• Podcast research
• Book research
• Sending a daily briefing
• Creating workout plans
• Providing essay feedback
• Cataloging questions from calls
• Building internal software, including a Membership CRM, KPI Dashboard, and Fitness Dashboard

I even set the Action Button on my iPhone to open up my chat with Tubey.

It knows a lot about me. From the conversations I have with it and from the transcripts of my podcasts, my essays, and the calls my Fathom recorder joins.

Two weeks ago, I asked it to create a dossier of what it knows about me, including:

1. Strengths
2. Weaknesses
3. Greatest Assets & Unique Qualities
4. Patterns of Behavior I May Be Blind To
5. Recommendations For Actions

It was pretty blunt! One item in particular that really stood out to me:

Wooooooof. But also, true. I'm writing this newsletter to you two weeks after it initially wrote this dossier. Before sitting down to write, I sent Tubey a message:

Tubey's response?

OK, point taken.

So what advice have I given/what do I know to be true that I'm not acting on?

There are three gaps between insight and action that I haven't closed:

1. Narrow my platform focus

As time goes on, every platform becomes more competitive. There are more creators, creators are using better tools, and AI has made content generation instant. Throw in the emphasis of "For You" recommendations, and viewer attention is increasingly directed to a small number of the most engaging posts. The rewards are enormous (posts can go mega-viral), but past post performance doesn't really impact future post performance.

We used to chase virality because virality → followers → better baseline content performance. But that's no longer true. Everything you publish on social media essentially starts on equal footing with anyone else, and your followers will see content from people they don't follow just as readily as they'll see it from you.

But because the rewards are so high, competition continues to grow. The bar gets higher and higher. It's a knife fight for attention, and you're competing against people who approach content ​like this​.

Let me be clear: You can compete on any platform you want. If you become a student of that platform and put in the work to get the reps, you can win big. But it's increasingly impractical to try and win on all platforms (and especially across mediums). Short-form vertical video is still portable across most platforms, and a winning video on TikTok, Reels, or YouTube will likely succeed on the others, too. But there's a big difference between:

1. Short-form vertical video
2. Long-form solo videos
3. Long-form interview videos
4. Short-form solo audio episodes
5. Long-form solo audio episodes
6. Long-form audio interviews
7. Long-form writing
8. Short-form writing

I would argue that those are eight distinct capabilities, each with its own evolving culture, trends, style, and viewer expectations. Every minute you put into getting better at one is at the cost of another.

...and yet, here I am, trying to do all of them. My own results are middling, at best.

It's possible for you to show up everywhere, but you need a lot of help. In a 2024 keynote at Craft + Commerce, Codie Sanchez said she had spent $2.9 million on content in 2024.

If you don't have the team in place or the resources to hire them, the best move is to focus on fewer formats and dedicate yourself to getting as good at them as you can.

2. Delegate more, review less

That brings me to my second personal gap... my ongoing, long-standing, never-ending, obvious delegation problem.

I do think I get a little better at this all the time (I now lovingly refer to my wife as my Head of Instagram, and my team helps repurpose my essays into visual carousels). But...there's a long way to go—especially if I want to continue trying to show up in non-writing mediums like YouTube.

A secondary challenge in my delegation is my insistence on reviewing work from my team before publishing. I'm too involved. I have a great apprentice named Laura helping me with carousels and short-form video clips, but I sometimes spin her in circles. I've been on the other side of that—and when your work ceases to feel like your work, it's demoralizing.

I only hire people I believe in. My job should be to set the standard and then trust them to meet the standard. Instead of reviewing before publishing, we should review after publishing to learn from data (rather than my personal design opinions).

We'll publish more, she'll feel more ownership, I'll save more time, and we'll end up with more data to make better decisions.

3. Reposition my promise

I love the Creator Science brand. I really think we nailed it. And there's a parallel universe somewhere where I've learned to hire and have a team publishing platform-specific content, e.g.:

• On Instagram, Creator Science covers Instagram
• On YouTube, Creator Science covers YouTube
• On LinkedIn, Creator Science covers LinkedIn

The brand is flexible enough to cover all platforms and all mediums, but our team is too small to manage that. As a result, each week I have to decide which subset of creators I'm personally creating for. It's been great for building a cross-platform audience, but we never get to the real granular level of depth (and certainly not that depth on every platform every week). There's way more demand for education than we can actually deliver.

I've accepted that I'm not nearly as good at teaching the attention game as a lot of the other meta, creators-for-creators out there. That's a function of my own interests—I just can't get myself excited about that game. Other meta creators are better at getting attention. I think I'm better at keeping it.

But I do think I stand out as someone who really understands and prioritizes audience trust, often at my own short-term detriment. After I finish this essay, I'm literally going to respond to several sponsorship inquiries with a kind, "Sorry, but no thank you," because I want to endorse every partner we align with. That means I either already have first-hand experience with them or I'm willing to invest the time to vet them, and that's a tight filter.

The idea of trust doesn't explicitly live inside the Creator Science brand right now—I've always said something along the lines of, "Helping you make a living as a professional creator." There's a good reason to position more explicitly with trust.

All this to say, Tubey is right. If I were looking at myself in the mirror as my own client, these are obvious points I'd advocate for. Ultimately, I need to create more space for my family, writing, and ​The Lab​. And to that end, I'm going to revisit my content calendar and commitments to see what I can better resource or set aside.

For example, I was traveling this week and didn't produce a new episode of the podcast for Tuesday yet. Old Jay's instinct is to script and record a solo episode this weekend to meet that ongoing deadline, but that directly conflicts with spending more time with my family or working on my book.

New Jay is going to look at this and say the cost isn't worth the benefit. I'll either a.) Republish a popular past episode or b.) Record a shorter, voice-note style episode on Monday.

But I'm doubling down on my commitment to writing. Which means YOU can continue to expect to hear from me (at least) every Sunday. Thanks for reading.

Reality competitions...dating shows...my wife and I love them all:

• Alone
• Survivor
• Traitors
• Beast Games
• American Idol
• The Bachelor(ette)
• The cornucopia of Netflix dating shows (Age of Attraction is fun)

We got really into this genre during the 2020 pandemic when we just needed something to look forward to, talk about, and enjoy.

But do you know what I like most about these shows? The group chats that accompany them. Survivor's 50th season started a couple of weeks ago, and I'm in four different group chats dedicated to it. We watch it live—together—from all over the globe and talk about it in real time.

The same was true of fantasy football. Every Sunday, multiple group chats absolutely light up during the entire slate of games while we talk about what we saw on NFL Redzone and what our players were doing. Believe it or not, even Survivor and The Bachelor(ette) have dedicated fantasy-football-style websites that you can compete with friends.

IT'S THE BEST.

The products themselves (the shows) are great, but it's all about the shared experience that I'm having with others at the same time. I want to talk to people, but it doesn't always need to be such a capital Big Deal. It makes me feel human, connected, and a part of something when we have a built-in shared experience to talk about. And even outside my immediate group chats, knowing that millions of people are having a parallel experience with these shows makes me feel like I'm part of something.

I'm thinking about this a lot right now in the age of AI.

The world feels very uncertain right now, not solely due to AI, but largely so. I was speaking with a course creator recently who shared the (negative) impact AI is having on course sales. Their target audience is now facing economic uncertainty and isn't investing in education to the same extent they once did. And I'm hearing this from a lot of course creators.

That's a scary thing for people who have built their business on courses! But I think this is a reality you should be prepared for—education is changing. It won't go to zero, but it will (and in some cases is already) have a big impact.

There are several options (live learning, memberships, AI-assisted education, templates), but I'm particularly bullish on memberships. And a big reason why is this opportunity to tap into the value of shared experiences. There are actually two types of experiences I want to highlight:

1. Shared Experiences—When multiple people are experiencing the same thing at the same time and communicating about it.
2. Parallel Experiences—When multiple people are experiencing the same thing at the same time in isolation.

When I'm watching Survivor live with my wife, we're having a shared experience. When I'm watching Survivor live with millions of anonymous people I don't communicate with, we're having a parallel experience. It's exciting when I meet someone who's had a parallel experience, and then we can share it afterward. Have you ever discovered that you attended the same concert as someone else but didn't know it? That moment of recognition is electric.

Memberships are perfect for creating shared experiences. In June, we're hosting another two-day, ​Offline event for The Lab​ ahead of Kit's Craft + Commerce conference. That's a purpose-built, shared experience we're creating for our existing community.

But there's another angle for memberships: giving people a way to turn their parallel experiences into shared experiences. Think about my fantasy football group chat: those games are already happening, people in that group chat already plan to watch them, but now we have people to talk to—in real time—about that experience.

If you're a course creator whose audience is investing less in education because they're facing economic or employment uncertainty, guess what? Your audience is already having a parallel experience. They may be completely in their own head, thinking they're totally alone in something, not realizing there are tons of others having the exact SAME experience (also wishing they had someone to talk to).

By creating a place for these people to meet and talk about that experience, you turn a parallel experience into a shared one. That's why I started The Lab in the first place—creators were either operating in silos or swimming in the giant ocean of social media. I live in an Ohio suburb—it wasn't easy to meet other people like me. Now that the community exists, we layer in our shared experiences, like The Lab Offline, our Lab fantasy football league (congrats again, Chenell), Wellness challenges, and our Lab Survivor league.

This is a HUGE opportunity right now. Shared experiences can be fun and exciting (like fantasy football or trashy reality TV), but they can also be deeply comforting. If I'm quietly freaking out—alone—about the impact [AI] is having on my [life/job/etc.], then chances are good that I'd appreciate having a "group chat" with other people in that situation. Especially if these people can lift my spirits or share ways they're finding their way through that experience.

If you gather an audience of people who care about [something], you're already well-positioned. You're a lightning rod for people having a parallel experience. If that parallel experience feels lonely, scary, uncertain, or unique, creating a space where people feel like they a.) belong or b.) have new hope is powerful.

Maybe that's what just your people—and your business—need right now.

But crazy projects aside, the off-the-shelf tools from OpenAI and Anthropic make software coding suddenly seem so easy. I've tried my hand at it—I've built a software dashboard to keep track of the mastermind groups we've put together in ​The Lab​. And it seems like every week, one of the creators I admire has committed to vibe-coding their own SaaS platform.

Is this the move?

As always, the answer is "maybe." But I'm mostly skeptical.

To augment my own thinking, I interviewed Rob Walling, the co-founder of Drip and a legend in the SaaS world.

Rob built and sold Drip, an early email marketing software, for an 8-figure exit. He did it in just 3.5 years and walked away with life-changing money. In addition to Drip, Rob created ​MicroConf​ (a community + conference for software founders) and ​TinySeed​, which has invested in hundreds of other SaaS founders.

So the guy knows software, OK?

He's not sold on vibe-coding as an opportunity for most creators, and he had a great analogy for why not:

There are several important points in that one analogy:

1. He's not saying there's no value or opportunity for vibe coding. Small utilities, especially internal tools with users on your team who aren't paying for it, can be really useful and totally buildable.
2. Most software tools that actually generate revenue from customers are closer to a residential or commercial building. Except they're also never done—to stay competitive, you always need to be improving them. And the weaker your foundation, the more technical debt you have.

