...

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I mean, you're like, "Can, you're opening up another box for me."

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But why courses are no longer working in a lot of ways is because they don't have this next component, and that's why a lot of people are now starting to include a live component. Mm-hmm.

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But they don't actually combine them together this way. And then in the third part is where we truly have the community accountability, and as a former technologist, that's what I did. I talked about- Mm-hmm...

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how to build apps. I brought in an open source mentality. So it's really important for us to understand that we will grow faster to- together and contribute back to the collective knowledge.

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So I call it the community of expert peers. Yeah. It's not just like, "Oh cool, we have a Slack thing where we can't figure it out and everyone's trying to sell me." It's actually a curated environment.

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The club came from, and to answer it really, really long, this concept of the virtual country club- Yeah... to help you grow your business. Okay. And how many people are in this virtual country club?

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Yeah, so it's, it's like about 100-plus people. Um, so I'm not trying to do... And there are other people that are like, "I've got 500." I'm like, "I went into your community and there was no one doing anything."

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Nobody... Yeah, nobody knew you. Right? So it's much more around the idea of like if you went to a virtual country club, or sorry, a country club down the street, you would know people in there. Mm-hmm.

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You'd wanna hang out, and they would feel like your actual peers, not someone that were like, "Oh my gosh, do you see that guy over there?" Like, "How did he get in here?" Yeah. So it's a hyper-curated environment.

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Um, so your four Cs here, community, courses, cohorts, and consulting, correct?

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This is, to me, like consulting is one thing, and then courses and cohorts kind of overlap a lot, and then community and, uh, cohorts overlap a lot.

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And to me, like, I, I, you know, I, I can separate courses and cohorts, but like I personally would only seek out a course that is a cohort-based course.

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Um, so I'm curious like why these are the four Cs you land on because of the degree of overlap, and then particular separation- Yeah, yeah... with consulting.

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And it's also why w- we've been squishy about, okay, where do they fit this and this? I think that's actually a mistake- Mm-hmm... to like try to put them into specific boxes.

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But I will tell you, uh, again, new cohort, cohort-based courses before they were really popular, they have a very low lifetime value, right? Mm.

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Like I come do it, I do it for five weeks, I might be, was really excited for a week, and then like I'm out, right?

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[laughs] Um, or, you know, even to the extent that people that have it on the back end, like people didn't really come there to say, "I can't wait to like just hang out in this dust bowl for another year after it's done because all my other people are gone."

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So I think that's why I would suggest that we need to be more careful. Like there is a lot of cognitive load and bias towards y- just now it's like courses and the shift into cohort-based courses. Mm-hmm.

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And then that's gonna get fatigued, and that's why I think it's more important to not lead with this is the way it's delivered and more with like what are you gonna get and how does it functionally look for you day to day?

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Mm-hmm. Uh, tell me about the course as project category being on its way out as you've been kind of implying. Yeah, so like the, just the core stuff. I mean, it's happened. I have data, by the way.

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Like I've done six figure in courses. I'm not the other people that are doing seven figures, right? [laughs] Yeah. But I have done a significant amount of revenue, and over time what I've seen- Tell me...

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Wait, wait, wait, wait. Before- Yeah... we go further, tell me what that was. Like what was the shape of the course? What was the packaging? Yeah, so that was called scalable service offers. Mm-hmm.

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Um, and it's the reason why I got all of the big names, and we can talk about some of them.

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I'm not trying to like, you know, draft off of them still, but I've had-You know, 20-plus big names that have worked with me over time.

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They mostly came because they realized they had the attention, but they didn't know how to capture that attention- Mm...

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and then put money into the back end, and do it in a way that also didn't become a J-O-B, right, in the worst way possible. [laughs] I call it delivery hell. The dog, the dog's gonna know we're going to the beach.

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Don't say it. Yeah. [laughs] I call that delivery hell, and it doesn't matter if you are a traditional- Yeah... or the creator definition we've used here, or any other kind of business owner.

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It's like, you sell all, you sell all the things, and then you're stuck delivering all the things. Mm. So that was, uh... That th- I did six figures for multiple years.

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Um, and what I saw over time, besides the fact fighting the pirates, right, and literally had to, like...

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You know, that was a whole nother thing that wasn't very fun, um, is that people continued to kinda have this bias towards, "Okay. Yeah, like I've tried that. I literally have 30 things."

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I actually talked to someone this week. They're like... I, I won't say the person's name, but it's a well-known person. And, and that, like, "I bought that, and I've literally not clicked the activation button still."

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Mm. Right? So it just became kinda like I collect these just like I collect baseball hats back in the day when I was a kid, right? And I will really date myself, 'cause we...

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You know, Starter was big back then, and I had like 75 hats. Yeah. Okay? But that's kind of where that wa- The quality was better than Fanatics anyway. Th- you know, they've changed over times, man.

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But like I said, I will continue to date myself in this discussion. Um, so the, the ultimate deal here is I think people are tired of information. They have enough information.

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ChatGPT, it's not always the best information- Yeah... but it gives you information. Perplexity gives you information. They need activation. They need implementation.

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Well, th- and this is what I was talking about with the Matt McGarry thing, where he provides- Yeah... the information for free. You pay a little bit more, then you can get the cohort course.

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You pay a lot more, then you can get the service, and it's just how much time do you have versus money. And ultimately, I think there's levels before you have to go run a full agency service, right, even in that case.

