In 2020, the business just took off. My phone just kept blowing up, and I just remembered looking at it and being like, "Oh, God, what did I do?" [laughs] Tell me about this, why you started it, and what you offered.
I basically figured out what the formula was. I have, like, a notebook where it has a full business plan mapped out.
It included a potential community, it included one-on-one coaching, and it included the YouTube channel. Okay, let's talk about your YouTube for a little bit. I studied how to do it. I studied thumbnails.
I studied editing. And I remember making that video and saying, "I am never doing another video- [laughs]... like this ever again." It was so much work. What was the tipping point?
I just kept looking at it, and I was like, "But at what cost?" And that was the point when I made no money. Mm-hmm. And this is where things went terribly wrong.
[gentle music] Welcome back to the Creator Spotlight podcast. My name is Francis Zierer, and today we're speaking with Kaelyn Grace Apple, known to her 131,000 YouTube followers as The Redhead Academic.
Uh, she is the creator of Accepted Society, which is a 500-plus member paid community for scholars in training, as she says, and she's also the former head of product development for Ali Abdaal.
I want to speak with Kaelyn because she is a true creator entrepreneur who has also somehow managed to do all of this while pursuing a PhD. It's impressive.
This is a great conversation about balancing all of that and also building sustainable, lasting, highly engaged paid communities.
Accepted Society is, to quote, uh, I think this is on, on the website, "An online community for those that love learning." And it's a pay-to-access community that you started, I believe, five years ago, correct?
That's correct. And, um, when you started, it was an eight-attendee co-study community that you, that you started because you were at the beginning of your PhD in 2020, right? Mm-hmm. You've done your research, yes.
[laughs] I, I... This is, this is just the beginning. Um, walk me through the stages of the evolution from eight-person study group to now- Yeah... where I believe you're at a bit over 500 members.
I'm assuming that they're all paid. Yes. Uh, so current... Okay, let me back it up. So back in 2020, I had started my PhD, and the thing I missed most was just being in the library with my friends. Mm-hmm.
It was the one thing that I could always rely on to get my work done, was if I could just lock in, in a space with my buddies.
And I just decided I would put up a link on YouTube, and I just said, basically, if you wanna come study with me, I'm gonna put some times on my website. You can pay $5 and come join me. Mm-hmm.
Uh, 'cause I knew that if you had some skin in the game, if you had a little bit of, like, money on the line, that you were more likely to show up. And then people started coming quite regularly.
I think I was starting to do them probably, like, twice a week, and then it started evolving from that.
And it started with eight people, and then it just kind of grew to a regular 10, and then a regular 15, and then a regular 20. And it was
in the summer of 2021 when I started thinking, "Okay, maybe I should start formalizing this." Like, we don't have a way to chat. Mm-hmm.
Um, currently we're just using, you know, my Zoom account, and we're only able to do it when I'm available. And at this time, I had just started hiring.
I had hired, uh, a girl who had been one of my first clients for Accepted Consulting, which was a separate business. Yeah, we'll get into that. And I basically had her start running sessions along with me.
We ended up moving everybody over to Slack, and I really didn't like the format of Slack personally. It just... It felt very corporate. [laughs] Uh, didn't really like Discord. It felt really disorganized.
I think we were on s- I think we were on Slack for about a year- Mm-hmm... or, like, a little under a year, and that was the point when I discovered Mighty Networks. Ah.
We moved on to Mighty Networks, and that was when I would say we officially became what I would term a community. Because before, the way I would market it was like, "Oh, this is a co-studying space.
This is a co-working space. This is about accountability." The work- the study sessions were themselves called accountability workshops. Hmm.
And that was essentially all that we offered at the time, and then we moved over to Mighty Networks, and I started doing monthly resets. My team had expanded. We started running regular sessions.
I think it was, like, about three times a day, Monday- Wow... to Friday. And- So 15 sessions a week. Yeah. Yeah. It was, it was quite tedious. Um, but you know, we all had to get work done.
All of us were students, so it didn't... It wasn't that challenging to get people to fill in and, and to run sessions because all of us needed to get work done anyway. And
at the time, the, the format for the study sessions was, like, you jump on, you say hello, you say what you're working on, you do a 50-minute sprint, and then you'd talk for 10 minutes and whatnot.
Ultimately, we got to the point where we realized that that was quite tedious, uh, and quite draining on the team to have to facilitate so much communication- Mm-hmm... in the middle of a session.
So we ended up introducing silent sessions, and then that's kind of where things, like, could expand a bit.
And it wasn't until August 2024 when I had brought my new business partner on, and we decided that we were gonna completely rebrand Accepted Society. I had closed my consulting business.
We were really focusing on this being a community. At a time, what we had marketed as is this is a community for academics. Mm-hmm.
And we moved it over to Circle, and that shift, the rebrand, the restructuring, really focusing on it being community-led is where things really just started skyrocketing.
'Cause we, we had a consistent, like, 200 members for about a year. Uh, and we'd hit a bit of a plateau.
Like, we never saw the number, like, dip dramatically, but we just saw that turn kind of kept things within the, like, 180 to about 225 range.And when we moved to Circle, we brought over about 200 members with us, and in a year we over doubled our membership.
Wow. Okay, so there's a lot of things [laughs] I wanna go back and do then. Sure. So there's kind of two times when it sounds like it becomes more solidly a community. Yeah.
The first time, I, I don't think you said the year, but it was when you, I think it was when you got onto Mighty Networks, and that was- Yes... 2022 or 2023? Yeah, I believe it was 2022.
Okay, so- Yeah, it was right before I came to London, so that would- Mm-hmm... yeah, would've been 2022. So, so what happened then?
What were like the, the things that started happening within the community that made it so you would officially term it a community?
Like, what makes, what was the tipping point to, like, informal group of people studying together to community? Yeah.
