# Moms Are Making $250k/Year: How To Build An Audience That Buys Using The NEW AI Agent (Step By Step)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKw8N3V8Axo

[00:00] If anyone does this and then they personally DM me that for some reason they weren't successful after doing line by line what I just said, I will personally venote you $10.
[00:06] This is John Who, the founder of Stanto, a creator platform that has helped thousands of creators generate hundreds of millions of dollars online through their content.
[00:16] There's someone who literally has made $70,000 selling a $12 guide.
[00:21] It's like everything from a Midwest mom, a single mom who's used Stan to escape an abusive relationship, make 250k in her first year.
[00:29] How have they done it?
[00:31] The only consistent pattern between all of them, the people who make a lot of money are just the ones who post every single day.
[00:36] In a nonAI world, I would argue that probably one of the reasons you haven't done that is cuz it's a sheer amount of work.
[00:41] Actually, the AI we've built now just compresses all of the work that and the muck and the you had to do before.
[00:46] What would be a realistic path if they wanted to monetize?
[00:51] This is the sauce.
[00:53] This is really the sauce.
[00:53] So, if I were starting up from zero and I wanted to build with high certainty a $100,000 business, I would start first with obviously posting
[01:01] content.
[01:06] And then you said we have over 70,000 creators making over $250 million for themselves in just a couple of years.
[01:15] And that pace is accelerating massively.
[01:18] And so, John, I wanted to start where you started, the 70,000 creators.
[01:24] And for the person that's sitting at home, they clicked on this video.
[01:28] Who are those people?
[01:31] And then the second part, why do you say that you expect that pace to accelerate so quickly?
[01:36] Uh because already since then, it's 90,000 and we've crossed $600 million made for creators.
[01:42] And the people that those are are people like you and me, right?
[01:45] Right? It's our stories of growing up with very little immigrant kids in some way.
[01:50] And what is so incredible about this internet economy is that no matter who you are, what you look like, what you care about, if you just have a dream and you have the hustle and you actually take action on that dream, you can actually break
[02:01] out.
[02:03] Because for the first time in society, we have a leveling playing field of your phone and the internet.
[02:06] where you can sit there and completely out compete the biggest companies in the world by making great helpful content to people, build your own audience, and through that now, especially with AI, it's on another level.
[02:18] It's like truly on another level of allowing you to build whatever you want and to build your business.
[02:23] And so when I think about all the different unique stories we have that we support here at Stan, it's like everything from a Midwest mom, a single mom who's used Stan to escape uh an abusive relationship make 250k in her first year uh move her child and herself like away from that relationship across the country helping other momreneurs building her own kind of momreneur business all the way to I think of Stone Frederickson who is 18 years old who uh in his first two months legally allowed to have a Stripe account.
[02:52] So, a bank business bank account, he made 100K all the way to Milkmaid Farm, who is in her mid-30s.
[02:59] She lives on a farm in North Carolina near where I grew up.
[03:01] Uh, and
[03:03] she's made hundreds of thousands of dollars, high six figures, specifically selling a guide on sourdough bread baking, right?
[03:07] And how do you how do you live a healthy lifestyle?
[03:10] And so, there's all of these different pockets of like niche interests that exist in the world.
[03:14] And whatever you're passionate about, you now live in an age where if you have the hustle and the desire to go do that, you truly truly can.
[03:21] Yeah.
[03:21] You know what? what you just shared and maybe it shouldn't be but I think it is is actually quite a contrarian take especially when you bring in like AI into the conversation right and so I'm curious for you why is it that you have this different take and you're so bullish on the fact that first of all this ability for like the everyday person to be a content creator and then secondly actually AI helps enable that like why do you believe that
[03:51] I will be happy to go on record and say that as much as society and the news and media will lead you to believe that the world is getting worse and worse and worse which it is in many ways there's
[04:03] also never been a better time to make it.
[04:05] as well because at the end of the day.
[04:07] what is AI other than a tool but now.