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But we already talked about that.

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That's kinda like dampening down and ultimately will look more like, "Hey, you know, do you wanna join this thing for 800 bucks, or do you wanna pay me five grand and get some mentorship?"

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You still are gonna use that, so I don't have to, like, spoon feed you all those basics. Yeah.

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But then you're gonna really get additional access when you have a very specific, unique problem that is only the thing that you want directly from Matt or directly from Ken.

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Here's the way to do get, you know, the bat line, so to, so to speak, the bat phone. Mm-hmm. Um, okay. If somebody is insistent on making a course product now, and they- Yeah...

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don't want the activation link to sit fallow in your inbox- Sure... what is the most important thing for them to, to get right about making a, a course? Yeah, man. I...

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And I wouldn't even claim to be the definitive expert, because I'm not running that- No... as, as much as I used to, but I will tell you the biggest- You've r- but you've ran it. I have run it, yeah.

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So the biggest thing is getting someone to actually do what that person said, like getting them to click into it and start it.

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The w- And, and honestly, the next part, which is not exactly the way you're thinking about it, is to make it digestible- Mm... and to make it fast-moving, right?

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So, like, the way that you do the cadence of the intros, the lessons are short. But the, the most important thing, and I had a very simple thing that made me a lot of money, by the way. This...

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By the way, my playbook for the courses was so unique, it wasn't even about the course. It was just a simple way to get people into the other thing. That's what everyone doesn't do. I call it an offer magnet, okay? Yeah.

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Not that we have to go into all my languaging and frameworks. But the idea is- The... Wait, wait, wait. Really quickly, though. Yeah.

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I th- I think these languaging and frameworks actually are, are good and are helpful, too, going back to the original conversation about, like, the more artist versus the businessperson, uh, creator.

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I think that these, like, uh, this is feedback I've gotten once from an audience member is that, like, he was like, "You were talking about, like, LTV and, and these terms," and it's like, "I don't know what those are."

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And I was like, oh, like, it's... Like, people need to understand what these terms are- Yeah... as a way of understanding, like, how, how to think about the business. Yeah.

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So I think these terms are, are, are good, and we should, you know, explain them when we use them here. But I think it's actually very helpful. Yeah. Yeah. So my, my...

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Like, briefly, my concept of an offer magnet is that you don't go build a course. Mm-hmm. You go take something that has already been proven valuable, and you move it outside the business, right?

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It's a very important distinction. I'm gonna go build a lead magnet, collect a bunch of emails, and they're all gonna go to die. Mm-hmm.

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Or I'm gonna go build something because someone's told me, "Oh, my gosh, when we do this thing, it's incredible, and I got this ROI."

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Then you simply take that, you move it right outside the business, and you build a course around it. Yeah.

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The idea is then getting someone into that thing to then convey them into one of those other things as a creator, as a true way to monetize them.

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Um, but the most important thing is that I s- And this was the email, we digressed and digressed further, was that I had a simple email. I did it manually to start. By the way- Yeah...

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this is another important concept for, like, the operator side. Don't try to automate everything all at once, okay? We want to first get something working well, and then we automate.

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So I sent a simple email 24 hours after someone would purchase, and I say, "Thanks so much for buying scalable service offers," uh, so on and so forth. "What are you trying to accomplish with your offers right now?"

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Okay? That thing alone made me m- high six figures. Yeah. Because then I opened up the conversation. They actually went into it, and eventually they would... A high percentage of people who bought that course

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spent a lot more money with me over time. Mm-hmm. Happy to answer more questions on that. But essentially, the idea is, like, don't go build something.

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Take something that's validated, and then monetize it further on the back end- Yeah... which is still relevant even if it's not a course today. Yeah. Uh, okay.

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Let's talk about this solopreneur idea and how this, um, overlaps with, with the definition of a creator we've been talking about.

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I listened to the first episode of, of your podcast, which is the kind of, like, short, usually 15-minute, I think, episodes, um, just you explaining concepts like this. And so- Sure...

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what I get from solopreneur, uh, is that it's a type of entrepreneur who their core value is that they are going to grow their business without hiring more people. It's just gonna be them.

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Maybe there's some contractors, but they are not seeking to build a company.

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They are seeking to build just a, a business around-Um, so I'm really interested in how you see this overlapping with the idea of a creator, because I don't think every creator is necessarily a solopreneur.

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Some of them, uh, build large teams. Some of them, um, only want it to be them. Um, talk to me about your- Yeah, yeah... vision of a solopreneur as such. And I, I think this is-- Thank you for listening.

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Um, I didn't see the rating or review from you yet, but I know it's coming, Francis. Um- Oh, rate for rate, review for review. [laughs] Sorry. Five star for five star.

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Yeah, I'm gonna listen to how you do your CTAs later, uh, at the end of the episode. I'm terrible at CTAs. Um- I am... I, yeah, no, it's... We'll, we'll geek out about it offline. [laughs] Um, so here's the thing.

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I believe that a solopreneur is a way to grow, not necessarily even about if you have employees or not. Yeah. Um, the, the point that I try to... And this is where I push back, honestly, on a lot of these things.

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I think a lot of people just say it's a glorified freelancer. Mm. And what I'm saying is that when I had 25 people on payroll, I was a solopreneur, because they- Oh... operated in my systems.