To put a finer point on it, Rob told me:

This is my concern for all the creators I see spending a ton of time away from their core business to begin vibe coding a tool they think they can turn around and monetize. Yes, you can build a tool that functions—but software is intense. So intense that even after Rob SUCCEEDED at building and selling a SaaS, he told his wife he wouldn't be doing a software company again.

And let's say you do build something of value that people are willing to pay for. Software is a notorious breeding ground for copycats—and there are plenty of cats waiting in the wings looking for validated ideas to copy. Copycats with real software experience! They can replicate what you made and improve it fast.

I don't think most creators actually want to build software companies. I think they want recurring revenue, software has always been the crown jewel of that, and now it seems so attainable. And beyond that, I think there's something more insidious behind the push to vibe coding...

You've probably heard about the famous study where rats would press a button to trigger the release of dopamine—ignoring all of their other physical needs like food and water—to the point of exhaustion.

LLMs are dopamine buttons and we are the rats. Being able to type of a vague prompt and receive some clunky-but-functional app back is satisfying—in a way we haven't really experienced before. And while you're promptcrastinating by pushing the dopamine button, you're ignoring all the other needs of your business. That's a high opportunity cost.

So here's my takeaway: If you want to build a software company, do it. But go all in. You can vibe code a proof of concept, but you should probably still find a technical co-founder. It's far better to give engineers the super power of AI coding than rely on a vibe-coded app to give you a long-term software business.

Shiny object syndrome has never been easier to catch. But if you DON'T want to go all in on building a software company, direct that time and energy elsewhere.

It's OK to stay the course.

PS: Check out the full interview with Rob Walling here:

Oren's smart, observant, and far better at playing the attention game than I am. I wrote last week about how I've never quite been fast or intense enough to capture "alpha" opportunities—Oren is the total opposite.

When I set up my Clawdbot (I guess we're calling it Moltbot Openclaw now), one of the first things I did was create a fun little workflow that:

1. Noticed when I published a new a.) Kit broadcast or b.) podcast transcript
2. Identified key insights from them
3. Threw it together with some short-form instruction + voice guide (made from my previous writing samples)
4. Added 8-12 short form content ideas to a Notion database formatted specifically for a.) Instagram and/or b.) X

It's not bad! Here's a post my bot drafted for X from last week's essay:

It self-rated this 94/100 for its confidence in performing on X.

I think it's OK. These are my words taken directly from the essay. It's tighter and more intense than I typically write—and frankly, maybe if I wrote more like this, I'd do better on X!

So, to Oren's point, Clawdbot Openclaw did a good job of creating midslop here.

I didn't post this. I haven't posted much of what my bot has drafted for me—but I'm actually not sure why. Because, as Oren pointed out, instead of posting this, I posted...nothing.

Is posting this midslop better than posting nothing?

They're my words, put together a little differently. It would keep me top of mind. Building a following (distribution) will only get harder over time.

So why can't I pull the trigger?

The reality is I've always deprioritized short-form content (to my detriment). And when I create for short-form, I'm not putting my best effort into it.

I create midslop myself—even without AI!

I think Oren's last sentence is particularly important. That midslop adds "a noiselayer to everything that is going to desensitize consumers to basically anything that isn't amazing."

When I'm on social media, I linger on far fewer posts. I'm spending more time scrolling than I am actually watching/reading. Few things are really pulling me in—it feels like more noise than ever before.

We (as individuals) can't be making "amazing" content for every platform every week—let alone every day. We see examples like Alex Hormozi or Codie Sanchez and think it's possible, but we're missing critical information. In 2024, Codie Sanchez shared at Craft + Commerce that she spent $2.9 million on content. That's how she creates amazing content across so many platforms—she's resourcing it like crazy!

There are a few exceptions here. Kevin Parry (a member of The Lab!) creates incredible videos that perform well on virtually every platform. One video → content that performs everywhere. You can try Kevin's approach and see how it goes, but increasingly, these platforms seem to be drifting apart in terms of subtle viewer preferences. TikTok wants very raw, direct-to-phone recordings. Instagram wants a little more polish. YouTube seems to skew a little younger.

So, I'm afraid I don't have an answer to this question of midslop yet. Is it worthwhile? Do the incremental gains of daily midslop content add up to a net positive for you as a business owner? The answer may very well be yes. I think it comes down to whether that's the day-to-day experience you want with your brand.

But what I do feel more certain of is that effort, pride, and genuine care put into your work matter more than ever. We feel it. We crave it. And I think you can give yourself permission to focus your attention there.

My advice is to a.) stick to 1-2 platforms you truly love and/or b.) hire talent to run the platforms you don't.

For me, it means a return to my roots: I'm putting more time, effort, and care into writing and (audio) podcasting again. My wife has become my official Head of Instagram, and I have another team member helping on Instagram as well.

You're allowed to focus on what you know and love. You're also allowed to hire help to compensate for weaknesses and limitations. There's no black and white, right or wrong answer here. But failing to commit and do your best work—wherever you feel the most at home—will keep you trapped in the noise.

At the time, NFTs were HOT. Oh man, were people making money flipping NFTs.

NFTs were the future!

I was convinced. A lot of us were. Maybe you were too.

I was so deep in the Twitter threads and hanging out in Discord servers with the most juvenile names imaginable, all to get an edge.

I wanted alpha.

But I never really got that alpha. I never had the best information at the best time—I had secondhand information that people wanted me to have because the people with the best information needed punks like me to be a step behind.*

*Highly recommend reading ​Crypto Confidential​ if you dabbled during this time.

I'm in the future now, and I didn't make any money on NFTs. I never use NFTs. I made bad buys, held for too long, and ultimately never calculated how much money I lost trying to mint a rare .jpg from a batch of 10,000.

This was an expensive lesson in first-mover advantage and arbitrage. Not only was it financially expensive, but it was all-consuming in terms of my time and attention, too.

Lessons in arbitrage

Arbitrage means YOU know something before most of the world (market) does. As a reward, you can use that information to make money with little effort. Arbitrage opportunities are real opportunities, and they can be lucrative.

Here's an example: If you can buy Gold for $100 and then sell it for $120, you've effectively created a machine to print $20. Early Amazon sellers were identifying arbitrage opportunities for products they bought wholesale on Alibaba, branded, and sold in the U.S. Minting NFTs was an arbitrage opportunity. I used to buy presale concert tickets to resell them on Stubhub—that's all arbitrage.

The problem with arbitrage is that it's a fleeting window that eventually closes when the market catches up or when too many people enter the game. And when they close, someone is often left holding the bag. In my ticket reselling days, I once bought dozens of tickets to a Jay-Z and Beyoncé concert series. They were GREAT seats, and I thought I'd make a killing. Unfortunately, the series wasn't nearly as popular as I expected, and I couldn't even resell them at the price I paid.

Here's what I've learned about being a first-mover: You have to be fast, intense, and maybe even a little cutthroat. If not, someone else who IS will beat you.

AI-rbitrage

If you're feeling a pull that you should be "doing more with AI," you're not alone. I see the same hunger in every creator group I'm in.

There's no doubt—AI is changing the way we're doing things. The way we learn, the way we make, even the way we communicate. But I can't help but notice that the AI environment feels like the NFT environment did. There are very real opportunities. People are definitely capitalizing and making money doing so.

I see creators use this in a bunch of different ways:

• Using prompts to generate a ton of content output. They can schedule this in bulk; they're publishing a ton every day and spending little time on content creation.
• Literally creating AI audio and video clones so that they're no longer recording! Their digital double performs for them.
• Shifting their entire strategy to talk about AI
• Creating software tools using coding software like Claude Code. It's never been easier to build a SaaS.

I'm smart and paying close attention—I feel the pull to try these things. But, ultimately, I can't shake the feeling that many of these are arbitrage opportunities. When the volume of content in feeds increases, it's harder to break through. So what do you do? Improve your prompts? Try to produce even more so you win through big numbers? Or revert back to a more handcrafted, human, less-is-more approach?

Does that make me enjoy the work more? Does it make me more useful?

Software feels particularly tempting. In Nathan Barry's classic essay, ​"The Ladders of Wealth Creation​," he places software near the top of the ladder.

But...the easier software becomes...the more competition will enter the market. If you build a successful piece of software at [$49/mo], someone else can easily clone it and charge [$39/mo]. To win, you need to continually make the software increasingly valuable and difficult to switch from. That means quickly moving from vibe-coder to software CEO.

Otherwise, it's a race to the bottom.

Should you ignore these new opportunities?

I don't want to talk you out of anything you're excited about. But I do want to talk you out of acting from a place of FOMO.

You don't win arbitrage games with FOMO. You win arbitrage games with obsession and intensity. If you have an obsession or intensity toward something, follow it! That's an incredible compass. In fact, that level of conviction is the juice you need to succeed over the long-term.

But the worst thing you can do is let FOMO pull you away from something you have a genuine interest in.

Here's what I know about you: You didn't start creating to be told what you should be doing. You started because you had something to say. That voice—your actual voice—is still your best competitive advantage. The shortcuts will come and go, but the trust and relationships you build can be enduring.

As long as you're showing up and helping your audience move closer to their goals, you're on the right track. If you can leverage new capabilities to help them get there faster and more easily, amazing.

But you don't need to play arbitrage games just because you see them.

1. Scarcity: Limiting the number of people who can join
2. Urgency: A looming deadline that necessitates a decision to join now or wait until a future opportunity
3. Status: Being a member builds self-esteem, or esteem in the eyes of others

I've tried all three. In the first two years of The Lab, we had a 200-member cap. It was really effective in driving signups, because those spots filled up fast. But that cap proved to be too small—we wanted to increase geographic and topic density, meaning we want more creators within driving distance of one another and more creators focusing on Instagram, podcasting, or selling physical products.

So, we removed the member cap and instead implemented an invitation-only approach. Now, you must be vouched for by another member or apply for membership. This was fundamentally to ensure that we created a consistent experience—the Standard and VIP tiers of The Lab were intended for professional creators who already had traction. This way, we ensured the conversation was relevant and useful to all members. But it also elevated the meaning of being a member, adding esteem.

But what about urgency?

Given that the membership is evergreen (i.e., people can be invited at any time), why would someone join today rather than tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year? This is the biggest challenge for evergreen memberships. What is the mechanism for getting people to join now?

When you have an open-and-closed-door launch cycle, there's clear urgency. If you don't join now, you will have to wait until the next opening. But, if you don't want to do launches, what are other ways to create genuine urgency for fence-sitters?

I recently ran an experiment.

🎯 Goal

To attract new members to The Lab.

🤔 Hypothesis

I believed running a live cohort would create genuine urgency by giving people the opportunity to participate in a time-bound experience.

The program was available to all membership tiers of The Lab at no additional cost—an additional $399 value.

By pricing the cohort below our lowest membership tier ($699/year for Basic), some interested students may choose to join The Lab vs. just the cohort. Then, at the end of the program, students may be more likely to join the membership to continue the community experience.

🧪 Experiment

On October 28, I decided to sell a new cohort learning program over Black Friday, to be delivered in December.

This was my Signature Product Bootcamp, a four-week, live course for developing YOUR signature product (that you can sell with confidence for years).