[04:09] with these tools like AI um and and also content creation anyone can not just be a content creator but an entrepreneur.
[04:14] anyone can build their own build their own audience build their own resilience.
[04:17] build their own agency build their own audience and The people who will succeed are the ones who hear all of the noise of all the fear and all of the stress and all of the hatred and all the anger and set that to the side and realize if I'm going to succeed and survive in this world, then I have all the tools I need to build and stay in my lane and ideally be one of that one of those people in the good pocket of the world that actually just like tries to serve and create value and starts to bring on a new paradigm that isn't entirely just fear-based because that's that's our onus to do so.
[04:50] Yeah.
[04:50] you know, take kind of take me take me down the rabbit hole for a second with this.
[04:55] And so I'm curious for you when you say that everyone we're entering a reality where everyone could potentially be an entrepreneur.
[05:05] What is the effect on society, on people, like if we get there, you have to think about all of the deep amounts of personal insecurity and mental blocks and emotional blocks that we have to get through to succeed in that journey.
[05:17] As in if you even think about creating content as a lens for broader entrepreneurship in order to post your first video, right?
[05:24] You were talking about how, you know, you were hesitant to post your first 10 videos.
[05:28] I was so hesitant to post my first few videos.
[05:29] Why?
[05:31] Because we're all terrified of what other people are going to think of us, right?
[05:34] We're fearful of that random person from high school or what that ex will think, what have you.
[05:37] And so just to go out and put yourself in the world in some way, which is entrepreneurship, it's being an artist or a business person, whatever you call it, you have to get through so many mental blocks, so many fears and so many insecurities.
[05:48] And then what happens after you start building an audience?
[05:49] Well, then you start building a business.
[05:51] You start learning how to put food on the table, which is an incredibly difficult thing because then you're vulnerable in a different way, right?
[05:55] Then you're asking someone to buy something from you.
[05:57] It's terrifying.
[05:58] The fear of rejection, the the the shame that we'll feel when you launch your first product just doesn't feel good enough because you're still
[06:05] Working on it.
[06:07] Point being is the reason why I'm so passionate about this journey of entrepreneurship and giving it to so many people is because it's not actually about the entrepreneurship.
[06:13] It's number one about giving as many people as possible financial security in a world where financial security is not a given anymore, which is terrifying.
[06:19] But number two, what's more important, it's the layer underneath is the agency and the self-confidence you give all of these people.
[06:27] In a world that is so incredibly destabilizing and terrifying right now.
[06:32] The feeling and emotion that we need to give as many people as possible is their own sense of stability which comes from their own deep belief.
[06:37] Cuz I know you probably feel this way now.
[06:39] You could lose your channel right now and I know that you know in the same way I know I could lose everything and I'd be completely fine because I have all the core skills and beliefs and the identity required to make it in another way.
[06:50] And so that's why our mission here at T is so deeply important obviously for our business but what we believe as society at large is giving as many people as possible that sense of belief in agency.
[07:01] Yeah.
[07:01] You know it's so important and and I think to your point there's a certain confidence that comes from living an
[07:07] authentic life.
[07:07] Yes.
[07:08] Like a congruent life.
[07:09] Yes.
[07:10] And you know it's interesting John just as I listen to you speak and I I pay attention to your mannerisms and the way and the energy that you speak with I can feel that it's like deeply personal to you.
[07:21] that it it's more than just even like just a business to you.
[07:23] Why is that?
[07:26] Like why is it so personal, so meaningful to you?
[07:30] Because it's just my own journey, right?
[07:32] It it's it's me growing up as like the immigrant kid of a single mom struggling to get by.
[07:37] Um questioning all of the things that I'm doing in society, whether they're right or wrong, whether I'm going to make it.
[07:42] It is a deeply personal journey to me.
[07:45] And what I know to be true is despite how hard it's been for me, it's also been deeply worthwhile.
[07:51] I'm very grateful for what it's forced me to become and how it's forced me to grow in different ways.