What I th- what I'd kind of term the transition point into what is genuinely a community is when people are engaging with one another- Mm-hmm... outside of you. Yeah.
So they're developing friendships, they're giving advice to one another, they're, you know, creating in-person experiences together, they're DM'ing one another, they're creating support groups that have nothing to do with you.
That's kind of where I saw the community becoming its own. Mm-hmm. And when we moved to Mighty Networks, the organization of it was such that we also had all of these spaces that was, like,
parents in academia, disability in academia, neurodivergence in academia, and so there were all of these, like, sub-community groups that were forming. And
that's, that's when I would say it really did start to feel like a community that wasn't just people joining because of me. They might have learned about it because of me, but they were- Mm-hmm...
staying because of each other, and it had nothing to do necessarily with me or with the team. Yes. No, I love that.
I, that, I definitely agree that, like, what makes a community is when it's people within interacting with each other and not, like, the, the original person who, who convened people.
Um, so then in August 2024 when you shift from the team-led model to the- Yeah... member-led true community model- Mm-hmm...
um, d- was that something where you were only able to do it then, like, a couple years after that- Yeah...
initial terming because then, like, those connections had started forming and people had enough trust in each other? Like, why were you able to do that then?
I think it was, one, that it was seen as an opportunity rather than as something that was being asked of them. Mm-hmm.
It was like, "Oh, th- we have this great opportunity for you to lead sessions if they're not available by the team." So that way we can really run it round the clock, and that was something we always struggled with.
We really wanted it to be something that we could run around the clock, but we couldn't just based on the numbers. Like, we couldn't- Mm-hmm... make that work.
Um, and the other thing that made a big difference when we moved over to Circle, and the reason I don't think we could have done this at the beginning, is that
people had such a relationship with one another and with the brand- Mm...
that they were so bought in that any kind of new feature or new opportunity was seen as a, as a plus rather than as something that was like, "Oh, they're just bringing out more stuff." Yeah.
And I now do, you know, I've, I've done community management, I've, I've worked in the creator economy space, like helping other creators and helping businesses create communities, and one thing that I think people make the mistake of is trying to get to the member-led model too quickly and also trying to scale too quickly.
We never pushed to scale except it. Like- Mm... we've never really had a set goal of how many members we wanna be at. We've always grown based on
who finds us and, you know, who vibes with what we're doing, and we've always had a very open door policy of, you know, if this isn't for you, if you, if you it's not vi- if you're not vibing with it, that's okay.
Like, it might not be for you. Yeah.
And because of that and that mentality, the community grew very slowly over the four years to that, you know, that kind of 200 number, so that way when we did move to the member-led model and we were really focusing on how do we make this really community-oriented, community-led lectures, community-led study sessions, all of that,
then it could kind of grow based on referral. We weren't worried about, like- Mm... us being the main lead generators.
Uh, and so the, just the overall structure of it changed, and I think the overall energy in the community shifted, uh, because they felt like they had more control of, over where the community was heading and what they could get out of it- Mm...
and it wasn't just limited by what the team could offer. [whooshing] Hi there. My name's Tom, and I'm the producer here on Creator Spotlight.
I promise we'll get back to the episode in about 30 seconds or so, but just before I was sitting down to edit this episode with Kaylin, I was looking through our YouTube analytics, and I realized that around 70% of you that regularly watch this channel are not actually subscribed to the channel.
And I thought that was really weird, first of all, but then I started thinking about how I watch YouTube, and it's kinda the same as you.
I watch the same creators every week, so YouTube just recommends those creators every week. You almost never actually need to hit subscribe. The difference here is, though, we've got some new content coming out soon.
As well as this regular weekly episode that we do, we're going to start putting out highlight videos, further insights, breakdowns, and just some new formats that are gonna change things up a little bit.
So if you're a creator, or you just wanna get the most amount of value from the creators that we interview, subscribe to the channel, and we'll repay the favor by constantly improving the content that we make.
Also, we want to hear from you. Leave a comment, tell us how we can improve the videos, and we will do that.Thank you. Back to the episode. Okay.
I, I love this because to me, any good community, there's some identity that people join because they- Agreed...
feel aligned with that identity, and they want to fulfill it more, and being in the community validates that identity, right?
Which, so looking at, at your page, um, on the shop for Accepted Society, there's a sticker and a sweatshirt that says, "Scholar in training," right? And so I- Yeah...
kind of see that that's the identity, which it's this person who in earnest wants to identify as a scholar, as an academic. Um, this is messaging around making higher education accessible for everybody. Yeah.
Um, and it's about, like, you joined this because you don't feel like you belong to some ivory tower, but you would like to enter it. And I, I think I see this in your background.
I understand that you were a professional equestrian, then you went to community- Mm-hmm... college, then UCLA, then Oxford, and now Yale, so you had this journey in from the outside in these tiers, and so it works.
And again, you were saying, like, it only works when the creator, the original person who started it, um, also is the identity and also needs it for this reason.
So for you and for everybody in it, it's about feeling outside of academia- Yeah... and wanting in. I also think that,
uh, the difference between a course model versus a community model is a course model has a direct transformation, whereas a community, that transformation is constantly in the stage of becoming.
Like, you feel that sense of belonging, but that's something that you have to keep buying into. It's not something that you just, you know,
you've, you've reached a certain goal, milestone goal, and suddenly you've graduated and no longer, and you no longer need the space, you no longer need the, the support. Mm-hmm.
It's something that you constantly are seeking out and are s- are constantly needing kind of validated.
Well, this is why, too, you do see sometimes courses and communities in the same business because you do the course and it gives you something, but then you join the community- Yes...
because now you have enough to where you can kind of be conversant with other members of, of the community on the topic. Um- Yes... but it's, it's that ongoing thing. Um- Yeah, for sure.
So, so, uh, the 500 or so members in there now- Mm... where did they come from? I know originally... L- I, I guess actually first, where did those first eight people come from? From watching YouTube on- From your videos?