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I was the sole owner of the business, right? I was bootstrapped, and ultimately, I love my team a lot.

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Like, I still talk to them years later, and I give them references, and they send me funny memes and all these things, right?

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But ultimately, if someone did have to leave for whatever reason, they, they get replaced by someone else. They're fully replaceable. They're cogs. So it's about running...

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It's about growth through systems, not head count, and it's a choice of how you wanna grow.

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But it does give you optionality, and I think this is where the creator part is really important, to decide if you even wanna have someone on payroll or contract or whatever.

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Because ultimately, and the world's changing a little bit now with, I'd like to say that creators used to have free distribution- Mm... quickly changing, right, in a lot of different ways.

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We don't have to geek out about that. We could for sure. But as we have distribution, it gives us a lot of optionality for how we wanna do what we've been talking about.

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Like, what is the way that we wanna make money on the backend?

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So the idea of the solopreneur, the remote solopreneur, is we can remotely operate without having to have my $20,000 a month office that I had at some point, right? Mm-hmm. And that was cheap, honestly.

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Uh, there's people paying a lot more than that.

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Or to have the $300,000 a month payroll, or to have the six-figure enterprise ABM, so when it go down the line, and still be able to have a very good life, if not honestly a better life of not being a people manager- Mm...

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of clients and actual team members, and give yourself that ability to be present in whatever you're doing, and actually exercise the craft that you talked about, exercise the artistry.

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I'd much more prefer to learn, and I've studied copywriting- Mm... like the great copywriters of all time. We don't have to go into all that, right? [laughs] But I've studied copywriting. I've studied how do we do video.

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I'd rather work on that artistry and keep being the expert that shares that artistry than some of the things I did- dealt with on an HR side, which I won't even go into with you. Yeah.

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But some of the stories are just wild, right? So- I don't wanna be the babysitter anymore. Well, so, so, so, yeah.

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So I mean, this is not what I thought sol- how I thought you would define solopreneur after listening to that. 'Cause to me- Then clearly I failed. I mean, let's take that episode out of the catalog.

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[laughs] No, no, no, no, no. I think this is about, this is about my own bias, right? Sure. This is about my own bias in like what, how I see, how I would define this thing.

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'Cause to me, the solopreneur is like maybe there's contractors, but they're very like you, you... Everybody could just choose to, you know, stop working with you tomorrow and, and the business would not contract much.

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You know, it'd still all be fine. It's just maybe you have to do a little more work.

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Um, but like, yeah, the idea that you could say, that you say you could have 25 people, um, and they're on payroll, but then like it's still a solopreneur, like to me that just doesn't make sense in terms of like, no, that's just a full business then, where like

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it, it, it bec- it's kind of everyone's a mercenary and like you are a merc- instead the, the missionary versus mercenary framework where the missionary is purpose-driven- Yeah, yeah... the mercenary is not.

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Like, then it's just a team of mercenaries, and you the mercenary leader. I, I wouldn't say s- I wouldn't say it's a team of mercenaries. I mean, I think that's almost like a collective in some ways, right?

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Like, everyone sort of independently operates.

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I mean, they're operating within the systems that I've configured, but ultimately, I, I would say it, it could be an extreme to say you have that number of employees and still be a solopreneur.

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I'm just saying that that is inclusive of the way that I'm trying to define it. Mm. And so I think that would be kinda where we find the common ground.

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But ultimately what I don't want people to think a solopreneur is someone who works alone in their basement with their pajamas on all day, and I think just in the same way that you've done a great job, and I gave you credit, to redefine- Mm-hmm...

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what creator means, I'm trying to do the same thing over here. Totally.

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And also saying that I embrace a lot of what you're saying, and I think maybe by the end of this conversation you embrace some more of what I'm saying. [laughs] Hope, hopefully. Um, okay, let's talk about systems.

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So one of your, one of your frameworks is this DTA, right? Yeah. Document, template, uh, template, automate. Tell me about this. Yeah, you've definitely done your homework, man.

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Um, so the idea, a- and I alluded to it earlier a bit, right? But everyone ultimately wants to get to...

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Honestly, they wanna do this, even people that have larger businesses, like, "Oh my gosh, how could I be like this person who's making millions of dollars and just, you know, writes a LinkedIn post?" Right?

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[laughs] Like, like let's just be real about it. I, I think everyone aspires to that to some extent. So then they say, like, "How do I get to this scale?"

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And they s- they skip straight to tooling, and they skip straight to AI. And honestly, what they did previously, Francis, is they skip to, "I need to hire people." Yeah.

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And so again, the idea was like there's so much to do before you need to hire or even contract. When I was $5 million a year, I didn't have a VA or an EA. In the $20 million a year business, we also didn't have that

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because we had these systems. So the idea of document, template, automate is that we document things first- Mm... that are working well, and I said that I did that manual email, right? And I did that for a while.

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And then I just created a very simple Zap. It's like purchase, wait 24 hours, send this email that's already made me a lot of money.

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The idea of templating next, and I'm happy to, you know, to go as deep as you want with this. No, this is good. Like, essentially the templating next is are we doing something multiple times a week?

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Document might be like I only do this a couple times a month, and honestly-We need to put it down 'cause we don't do it that often, right?