[07:57] And I know that if you can give that to as many people as possible, we'll have a society that actually works a little bit better because I myself am exhausted from hearing about all of this [ __ ]
[08:07] and what I've realized is I can sit there and listen to all of this and listen to it take over my life, my sanity, my friend sanity, my friends lives, or like we can be the change that we want to see in this world.
[08:18] And so it's deeply personal to me on all fronts.
[08:21] Yeah.
[08:21] You know, it's um right in the beginning of the conversation like you know, you mentioned some of the people that have built through Stan.
[08:27] Uh you said over $600 million of like they they've created through using Stan.
[08:35] And I think about the single mom that you mentioned, like the Midwest single mom or like the working professional.
[08:42] You call it the standpreneurs.
[08:44] That's correct.
[08:45] And so it's interesting what you do now, especially when we take into account your story and your context and the fact that you you start at Goldman Sachs, you get like this prestigious job, you know, in venture capital, uh you go to Stanford Business School, like you do all of the traditional things and then you leave it.
[09:07] Yeah.
[09:07] And so we're we're going to get to
[09:09] why you left.
[09:12] But before that, I'm curious just even being at these institutions.
[09:17] Well, first from the outside, when you're a kid who has nothing, what you see is, holy [ __ ] I if I get those things, I'm going to make it.
[09:25] And so the first few years when I was hustling to get those jobs, I I cold call my way to a job at Gold Coleman.
[09:28] I was so hungry.
[09:31] It was that sheer like immigrant kid who wanted to make it hunger.
[09:33] Like that 8 mile Eminem hunger, like I'm going to [ __ ] make it.
[09:36] I'm going to run through walls to make it.
[09:38] And that that energy serves you, dude.
[09:40] Like you you just run through it.
[09:42] And what you see at those institutions is a couple different things.
[09:46] Number one, I'm very grateful for those experiences because I learned so quickly.
[09:49] It accelerated my learning and growth of how the world truly works.
[09:52] And also how to get in the rooms with people that I had no business in being in the rooms with.
[09:58] and therefore having the credibility to eventually launch my own business and have the tra trajectory that I've had, I've learned all the different patterns around how do you build a billion dollar company.
[10:05] Um, but what you also learn is that most of
[10:10] those people in all those places are very snobby and also very miserable.
[10:14] And so I would look up at my boss's lives, right, the senior partners.
[10:17] And I would be sitting at my desk is this like lowly anal working 100 hour weeks like cranking at my computer and you know two desks down down from me.
[10:25] You know, one of my senior partners was like yelling at his wife on the phone and you're kind of like yo like I don't I don't know if I want that.
[10:33] Um and there was this very visceral moment I had actually in my next job in in private equity and venture capital which was a dream job truly.
[10:37] I I loved it.
[10:40] I worked really hard in it.
[10:42] My bosses were great to me.
[10:44] But there was this there was this one dinner we were going to to to meet with a founder I had sourced to sell him on potentially investing.
[10:49] Um and I was with one of my senior partners at the time and he said you know John this could be you one day.
[10:55] Um and the dude clears like tens of millions of dollars of carry every year.
[10:57] And I was 24 25 at that time making 400k a year in the mid2010s.
[11:03] Like that was a lot of money for that age.
[11:05] And um I just remember having this visceral moment like holy
[11:10] I'd rather blow my brains out.
[11:14] Like I would truly to do this for another 20 years.
[11:17] I just I I I couldn't see myself doing it.
[11:20] And so it was really in that moment that I realized for me at least my career was a lens through which I would explore broader fulfillment and broader senses of passion.
[11:31] Like I I couldn't the way that I'm wired unfortunately is that like I just can't spend more than half of my waking time doing something I don't care about.
[11:38] Life is too short.
[11:41] And so what I found in all these institutions is one genuine value in immense education, but two also a true sense of a Wizard of Oz curtain where when you pull it back, you're like, "Oh, this is all just like completely madeup vanity stuff in society."
[11:57] And yes, I can I have the privilege of saying that now having achieved those resume logos, but truly there is there's nothing behind the curtain at times.