Yeah. The first, the first eight, um, I believe most of them are still in the community and are still very active. Uh, two that come to mind off the bat are Sandro and Laney. Mm-hmm.
Uh, Sandro was getting his master's, was about to drop out and was really struggling, and now, I mean, the, the, this, this is my claim to fame is that he has now met his fiancee through Accepted Society. Wow.
And he is now getting a PhD. And yeah, Laney is, she's a full-time construction worker, and she loves studying the Salem witch trials, so she joins the sessions and studies history for fun. Damn, that- And-...
that's awesome... they found, they found my YouTube channel, and the YouTube channel led them to the website where I was, you know, where I had the, the click-through to be able to join the sessions.
Most of the time they're coming from my YouTube channel. Occasionally they're coming from TikTok. Sometimes they come from my business partner. But more recently it's coming based on referral. Yeah.
It's either that their friend mentioned it, that a professor mentioned it, that a colleague mentioned it, or that another YouTuber, another creator in the education space has mentioned Accepted Society. Mm-hmm.
Um, why would somebody join this instead of joining...
I, I, I mean, you said just a few minutes ago that you loved studying with your friends in the library before the pandemic, so why would somebody now post-pandemic join Accepted Society as opposed to just spending all that time with, with people at their local college or whatever?
Most of our members are in their 30s and their 40s. They're distance learners. Mm-hmm. They're returning students. They have kids. They have other obligations.
They don't get to experience academia in the triti- like in the- Yeah...
traditional sense, and I think that that's the, the unifying, uh, element to a lot of their experiences is that they feel this, you know, drive towards education, but they don't feel like they get to experience the, the trappings of the academic experience.
Yes.
And so they meet up with others in this community, and we study together, we work together, we encourage one another, but also there's more opportunities in person, for example, that we've started trying to encourage.
Uh, for example, when I'm in Oxford, I always let people know a couple of months in advance and say, "Hey, I'm gonna be in Oxford on these dates if you wanna come and hang out and study."
Um, so they, they get to engage in that experience in their own way on their own terms. And we do have students that are in kinda traditional academic settings. Mm-hmm.
Um, but I would say the, the unifying identity that they also have is that they don't necessarily feel like they're finding their people. Um, either
they're undergraduates that, like, are really taking the ac- the education and the, and the research seriously- Mm-hmm... and they're not really surrounded by people that are on the same track as them.
Too much partying- Or-... at the local environment or something. Potentially. Yeah. Potentially. Um, and I also think that post-pandemic, those, those kinds of opportunities are becoming less and less. I- Mm.
Even for myself, I used to be somebody that always went and studied at the library, always went and studied in a group study room when I was doing my master's degree.
But post-pandemic, most of the work that I do is work from home. Mm-hmm. I think a lot of us have experienced, you know, like, that working from home you can add additional comfort. Yeah.
Um, you know, if you've got a chronic illness or you've got chronic pain.
Um, and so yeah, all of those things are, are reasons why I think that people kind of come into Accepted because they don't necessarily feel like they're getting that...
academic experience in the way that they might want. Yeah, that makes sense. It's, it's that post-pandemic, like s- societal level fragmentation.
It's, it's the lack of alignment with maybe local peers, um, and then it's just, yeah, the, the, the normalization of the work from home. Um, let's talk about the pricing. So you said at the beginning- Yeah...
it was $5 to, to join in on one of the sessions, which I, I definitely agree. You said that, um, that, that gives somebody stakes, it makes them more likely to participate.
I've definitely found that with pretty much everybody I've spoken to who has some sort of community.
It's like, uh, at the beginning, maybe they weren't trying to make money from it, but it's just like, I wanted the level of participation to be of a higher quality, and that's how you do it. Yeah. It's quite simple.
Um, okay, so right now, most recent pricing, I checked the other day. It's $28 a month or $297 a year for the scholars membership- Mm-hmm...
which includes, uh, community-led study sessions 24/7, the writing corner three, uh, three times per week, community forums, book club, bimonthly goal planning and accountability, monthly social events, and office hours.
Um, so that's the current model. Between the $5 to participate at the beginning and this, have there been any shifts?
In terms of the pricing, so there was, I believe we were, uh, I think we were at, like, 20 when we moved to Mighty Networks. Mm-hmm. $28 a month? And then, yeah, $20 US. Mm-hmm.
I can't remember exactly the timings of the increases, but we, when we... Okay, when we moved to Circle, I know we moved up to 28, and
that was largely because we had moved the business to Ireland, and our taxes increased dramatically. [laughs] Oh, interesting.
Uh, so we just needed to be able to, to compensate for the VAT, um, that was being taken out in order to pay our taxes.
[laughs] And in addition to that, the, the pricing for Accepted, it's, [laughs] it's, it, at the time, was just kind of based on what the expenses were, and it just made sense to kind of keep that pricing as is.
Recently, we've actually introduced a scholarship model as well. So it operates in two ways. So every quarter we evaluate, uh, the number of monthly recurring members,
and then we essentially have a calculation to see how many scholarships we can offer based on that recurring number.
And secondly, we also have an option where y- a member, members in the community when we announce the scholarship specifically said that they would want to be able to support another person to be able to experience it.
And so we also have an option on the website now where you can actually gift a scholarship to somebody else on that scholarship list. So we every quarter go and evaluate [laughs]
what the number is that can be gifted and what number we can gift as an organization and then, you know, m- make opportunities for people that especially are in, uh,
in zones where, you know, in, in nations where the currency, um- Is of much lower value... it, it, yeah, where they- Mm... they s- just simply can't afford it. Yeah. No, that's really, that's really nice. Quite it.
I don't know if I've ever spoken to anybody who has, uh, some kind of paid community for this who, who has the scholarship model, though I guess it makes a lot more sense to have a scholarship model for this [laughs] education-based, uh, community.