253
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So put a little SOP together, and today it's easy to dictate, use WhisperFlow, use ChatGPT, whatever, and then it'll build you the SOP so you don't have to write. Mm. I wrote, like, hundreds of documents back then, okay?

254
00:36:32.736 --> 00:36:41.976
Templating, we now get into this mode where we're doing things multiple times a week. So if I'm sending s- like, let's say you're hitting up another person. I know they all just come to you, and, "Get me on this show."

255
00:36:42.416 --> 00:36:51.276
No, no, that's not true. But imagine- Most of my guests, uh, I, I, I actually rarely take pitches. Y- this is a rare case. Uh, and so I'm saying, though, that for you, right, you're reaching out.

256
00:36:51.595 --> 00:37:00.716
You might have a little keyboard snippet that you use that's like, that it can actually insert things like the time of the day- Yeah... their name, and you just do, like, boom, and you're done, right?

257
00:37:00.836 --> 00:37:06.356
It's a time-saving template that automatically outputs without it being automated. Yeah.

258
00:37:06.496 --> 00:37:14.896
At the point that we are ready to accelerate and we have those things working well, this is where we can start to build systems and we tie different templates together. We tie different tooling together.

259
00:37:15.456 --> 00:37:21.486
This is where people get into, like, Zapier or more very complex things like N8N and so on and so forth- Mm...

260
00:37:21.496 --> 00:37:27.096
right, where it's like they chain all these things together, and you see it going viral all the time, but you don't need that.

261
00:37:27.216 --> 00:37:33.996
Most of those people are doing things that are, like, philosophical or conceptual, and they're showing you c- the extreme that you could do it.

262
00:37:34.116 --> 00:37:40.476
Just having the ability to take something that works well and get repeatable results, that's the definition of a system, period.

263
00:37:41.036 --> 00:37:48.156
So document, template, automate, DTA, remember that, and it's gonna save you hundreds of hours over the course of a year, for sure. Yeah.

264
00:37:48.186 --> 00:37:54.496
So this is, this is really interesting because I think this is one of the areas where we differ. Um, like, you, you're saying, like, maybe in my outreach I'm au- I could automate a lot.

265
00:37:55.076 --> 00:38:03.176
I, I don't automate that much of my outreach. No, I'm saying, I'm saying you shouldn't. Like, that's my point. Oh, okay. That's your point, yeah. I'm saying you sh- I'm saying that you absolutely should not do that.

266
00:38:04.336 --> 00:38:10.576
And do, again, you have the op- option to do it later on, but it's gotta work well first- Yeah... before you get to automation.

267
00:38:10.756 --> 00:38:22.536
No, no, no, no, but it says, I think, so, like, in my outreach, right, I'm always looking for something different, and then I'm always like, I'm looking for this guest, and I do maybe an hour of pre-research where I'm like, "Well, what would we talk about?"

268
00:38:22.576 --> 00:38:23.326
Like- Sure...

269
00:38:23.556 --> 00:38:37.876
w- who is the per- like, maybe it's an, maybe it's more like an hour of pre-research on average for each accepted guest, where it's like, uh, some of that time is wasted because I don't end up reaching out to that person, so maybe it's more like 15, 20 minutes of, of actual research, and it's like, what are the three things that will define this episode, right?

270
00:38:38.416 --> 00:38:50.825
Um, and for me, I, I think efficiency is a poor goal, right? Hmm. Fair. Yeah. I- i- in my work. In, in the way that I operate for like- Yeah... I, the, I'm not, probably not the best systems thinker in that way.

271
00:38:51.336 --> 00:39:06.816
Um, but I, I bring this all up to say, like, I think this is this illustration of the kind of, like, artisan to, like, business systems thinker spectrum, where I fall more on, like, the, the, the, the content for content's sake side, which is also a, a, a bit flawed, right?

272
00:39:06.876 --> 00:39:17.586
Like, I had this conversation with somebody a couple months ago, um, who I, I was trying to give them advice on, on, on career advice and getting a job, and they're a great writer, and I was like, "You have to be less precious about the language and-" Yeah...

273
00:39:17.586 --> 00:39:25.116
"the writing itself, like the type of job you're after. It's more about, like, well what's the idea, who is the audience, and what is the shortest distance between those two points," right?

274
00:39:25.176 --> 00:39:34.596
And I think to my, to my, you know, own fault, I sometimes get caught up, um, on being precious on whether it's the process of reaching out to this person, whatever.

275
00:39:35.056 --> 00:39:45.456
Uh, so I guess the, where I'm bringing this back to you is, like, how would you advise getting over that sort of, like- Yeah, yeah... careful preciousness? And I, no, I appreciate where you're going with it.

276
00:39:45.556 --> 00:39:56.196
Um, part of why I came up with DTA, just as a point of reference, were initially it was a pushback against, like, stop trying to hire VAs too soon and bring- Yeah... first people on and so forth.

277
00:39:56.856 --> 00:40:07.526
I do think, though, that today I actually talk people out of doing more, like, don't do automation, right? Yeah. Do the, the first two, which by the way actually keeps the artistry in it. Like the- Yeah...

278
00:40:07.576 --> 00:40:18.246
documenting and the templating part is not the part that doesn't have artistry. But I think ultimately the most important thing is to find the places of friction. Like, have a running document- Mm...