[12:03] And in fact, most of the people behind the curtain are quite miserable.
[12:06] So yeah, you know, I I think about uh the progression of you like getting to that
[12:10] Moment, especially with what you mentioned that you you grow up with a single mom.
[12:14] You grow up from uh you said I I I came from nothing in many ways, you know, like from humble beginnings.
[12:21] And so I think about this moment, you call it like a visceral moment where you're like that life like I got the thing that everyone strive well a lot of people are striving for and you're like I don't want that.
[12:32] Was that a gradual progression or it sounds like it happened in like a moment of this isn't for me?
[12:43] If you want the truly honest answer all this, I think it all starts with one's childhood, right?
[12:46] If you really think back to and sit yourself in the experience of that kid who grew up in North Carolina, so the south of America, immigrant single mom, late 90s, early 2000s, you can imagine no one looked like me.
[13:00] And so the reason I mention that is if you play that out, what does that mean?
[13:05] As a kid, that means you just get bullied a [ __ ] ton for how you look.
[13:09] And what do you want as a kid?
[13:10] There's nothing you want more as a kid than to
[13:11] fit in.
[13:13] And so when you grow up in a in a media environment, in a society that tells you, hey, if you just do X and Y things, you'll finally be loved and validated and fit in, aka for an Asian-American, a model minority.
[13:22] Uh it would be to get a great job, you know, to become a doctor, a lawyer, or have a great job in business.
[13:29] And so I say all that to say is I think the middle school hurt little child version of me thought and had assumed that if one had achieved fame, success, money, wealth, what what have you, then they would be happy, they would be accepted, they'd be validated, they'd be they'd be fulfilled inside.
[13:44] I didn't know at the time, right?
[13:45] And so when I think about a lot of the things that did drive me at that age that that got me to barrel down the door to get into a job at Goldman to barrel down getting a job in private equity to then get into Stanford business to even start a business in the first place.
[13:59] A core part of that drive initially was that hunger to make it.
[14:02] [snorts] There was also just that natural Kobe energy that we all have like I just want to become great.
[14:07] But I'm very willing to admit that so much of what drove me in the early days was just this hurt, right, of
[14:13] like I want to fit in.
[14:15] And I want to I want to I want to feel these things.
[14:16] Yeah.
[14:16] The misery.
[14:18] Cuz I think a lot of people have done that projection, right?
[14:20] They've looked at the the senior manager or the person that's two promotions up from them.
[14:24] What does their life look like?
[14:27] It's like, oh yeah, they're at the office every morning until 2:00 a.m.
[14:30] They never see their family.
[14:32] They're like miserable.
[14:33] They're out of shape.
[14:33] Like we've we've done that projection.
[14:37] And so you kind of see the end of the game.
[14:38] Like you see the end of the line and you're like, I actually don't want that.
[14:42] for you personally, was that a scary place to be in?
[14:44] Okay, real quick, I wanted to show you guys this example pitch deck that I created using Gamma.
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[16:17] Thank you to Gamma for sponsoring this episode.
[16:20] Let's get back to it.
[16:23] At the time, it wasn't because I had such a sense of self-confidence.
[16:27] I was lucky to be born with a mom who truly believed in me that I just knew I'd figure out a different path.
[16:33] But I will say at times now in this current journey oftentimes the path starts to dissolve and that's very terrifying because you no longer have the you know associate to senior associate to VP to partner track to be like okay I'm doing a good job in life.
[16:48] Instead you're like what the do I do as an entrepreneur or an artist?
[16:49] Like what what what does that mean?
[16:53] What do I do?
[16:55] What's what's the thing that's going to keep me on the guard rails?
[16:56] And I think what I've learned over time as I've listened to very wise people is that they often say that when the path dissolves, that's when you know you're actually on your right direction.
[17:04] So that's so good.
[17:05] You know what it's um I think about like uh I don't know if they do this here, but in at school, like going to school in the UK, you'd get like the gold star on your homework.
[17:14] You
[17:16] know, you did a good job.