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I have probably too many more questions about it left, but I wanna make sure we f- pulled a few more things in too. So Accepted Consulting, we mentioned this a few- Yeah...
minutes ago, um, a business that you ran for almost four years, I think from early 2020- Mm-hmm... to end of 2023. You had around 550 clients over the lifetime of the business.
Um, much more obviously of a, a one-on-one type thing than- Yeah... Accepted Society. Um, tell me about this, why you started it and what you offered. So back, I... It, it kind of requires a little bit of a rewind.
So back in 2019 when I was planning to start my YouTube channel, I wish I could show you, but I actually, it's in storage somewhere. I have evidence of [laughs]...
I have, like, a notebook where it has a full business plan mapped out, and it was the summer of 2019. Including a community perhaps.
It in- it included a potential community, it included one-on-one coaching, and it included the YouTube channel.
And Accepted Consulting focused on transfer admissions, and then it grew to focus on graduate admissions, so primarily for people wanting to apply to master's degrees in the UK, and then, you know, that expanded.
I started taking clients for... I mean, I say clients, but they weren't paying me. [laughs] That's how every business starts. Yeah. I started working with clients, uh, in, like, late 2019.
I think it probably would've, it would've been, like, October. October, November. Basically, de- I developed a system. Like, I had studied all of the YouTube videos on admissions.
I had looked at, like, college admissions, uh, experts and what they had to say. I read so many statements online, and I basically figured out what the formula was, but I didn't wanna do college admissions because-
Mm-hmm... I hadn't applied directly to college. I didn't have experience doing that myself, and also that particular demographic didn't appeal to me because it, it, it- I, I feel like-... excuse me...
I feel like it's also a really saturated market. Maybe I'm wrong- It is... but, like, yeah. It is.Yeah, it is a very saturated market. It is a very lucrative market. Mm-hmm.
Um, if you wanna get into the college admission space, I mean, you can make 10, $20,000 on a single application. [laughs] But I... That wasn't my game. I wanted to help transfer students.
I wanted to help non-traditional and first-generation students get into higher education. And so, basically, I did this market research to figure out what everybody was paying and what their rates were.
And like I said, the average application was, like, 10 grand. Uh, and then I would also... I looked at some other businesses, like Crimson Education and others, and they're really shady about their pricing.
Um, and it would basically... I, I didn't see a service that was less than a couple thousand. And so I basically said, "Okay, well then I'm just gonna make this, like, stupid cheap."
[laughs] Uh, I think I started doing calls for, like, $20 after I had done a couple calls for free, and then the volume started increasing, and so then I started doing it at 20, and then it raised to 50, and so on and so forth.
And basically, t- to do a massive time jump, in 2020 the business just took off. I had started my PhD. I was helping people with PhD applications, and I remember I was gonna do a, a free graduate admissions workshop.
And with it, I, like, had a discount code, and I just remember I put the story slide up on Instagram, and my phone just kept blowing up with new people signing up to the workshop, new people signing up to do coaching.
And I just remember looking at it and being like, "Oh, God, what did I do?" [laughs] I, like, I'm in a PhD program. I don't have time to run a business. Uh, but
went with it, and then I took the advice that I was seeing online, which at the time, the only advice that was really there was delegate, hire, scale. And so I did, and between 2020 and then the summer of 2022,
I had gone from a team of me to a team of 15. 15? Yeah. Do not recommend. What were the- [laughs] What were the functions? Like, I mean, you don't have to tell me every single person, but, like, roughly- Yeah...
um, what was the order of function you hired? Yeah, so we had two marketing, two admin, and then the rest were admissions coaches. Mm-hmm. That were b- they, that were paid by commission. Yeah. So
yeah, it just, it just blew up. [laughs] And the, the, the thing was that we, we were meeting demand. I mean, the, the reason I hired was because the first year, I think I did, like, 60 clients in one year.
And I had looked at it and I was like, "Okay, I need to, I need to hire somebody else to help me out." Yeah.
And I just, I felt so guilty any time I had to turn somebody away that I was like, "Okay, I'll just keep hiring- [laughs]... so that way I can meet demand." And- Surely this will fix it.
[laughs] Surely this will fix my problem. And yeah, it was the
following year, and basically throughout that year I had been in communication with my team, and especially two of the girls that were really close, uh, in terms of my, like, my executive assistant and my head of marketing.
And I basically said, "I can't, I can't keep doing this volume." Like, I, I had done 80 clients in, in 2020. I think it was in 2022 that I did 80. Mm-hmm.
And I was like, "I don't think I, I don't think I can do this anymore. Like, I have comps, I have exams I have to write." [laughs] And that was the point when I had looked at changing the business model.
Basically everybody was saying, like, "Build a course, that way people aren't on your one-on-one." And this is where things went terribly wrong- [laughs]... in my opinion.
[laughs] Because I should have just looked at it and re- like, I wish somebody had, like, given me a come to Jesus moment and just- Mm-hmm... basically said, "You can run a small business. You can turn people away.
You can just... Running a sustainable business is so much better than running a big business." But the influences I had and the people I looked to had big teams, and- Mm-hmm...
that was the kind of marker of success was the teams. Those are the loudest voices. You had a big team. Yeah. And it just, from that point I just remembered kind of
questioning every decision we were making, and what dir- like, why were we doing it in the first place.
And ultimately, I moved to London in 2023, and when I moved to London, I think a lot of, a lot of things in my life needed to be evaluated.
And at the time, you know, Accepted consulting was doing really well financially, but I just kept looking at it and I was like, "But at what cost?" Like- Mm-hmm... you know,
I have so many calls every week with clients, with my team, and the expenses keep going up. And, like, the margins aren't that great, so- And surely your studies were suffering a bit. Yeah.
And it was just, it was just too, it was just too much to manage for something that didn't feel like I cared enough to keep it going. And I just kinda fell out of love with it and decided, "You know what?