The bootcamp was priced at $399 and sold via a Google Doc. We added a bit of scarcity (50 spots available) and made it available for purchase from November 25 through December 1.

The Bootcamp ran from December 2 through December 29, at which point students would be invited to roll their investment forward into The Lab.

📓 Results

Depending on how you interpret this data, we either sold out the Bootcamp (or came very close).

Bootcamp enrollments

We had 47 students enroll in the Bootcamp, totaling $18,454.

We also had 15 creators join The Lab's Basic tier during that period, totaling $8,785.

Lab upgrades

After the Bootcamp, 13 students upgraded to The Lab's Basic tier, totaling $2,587.

1 student upgraded to The Lab's Standard tier, totaling $1,499.

If these members renew, that's $11,086 in annual recurring revenue. But even more importantly, that's 14 more potential advocates for the membership.

Totals

• 47 Bootcamp students
• 29 new Lab members attributed to the Bootcamp (15 before and 14 after)
• $31,325 total revenue

Conclusion

This was an intense experiment because I was developing and presenting the curriculum for the first time—while also providing feedback to every student each week. That wasn't limited to the 47 Bootcamp enrollments and the 15 new Lab members, but also nearly 100 pre-existing Labmates!

This experiment showed:

1. Live learning creates genuine urgency (for program and membership sales)
2. 30% of Bootcamp students joined The Lab already

This data is fascinating because when I worked at SPI and developed those accelerator programs, that's the same conversion rate I saw then—about 30% from a time-bound cohort to the evergreen membership.

And the feedback was fantastic! In my post-Bootcamp survey, we found:

We may still see Bootcamp students upgrade to The Lab in the future—I allow anyone who has purchased something from me in the past to roll their investment into their first year of The Lab membership.

A big reason for running this Bootcamp was to create a forcing function for ME to get this out of my head and into a format that future members of The Lab could benefit from. So, on that front, this was also a major success—this material is now recorded and available for all current and future members of The Lab interested in developing their next product.

Ideally, instead of developing a new curriculum for this strategy, you could tap into existing curriculum, whether you've taught it live before or not. For example, I plan to add some new material to Build A Beloved Membership this year (membership sales and marketing), and it's likely I'll run a live cohort around that program in the process.

The Lab – Community for Advanced Creators

Stay at the forefront of what's working and drive more revenue in a unique peer group for full-time creators.

Learn more and apply ↗

Right now, you're reading the second draft of my year in review. The first draft could have been accurately summarized as, "2025 was a failure—but here's why it wasn't a total failure..."

After writing the first draft, I took a break and went out to my garage gym. It was leg day, and Claude has been helping me get back into strength training. By the end of the workout, I realized the tone of my review could (and should) be completely flipped:

2025 was a success—but here's why it wasn't a total success...

In many ways, that four-hour period was a perfect encapsulation of my year. Most of the time, my internal narrative was, "I'm failing," with intermittent positive experiences (read: allowing myself to experience good moments intermittently).

My negative attitude stemmed from one metric: revenue. 2025 was the first year since 2019 that the business didn't earn more revenue than the previous year. People often ask me about the step back in revenue in 2019—and the truth was, I realized the business I was running in 2018 wasn't the business I really wanted. I deferred near-term revenue in order to build a better foundation—which I'd say is also true of my 2025 approach.

From 2020 through 2024, revenue grew an average of 75% per year! I knew that trend would be hard to continue in a year when I expected to make some changes.

I wrote in my 2024 Year In Review:

I regret to report that I still haven't quite learned how to simplify, work smarter, hire, or empower. That enthusiasm waned quickly as I continued my poor work habits in 2025, added more complexity, and suffered the consequences.

Those consequences are seen in our financials, yes, but they were even more apparent in the life side of my work/life balance ledger:

• Few date nights
• Little time with friends
• More daily stress
• Worse eating habits
• Minimal strength training
• Moderate weight gain
• Near-constant self-doubt

And yet, thinking of 2025 as a failure is a brutal and unfair assessment. If I give myself permission to look at the facts, this was a very successful year! We made some big investments in the future, including:

1. Building a world-class, at-home recording studio
2. Hosting our first 2-day, in-person member retreat
3. Developing the proposal for a book I'm excited to write

Those were expensive endeavors in terms of time and financial investment. When you look at the numbers, they're captured in the costs of the year, but not revenue.

And yes, there were some big swings taken that didn't pay off. The results of those misses are seen in the business's bottom line. But if you reduce your judgment of success and failure down to your Profit & Loss Statement, you're bound to make poor life decisions. After all, if all you care about is your P&L, your decisions are going to be fully based in profit or loss!

For example, one of my big decisions this year was reducing sponsorship to allow myself the space to slow down publishing. I was sick of feeling like a passenger to my editorial calendar. Reducing sponsorship was a decision that I made. A decision that had an immediate tradeoff in revenue. Not a P&L decision, but a quality of life decision.*

A decision I'd make again!

Suffice it to say, my ninth year in business was mentally and emotionally challenging. I felt more anxiety, frustration, and self-doubt this year than any other (maybe more than all other years combined). When I'm properly rested, hydrated, and have had my exercise, my perspective is markedly different.

...but rest, hydration, and exercise took a back seat.

Our daughter (our first) was born in the summer of 2024. I took about three months off from work and then got back to "business as usual" in Q4 of 2024. In those final months, I didn't really make any changes to my work life—I simply changed my working hours and put a lot of pressure on my wife, Mallory (who is also a partner in the business).

The result was brute forcing a full, pre-baby workday into a post-baby world where I had fewer hours to contribute. Surely that's unsustainable—and, surely, I would need to make changes in 2025!

...but I didn't. I continued to rely on brute force, which both ground me down to a nub by the time Christmas rolled around and put a ton of pressure on Mallory.

Despite the challenges, I'll likely look back on 2025 as not only successful, but a pivotal year on which our future success depended (but was invisible at the time).

My hope is that this reflection is not a highlight reel (or a lowlight reel), but a useful accounting of what I experienced and—more importantly—learned from that experience so that I can help you skip over the painful bits.

Business

Revenue dropped about 8% while expenses grew 5%. This ended up being a smaller contraction than I expected, but I was anticipating that contraction all year. Which meant that—all year—I was telling myself that the business was shrinking, I was failing, and everything was surely going to go to zero.

Of course, that was an emotional reaction and not a logical one.

Here is a closer look at the financials this year and historically:

Financials

In reality, this macro revenue trend masks important, smaller truths:

• Membership revenue grew 18% ⬆
• Affiliate revenue grew 148% ⬆
• Sponsorship revenue dropped 38% ⬇
• Digital Products revenue dropped 74% ⬇

The sponsorship decline was two-fold:

1. A choice to reduce sponsorships on YouTube and the podcast
2. A reduction in AdSense revenue from a decrease in channel views

The digital product decline was a result of not launching any new digital products this year (after launching two in 2024).

None of these "failures" were a surprise—they were a direct result of choices that I intentionally made.

So why did they feel like such personal failures?

It comes down to a quirk of running a very meta business like mine.

Let's dive into some more of the highlights, lowlights, and lessons learned this year.

Highlights

Finished the basement studio

In December 2024, we began finishing our basement. It was unfinished when we bought the house, but huge and dry. We designed it to include:

• A wet bar
• Theater room
• Reading nook
• Half bathroom
• Storage room
• And my basement studio

It's quickly become one of our favorite places in the house. You can view the whole transformation in my wife's "Basement" Instagram Highlight.

The studio is state of the art. It's sound-insulated, I work from a desk my dad built for me, and the whole thing comes alive with three switches.

Here's an overview:

Sponsor Magnet book giveaway

My bff Justin Moore published his book last year (crazy it hasn't even been a full year!) and I surprised him by purchasing 100 copies to give away to my audience.

It was a huge win-win-win for everyone involved—a natural way of supportive a close friend while also bringing value to YOU. Something I want to do more of.

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Raised the bar on speaking

In January, Mallory, our 6-month old, and I flew to Dubai on Emirates for a speaking engagement and live podcast at 1 Billion Followers Summit. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience!

Then in February, I flew to Austin to speak at Newsletter Marketing Summit, where my talk was rated the audience favorite.

And to top it off, I booked two $10,000 speaking gigs. I don't plan to do a ton of speaking (at least not until I have a book published), but it's nice to see that my perspective is valued. How did I raise my rate to $10,000? That's just the price I quote when I'm asked now. Because speaking is an expensive endeavor (the time to prepare and NOT be working), it's take-it-or-leave-it. And yes, many people choose to leave it!

Began taking the book seriously

At the same February event, I ran into my friend Anne-Laure Le Cunff, who was briefly staying in Austin. We talked about her book (she was actively promoting her launch of Tiny Experiments which is both fantastic and a huge success).

She made me feel much more confident that I was ready to take that step. Strangely, her agent (who I had previously spoken) had reached out that same day to see if I was thinking about writing a book. After some encouragement, I began speaking with developmental editors who could help me with my proposal.

The book has evolved several times already, and I turned in the latest version of my proposal to that agent just before Christmas. I'm so proud of the shape it's taken and I can't wait to write it. My gut tells me I'll go the traditional path, but I haven't closed any doors yet. It will depend on what the level of interest is, and whether I believe a publisher's offer indicates that they are truly invested in it.

Ironically, if the book had gone to auction in 2025, it may have been a higher revenue year than 2024—another example of how a lot of important work is invisible to the bottom line!

Major improvements to The Lab

Each year, I host a Town Hall to discuss the ideas I have, requests from the community, and then vote on our priorities to improve the experience. This year, we made several improvements:

• Masterminds—Small groups personally curated by me.
• Trusted Partners Directory—A listing of service professionals members have hired and vouch for.
• Lab Reports—Twice per year, we poll the community for "what's working" across various platforms and revenue models. We collate and summarize that information into a comprehensive report for members.
• Offline Events—We hosted our first two-day, in-person event in Boise. It was incredible (video below).
• Non-Business Initiatives—We implemented a Wellness challenge as well as a fantasy football league this year.
• Signature Product Bootcamp—A four-week, live course for developing YOUR signature product (that you can sell with confidence for years). This was available at no cost to members and those recordings now live inside The Lab.

We produced two new video assets for The Lab this year, including a video about our Offline Event and a new Trailer for the membership:

Personal brand project

Mid-year, as I began the book proposal project, I decided to dip my toes into Substack for my personal writing. At the same time, I re-engaged Hollie Arnett (she did the Creator Science brand) to help me with my personal brand.

This hasn't really been deployed yet, but I love it.

Explored larger partnerships

While I tightened the filter on which brands I'm willing to partner with, I began having deeper conversations with the brands I align most with.

One of those brands is Circle, who I partnered with on a free video course (not yet deployed) and a campaign in Times Square.

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I also began testing more hybrid sponsorship/affiliate campaigns with companies like Tella and Senja. For these companies, I offer a lower sponsorship rate in return for the ability to use my affiliate code. That, combined with a special offer for my audience is a win-win-win.

I also had several conversations about partnership in return for equity. Ultimately, I want to go all in with one partner so I can really focus on moving the needle for them, but haven't found the right fit quite yet.