[17:17] And I think a lot of the times in life, it's like we're uh we're looking for that gold star to check the boxes.
[17:24] And you actually said this.
[17:24] You said, uh, I checked all the boxes that I thought would make me happy.
[17:27] But you have this realization at some point in your life of, wait a minute, I've been given all of these stories of what's actually good for me and I need to decide what's actually good for me.
[17:42] And that feels like uh such an important moment of like I need to decide what's actually good for me.
[17:48] Even when I read that out, what what is your what is your thought?
[17:53] There's a lot in there because we want it all to some degree.
[17:54] And what I've realized is you can't have it all all at the same time.
[17:59] I think ultimately end goal when I think about the people that I want to be like, the people that I respect, I think it's people who've built a really incredible family and a really incredible family life, right?
[18:10] It's they have, you know, they're probably an hour or two out from the city, maybe 30 minutes at most.
[18:13] They've got a big plot of land.
[18:17] growing their own vegetables and uh maybe have a little bit of a farm themselves.
[18:20] But they were also very successful in their careers as well.
[18:23] But they weren't greedy in that.
[18:25] They weren't incredibly aspirational or obsessive to, let's say, the Elon level.
[18:30] Um, which I very much respect people like Elon and what they've done for society and what they will continue to do.
[18:34] But I think I've realized that for myself, my path isn't necessarily that.
[18:36] It's to ideally find that well integrated um vision of a life that has both the humanity to it of like the deep meaningful fulfilling relationships, the loved ones, the partner, the children, the the close friends um while also finding the right balance of creative expression and success through the lens of your career, through the lens of your art.
[18:58] That for me is when when you ask me that question, I think of what does what would truly fulfill my soul.
[19:02] It's ideally to have both.
[19:04] And so I'm going to try to be a model that can prove that you can have both.
[19:09] Yeah.
[19:09] You know, I actually think that's uh I think it's very relatable and I think it's very uh it's commendable that you've reached like a point of clarity
[19:17] of what you want.
[19:19] And I think for a lot of the people listening at home because we're going to get into uh like what's a realistic path that someone could take,
[19:27] someone that has a 9 to5 or a job or some level of expertise in something.
[19:32] what's a realistic path that they could take to monetize using content creation even if they have a small following.
[19:37] So, we're going to get into that.
[19:39] Um, but before we do, I want to start with kind of like your initial moments with creating content because speaking to you today, you have you've been like successful in making content as well as an entrepreneur, right?
[19:53] Like you're about to hit 200,000 subscribers on YouTube.
[19:58] uh nearly 200,000 followers on Tik Tok, you have 100,000 followers on Instagram, 60,000 plus followers on uh LinkedIn.
[20:06] Like you've done it, but we all remember that feeling of like in the beginning we're just you're just scared to even create like you're scared to even post.
[20:15] And so can you take us back to those
[20:17] like initial moments with creating like
[20:20] that first video
[20:22] that you make?
[20:23] So I want to set the scene for everyone.
[20:25] It's deep co. We're all stuck in our
[20:26] rooms and Tik Tok is blowing up. are all
[20:28] doom scrolling Tik Tok and I'm in grad
[20:30] school. I'm at Stanford Business School
[20:32] where everyone goes there to build the
[20:34] next billion dollar company or go off to
[20:36] Mackenzie or Goldman Sachs and have
[20:38] their white shoe firm, what have you.
[20:40] Uh, and just feel really hottie about
[20:42] their lives. And meantime, I'm like,
[20:46] "Fuck it. I don't want to go back to
[20:47] private equity. All these jobs that you
[20:49] guys are hustling for, I would truly
[20:50] rather blow my brains out for." And so
[20:53] I'm sitting here doom scrolling TikTok
[20:55] and Gary Vee G Gary Vaynerchuk is on my
[20:57] feed yelling at me to start posting
[20:59] because it's going to change my life.