I'm gonna take a step back. I'm gonna take a year. I'm gonna figure things out. I'm gonna close this arm of the business and I'm gonna focus on the community." Mm-hmm. And yeah, so then in 2023... No, 2024.
So I closed it in 2023. 2024 I decided I was just gonna focus on Accepted society, and that was the point when I made no money from the Accepted franchi- or- Yeah... Accepted brand, um, whatsoever.
'Cause you had the team there as well, which now- Yeah, so- Okay...
I had downsized, I had downsized all the-Like, and not, I didn't have any more of the consultants, but I still had a team that was helping me run the sessions for Accepted Society. And basically,
I looked at it, and at the time I was like, "Well, I, I really, really care about this community. I'm, I'm just not gonna ta- I'm, basically, I'm not gonna do anything for a year.
I'm just gonna let it, just kinda let it ride and just see what happens." And that was the year where the community kind of just, like, sat at a plateau. You know, it broke even. It didn't- Mm-hmm...
make a lot of money, but it didn't need to. And that was the, that was also the year that I took the job with Allie, and a lot of, a lot of other things changed. [laughs] We'll, we'll, we'll get into that shortly.
Let's talk about your YouTube for a little bit. So there are, as we record, around 131,000 subscribers. Mm-hmm. Uh, most of your content, I think your oldest video is somewhere around six, seven years old. Um- Mm-hmm...
and your most popular videos are all a little older. None of your six most popular videos, which six with over 100,000 views, none of them are from this year. The most recent- Yeah... of those is three years old.
And these are all- Yeah... sort of evergreen how-to videos about taking notes, annotating PDFs, getting into Oxford, writing a research paper, and writing a statement of purpose for grad school applications.
Those are the, uh, the above- Yeah... 100,000 ones. Um, and so obviously evergreen content like that always receives compounding viewership.
The most popular one has 1.7 million views, three years old, How to Read and Take Notes Like a PhD Student: Tips for Reading Fast and Efficiently for Slow Readers.
And then your most recent videos are all, for the most part, um, vlogs and video diaries with between 8,000 and 6,000 views. Yeah. So, uh, my question [laughs] I do have one more little spiel before the question.
My question is, like, what is your content to you? Why is it important- Mm... for you to make content?
Clearly, in the past, you, you mentioned that originally there was this plan, and I guess it was lead generation of, of some sort. Yeah.
Um, and then the last sort of note here is, uh, I've learned from creators I've spoken to that people do well to focus on niche, highly educational- Mm...
domain expert content at first, and then once they've established an audience, they expand into more lifestyle content, um, about them- Yeah... and their lives. Um, and that, that's seen in, in your history there.
Um, but so that's sort of, for the listener, a brief history of your YouTube presence. Yeah. So my question to you is at this point, you're still making a ton of videos.
At this point in time, what is your YouTube and your content to you, and how is that different- Mm... from what it was six years ago when you had that roadmap? Yeah.
What's so funny to me is that when I started the YouTube channel, it always came back to what do, what would I need to see- Mm-hmm... five years ago or three years ago? Like, what would I have benefited from?
And when I was at Oxford, I, I had started the YouTube channel primarily because I wanted people to see that a community college student who did not have perfect grades could get into UCLA. Mm.
They could get into Oxford, that that wasn't unavailable to them as they might have thought, as I thought. And I don't think the mission's changed that much.
I now really focus on creating content that I, I still think I would've benefited from seeing- Mm-hmm... you know, three to five years ago.
But now I also create for me, like, 10 years from now when I look back at my channel, and I want to be able to... You know, I wanna see the process. I wanna know the good, the bad, the ugly. I wanna be able to remember
all the things that I was thinking and feeling and going through.
And I'm so glad that I've done that because now, I mean, I still go back and rewatch my vlogs from, from Oxford or from my early days as a PhD student because it's this constant reminder
not only of evolution, but actually how much hasn't changed, that, like, my character, the things that I value, those things are the same. Uh, and so for me, I create primarily... Yeah, I, I, I create primarily for me.
Hmm. And the other thing that, that has changed in my content strategy... So I'll go back to 2022. 2022, I, I just, I doubled down on strategy. We were trying to grow the business.
I knew that we needed lead generation, and so I, I studied how to do it. I studied thumbnails. I studied editing. And that how to read video, I remember it took me, I think it took me, like, four days to edit.
It took me forever. And I remember making that video and saying, "I am never doing another video- [laughs]... like this ever again." [laughs] It was so much work.
But also, I'm, I'm, I am proud of that video because of the strategy, but, like, I don't go back and rewatch that video. Yeah. I'm so glad that it's helpful to people,
and I'm so glad that it's, you know, it's, it is a significant lead generator in terms of that's how people find me. But that video wasn't for me. It was- No... it was for other people.
It's a search engine, search engine optimized education. Yeah. Mm. Absolutely. And now the, you know, the goal isn't necessarily to grow big, to grow fast.
It's, it's to make content that I, that I really wanna see online. Mm-hmm. And the content that I make that's a bit different now is, it, I would say more kind of politically aligned with the things that I care about.
Uh, so when I left my nine-to-five, when I left my job with Allie, I remembered saying to my, to my manager that one of the reasons I was leaving was because there was,
there was more I needed to say about higher education and about humanities and about history. And in order to do that, I needed time, and I needed the space, and I needed the creative energy to make that happen.
Mm-hmm.I don't make those videos because I think they're gonna get massive reach, even though they, they tend to perform better than vlogs just because of that SEO and that it's a bit controversial.
But I want to ensure that, one, that there's a real- there's a, there's a voice in the room that is speaking on behalf of higher education- Mm-hmm... and is speaking for the positivity of higher education. But two,
it's actually more of a call to action to my colleagues to say we cannot keep being silent in the academy. We cannot, you know, as scholars,
w- remain in the ivory tower safely, that we need to engage in this conversation. We need to be able to combat misinformation.