279
00:40:18.286 --> 00:40:27.016
for yourself of, like, I do this thing, and I do it 100 times, uh, a week, right? And so, and you could obviously even use some tools like that. We'll show you some of these things. Yeah.

280
00:40:27.356 --> 00:40:36.726
But the more that you say, uh, I, here's, here's what you're gonna like, man. Well let's have a little fencing on this one. I actually- [laughs] I can see where this could go. [laughs] I actually would argue this.

281
00:40:37.596 --> 00:40:47.305
The more you have systems, the more creative you can be. Mm-hmm. I agree. Because you're spending... Right? 'Cause you're spending more time on the part that's- You need rules and boundaries-... creative...

282
00:40:47.305 --> 00:40:50.456
and you need to limit yourself, and then within those limitations you'll be all the more creative. Right.

283
00:40:50.556 --> 00:40:59.896
For you, and, like, just the way that you described that, I'm like, okay, here are the three or four different things that I would go try first so that you can stay present on the thing that matters- Mm-hmm...

284
00:40:59.956 --> 00:41:09.676
and not take the time for, hey yeah, let's write a deep research prompt and send out Perplexity and send out this and this and this, and then you just have it waiting for you. Mm.

285
00:41:09.756 --> 00:41:15.586
And then you still can do the part that has the human in the loop. Yeah. Which is actually, like, a technology term in AI. Mm.

286
00:41:15.596 --> 00:41:25.196
Like keeping the human in the loop, not allowing AI just to go run, not just agents, but bringing it back, pausing, and saying, "This is time for Francis to add his artistry to it."

287
00:41:25.976 --> 00:41:31.576
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288
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289
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290
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291
00:41:58.816 --> 00:42:07.466
Well, so your, your LinkedIn. Um, y- I, you've got 30, 31,000 followers there right now. Your posts are getting around 50 reactions right now, which- Sure...

292
00:42:07.516 --> 00:42:15.055
this is, this is something I've seen a lot, um, kind of on mine too. There's times when I've, like, I've, I've only got 4,000, so you're, you know- Sure... several or so times larger than me. Sure.

293
00:42:15.076 --> 00:42:18.516
But a lot of my posts recently have been getting, let's say, 25 to 50.

294
00:42:19.056 --> 00:42:28.336
Um, and I, you know, in a previous job I ghostwrote LinkedIn posts for the CEO, and at the time I think he was around, like, 12,000 followers there, maybe a little more.

295
00:42:28.436 --> 00:42:39.508
Um, and, like, s- for a little while, this is, like, four or five years ago, um, it was a lot easier to, to get-You know, most people were LinkedIn creators Yeah, yeah And I would, I would get like 400 likes on those.

296
00:42:39.608 --> 00:42:44.508
And then after a while, I kind of bottomed out, and we were getting like 20 on them, right?

297
00:42:44.588 --> 00:42:55.068
So it's this, it's this thing I think that is really, really on all the platforms now where like these big audiences that were built in- at a certain time, now, like, it's harder to reach them, whatever.

298
00:42:55.468 --> 00:43:05.888
Um, so I guess my question is, like, where was your sweet spot on LinkedIn? Like, what's been working for you now? Yeah. And does it worry you that, like, you're getting a lower percentage of your followers engaging?

299
00:43:06.348 --> 00:43:10.748
Yeah, yeah. So this is what I was saying before, and I alluded to it, of, like, distribution used to be free. Yes.

300
00:43:10.928 --> 00:43:19.508
Um, so I'm- I am not surprised by this because I have lived through it in multiple businesses, and it's actually part of my philosophy.

301
00:43:19.548 --> 00:43:23.258
And I know people are like, "Oh, is this dude gonna drop another framework or systems thinking?"

302
00:43:23.348 --> 00:43:34.388
But I really believe in this thing called dominate, saturate one channel, but always have two warming up, including one that you own. I like that. You know what I love? Newsletters as an owned platform.

303
00:43:34.468 --> 00:43:41.358
I'm not trying to... You know, by the way, I am als- Do we have to disclose that I'm like an LP in your b- in your business as well? I'm an LP. We should, we could, uh... So what, what...

304
00:43:41.788 --> 00:43:46.938
You are invested in Beehiiv to some extent. Yeah. I- I'm an LP, which means that I have no say whatsoever, right? [laughs] Yeah.

305
00:43:46.968 --> 00:43:52.688
Like, a fund invested into it, but it was early on, so I love platforms like this because we control it.

306
00:43:52.708 --> 00:44:02.818
And I'm not trying to hear, like, knock others, but anything algorithmic, including this other small thing called, starts with an S- Mm-hmm... that's getting traction today still has an algorithmic component, right?

307
00:44:02.868 --> 00:44:03.118
Here you go.

308
00:44:03.118 --> 00:44:20.758
You know, Subset- Substack, uh, just today as we record on October 1st, lovely fall day, um, Hamish McKenzie, CEO of Substack, did publish a post titled Substack Is a Social Media App, which is true and has been true for a while, and it's kind of like that old joke of like- I'm, I'm glad they finally admit it- Yes...

309
00:44:20.758 --> 00:44:25.848
'cause that's what I'm saying is like- Exactly... the, the rented land, I don't come up with that term, right? A lot of people use it, but- Yeah...

310
00:44:25.858 --> 00:44:34.048
the rented land, this happened to me in my other businesses when I was number one for Google in every single result because of all the content that we created. Yeah.