Lowlights

YouTube growth slowed

We struggled on YouTube this year. We entered the year with the plan for hiring more editors in order to increase output, but by October, we had published nine videos (fewer than any of the previous three years). Not only that, but we weren't executing on our strategy of tying the videos to a lead magnet to turn views into email subscribers.

Costs had increased, output and views had decreased.

Unfortunately, this meant restructuring our YouTube team, leaning out, and putting more work back on my plate to cut costs and try to fix the output problem.

Podcast listener decline

The more I focused on YouTube, the less attention I was giving the podcast. I was frustrated by YouTube publish dates getting pushed out and leaving a hole in the schedule for podcast episodes. To fill the hole, I was publishing episodes that weren't up to my standards. Unsurprisingly, the show declined in popularity.

This year, I'm renewing my vows to the podcast—the audio show—and having that clarity feels really good.

Light progress on email upgrades

For several years now, I've been telling myself that I need to beef up my email automation systems. I do a good job of identifying subscribers who may be interested in The Lab, CreatorHQ, etc., and then doing nothing with that information.

I did hire Jason Resnick for a few months who helped me implement some new systems (he's great) but I still failed to create or update the email sequences themselves.

Little outbound for The Lab

The culture of The Lab is really special. It's such a phenomenal group of GOOD humans who are ambitious, impressive, and yet still super grounded and kind. I talk to creators like that all the time! And when I explicitly invite them to join us, they often do. So why don't I do that more often?

Questioning my ambition

Amidst growth challenges, fear that sky is falling, and doomscrolling, I often questioned whether I was still ambitious. I've always believed I was a striver—and that I was destined to do something great. But as my work time has contracted, I've realized that my current lifestyle design does not give me an edge to win in most arenas of ambition.

And I'm mostly fine with that!

Of course, I want to be remarkably successful. But I want to do so on my own terms. And those terms mean I have to be more thoughtful about the games I play and my approach to those games. The truth is, I used to derive my sense of meaning and purpose from the work—but now it's from my family. It's difficult to compete with those who are willing to utilize more hours of the day.

Lessons Learned

Every month the business exists, the stronger our future

Over the years, I've built really strong savings habits. Each month, I'm contributing to Solo 401(k)s for both my wife and me. I'm investing in a little bit of crypto, a brokerage fund, our daughter's college plan, and the business's savings are growing too. As long as the business earns enough to cover our current expenses and savings, our future becomes stronger with each month that passes—and that's an incredible feeling.

I am (still) the bottleneck

I've built some processes for repurposing some of my long-form content this year (shoutout to Laura and Izzy) but I'm still the bottleneck on much of it. When I stepped back in as producer on the YouTube channel, that was a significant commitment of time, too. Even if I'm not going to hire full-time (the current plan), I could still be doing a much better job of outsourcing.

But lately, I've been wondering if team-building isn't like family-building. Having a child has certainly increased my responsibility and pressure to provide, but it's brought so much fulfillment. I would make that decision 10 out of 10 times. Maybe building a business with full-time employees is similar?

A week off goes a LONG way

In March, I was planning to attend Sponsor Games, but got sick the night before. I had blocked off the whole week for the event, so suddenly I had a completely open calendar. I got so much done—it reminded me that my time belongs to ME and if I proactively block out a full week every ~6 weeks or so, I make a lot of progress.

Event economics are hard

We very nearly lost tens of thousands of dollars on our Offline event in Boise due to me personally guaranteeing a certain number of room nights to the hotel (and doing poor math). Thankfully, we did fill those rooms, but it could've been bad. At the end of the day, the event (which I intended to break even) still lost a few thousand dollars. Another Offline event in Columbus actually lost more money due to renting an entire restaurant and selling fewer tickets than anticipated. My planning estimates proved to be too optimistic.

→ Full breakdown of our Offline event here

Social media does, in fact, matter

In May, I published a video declaring, "I think I'm over social media." The thesis was that I had enough email subscribers and podcast listeners that if I just focused on long-form content, the business would be fine. That may be true, but if so, I should've increased publishing on those channels. The result was June and July were two of our three-lowest revenue months. It likely wasn't purely due to posting less on social media, but I do believe being top of mind matters a lot. If people aren't thinking of you, they aren't going to buy from you. So if you're going to publish less on social, you need to think about how you continue to stay top of mind.

Black Friday member renewals

Last winter, my Black Friday promotion was a push to get people to try the Lab's Basic membership. It was really successful, driving ~$25,000 in revenue. But a lot of those new members never really gave it a chance, which meant few of them renewed this year. Black Friday is a great time to drive purchases, but I wonder how many of those purchases end up being truly valued.

Health problems feel like business problems

When I neglect my health (exercise, diet, hydration) it has a profound impact on my psyche. And because I'm constantly thinking about the business, these things get conflated. Poor brain chemistry mixed with thoughts of the business became anxiety about the business. Purely because I wasn't moving my body.

Too many monthly goals

I set goals each month related to my financials, publishing, operations, and life. Looking at those goals in retrospect, I have about a 50% hit rate, meaning I set too many goals. Not only that, but I set these goals without really aligning my behavior or to-do list to them. That's not goal setting as much as it is dreaming.

Social never makes a negative headspace better

When I'm feeling down, it de-motivates me. When I'm psychologically uncomfortable, I seek out distraction. The habitual distraction is my phone (and social media). This never makes me feel better. I recently heard some describe scrolling a social media feed as scrolling through different emotions, because successful content is designed to evoke some emotion from you. It's like playing the slots for emotions—we hope it makes us feel good (and sometimes it does)! But that's the rare, variable result—not the typical one.

Personal

Highlights

Baby is walking, talking, and ruling the home

Our daughter seems to be reaching milestones at a blistering pace. One day, she wasn't walking, and the next day she was! The next day she was walking even more. And within just a few days, crawling was done.

Watching her develop is the highlight of our days. Thinking about how she sees the world is so grounding and refreshing. One day, she was eating an assortment of fresh produce including both strawberries and tomatoes. She loves strawberries, but this was the first time having a tomato. I'm not sure she really could tell the difference when she picked the tomato up, but her face told the story: she was not into it!

Can you imagine being unable to accurately anticipate the taste of something? How long you're going to be in the car? When someone is coming to check on you? It's crazy. She lives in a constant state of uncertainty, but she doesn't really know or understand that. Giving her a safe, loving home and seeing her live fearlessly is just the best. There is no better antidepressant than your kid spontaneously smiling at you or giving you a hug.

In-person retreat in Arizona

My friend Ryan Hawk put together an in-person retreat in Arizona, where I felt totally out of place. These were leaders in professional sports, Fortune 500 companies, and the military. Each night, we had "threaded conversations," which were a conversation amongst the entire group of ~16 of us, one person speaking at a time. It was amazing! The breadth of experience and perspective was something I rarely get to be a part of.

It was one of many reminders throughout the year that if I enjoy an experience, I shouldn't just wait for an invite—I should plan them myself.

I fell back in love with reading

Working on the book proposal was the nudge I needed to change my information diet. For years, I've been living on mostly podcast, YouTube videos, and social media. That means that the majority of my information intake was from media made in the very recent past, which makes it relevant but maybe not evergreen.

Reading books helped me understand structure, research, and depth. A 45-minute podcast typically has a ton of waste. But a book has been edited and edited and edited down to a much more dense, rich experience. The information you consume is upstream of your thoughts and how you experience the world. By consuming information different to what others in your space are consuming, you will have different thoughts, ideas, and approaches too.

Family Travel

I didn't spend as much quality time with friends and loved ones as I'd like this year, but it wasn't a total loss. We had an amazing family trip to Michigan (we rarely have our whole family together) and I went on more fishing trips with my dad—an annual tradition I really value.

This was our daughter's second Christmas, but really the first one she seemed to experience. By celebrating at home and with each of our families individually, we had three Christmases, all of them special.

Quality Time with Mallory

When Mallory and I have made space for quality time, we've really loved it. With the new basement theater room, we've had a lot of movie nights, series we've gotten into, and even games that we play together. We loved It Takes Two.

We tried to make the most of our business travel. Dubai was challenging because the timezone change had baby sleeping during the day and awake at night. But we brought my mom to Boise with us and were able to get away for a dinner date.

She also planned an amazing birthday dinner for me in July. The food was so good it literally left us in tears.

Lowlights

Not enough time with friends (or making friends)

Earlier I noted that the longer the business exists, the better we're securing our future. But this goes beyond money—yes, I'm saving, but the business is also a fantastic vehicle for building relationships. Those relationships compound just like money, but in more unexpected ways. I should be spending far more time meeting people and building those relationships, but I often de-prioritize this for more "urgent" content creation.

The world feels unkind and uncertain

I pay little attention to the news, but sometimes it's unavoidable. The news this year has been noticeably more hellish. I don't approve of our leadership. And even if you do, it certainly doesn't feel like kind leadership.

The world also feels incredibly uncertain. We're in a privileged position, I've been staying on top of AI (relatively speaking), but I really worry about where things are headed. Not because I believe a superintelligent AI will destroy us, but because I think we will see massive job loss. With so many people operating on thin margins as it is, this could be a huge, huge problem. It feels like a collision course that should be humanity's primary focus in planning for, but that's not happening.

Neglecting my health

I've already spoken about this a few times, but I really didn't take care of myself this year. Besides moderate weight gain (185 → 195), my stress became particularly bad at the end of the year when I decided on October 28 to organize and run a cohort program in December. It caused a stress response in my skin, which was a wake up call to slow down and take care of myself.

Constant self-doubt

I tried a lot of new things this year. The book is an obvious one, changes in The Lab, taking time off of social, organizing in-person events...

All of these first-time experiences came with a dose of fear and uncertainty. Is this any good? Will this work? Is this the right move?

It's good to push yourself out of your comfort zone. But I was out of my comfort zone so often that I was constantly doubting myself, which had a spillover effect into areas of my life that I had been previously confident.

Lessons Learned

Be explicit about on-and-off times

Because my wife and I work, live, and care for our daughter at home all day every day, we often struggled to be fully IN or OUT of certain activities. For example, if we're both in the living while our daughter is playing and she needs a diaper change, who jumps in?

If she was independent playing and we're both working on something, this feels like an interruption to both of us, which can trigger a small amount of scorekeeping or resentment. What we learned to do was explicitly call out when someone is "off the clock" for baby duty so that they could, guilt or stress-free, engage in work or self-care.

What's the generous approach?

If I’m making a decision (especially one involving someone else) I try to take the more generous route. I have a tendency of keeping score and taking my own side—trying to achieve the convenient outcome for me. To counteract that, I'm asking myself to instead find opportunities to be more generous, even if it causes me minor inconvenience.

This also applies to how I interpret someone else's words or behavior. Instead of assuming the worst, I try to assume the most generous interpretation of their actions. Maybe they weren't being hostile or malicious, but simply thoughtless.

We need more reliable support

We have a dream scenario where we can completely control our own schedules without much worry about budget. We want to be home with our daughter instead of sending her to daycare. But we also realized this year we need more support.

It's far too easy to neglect ourselves or our relationship in order to care for our daughter and the business. Our parents have both been incredibly helpful, but they're too far away to spend as much time here as we'd like. We found a nanny and she's starting tomorrow.