And so it's not, it's not a growth strategy, whereas in 2022 it was a growth strategy, whereas now it's more, I guess, like, a value-driven strategy- Mm-hmm...
where I just wanna make sure that when I'm putting out content, that it's stuff that I wanna see and that I feel is contributing in some way to,
yeah, to helping a broader mission or to helping somebody on the other side of the screen feel seen in some way. Mm-hmm. Um, okay.
A qui- very quick question [laughs] that is almost, uh, crude to ask after this, the, with those lovely notes about value-driven [laughs] content. Uh, this is something I ask every guest, which is- Yeah...
what are all the different ways that you currently make a living? So you don't have to tell me that you make- Yeah...
X dollars from X thing, but, like, what are the, you know, five, six, seven, whatever it is, what are all the different ways you make your living? Yeah. No, I'm, I'm happy, I'm happy to share that. Cool.
And what percentage of the pie is each one? Oh, gosh. Um, okay, so- Approximately. Uh, the, I'm, I, I'm, I know you don't have this- Yeah... off the top of your head. Yeah. Okay. So
the challenge is, like, for the next, like, three months I have a fellowship from Yale- [laughs]... but then after that it's complete. [laughs] We can, we can count that for now.
I don't have any money from Yale after that. [laughs] I've... They, they've washed their hands of me. I... But that, that makes up about 50% of my income right now. Wow. And Accepted is about 25%, so
I, and I, I said this at, I've said this to other creators before when we talked about, when we talk about metrics and we talk about goals, and they're like, "I wanna make a million.
I wanna do this," and I'm like, "I just want to make enough to pay my bills." [laughs] Yes. And so Accepted, I'm, I'll tell you, I make less than, I think I make 2,600 pounds a month from Accepted.
Um, and that's, that's kinda where, where I'll sit with Accepted. Um- Yeah... the goal is not to make, the goal is not to make an astronomical living from Accepted.
Uh, it's just to cover the bills, and then basically any additional money beyond that is personal brand- Mm-hmm... um, and coaching.
So at the moment I do personal brand strategy and online community building, uh, based coaching. Mm-hmm. Um, and so I have a couple of recurring clients off of that. That probably makes up the other,
I don't know, like, 20, 20, 20-ish percent. [laughs] Um, and, and then the rest of it is, is a little bit YouTube AdSense- Mm... the occasional brand deal and that kind of thing.
I, I don't take as many brand deals as I did. Um, that is strategic. It's also because the market's changed. What 20 did- And- I feel like I saw one with Notion, for example? Or did, was that the wrong- Yeah. Yeah.
So back in 2022 the, the, the sponsor market was great. [laughs] Yeah.
Um, there were a lot of companies that I felt really aligned with that were, that were seeking collaboration, and so I've worked with companies that I really loved, like Notion, Paperlike. Mm-hmm.
Uh, I've worked with Squarespace, et cetera. Uh, the market in terms of long-form video content, the, the brands just don't pay as much.
Um, but in addition to that, the market is very saturated with AI companies- Mm-hmm... and it's not something that I feel ethically right promoting. Mm.
So I basically, I only take brand deals if I'm the one that reaches out to the brand and I- M- my impression too with, with sort of this h- like, the change maybe- Mm...
over the last five, six years in the brand, um, deal marketplace is that, like, it's becom- brands have become more sophisticated about it. A lot of, a lot of, like- Yeah...
what was more experimental then has now calcified into these, like, "Oh, here's how you do it. Here is how much money you should put in for this outcome." Like, there's- Yeah...
a lot less, like, we're just figuring it out now. People kind of have figured out, figured it out- Yeah... which has in some ways contracted the market. Yeah. Agreed. Agreed.
Uh, so yeah, I do, I do partnerships primarily with brands that I reach out to because I really like them. [laughs] Mm-hmm. Um, and now the strategy's actually more focused on short-form content- Yeah...
um, over long-form. Um, so you mentioned the consulting. So I did see on your website that you list the one-on-one, uh, business coaching call service, and then there's also a creator community. Is, I, I, did- Yeah...
did you mention the creator community? Are you still doing the creator community? So I do have the creator community, but to be honest, it breaks even. Mm-hmm.
I, it, it, the, the goal for me was to have a group of people that really cared about the, the art of content creation.
And so to me it wasn't, it wasn't necessarily about scaling it, it was just about- Again, it's a place where you get something out of it too. The value- Exactly... you're looking for is your own learning. Yeah, exactly.
Mm. And so, I mean, I always believe that if you wanna start a community, the best thing to do is to experiment with between, like, 5 and, and 20 people that are really about it, and do it for three to six months
solidly, consistently- Mm... knowing that you're not really gonna make much money with it, and then you can actually build based on that feedback. And so I have a very, very long and slow approach.
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That is G-O-O.G-L-E/earnwithadsense. So we've talked about it a couple of times. I do wanna talk about your year working with Ali Abdaal as head- Yeah... of product development. So you- Yeah... joined spring of 2024.
You left spring of 2025, so about five months or so ago as we speak. Um, tell me about that. What were you doing there?
Throughout my PhD, I have always kept an eye on listings because I always think it's important, no matter what, for you to be aware of what the market is doing. Mm-hmm.
And I had professional experience in, in the Silicon Valley. You know, I'd been a professional athlete. I built a couple of businesses myself, and I just always wanted to see,
okay, if I were to need a job right now, [chuckles] what would, what would I apply for? What kind of, uh, value would I have? What could I ask in terms of a salary?
And, you know, I k- I kept an eye open, and I never really found anything or saw anything that turned my eye until Ali had posted that he was looking for a community manager to run his new productivity-based community.