311
00:44:34.098 --> 00:44:42.248
And then they decided that they didn't like businesses like mine- You were dominating this SEO era... getting that real estate for free. Yeah. Right. And so this was like the Yelpification of- Mm-hmm...

312
00:44:42.288 --> 00:44:51.678
the professional services, uh, you know, guys out there. So I knew that this was gonna happen with LinkedIn for a long time. That's why I invested. I'm not talking about my investment and things like that.

313
00:44:51.748 --> 00:45:02.588
I invested into building out other channels- Yeah... because I knew this would happen. But here's the thing, I also got the benefit of that gold rush, and I knew it was a gold rush. Yeah. Right?

314
00:45:02.628 --> 00:45:10.268
So I was the first person building apps on the App Store. That was dramatically different than today. Mm-hmm. It's not always about first mover advantage, right?

315
00:45:10.288 --> 00:45:19.768
There's also best mover advantage, like the companies we've seen who built this thing, like we said, the iPhone, right? Yeah. Like, they weren't first, they just were the best, and then everyone has followed that model.

316
00:45:19.848 --> 00:45:30.868
So the point being here, I used to sneeze and get viral posts, 500 reactions. I have a post that has 29,000 plus reactions and 3.6 million views. Mm.

317
00:45:30.908 --> 00:45:39.448
And this is an important point, and I, I say that number not to fluff myself up. But the, the backside of that, zero business interest out of that, okay? Yeah.

318
00:45:39.548 --> 00:45:47.488
I've had posts that have three reactions, and I've gotten a five-figure or a six-figure deal from it. And I say deal, but just like from the monetary- What was that post about?

319
00:45:47.508 --> 00:45:58.528
What was this post about that got all this attention and did nothing for business? Uh, that particular post was really about... And I was hitting a nerve during the, uh, return to work, remote work. Go figure. Um, right?

320
00:45:58.638 --> 00:46:08.128
Mm. So that was, that what that post talked about, and like, it just resonated at a very human level, and it just hit people during that time where it just flew off the handle. I couldn't even...

321
00:46:08.828 --> 00:46:13.768
Like, I had to just turn off everything. It was just like, "Oh, my gosh. This is just going mega viral," right? Um,

322
00:46:14.708 --> 00:46:22.628
what I learned over time though, relative to all this, was that it, it really isn't just about the distribution only, even for myself, right?

323
00:46:22.688 --> 00:46:29.728
It's, like, always easy to help someone else, but then to apply your thinking to what you're doing in your business- I know this, yeah. [laughs]... you're like... Right? Like, you relate to this yourself.

324
00:46:30.388 --> 00:46:38.738
And so it was really a shift in thinking about less distribution, more resonance- Mm-hmm... that I made a decision on before all that.

325
00:46:38.808 --> 00:46:47.228
And I, I will say, like, I lost out on maybe being at 100,000 followers 'cause I made that change three years ago, but guess what? Now I'm not impacted. This is gonna be...

326
00:46:47.248 --> 00:46:58.018
Like, in terms of what I just posted today, I closed almost a quarter of a million dollars in the last 90 days with the lowest reach I've had ever. Yeah. It's not about- And that was because of that shift that I made...

327
00:46:58.018 --> 00:47:07.648
it's not just the audience that's choosing it. Yeah. Yeah, totally. Um, okay, so w- again, let's date you. You've been in this for a couple decades, [laughs] um, but, uh- Wait, how long have I been...

328
00:47:07.728 --> 00:47:16.528
Have I been doing this again? I was like- A couple decades... a couple decades? Yeah. It's a couple decades. It's not three. Um, but, uh, [laughs] okay. But anyways, y- you've worked on, you know, you've worked on apps.

329
00:47:17.028 --> 00:47:30.468
Um, y- you've killed it at SEO courses, et cetera, all these different things. Besides now, which era of this web economy, solopreneur, remote solopreneurship, um, which, which...

330
00:47:30.508 --> 00:47:37.508
Is there any that you have a particular nostalgia for that you felt you were, like, s- best suited for? You know, man, here's the thing. This has been the first time

331
00:47:38.448 --> 00:47:47.368
ever in my career that I'm not selling the thing that is the hottest, newest thing. As in right now, AI. And it wasn't like... Right. Like, I'm not selling that.

332
00:47:47.448 --> 00:47:54.468
I'm embracing it, and I'm using it in a way that a lot of people are, are not doing that. But what I will say is that each one of them are special, and I'm...

333
00:47:54.548 --> 00:48:00.818
I don't mean that in like, "Oh, cool, let's, like, hug each other and feel warm and fuzzy." No, I mean- Yeah... you're a holistic guy, man. They, they, they really... They, like...

334
00:48:00.848 --> 00:48:03.568
And I will say that this is a moment like that. Mm-hmm.

335
00:48:03.878 --> 00:48:13.828
And so I really want people, like, if they hopefully have learned a lot of things in this conversation, but please understand that this is a special, unique moment because I will show, I will date myself further.

336
00:48:14.028 --> 00:48:26.308
[laughs] Uh, my buddies during the blogging era that were like, no one else was blogging, were Pete Cashmore and Michael Arrington. Mm-hmm. Like, were we besties? Like, I talked with Pete all the time.