The effects of neglecting my health are gradual but massive

They say a frog won't jump out of a pot if the water is boiled slowly—gradual changes eventually lead to the frog being boiled alive.

Neglecting my health felt like that. Slow, creeping, gradual tradeoffs that accumulated over months were much worse than I realized at the time. I need better systems for identifying those trends and making changes earlier.

Conclusion

This exercise was super helpful for me. I carried such a negative, unhelpful narrative all year—but looking more closely at the facts tells a different story.

Yes, there were some challenges this year.

Yes, we took a step back in some areas.

But it was a really productive year. It laid a lot of groundwork operationally and even psychologically. Not only did the business help a lot of people and further strengthen our future as a family, but it also helped me grow a lot as a man.

I now believe 2025 was an important, pivotal year. All of these highlights and lowlights may get compressed into thinking, "2025 was the year I began taking writing seriously." And that's enough!

1. Sora by OpenAI
2. Vibes by MetaAI

Here's the gist – imagine a TikTok-style short-form vertical video feed, but all of the content is AI-generated from text prompts. OpenAI took things a step further with a feature called Cameo, which gives you the ability to create yourself as a character in these videos (and for others to use your character as well).

Last week, Samir Chaudry (of Colin & Samir) shared ​a post on LinkedIn​ about his reaction to Sora, OpenAI's new video app:

My 6 thoughts after using Sora for 1 day | Samir Chaudry posted on the topic | LinkedIn

I don’t really understand where we’re going here... But i’m trying to think through it, might as well do it here. 6 thoughts after using Sora for 1 day 1. The Sora feed is bizarre, feels very dystopian. 100% Ai generated content feed, a lot of which mimics content you’d see on Reels / TikTok. I view them similar to meme’s at the moment - they are most engaging when they comment on current cultural moments, but always make me feel uneasy. 2. The most engaging video I saw was a trailer for a stranger-things-esque show. It was interesting, visually engaging, and the character dynamic was pretty good. 3. The cameo feature (Ability to create yourself) happens very fast. You can set parameters around it in terms of who else can use your likeness and what they can do with it. 4. The relatively obvious evolution of that feature is the ability to allow brands to use it, the same way that you allow brands to whitelist content to boost on Instagram / TikTok. So there will likely be an ability to license your likeness for brands to use in paid ads. 5. It feels like the matrix, or the sims - where you can live out fantasies through prompting yourself into your dreams. Feels like you have a digital version of yourself that is the version that lives inside your head, doing things you can’t achieve in real life. 6. It feels like we’re reached a point of attention at all costs, and by any means necessary. What has our attention isn’t the content in the feed, but the ability to generate the content. Viewing may be less engaging than creating. Would love to hear other thoughts. | 36 comments on LinkedIn

LinkedInDaniel Greenberg

He said:

I left a comment that got a huge positive reaction (I should probably comment more on LinkedIn). Here's what I said:

Then just a couple days ago, Casey Neistat put out a video echoing exactly what I said above, but in a much more visual, engaging way.

Even MrBeast called these "scary times:"

So I want to expand on my perspective here.

The case for concern

There have been a lot of valid concerns voiced from an ethical, humanistic, and legal lens. Deepfakes and deceit are a real concern that I have no idea how we ever legislate, since the government is either literally shut down or trying to re-legislate laws passed decades ago.

Let's look at this from a content creator's standpoint: more content is more competition. There is a finite amount of human attention to be absorbed each day in all of these different content feeds – and if there is more supply of content vying for a relatively static amount of demand, competition gets harder than ever.

The fear is that generating engaging content is now limited to your imagination and text. The amount of potential output by any individual has now skyrocketed – and you multiply that across every individual on the planet.

Today, content creators are a minority. But with text-based prompts, anyone can get into the game and compete. Even if 1% of AI slop is as engaging as human-recorded video, a 100x or 1000x increase in AI slop means a HUGE amount of engaging content competing for the same attention.

It's just a numbers game. And I don't think the platforms themselves care whether humans or AI slop wins – they care whether ad revenue goes up or down.

The case for optimism

I don't think these apps were made because we asked for them – I think they're an experiment in the platforms' wars against each other.

TikTok is a global phenomenon. It commands so much attention – attention that Meta, Google, etc. wish they were commanding.

What if AI content is the next most long-shot format?

I think it's a long shot, as I said before – but the potential win is so massive that these companies want to give it a shot. Remember Quibi? It raised nearly $2 billion...and died in less than a year.

This is what giant companies do – they take big bets like this. OpenAI probably saw their tools being used to create content to publish on other platforms and realized, "What if we had our own platform?"

Just because these platforms exist doesn't mean they'll be successful. We don't know that this type of content is what people want – we're still testing the edges.

When I see AI slop on Instagram, I recoil. When I logged into Vibes and it was all AI slop I couldn't last more than a couple of minutes. Maybe I'm in the minority and this will take off...but it's not a given.

Every new abundance creates a new adjacent scarcity. Scarcities represent opportunity for value creation and value capture. As content generation gets easy – maybe even as attention capture gets easier for some – what becomes hard?

Connection. Emotion. Meaning. Trust.

My plan is to continue to hone my skills and double down on my interests.

And right now, generated video isn't one of them.

August was an intense month. My editor and I set a deadline to finish the draft of my book proposal by September, and we had to work that around speaking commitments at CEX, a fishing trip with my dad, and my regularly-scheduled publishing.

Not to mention trying not to stick my wife with all of the childcare!

It was intense, but it worked out. After a down June and July, August was our best financial month of the year, thanks in part to the forced structure of all these commitments.

But something has been bothering me – the business feels behind.

Over the last five years, the business has averaged 75% growth year-over-year.

But if we look at the first 8 months of this year, revenue is trending behind last year's figures. I'm spending less time on audience development, posting way less on social, and the things I'm spending my time on don't seem to be having a clear impact on revenue.

Am I self-sabotaging? Coasting? Burning out?

None of those things.

The business had a great year in 2024 – its best ever. But I felt like I was hitting a ceiling on what the business in its current form could do. To simply do more of the same would likely lead to burnout, and the benefits would be marginal.

To move forward, I needed to first go backward.

Slingshot Seasons

Every year, I share an updated version of this graph showing year-over-year P&Ls for the business. And every year, I'm asked about the backward trend of 2019, when revenue decreased 25%:

The most common questions are:

1. What happened?
2. How did I have the confidence to keep going?

Here's the truth: I wasn't happy with my business. I had grown revenue substantially from 2017 to 2018, but I was doing almost exclusively client services, had no time to build the business I actually wanted, and I hated it.

I decided that I would:

• Stop freelancing almost entirely
• Begin building my first self-paced course
• Double down on my group mastermind program

I decided to forego near-term revenue in order to give myself the time and space to build the future of the business. I knew that meant revenue might go backward before it went forward again – but I was willing to take that risk.

It's like a slingshot. For a slingshot to function, you need to pull the object being thrown backward to create the force that will eventually propel it forward.

So 2019 was a slingshot season. 2025 is a slingshot season, too. We were bursting at the seams and running on brute force. With a new baby in tow, things just weren't sustainable. Plus, I had a gnawing desire to place renewed emphasis on writing – and where would that time come from?

I've made a lot of decisions this year that seem to be at odds with the bottom line – major investments that have a much higher cost than payoff so far.

But there's a method to my madness...

​
Building my home studio (4 months)

We finished the build on my home studio at the beginning of March. But there were months of planning and prep leading up to that point – most of the gear was bought over Black Friday 2024!

This has made video production much easier, faster, and more enjoyable. All of my calls have leveled up, and I have a dedicated workspace I genuinely enjoy using. My time working is more efficient, higher quality, and more enjoyable.

→ See the studio tour​

​
Investing more into YouTube (8 months)

Since the channel began, Conor has been the everything-man: ideation, scriptwriting, packaging, editing – it was all on him. This meant Conor became the bottleneck to our output. At the start of the year, I elevated him to a producer role so we could hire more editors and work on multiple videos in parallel.

The problem is that it's taken a long time to find the right fit. Our output hasn't increased substantially yet, but costs have. We've trialed more than a half-dozen new editors, and over the last two months, we've found a few who worked well within our system. It looks like we may be turning a corner.

My personal time commitment has decreased, and video quality has improved – now we need to get into a faster flow. We're ramping up short-form at the same time, so our output should increase very soon.

​
Reducing the number of partners we work with

I continue to tighten the scope on who Creator Science partners with in terms of sponsorship, brand deals, content, and affiliates. In the immediate term, that means leaving revenue on the table – but it also reclaims some of my team's time.

We hope that by explicitly endorsing all of our partners, we will increase trust, purchases, and the overall campaign sizes of the few partners we do select.

​
Writing a book proposal (5 months)

I've aspired to write a book for my entire adult life. Going all the way back to the beginning of my newsletter in 2017, it was largely an effort to 1.) practice writing and 2.) develop an audience who cares to read it.

But dreams without action are just hope. I found a topic I was curious about, tossed it around for a few months, and decided it had a lot of potential. I interviewed a few developmental editors and hired the best fit. We began writing the proposal the first week of April and just turned in the first draft to my agent.

​
Planning an in-person event (6 months)

Rather than produce a new product to start the year, I wanted to focus on further enhancing the member experience of The Lab. I believe our favorite communities won't be either in-person or online; they'll be both.

We hosted our first Offline event for The Lab in June before Craft + Commerce. We learned a lot about the structure, planning, costs, etc. so that we can spin these up faster in the future...but these aren't money-makers. We try to keep these events as cost-effective for members as possible as a membership benefit.

​
Building a mastermind program (2 months)

To improve the online experience of The Lab, we decided to develop a mastermind matching program (at no additional cost). In April, we matched ~70 members across 10 groups, and those groups all met consistently.

It was a major process breakthrough that achieved great success without requiring facilitation time for me or my team.

***

None of these projects has had a noticeable impact on the bottom line (yet). But what we've achieved is:

• Increased potential for output
• Better experiences for our members
• Reduced my personal time
• Progress on a potentially business/life-changing project

Better membership experiences mean both increased retention and increased member attraction. This will lead to bottom-line impact – in fact, The Lab has continued to grow.

If I decide to proceed with traditional publishing, the business could recognize some revenue in the form of an advance this year. In any case, this is a multi-year bet on book sales, speaking, and licensing.

I'm also in the early stages of developing two new offers. I'm not yet sure whether either will release this year (or at all), but I'm testing and validating.

***

I don't know how long this slingshot season will last – I'm still pulling the stone backward. But this season is a choice.

A reasoned bet.

If you're in your own slingshot season, I'd love to hear the move you're making.

If you're not familiar with Kallaway's stuff, he's really impressive. He obsesses over and wins social algorithms better than just about anyone I know. So when he talks about anything related to social, I listen.

He expanded in the replies:

Two weeks ago, I saw a (now-deleted) video on YouTube from ​Jake Fellman​, a creator with ~26M subscribers via YouTube Shorts and ~14M on TikTok. He's an animator specializing in short-form vertical video – really high-quality, attention-grabbing stuff. But this video he published on YouTube caught my attention because it was long-form vlog style (he rarely shows his face). In this video, titled something like "AI Took My Job," he explained how AI-generated short-form video has out-competed him in different short-form feeds.