Mm. And it just, it just clicked something in my brain where I was like, "That's, that's the job I would leave. This is the job I would do"- Mm... "if I, you know, I weren't in a PhD." And so I'm just...
I'm a big believer in open every single door and just see what happens. [laughs] So I, you know, I applied, I got through the group interview, and then I got a call back to do the, to do the primary interview with him,
and I got the job, and funny enough, I got the job the same week that I heard that I had landed a really prestigious fellowship to Cambridge. [laughs] Classic. And I was like, "Oh. Oh, God."
[laughs] And I, I do, I, I am a believer that you open up every single door- Mm-hmm... along the way that makes sense and that you feel drawn to, but then your intuition tells you what decision to make.
And at the time, I remember my, my gut was telling me to take the job. And so I helped build Productivity Lab. I had, you know, I had a team of coaches that I had underneath me. I worked with...
You know, I worked very directly with Ali in building courses, and about six months into the job, I got a promotion to head of product. And at the time, Ali was also moving away to Hong Kong- Mm... and he,
I think was, was- He was in the UK at that, at that point... yeah, he was, he was in London previously. And I just, I felt the business model change in, like, a matter of, of weeks. [laughs] And
at the time, the, the role really focused on, focused on building courses and then eventually building software, and my heart was in community. And at the time, I just...
I, I kind of just went with it and, you know, tried to get in as much experience as I could. At the same time as then, I had this huge epiphany about my PhD. I decided I was gonna stick with it.
I brought Kate onto the team, and I just felt so much energy around education. Mm-hmm. And so I, I kinda sat with it, you know, kind of rode it out for a couple of months, and the way that I felt
w- in... like, intuitively was that the business was gonna go in this direction, and I was gonna head out back on my own. And yeah, so I, I gave my notice in, in February.
Uh, there was also a lot going on politically in the United States that I felt like I, I really wanted to be a, a part of the conversation, and I wanted my content to be a, a voice for- Mm...
hopeful s- ho- hopefully, like, solidarity and, and just something- This is what you were talking about a second ago with, with the- Yeah... plan for your YouTube content. Yeah. Yeah. And I just...
At the time, YouTube was on the back burner. I... It could not, it could not have been a main strategy. Yeah. I was... You know, I was working on a PhD.
I was working a very intense full-time job, and YouTube was just a posting mechanism. Like, it wasn't... You know, it wasn't about making money. It wasn't about growing.
It was just about producing content to share the experience and to be able to look back on it, and I'm so glad that I didn't stop. Yeah. And yeah, so I, I left at the end of March, and
it was, it was the right decision for me. Yeah. No, I mean, it makes complete, total sense, the, the, the getting, getting the fellowship, him moving to Hong Kong. It seems almost no reason to stay.
Um, so Ali Abdaal, though, you know, one of the brightest, most popular case studies for creator businesses- Yeah...
I wonder if there's one or two things that you really took from that experience that maybe you've brought back to the Accepted franchise- Mm...
or future plans for your work, um, one or two things about building online education programs and communities. Yeah. Okay.
Um, so in terms of community, because we were actually on Circle, that was one of the reasons I- Oh...
I pivoted Accepted to Circle, and I'm so glad that I did 'cause I think Circle pla- the Circle platform and the Circle team are just... I mean, I think they're fantastic.
Um, and I really got to see how you would create systems, workflows, automations, et cetera, for a much, much bigger community.And so a lot of those systems we didn't have in play at Accepted.
Mm-hmm. And I went back and what was ni- what was... I think the biggest takeaway from my time working with Ali and what I apply in my business now, beyond, like, YouTube strategy, 'cause that's also part of it, is
making really mindful decisions about what's right for your business, because I saw inside of the business and how it is that we were really trying to scale, and we were trying to scale quite quickly at Ali Abdaal.
And, you know, there was, there was a lot of expenses, it's a big team, and so they're, they had to make moves in a way that made sense for them.
And when I decided to, to focus on Accepted, there's a lot of things I learned that they did that I'm like, "Okay, it- it's an incredible strategy, but we're not gonna do that for Accepted 'cause that's not how we run.
That's not how we will run things." Yeah. But because I have that knowledge now, I can decide this is what we experiment with, this is what we're not gonna experiment with.
And that was, that was a big part of it, was learning essentially, like, what tools were available, um, that I, I otherwise was quite nervous to, to, to test.
But being able to test it in an environment where I was around people that were so knowledgeable, um, and that, you know, could provide a little bit of support and gui- and those guide rails. Mm-hmm.
I- And doing it in a much, much bigger community, much bigger business, that gave me a lot more confidence in doing it on my own. And then in terms of, like, content strategy,
what I really appreciate about Ali and what I've, I've learned from that is how much his enthusiasm- Mm...
drives the content, and drives the growth of the business and, you know, also impacts the, the lack of growth in the business- Yeah... or in, in content.
That there is a degree of energy and authenticity that goes behind content that you cannot fake, that you cannot replicate. And I appreciate that when
that energy was low for him, there was discussions on the team on, of okay, how do we, how do we, like, ta- take our foot off the gas so that way we can give him a little bit of space?
And that's something that I, I, I think I had been doing unconsciously with my content, but now I do it very intentionally. Oh.
Like, you know, recognizing that, okay, I'm not feeling creatively energized by this thing, what does that mean? Because I saw him do it so often.
And as somebody who, you know, obviously has a much bigger channel and has, uh, a very successful business, I took that to heart and said, you know, now I'm gonna apply- How do you-...
apply that to- How do you correct for that? How do you... What are, like, the strategies or tactics or, like, steps you take to, to make sure that that lower energy period is, like, you know, accounted for?
I often saw that... So they would, there would be some mitigating factors. So they would make sure that when he had high energy and was really excited, that they would take advantage of that. They'd film a ton of videos.
They'd make sure they had a backlog- Strike the iron's hot... and- Mm-hmm. Yeah, exactly. And to that extent, I, I did learn a lot from that as well. But also that when the energy is low, it's not the time to push. Mm.