337
00:48:26.328 --> 00:48:31.138
You know, I don't even know if you know Mashable, but, but, like, he was the founder. I know Mash- Okay, I don't know the... I didn't know either of those names- Tech, TechCrunch and Mashable...

338
00:48:31.208 --> 00:48:40.988
but I know what Mashable is. TechCrunch and Mashable, okay? Yeah. Um, I would get pingbacks from TechCrunch, and Pete and I were talking when he lived in his parents' basement, right? Mm-hmm. And he was, like, a nobody.

339
00:48:41.088 --> 00:48:45.756
Now he's-I don't- Assembly... he's just worth so many millions, and millions, and millions of dollars, right? [laughs] Yeah.

340
00:48:45.776 --> 00:48:51.876
But the point is, like, we w- I went through these different times, and they all are special, and they all are unique.

341
00:48:51.976 --> 00:49:00.626
And if you can be part of that more, um, like, the, you know, the ch- the new, you know, chief, uh, AI officer at Meta was like- Mm-hmm...

342
00:49:00.666 --> 00:49:07.056
"If I were a teenager, like, I would just spend every minute trying to understand this stuff and doing it better than everybody else."

343
00:49:07.096 --> 00:49:13.726
There's gonna be a lot of be with a billion minted people, including creators, through this time. Yeah.

344
00:49:13.756 --> 00:49:22.236
And if you just kinda like, "Oh, yeah, it's like I kinda talk to Claude, and I kinda do this or that," like, you're missing out on what really is happening here. And it's going so fast.

345
00:49:22.286 --> 00:49:28.916
This is the scary part about today relative to nostalgia. It's almost like we're missing it because it's going so fast. Mm-hmm.

346
00:49:29.776 --> 00:49:38.656
Where before it was like, "Oh, cool, like this new thing's available," and that would be the thing for the next year. [laughs] Yeah. Now it's like, "Hey, by the way, the new AM- AI model's out, you know, today."

347
00:49:38.736 --> 00:49:47.726
And it's like, wait, we just got that last month. We're already getting Sonnet 4.5. We just had Opus 4.1 come out. And I mean, I mean, to me it's like that's not a, a good thing, right? Like I- No, it's not.

348
00:49:47.726 --> 00:49:58.816
I, I have- Yeah... I agree with you. I... and also, like, I mean, maybe I'm not enough of a systems and tool guy, but, like, Sonnet 4.5 came out. I, I use Claude. Um, and it's like, I, okay, great.

349
00:49:58.936 --> 00:50:07.556
I don't, I literally do not care what was in that update. I'm just gonna keep using it in the same way, and I don't think it's really gonna... Maybe it'll make it, like, slightly better in a way that I don't notice.

350
00:50:08.096 --> 00:50:11.526
Um- Sure... but I, I think, um, [lips smack]

351
00:50:11.556 --> 00:50:24.636
for somebody who is maybe not, you know, riding the cutting edge of the AI, AI wave and is firmly in the creator era, maybe they're working on a newsletter to the extent that you would advise them on like, "Here's how you should grow.

352
00:50:24.716 --> 00:50:35.226
Here's how you should monetize." Let's say this is somebody, they've got 1,000- Yeah... subscribers on a newsletter. I don't know, maybe they, maybe their focus is, like, the film industry or something like that.

353
00:50:35.256 --> 00:50:44.216
Totally. What would you recommend to them in building this business over the next three years, somebody whose core product is a newsletter in the film industry? Yeah.

354
00:50:44.296 --> 00:50:51.425
Yeah, and just, like, to put a little bow on our, our last thought, I was like I'm, I agree with you. It's not about that's being a benefit, but it is special. Mm.

355
00:50:51.425 --> 00:51:03.976
And I do think relative to this, like, 1,000 subscriber newsletter, if we pull from the lessons of each of those different eras in the 17 decades that I've worked- Yeah... uh [laughs], right? 17 years. Okay. Right.

356
00:51:04.016 --> 00:51:10.016
Let's not date yourself that hard. [laughs] No, no, no. I mean, we're, we're just increasing it over time. We're just seeing if people are tracking along with us, Francis- Uh-huh... to the end.

357
00:51:10.096 --> 00:51:21.276
Um, callbacks are always fun, right? Yeah. Uh-huh. Callbacks. So for- You look great for 25. [laughs] Um, so you know, relative to that person, I think there are so many more people like that

358
00:51:22.476 --> 00:51:31.836
than there will be the, like,.1 percenters who are getting- Uh,.1%... independent of the algorithm changes, like, they are just always gonna be the ones that get all of that.

359
00:51:32.536 --> 00:51:42.116
Um, so what I would say relative to that is, like, in your industry, like, how much deeper can you go relative to what other people are doing?

360
00:51:42.336 --> 00:51:49.316
It's not that I just deci- decided one day, like, I'm gonna go work with founders, and this is a concept that I have. I say, like, "Who is your lighthouse client?"

361
00:51:49.396 --> 00:51:58.196
Or, you know, people will kind of say like, "Oh, we have a target reader." But going deeper, okay? How can you make that... And that [laughs] the funny part about this is, like, the thousand true fans. Yeah.

362
00:51:58.756 --> 00:52:14.266
I would rather have 1,000 people who are just all in on Francis, all in on Ken, all in that person, and they wanna read every single thing than have honestly the growth tactics that I've even tried and get to 100,000 thou- 100,000 subscribers- Yeah...