He said the video itself was a bit of an experiment. His animations typically take ~2 weeks to create, but AI-generated animations can be created in a matter of minutes. He was so frustrated with his loss of views that he was trying anything he could to publish more frequently – hence this long-form video.

The video was hard to watch. Jake was visibly distressed. Again, paraphrasing, he said something to the effect of, "I don't earn a living as an artist. I'm a content creator. And when my content doesn't get views, I don't make any money."

Back to Kallaway...

His prediction seems wild, but the more I've sat with it, the more I tend to agree with it. We're already seeing a ton of new, AI-generated content in our feeds. So much so that ​YouTube changed their guidelines​ to give itself the flexibility to de-monetize AI-generated content.

The ability to generate bottomless content, made available to anyone on the planet, is radically tilting the supply side of supply and demand on every platform. For those who don't care about building a brand and simply want to maximize views, why wouldn't they just throw as much AI-generated spaghetti against the wall from as many accounts as possible? Most of it will fail, but at some point, this becomes a numbers game: enough total content means that there will be enough positive outliers competing with human-made content in the feed.

So what will social platforms do?

On one hand, it's easy to be skeptical and think that social platforms will embrace AI-generated content. After all, more content is good, right? They may not even need to maintain monetization programs for creators if they can generate content with AI. Algorithms + AI: a match made in heaven.

Maybe. They're certainly going to experiment. These companies may generate their OWN content using AI to see if they can fill human users' feeds themselves.

But content alone isn't enough.

The incentive of any social platform (including YouTube) is to maximize human consumption time. Human consumption means more ad impressions and (crucially) more purchases from ads. So, they will do whatever is best for ad revenue (which is almost certainly related to human consumption time). If AI-generated slop expands human consumption time (and that trend seems like it will continue), then they will prioritize that content alongside any other human content that is getting engagement.

If, however, ads placed in/around AI-generated content convert so much worse that it threatens their ads business, they'll find a way to promote human content.

So what's that mean for humans like us who are putting care into our content and trying to make a living from it?

Algorithm-proofing

I've said for a long time that discovery platforms (social media) should be used to help you reduce your dependency on discovery platforms. That means quickly de-platforming social platforms to your relationship platforms: email, podcasting, private communities, and/or SMS.

I call these relationship platforms because they truly facilitate deeper relationships. The emphasis isn't on hooks or new viewers. It's not attention attraction, it's attention retention.

If you've built your platform on social media, that ground is increasingly shaky. I would prioritize investing in some platform(s) you have more control over for the long term. My recommendation for most people is email, and for email, I use and recommend ​Kit​ (affiliate).

If you have the stomach for it, consider starting a podcast. A major contributor to trust is time spent, and if people want to spend more time with you, nothing beats podcasting.

Let me be clear: podcasting is the most difficult platform to grow. But that difficulty is a feature, not a bug. If you succeed in podcasting, you'll have a resilient content business.

I've also never been more bullish on community. The Lab is built on ​Circle​ (affiliate), which I highly recommend.

AI will take a huge chunk out of today's self-paced learning materials like courses, but community-powered experiences will grow. But another word of caution: having a community or membership isn't enough. As the number of communities grows, people will get stretched thin and pull back to one or two they truly love. Your aim should be to make the cut.

Conclusion

The last 15 years have been an audience-building gold rush fueled by social platforms. It's an aberration, not a permanent state. For the last 15 years, there's been more demand than supply for great content. As AI flips that equation, that gold rush will become much more competitive (if not run dry).

But have faith! Strong, audience-driven businesses existed before this gold rush and will exist after it's over, too. Good old-fashioned word-of-mouth will continue to reign.

That new world won't be won with attention. It'll be won with trust.

I know there's:

• AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action)
• PAS (Pain, Agitate, Solve)
• ​PAIPS​ (Pain, Agitate, Intrigue, Positive Future, Solution)

But I've never fully embraced these frameworks (which is probably a strategic mistake). Regardless of how you structure the sales copy on your website or email, I believe all viewers have three questions on their mind that you need to address (quickly):

1. Is this made for me?
2. What does it do for me?
3. Why should I trust you?

If you don't address these questions, they'll leave the page and forget about it.

Let's break them each down and how you can put them into action.

"Is this made for me?"

We are bombarded with ads and marketing messages every day. Probably not the rumored ​10,000 ads​, but still a lot.

In order to defend our limited attention, our default is not to engage with every marketing message we see – but to disqualify them as quickly as possible. The quicker we can determine something ISN'T for us, the quicker we can stop thinking about it and get back to whatever it is we care about more.

Our first line of defense when we see anything trying to grab our attention is, "Why should I care?" We see it on short-form video now more than ever – if you don't hook us immediately, we move on.

When it comes to paid products, you also need a "hook" that clearly demonstrates that this product was made for us. The more specifically you relate your product or service to my needs and situation, the more I lean in. Personally, I think this needs to be the first headline you see on the sales page.

Describe your ideal customer. Talk about the problem as THEY experience it. Speak in the language they use.

If it's unclear or non-obvious that a product is made specifically for us, that's immediate permission to move on. Only when something was clearly made for us are we forced to continue considering it.

"What does it do for me?"

If you've convinced the reader that the thing is made for them, they will continue listening, but remember: they WANT to stop paying attention ASAP.

So the next big hurdle is making them care more. They're still wondering, "What does this thing do and how does it make my life better?"

Similar to the ​premise​ of your creator platform, your product needs to be legible, compelling, and differentiated.

• Legible: Easy to understand (quickly)
• Compelling: Something that makes us light up (solves a real problem or addresses a major desire)
• Differentiated: How your product is better than competitors for ME

If you can't describe your product in a legible, compelling, and differentiated way, we'll leave the page and stop thinking about it.

But if you've convinced us that you've built a product specifically for us that solves a problem we actually have...

"Why should I trust you?"

Anyone can make a promise. Why should we believe you'll follow through?

In a skeptical world with declining trust, we need evidence. We want to hear from believable third parties that THEY'VE already taken the risk of believing your promise (and can confirm it was worth it). Even more, we want to relate to those third parties.

This is where ratings, reviews, and social proof really stand out. Video testimonials are still the gold standard in social proof (though I'm nervous how this will change in an AI video world).

The more testimonials and success stories you capture, the better. Not only does this create a mountain of evidence, but that gives you more options for people to identify with the person giving the testimonial.

If you want to see an incredible example of this, look at ​Jeremy Enns's Client Results page here​.

By far, my favorite tool for this is ​Senja​. They make capturing and displaying social proof easy – it's all over my sales pages.

Wrap up

If you're not generating as many sales as you'd like, look at your copy and ask yourself whether it addresses these three questions strongly enough:

1. Who is it for?
2. What does it do? (And are you explaining it in a legible, compelling, differentiated way?)
3. Why should we trust you?

The more clearly you address these questions, the more sales you'll see.

Are we nearing the end of a golden age of content discovery?

Social media feels harder lately – specifically Instagram, TikTok, and X. It certainly feels different. So I started asking myself why that is.

Learning from the past

In talking to hundreds of creators on the podcast, I've noticed that timing plays a huge role in people's success. Not the only role, but an important one.

There are massive benefits when you're early to something that becomes popular. Specifically, when there is greater demand than supply, those supplying the resource win big.

People who were early to SEO captured a huge amount of search traffic.

A wave of blogs and bloggers caught the wave of Facebook's early reach for publishers (Buzzfeed, Upworthy, Tim Urban, etc).

For most creators today, new audience discovery comes from social media. Engaging, short-form content that gets in front of new audiences, converting them into followers.

We've benefited from nearly two decades of growth in social platforms. As more and more of the world comes online and join these systems, content creators benefit from the influx of new content consumers.

But that growth won't last forever – at least not at the same pace we've grown accustomed. New consumers will slow down or maybe even opt out as we learn more about the negative impacts of social media on humans.

The question is: where are we in that lifecycle?

Understanding the present

Platforms have also evolved quite a bit in the 2020s. Namely, they've adopted almost universally a "For You" feed at the center of the product. As Jack Conte shared in his 2024 SXSW address, "​Death of the Follower,​" followers are less and less important in a platform's decision on what content to share with consumers.

Historically, someone choosing to Follow you on any given social media platform would make it more likely they see your content than people who DON'T follow you (or people THEY don't follow). Increasingly, though, the Follow factor matters less and less. Instead, platforms are simply trying to show you the content most likely to hold your attention (regardless of whether you currently follow that account or not).

A quick scroll through your For You feed in any app will show you that the majority of posts are not from the same people you follow. The same is true for your followers – they're being fed the most engaging content possible, regardless of whether they're following the creator or not.

This isn't all bad – it means that anything you publish could hit big, regardless of your current follower count. In fact, some of my creator friends have described their recent experience on X as very binary – viral or flop (with very little in between).

Increased odds of virality sound good, right? But, if you take it a step further, what happens when something you publish goes viral? Historically, this means a big jump in followers. Which is what we wanted, because followers were typically those who see and engage with your posts.

But...as followers matter less and less...a glut of new followers also means less and less. For many of your followers to see your content, it needs to prove engaging to the people who initially see it (a small sample of your most engaged followers).

We used to see a certain baseline reach correlated with our follower count. The higher our follower count, the more engagement we'd see with our posts (on average). But it seems we're losing any "baseline" reach in favor of these two binary outcomes – huge success or huge disappointment.

So what should we do?

Looking toward the future

If you believe (like I do) that baseline reach on social media is increasingly unreliable, that doesn't mean you should ignore social media. What it does mean is that the follower journey has changed.

Historically, clicking "Follow" was the first step towards seeing more of your content on that platform, and eventually, you could move that follower deeper into your ecosystem. It's the GaryVee jab, jab, jab, right hook. But it's getting harder to land those jabs, so how can you right hook them?

The goal is to try and shorten the time between 1.) discovering your work and 2.) bingeing that work. As social media pushes you to make your content more broadly appealing, you also need to think about how you pull that person from the end of one piece of content OUT of the feed and into YOUR ecosystem.

It's hard! Direct calls-to-action in a social media post make it less likely the post will succeed. And yet, without a direct call-to-action, there's almost no real value in the success of that post.

Here's what I'm thinking about...

Series

This is what makes series content so compelling. When I enjoy part one of a story, I'm eager to watch part two. If you have a format I enjoy, I want to go binge more of that format.

→ ​Watch Pat Flynn's "Should I open it?" series​

DM Automation

This is why ManyChat automations are powerful and increasingly pervasive on IG. Without requiring a CTA in the content itself, the caption or on-screen text tells the viewer how to take the next step.

→ ​Watch my interview with Natasha Willis about this​

LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, and Substack

There's no debating how much video has grown across all platforms. But in X's slow, painful decline, it seems like there have been some encouraging new text-first platforms. Despite my overall somber tone in this essay, I'm actually encouraged by what I see on LinkedIn, Threads, Bluesky, and Substack Notes. Even YouTube's community tab is underrated.