Like, that's the time to ease up. Mm-hmm. And somebody asked me the other day, like, how do you, how do you r- maintain consistency? And I would say I have a, a, a pretty serious consistency with YouTube, but
I found that my audience, if I tell them honestly, like, "Hey, I have a deadline and there's not gonna be a video this week," they're so understanding. Mm.
And, you know, while I could push to put the content out, part of what, to me, makes YouTube, like, fun and makes it something that I wanna keep doing is because there's a community there. And
I always say with people at Accepted, like, you have to give other people the opportunity to be there for you, and in order to do that you have to be vulnerable. Mm. Yeah.
And if you don't give people that opportunity, they also don't have the opportunity to show up.
And so if I continuously push myself and burn myself out on, on content and I'm producing stuff that I'm not really enjoying, I, I actually create that mistrust with my audience because they know something's wrong.
But if I'm honest and tell them, "Hey, you know, I've got a deadline. I'm feeling a little bit, little bit burnt out," they always, they always come back and they're like, "Take, take all the time you need." Yeah.
Um, so I was going to ask a question about how you prioritize. Obviously you've, at, at different points of time you've been doing, like, 10 different things. But I think you sort of answered it there.
You, you, you listen to your needs and, and you prioritize accordingly- Yeah... and do less of this then, do more of this then. Um, but I'm assuming that it's the spring semester 2026 you finish your PhD, correct?
Uh, we're gonna try. Okay. We're gonna try. Well, okay. It might, might be a lit- it might be a little later than 2026, but we're, we're seeing. We're, we're, we're wishing you luck. We're knocking on wood.
But assuming that, um, you know, I, I feel like a classic question people ask is like, "Oh, five years from now, 10 years from now- Mm... what do you think?" Um, I, I, I think that's unrealistic.
But let's say three years from now, you're a couple years- Mm... out of the PhD. Um, maybe you're still working on, on Accepted Society, I don't know. Oh, yeah. What do you think would be...
Again, there's no definitive answer to this. Today, how you're feeling today, where do you think you would like to be? What would you like to be working on, um- Mm... in three years?
It's funny that you, you seemed hesitant asking that question. I feel totally fine answering it. [laughs] Really? I, some...
I mean, 'cause I personally, and so many people I speak to, s- sometimes when I ask it people are like, "Ugh."Jeez, I don't know. So I stopped asking five years and often I'll ask two years.
Um, so s- you know what you want though, it sounds like. I mean, I can, I can, I mean, I can answer both. I can answer both. Let's do it. [laughs] So, I mean, in, in two years I'll be done with the PhD,
and I mean, I, I wanna be happy running Accepted for 30 years. Mm. Like, I don't know where Accepted's necessarily going, and I've had so many conversations with Kate about this. Like, okay, where, where do we wanna go?
What do we wanna accomplish and whatnot? And basically the, the thing that we keep coming back to is we want it to keep feeling this good. Yeah.
Like, we want it to keep feeling this joyful and connected, and it just has this really beautiful energy that just wanna harness it and keep it, keep it going. And where that goes, I, I don't know.
[laughs] Um, I would- I, I love this. This, this has been a theme throughout this whole conversation of you're kind of rejecting the fetis- fetishization of a scaled business and- Yeah...
in favor of, of the lifestyle business, which is so often ridiculed. But I think- Yeah...
personally from people I've spoken to, maybe it's just the type of people I seek out, but more and more people I talk to are more attracted to that, to that lifestyle business.
I mean, if Accepted did not grow at all from this point forward, I'd be, I'd be ch- dead chuffed. Mm-hmm. I'd be very happy with it. I make enough money- You've been in the UK a while, using a word like that. I know.
[laughs] My partner makes fun of me for it. Um, yeah, I, if it, it just, it just continued like this, I would be d- I'd be delighted. I'd be very happy with that. Uh, when I finish my PhD,
there's a lot of public historical work that I would like to do. Mm-hmm. Um, I've been working on a historical fiction novel, uh, so maybe that, maybe that'll result in something, I don't know. Um,
I, I really like engaging with history, but having a bit more creative leverage. [laughs] Yeah. Flexibility. I wanna be living in England with my partner and my dog. And
the only thing that I think is missing in my life right now that I would like to have and see in the next two to three years is that I really wanna compete again. I really wanna- Yeah...
be able to ride horses and compete again. Uh, there's one, there's one goal that I never accomplished,
and it's the one thing that I think about when somebody asks the question of like, "Okay, if you were on your deathbed tomorrow, like, what would you regret?" And my only...
I wouldn't regret anything, uh, but the one thing I really, I really want to accomplish in my life is being able to compete at a, at a higher level with showjumping. So
I mean, so long as I can make all that happen, that would be, that would be swell. Uh, [laughs] I wish it all for you. Thank you. Uh, I guess we'll, we'll end it right about here.
We've, we've [laughs] you've given me a lot. This has been a, this has been a really great conversation. Um, time to plug. Anything you'd like to plug, uh, I assume Accepted Society maybe. Yeah. Some of your consulting.
Where should people go? Yeah.
So if you are a lifelong learner, if you love education, if you love learning, if you love reading, if you love learning about history, literature, philosophy, whatever it may be, uh, then Accepted Society is the place for you.
[laughs] We welcome you with, with open arms. Uh, and if you wanna check out some of my content, it's, uh, just my name, Kalyn Grace Apple, on Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube.
And if you'd like to work with me on building your community or talking about personal branding, uh, just send me an email. It's just kalyn@kalynapple.com.
I, I take clients on an ad hoc basis based on if I feel excited about their project, so shoot me an email. Love that. Kalyn Grace Apple, thank you for coming on. [laughs] Thank you so much for having me. Of course.
And listener, we will see you next week. Goodbye.
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