363
00:52:14.296 --> 00:52:22.816
and it be mostly people who don't actually even know who you are and never even open up an email. So relative to if you're saying like, "Okay, what would you do on the monetization side?"

364
00:52:23.016 --> 00:52:29.476
I would say the fastest way to get monetization is not gonna be to try to go get an ad slot necessarily. [laughs] Yeah.

365
00:52:29.596 --> 00:52:42.096
Um, but I wouldn't mind looking at that if it was, like, hyper-specialized, and then also looking at, like, how could I offer some amount of advisement or some amount of consulting, you know, relative to that, and it doesn't have to be through a course.

366
00:52:42.116 --> 00:52:52.036
I'd actually say the fastest thing is to do a conversation with someone. Get someone to book a time with you, um, and that would be the way to give you this important word, runway. Mm.

367
00:52:52.096 --> 00:52:56.976
So that you can get to 5,000 subscribers before you decide this wasn't worth your effort.

368
00:52:57.026 --> 00:53:08.696
[lips smack] Um, something I want, been wanting to ask you about, uh, this whole conversation is I think it was 2010 that you started working with O'Reilly Media, and that's when you started really living into this Ken as speaker, Ken as author.

369
00:53:09.176 --> 00:53:18.736
Um, I found a couple YouTube videos from back in the day- Oh, man, no... of you doing a speech and- Please do not play those. [laughs] Um, our producer Tom will not play those over this video.

370
00:53:19.076 --> 00:53:26.096
But, uh, w- I mean, it was interesting to see, like, you starting to try to figure out this way of, like, broadcasting yourself on the internet.

371
00:53:26.156 --> 00:53:28.526
I don't know if my research wasn't deep enough and you were doing this- No, no, that's, yeah, yeah...

372
00:53:28.556 --> 00:53:39.916
a lot before too, but it seems like this was, like, a period of time where you, you'd been working in apps, developing apps, and you decide, "Okay, I'm going to put myself out there as a character, um, and as a, a figure," right?

373
00:53:40.216 --> 00:53:48.076
Tell me about, like, that decision and what, what that meant back then because obviously- Yeah... now we know what that is now, but back then it was a very different era.

374
00:53:48.936 --> 00:53:56.556
And, I really think about it as a progression to adapt. I think this is really important as a creator to adapt to what becomes relevant.

375
00:53:56.596 --> 00:54:02.065
You happened to find those on YouTube, and they were not the earliest, but I have earlier videos on YouTube- Yeah... that probably are not there anymore.

376
00:54:02.636 --> 00:54:07.496
Um, but going to where the audience is next and what they find as relevant.

377
00:54:07.576 --> 00:54:19.106
So my initial static HTML website that I coded, that moved to a blog that people would read, to move to being on, then it was called Twitter- [laughs]... to then being, and again, that was back then.

378
00:54:19.116 --> 00:54:26.656
Some still call it that. Well, and, and, like, honestly, man, I was on Twitter when every tweet was on the homepage. Mm-hmm. Every tweet. Back when you'd, you could text to tweet?

379
00:54:26.716 --> 00:54:30.036
Yeah, like you could text it, like every... That was again one of those fun eras, right?

380
00:54:30.436 --> 00:54:41.496
To then eventually saying like, "Okay, uh, I should probably be in front of people because good things happen, like, and, and I can only do so much in my local area. So how can I be in front of people?"

381
00:54:41.696 --> 00:54:51.856
And ultimately learning to articulate things in a way that's accessible, not just the brainy MBA-ish type language, but in a way that people are like, "Tell me more about that."

382
00:54:52.716 --> 00:55:12.496
So fast-forwarding it all the way to today, not only being on these other platforms, but being in places that people actually, and I'm probably digression, digressing further, but I think it's actually a, a broader and more important point, that I'm now showing up and I'm literally signing five-figure worth deals because people found me in an AI search engine.

383
00:55:13.356 --> 00:55:24.736
Mm-hmm. How can you be as a creator where people who care about you are? And I think ultimately that's actually the lesson. The journey is to follow through and to reinvent yourself.

384
00:55:25.196 --> 00:55:38.136
I've reinvented myself so many times, not just in like what I do, but how I relate to people that wanna learn, and I wanna work with people who wanna learn, not just the answers, but actually way to think how to do whatever their business looks like.

385
00:55:38.236 --> 00:55:51.516
[lips smack] I think, uh, that's a great definition of a creator to end this on is put the stuff out there, who the audience you're trying to reach, figure out where they're gonna, where they are, where they're gonna be next, and just put the stuff out there, and that makes a creator.

386
00:55:52.116 --> 00:56:01.135
I would not disagree with that, and we finally have consensus. [laughs] Perfect. And we'll send it in. It only took an hour and, and, uh, 10 minutes. [laughs] Ken, thank you for coming out. This was fun. Absolutely, man.

387
00:56:01.186 --> 00:56:03.636
Appreciate you having me. Cheers. Listener, we'll see you next week.

388
00:56:05.216 --> 00:56:13.376
[outro music] If you enjoyed the episode with Ken and are looking for more episodes that focus on the business side of the creator economy, I recommend this recent episode with Billy Parks.

389
00:56:13.826 --> 00:56:22.016
It's a great episode about using content as the driving force behind a sustainable long-term business. Give it a listen. Tell us what you think.