YouTube

Because social media For You feeds seem to prioritize broad content, niche interest content (like most educational content) is getting harder to break through. That's not as true on YouTube, which seems to do a better job of profiling viewers and recommending specific videos for their interests.

Another plus for YouTube is how much longer your videos can be. On Instagram or TikTok, if someone likes your video, they'll quickly reach the end of it. To spend more time with YOU specifically, they must leave the feed and visit your profile. On YouTube, if they watch 6 minutes of your video, they can just...keep watching. You can spend a lot more time with the viewer more quickly.

Conclusion

My social media bias may be showing here. Social has never been my strength, but I try to source a lot of input from my friends who are much better at social. People generally seem less optimistic about social media than in years past.

This doesn't mean you should give up on it. It doesn't mean there's no value. It's just harder, and I don't know if I see it getting easier to build a business on social.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again:

The goal of social media is to decrease your dependence on social media.

Success on social should grow your relationship platforms in email, podcasting, SMS, or private communities. If you have a large audience on social but you don't have a relationship platform in place, I'd prioritize creating one. Every creator should build an email list (I'm an affiliate and investor in ​Kit​).

If you've already built a relationship platform, ask yourself, "​What if I COULDN'T reach anyone new?​" How would your approach to your current audience change?

And even if discovery gets harder from here, that doesn't mean you can't succeed as a creator. Some of the biggest, most influential creators in the world are podcasters, and podcast discovery has always been abysmal. How did they do it? Dogged consistency, unwavering belief in their mission, and the slow compounding of word of mouth.

Those things will always be available to you – so keep going!

In a recent newsletter, I shared that I'm rarely ahead of publishing. Usually, what you're reading here was written a matter of days before it sends (it's Saturday morning as I write this). My friend Amanda responded in disbelief, telling me I needed to get further ahead.

She's not wrong! Most weeks, I feel the pressure of a looming deadline. This is entirely self-imposed, because I could:

• Create larger batches of content and get ahead
• Keep the same pace and pause publishing for two weeks
• Give myself some grace for missing a deadline here or there

And yet...I typically fail to do all three. It also turns out that funks aren't solved by adding the pressure of looming deadlines.

Negative emotional spaces are tricky for creators like you and me because content transfers emotion. Whatever you're feeling while you create seeps into the content that you make.

This can be a really good thing, even if that emotion is negative, because we're attracted to strong emotion. If you're fired up about something, creating from THAT emotional space can galvanize support behind you.

But that requires alignment between the emotion you're feeling and the content's message. If you've had a bad day, but you try to create a piece about how much you love the new back massager you just bought, we'll feel an emotional inconsistency.

This is the challenge I don't hear people talking about. If you're feeling down, but you're not trying to also make your audience feel down, it's tough to create.

Ash Ambirge once told me that "sales is a transfer of enthusiasm." That means selling requires enthusiasm. If you're not feeling enthusiastic, it's difficult to communicate in a way that sells. And I'm not just talking about paid products here – everything you create is a product.

This newsletter is a product. Each podcast episode I create is a product.

Without enthusiasm...those products aren't very compelling.

So when you're in a funk, not only is creating difficult, but it may also fall flat. And if you haven't separated your self-esteem from the performance of your content...you see how this becomes a vicious cycle.

A few things that may help:

• When you're in the zone, stay in the zone. Keep going if you're on a roll and creating from a place of enthusiasm! Get ahead.
• Batch the process. Going from idea to finished product in one session requires context switching (idea → draft → revision → publish). Try separate sessions dedicated to ideation, drafting, and revision.
• Notice environments that put you into the zone. Location, time, and music play a huge factor for me. I get into my best headspace for writing in the morning, at a coffee shop, listening to ​this Above & Beyond Essential Mix​.
• Journal your way out. The fastest way I've found to identify the source of a funk (and then solve the funk) is journaling. Just answer the question, "What am I feeling?"
• When you're not in the zone, give yourself some grace. Beating yourself up for your emotional state doesn't put you into a better emotional state.

If you've felt this tension before, you're not alone. And as much as I'd like to believe you can write your way out of any funk, some days are harder than others.

He went on to share the details:

And community exits are rare. David Spinks sold ​CMX to Bevy in 2019​, I sold a previous community​ to Smart Passive Income in 2020​, and Sam Parr sold Trends as part of the acquisition of ​The Hustle by Hubspot in 2021​.

I'm sure there are other examples, but it's uncommon. We more frequently see software companies buying media companies – and not for their revenue, but for their audience and distribution.

Communities seem like attractive acquisition targets because they often have recurring revenue like SaaS companies. However, communities have a much different dynamic with their customers than software companies, even if their MRR/ARR resembles SaaS (and I'll explain those risks later).

When SPI acquired my first community, the deal was 1x expected revenue for the following year (which was not life-changing money). I ran a paid, 12-week mastermind program on Zoom, and alumni stuck around in Slack afterwards. Sounds pretty unremarkable, but in 2017, people were often using Zoom AND Slack for the first time!

There was no recurring revenue there. Just a roster of ~120 program alumni that we gave a year of SPI Pro for free (with the hope that some of them would want to stick around afterwards). The value to SPI wasn't really the community – they bought the opportunity to bring me in-house and lead their community team.

This is common of acquisitions, community or otherwise – they are acqui-hires. Acquiring the company/asset for the purpose of hiring a talented person.

Back to Small Bets – it's a lifetime purchase model (priced at $199, currently selling for $99 with a coupon automatically applied at checkout). The community itself has nearly 6,800 members. A one-time purchase is an attractive model for members, which makes it a great marketing lever.

The problem is incentives.

Community pricing incentives

With a lifetime purchase, the community builder captures all financial value up front and is liable to support that person...forever.

When the value of a community is derived from the interaction between members, the best-case scenario is that members are active and supporting one another. But the more active members you have, the more support is needed. Yes, you hope the community self-sustains in many ways, but there will always be support tickets, costs, and communication. So with a lifetime purchase, when things are working, the support cost (or effort) increases without additional compensation.

To solve the compensation problem, the incentive is to attract new members. But that increases the support cost! You can hire for that, but you'll need to continuously pull in more members to pay for the help, which requires you to bring in more members, which require more help to support...

And then you have the participation challenge.

One-time purchases lead to impulse buys. We buy it now because we'll have it forever, and may want to use it someday. But it doesn't encourage member participation, because there's no urgency to participate right now (the costs are sunk). Gina Bianchini, the founder of Mighty Networks, likes to say, "You value what you pay for," and I completely agree. As a result, one-time purchase communities grow in overall members, but the percentage of active members may actually decline.

On the sales front, as you run through your warmest community leads, selling the membership becomes harder. You need strong top-of-funnel audience growth, or sales start to slow down. If that happens, you may drop the price. Eventually, you can reach the end of your total addressable market. And then what? You promised lifetime access, after all.

If you couldn't tell, I just don't see lifetime pricing model as a sustainable strategy.

The alternative is a recurring model, where the community builder is incentivized to optimize for renewals as much as new memberships. The financial incentive is the same, but a renewed member strengthens the community and will likely be a vocal advocate.

The billing frequency doesn't matter – monthly, quarterly, biannually, or annually. Members who value the community continue to pay for it, and your percentage of active members stays steady.

Your incentive is to cultivate a space people want to continue to pay to be a part of, which is, admittedly, quite difficult (and the difficulty scales with the price).

Risks of a community acquisition

Communities have a different relationship to their customers than software companies. A software company is "hired" as a utility to perform a specific job. As long as it continues to do that job (and the brand itself doesn't have a bad reputation), then the owner of that tool doesn't really matter.

But communities are a lot more intertwined with the leaders of that community. Communities are never "finished" the way software can be. Communities are more like gardens that need constant care to ensure the right conditions for the value to "grow" from the space.

When a community is sold, the members will consider whether they trust the gardener to stick around or are optimistic about the new gardener. Signs of change can cause people to disengage. And if reputable members disengage, it can start a mass exodus.

Simply put, selling a community can create a flight risk.

However, this risk is lower in a one-time purchase community because the costs have already been incurred.

Final thoughts on Small Bets

Acquisitions are hard. According to Harvard Business Review, 70-90% of acquisitions fail (for the acquiring company).

Critical as I am about one-time purchase memberships, I think this was a very good deal for Daniel, depending on how much he enjoys his continued involvement over the next five years.

Many people have asked Daniel whether he could've earned more by continuing to run Small Bets independently, and he's repeatedly said, "I don't think so."

Let's look at why.

I've made some calculations by looking at the Small Bets P&L that Daniel shared publicly on X.

Here's a graph of New Members over time:

The spikes are all Black Friday/end-of-year sales.

If we look at revenue per month...

You'll notice spikes in 2024 that aren't reflected in the New Member Growth chart:

Daniel rolled out an unlimited 1:1 consultation product in 2024, accounting for ~$212,500 in 2024.

Using those dates, figures, and some ChatGPT magic, the Monthly Revenue chart broken down by source looks something like this:

Revenue per year from the P&L shows:

• 2021: $80,040
• 2022: $445,690
• 2023: $455,447
• 2024: $650,750

But if we look at the annual revenue for the Small Bets membership specifically...

Membership revenue is ~$438,250 (the lowest of the last three years). But it's remarkably consistent; on average, Small Bets earns $446,462 annually.

For comparison, here's the annual revenue of the Small Bets membership compared to The Lab. Small Bets has nearly 7,000 lifetime members, and The Lab has 357 active subscriptions. I've included my 2025 projections, based on $132,866 earned in Q1.

Small Bets:

• 2021: $80,040
• 2022: $445,690
• 2023: $455,447
• 2024: $438,250

The Lab:

• 2021: NA
• 2022: $161,088
• 2023: $328,279
• 2024: $411,676
• 2025: $531,464 (projected)

Daniel was given $1.8M in cash and $1.8M in Gumroad stock options with the acquisition. Assuming revenue stayed consistent over four years, the Small Bets membership would've taken 4+ years to earn $1.8M. It's hard to say if that pace would've stayed consistent, increased, or decreased. With new AI coding tools, I could see the market growing – it's a question of marketing.

And that doesn't include the $1.8M in equity in Gumroad (which could be worth more or less depending on how the company grows)!

All that to say, it's a pretty great deal for Daniel.

With any deal like this, you have the other obvious question of, "What are they actually buying here?"

I assume that Gumroad is looking for:

1. Daniel's community brain, experience, and time
2. ~7000 potential new Gumroad customers
3. New line of revenue?

My first assumption was that Small Bets would be a free resource for Gumroad customers. After all, helping Gumroad customers be more successful results in more commissions to Gumroad. But Daniel has said:

So maybe Gumroad is looking at this as a revenue play, too. They have tens of thousands (hundreds of thousands?) of customers, many of whom may be unfamiliar with Small Bets or not yet a customer, so this solves the top-of-funnel challenge for Small Bets.

This strategy feels unique. HubSpot shut down Trends after acquiring The Hustle. Generally, the playbook of software companies purchasing media companies/audiences is to monetize that audience with their EXISTING product (and not continue the existing revenue lines).

But if they continue running Small Bets like a semi-independent brand and directly monetizing it with the Gumroad audience, it could recoup this purchase in the next few years. Gumroad could still face the same problem of tapping out the potential market, but they'll likely extend that time horizon quite a bit.