[21:00] And something about what he said was
[21:03] truly like it hit me. I was like, you
[21:04] know what, he's probably right. And
[21:07] there's something specifically that Gary
[21:08] says in his content to this day I'm so
[21:10] grateful to him for that I I want to
[21:12] share with everyone in here listening
[21:13] because it's I hope it will be so
[21:14] helpful for you as well in your life is
[21:16] he was just like give give
[21:19] just give immense value and you will be
[21:21] okay. And so when everyone thinks
[21:23] through what is my first video going to
[21:25] be, what that is, the logic there, and
[21:28] I'll tell you through the lens of my
[21:29] story is what am I really good at and
[21:31] what am I really passionate about? And
[21:33] so the first ever video, you can look it
[21:35] up on my TikTok. I was very lucky that
[21:36] it went viral. The very first video I
[21:39] ever did was what was tip number one of
[21:41] how I got a job at Goldman Sachs.
[21:44] Specifically in that, if you piece
[21:46] together what that actually means is I
[21:47] was asking myself, why would anyone
[21:50] watch my content? It's because if I were
[21:52] to give inherent value, then yes, of
[21:54] course, they would watch my content. And
[21:57] what for me I'm really passionate about
[21:58] was how do you help any underrepresented
[22:00] kid get their first dream job? Because
[22:02] that was just fundamentally my story.
[22:04] And so I say that to say when you think
[22:07] about what kind of content you want to
[22:08] make as well as the first few videos you
[22:10] want to make, just ask yourself what did
[22:12] younger you need to hear? Because you
[22:15] are for sure an expert in whatever
[22:18] journey you've gone through. And our
[22:19] jobs oftentimes in business or in
[22:21] content is to help someone go from point
[22:22] A to point B. And so my point A there
[22:25] was like if I was a hungry kid who
[22:27] wanted to make it, what did I need to
[22:29] hear to accelerate my path? And I just
[22:31] made that exact video. And you just keep
[22:33] chaining those videos, right? You keep
[22:35] making 10 of them knowing eight of them
[22:37] will flop, but one or two of them might
[22:39] actually do well. And you see what is
[22:41] the signal of that? And then you just
[22:42] keep iterating and doubling down despite
[22:44] what any of the judgment of your peers
[22:46] might say, which is probably a story for
[22:47] another time.
[22:48] Yeah. given what you do with Stan and
[22:50] like the tens of thousands of creators
[22:53] that successfully monetize using Stan
[22:56] that you see their journeys, but then
[22:58] I'm sure that you also get messages and
[23:00] speak with people that have like these
[23:02] deep limiting beliefs around creating
[23:04] like they they can't get over that
[23:06] mental hurdle. And so I'm curious to
[23:09] understand
[23:10] for those people that don't create, like
[23:13] they don't just take the simple advice,
[23:15] what do you see is typically the reason
[23:17] why? My super honest answer is that they
[23:20] don't want it enough. Like 80% of the
[23:22] people who watch this will not actually
[23:24] take action and succeed. And I hope that
[23:26] the 20% of people are watching this
[23:27] actually take the advice here and go for
[23:29] it because you're noting that the secret
[23:32] to life and secret to business is
[23:33] actually in many ways incredibly simple.