Does Small Bets make Gumroad a more valuable company? That would depend on who is valuing it and their own goals. I imagine a large part of this strategy is increasing the number of Gumroad customers (and making those customers more successful), which would certainly make the company more valuable to a typical software acquirer.

Remember when I said communities have a difficult acquisition dynamic, especially for recurring revenue communities? It's an interesting paradox. Recurring revenue is typically more attractive to a potential buyer than one-time purchases, but the one-time purchase presents less of a "flight risk" on a community's members.

So, even though I believe a one-time purchase model is inherently unsustainable, did it make this acquisition (at an 8x profit multiple) a safer bet?

Sometimes people are hesitant to join LARGE, private communities. It's difficult to accommodate scale while still creating a net-positive experience for folks, but a net-positive experience also depends on the cost of entry. The cost of entry to Small Bets is low, and it's proven that it can continue attracting new members, even as the community grows. And Gumroad has an aligned audience of potential members!

It'll be interesting to see how this shakes out and the impact on the interest of new members in joining Small Bets. Adding new, Gumroad-related perks for being a member may make joining a no-brainer. Having a resource to make their customers more successful can help Gumroad.

I'm grateful for Daniel openly sharing so much of this data and excited to see what follow-on community activity this deal inspires. Despite the risks and challenges, I think community businesses are increasingly valuable. It’s telling that after selling The Hustle for $20M+, Sam Parr today is doubling down on a community product (Hampton) rather than a newsletter.

Bullish!

PS: Interested in building your own membership? I'll show you how to earn recurring revenue with my course, Build A Beloved Membership:

Build A Beloved Membership

Earn recurring revenue with a membership community that people truly love.

Enroll now ($399) ↗

Attention is also undervalued.

The thing is, attention isn't created equal. The value of attention varies widely. But most creators aren't thinking about the differences in attention. They're simply trying to maximize attention (any attention), and the way to do that is by following the incentives of platforms.

Here's the thing – discovery platforms like Instagram, X, YouTube, etc. are ad-supported. Ad-supported models rely on impressions. In some cases, they have sophisticated auction technology that helps them identify and capture more revenue on higher-value attention.

But to the creator, they mostly incentivize high view counts.

Yes, some channels on YouTube earn a higher RPM (Revenue Per Mille – the revenue earned per 1,000 views), but most creators aren't thinking about how to influence that. They're simply trying to maximize views.

With bold statements like, "Attention is everything," or "Attention is the new oil," so many people are jumping to the conclusion that the most valuable thing they can do is maximize views.

Most creators see all views as equal in value.

I never saw it that way.

When I was getting started, I had major financial constraints. I needed clients, or the bills would go unpaid! Attention wasn't useful to me unless it led to a client relationship. So, I was unconsciously pulled toward the attention-attracting activities that most reliably created a client relationship!

Twitter? No.

Instagram? Nope.

Email worked. And later, I realized podcasting worked, too.

These didn't give me impressive Follower counts, but the bills were paid. I was finding that the most efficient way to convert attention into revenue is by developing trust.

Most creators are wildly inefficient at converting attention into revenue.

At this point, you probably expect me to tell you (again) about the merits of relationship platforms like email, podcasting, SMS, and private communities. Systems of distribution you own.

But it's actually more nuanced than that. It's not strictly about the platform – it's about the type of attention most typical of that platform. The attention type is the most important detail – if you can emulate valuable forms of attention on any platform, it's a winning strategy.

I'm going to walk you through several ways of categorizing attention. Important note: each of these dimensions exists on a spectrum rather than as a binary choice. Your content likely falls somewhere along these continuums – not fully at one extreme or the other.

Understanding where your content typically lands on each spectrum can help you make strategic adjustments to capture more valuable attention. And for many creators, small shifts toward the more valuable end of any spectrum can dramatically improve your return on attention.

Considered vs. Unconsidered

What's actually happening when someone comes across your content on a discovery platform like TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube?

In the best case, they actively sought out some specific type of content and decided that [TikTok] is the best place to find it. This does happen – my wife and I have been comparing a few different full-size SUVs, and we've been seeking authentic, knowledgeable reviews from other parents.

This is considered attention. Attention that was purposefully directed.

But we don't actively seek specific content a lot of the time. We're seeking distraction, entertainment, or escape. We may not even realize that on a conscious level! Discovery platforms have spent decades creating the habit of checking into these apps when we feel momentary discomfort: boredom, loneliness, sadness, etc.

We feel discomfort → we open an app to avoid that feeling → and suddenly, we're consuming the content of creators like you and me.

This is doomscrolling. It's the time we spend watching Reels only to look up and realize an hour has passed. Often, we can't even remember what we saw or who shared it.

It's a social media-induced blackout.

This is unconsidered attention. People are giving you their time, but not purposefully. They didn't seek your content out; they just found it. And it may or may not have made any material impact on the future of that potential relationship.

When you're competing for unconsidered attention, the HOOK really matters. People aren't looking for YOU or YOUR ideas – so you have to HOOK them into giving them a shot.

Hooks are irrelevant when you're sought out.

Considered attention is much more valuable than unconsidered attention. If someone seeks out our type of content or – even better – us specifically, this signals thought, intent, and a real opportunity to build a relationship.

It IS possible that you can convert unconsidered attention into considered attention, but it requires such a strong impact on the consumer that they snap out of the blackout. Your work must resonate deeply – a worthy goal of your short-form content on discovery platforms.

You don't want to just be seen – you want to be remembered.

Relationship platforms are nearly all considered attention. That's the real reason these platforms are valuable. We choose whether we open your email. We choose whether we click play on your podcast. We choose whether we take the active steps to log in to your community. When we've CHOSEN to consume your content, that's a fundamentally different relationship than if it's fed to us (you know, via a feed).

SMS is an exception. People love SMS due to the high percentage of open rates. We have a habit of reading text messages. And the way most phones work, we get a push notification for them.

SMS is a relationship platform (opt-in, owned distribution), but it's primarily unconsidered attention. It isn't the same choice as other relationship platforms.

Consideration is not the only classification of attention that matters.

Relevant vs. Irrelevant

The first readers of my newsletter were my girlfriend, family, and friends. It felt good to have SOMEONE paying attention – but it wasn't going to pay the bills.

Your content is more relevant to some viewers than others. The more closely your actual readers resemble your ideal readers, the more valuable that attention is. You want your content to be relevant to your audience and your audience to be relevant to your content.

If your content isn't relevant to the consumer, they will lose interest. You're not building a relationship with them – if anything, you're disqualifying their future consideration.

That's not necessarily a bad thing! Unless a third-party advertiser is paying you to maximize impressions, I would argue it's better to have fewer, more relevant viewers than a large audience of irrelevant viewers.

Active vs. Passive

Any content format can be consumed actively or passively – and the more active the consumption, the more valuable the attention.

When I'm reading a physical book, that's all my little brain can handle. I read each word carefully, often pausing to reflect on what I've read. An audiobook, on the other hand, I may be driving, walking the dog, doing dishes...my mind can wander.

The more engaged we are with the content, the more it shapes our thoughts and relationship with the creator. The less actively we are engaged, the less our relationship with that creator strengthens.

Content that requires more active engagement will certainly filter out some irrelevant consumers, but this is somewhat out of your hands. Some formats (like audio) are more passive. Podcasts may actively engage some listeners while not others. Some episodes may engage the listener more actively than others.

The lesson is that the more actively engaged your typical consumer is, the better.

Deep vs. Shallow

Hand-in-hand with how actively someone engages with your content is how deeply it engages them.

Is this surface level, or does it cut someone's core?

Is this making them feel smart, or is this making them make smarter decisions?

Is this for beginners or a more advanced audience?

People will be more actively engaged when something is more challenging (emotionally, spiritually, intellectually). As a result, deeper engagement is more valuable than shallow engagement.

That said, most people are uninterested, unqualified, or unprepared to go to a place of depth. If you prioritize depth, you will reduce the overall relevant attention available to you.

Long vs. Short

I strongly believe that trust is a function of (positive) time spent with someone.

Engaging with your content is a proxy for engaging with YOU.

Creating content allows you to have positive, 1:1 interactions at scale.

Everything you create has an upper bound of potential consumption time. Long-form content has a higher potential for time spent (with each individual) than short-form content. If you wanted someone to spend 20 minutes with you, you could publish a 20-minute podcast or 20 separate 60-second clips.

It's more difficult to convince someone to invest 20 consecutive minutes with you (a considered decision), but it will almost certainly have a greater impact on the overall relationship.

Longer periods of consumption are a multiplier for overall trust and affinity.

Frequent vs. Infrequent

Increasing publishing frequency is another multiplier for time spent with an individual – but only if you continue to get in front of the same consumers.

This is the challenge with discovery platforms. There's no guarantee that someone who sees your short-form content will see your next post (unless they take the step to turn on notifications for you specifically). Even if someone loved your latest Reel, you don't know they'll see the next one. Or your post a month from now.

Meanwhile, relationship platforms give you much better odds for your audience to engage with your content. When someone opts into receiving your content directly into their curated feeds (email inbox, podcast RSS, text messages), they're much more likely to see and choose to engage with it.

There are limits, of course – if you send five emails per day, you'll likely become increasingly ignored or unsubscribed.

Above all, you must pass the regret test with each piece of content you make available for consumption:

The job of each piece of content is to make the consumer more likely to engage with your NEXT piece of content.

If you do that, there's theoretically no limit to how frequently you publish.

Authority vs. Entertainment

Lastly, there's a difference between how you're positioned in peoples' minds. When someone sees you as an entertainer, the relationship is different than if they see you as an authority or trusted advisor.

The transformation business commands higher prices than the entertainment business.

But, again, there's a smaller relevant audience for any authority-based business than entertainment. If you're optimizing for maximum impressions, authority is a more difficult path.

Conclusion

Remember, despite these variables being framed as X vs. Y, they aren't binary – they're spectrums:

• Consideration
• Relevance
• Focus
• Depth
• Length
• Frequency
• Authority

You could think of these as a series of sliders, and you could plot on each slider where YOUR content tends to fall. It can help you identify how valuable the attention you typically command is.

Based on my biggest priority platforms (email, podcasting, long-form video), my audience comes from a highly considered place. Because those platforms require more effort to opt-in, they filter for a more relevant audience on average. I cover the creator space at a deeper, more advanced level, requiring more active engagement.

By publishing long-form essays, podcast episodes, and videos, my audience tends to spend more time with me (more quickly) than if I were focusing on short-form. I publish those formats multiple times each month because I recognize more frequent interactions lead to revenue growth. And, of course, I'm focused on education rather than entertainment.

This is MY mix, which was born out of a desire to attract more valuable attention (on average). It doesn't have to be YOUR mix. It doesn't work for everyone. But it does explain why I've been able to generate a higher Return on Attention than many creators with an audience of similar size.

Play with these sliders. Look for opportunities to push the dial toward the more valuable end. It doesn't need to happen in every category, but wherever it makes sense for you.

Could you move 10% closer to the more valuable end of one of these spectrums?

This should help you to improve your typical attention quality and capture more of the value you create.