[23:35] It's just you show up every day and you
[23:37] take the action despite any of the
[23:39] emotional toil with it. Despite any of
[23:40] the excuses you can make of like, oh,
[23:42] like I have this thing, I have this
[23:43] thing. Well, I was busy here, I was busy
[23:44] there. At the end of the day, it's
[23:46] actually the same pattern if you think
[23:48] about it as going to the gym and losing
[23:50] weight. People over complicate it, but
[23:52] all you actually have to do is just show
[23:54] up every single day and then eat
[23:55] healthy. That's actually when you talk
[23:57] to the most successful powerliffters,
[23:59] athletes, people who are in shape in
[24:01] your life, it's probably just some
[24:02] combination of for years I have been
[24:05] consistent about going to the gym and
[24:06] eating healthy. There's literally
[24:08] nothing else. I can sell you the diet
[24:10] supplements. I can I can sell you a
[24:11] Weight Watchers program. I can sell you
[24:12] all this [ __ ] but the people who get it
[24:14] done are just the people who get it
[24:16] done. And so my hope is that for
[24:17] everyone who's listening who really
[24:19] wants to get it done, it is actually
[24:21] this simple. And I have the data to back
[24:22] it I have the qualitative aneotal data
[24:24] of meeting the most successful create
[24:26] entrepreneurs out there, right? They're
[24:27] all investors in Stan, Steven Bartley,
[24:28] Gary Vee, the Hormosis, all of these
[24:30] people I spend I'm very lucky to spend a
[24:33] lot of time with and learn from. And
[24:34] then 90,000 creative entrepreneurs who
[24:37] we serve to help make a full-time
[24:38] living. The only consistent pattern
[24:41] between all of them, this is the only
[24:43] consistent pattern. It's not that they
[24:45] were super attractive or super funny,
[24:47] had a crazy personality, is that they
[24:48] showed up every single day and they post
[24:50] every single day. It's not that they had
[24:52] the best product in the world or or they
[24:54] had the most unique insight in the
[24:56] world. The number one correlate factor
[24:58] between someone on stand who makes a lot
[25:00] of money and who doesn't. The people who
[25:02] make a lot of money are just the ones
[25:03] who post every single [ __ ] day.
[25:06] That's it. And most people are too
[25:08] scared or too lazy or they will make too
[25:10] many excuses why they can't post every
[25:12] single day. But you can. You could
[25:14] actually just in this time pick up your
[25:15] phone, share the number one insight that
[25:17] you wish you had 5 years ago and just
[25:18] post it and let it rip. you can do it
[25:20] right now.
[25:21] Yeah. You know, to that to that point, I
[25:23] remember seeing a video from Gary Vee uh
[25:25] where he's speaking with a woman. I
[25:27] think she owns a business and she's
[25:29] saying that she wants to create more
[25:31] content and she's like going she starts
[25:33] going through this like uh this long
[25:35] story of why she hasn't done it. And
[25:36] Gary interrupts midway through and he's
[25:39] like just take out your phone right now.
[25:41] We can 60 seconds we can post you we can
[25:43] post your first video right now. And you
[25:45] can feel the like the fear that she has
[25:49] of doing this. But it literally is that
[25:51] simple. And he does it with her and they
[25:52] post it uh and the video performs. I
[25:56] guess I'm curious for you, you know,
[25:57] even when I watch that video. The thing
[25:59] that goes in my mind because I felt this
[26:02] is especially in the beginning on an
[26:05] identity level for most people, we don't
[26:08] see ourselves as creators. We don't see
[26:10] ourselves as like a why would someone
[26:12] tune in and listen to me? And it's like
[26:15] that fundamental
[26:18] identity level belief like stops people
[26:20] from creating. And so given what you do
[26:24] and the fact that you've seen the
[26:26] journeys of like 90,000 creators, can
[26:30] you just pull out a few examples of what
[26:34] you mentioned in the beginning of like
[26:35] the everyday person that you would never
[26:38] expect
[26:39] to be able to monetize or like make a
[26:42] living from doing content that has done
[26:45] so and in how have they done it?
[26:47] Sure. So, I'll give so many different
[26:50] examples because there's so many
[26:51] different random niches you can make
[26:52] money with on the internet and about
[26:54] your own business. I I immediately think
[26:55] of Eddie Abby who's in his mid60s.
[26:57] Dude's absolutely yolked, like ripped.
[27:00] And he's crossed 2 million pounds made
[27:02] on Stan specifically helping anyone get
[27:04] fit in their elderly age. I'm like, if
[27:06] Eddie can figure this out at his age,
[27:08] you can't use any excuse of how you're
[27:09] not tech-savvy or you don't know to pick
[27:11] up a phone. You don't know how to make
[27:12] contact. Like, Eddie's in his mid60s
[27:14] ripping a $2 million business, right?
[27:17] He's crushing it. Selling a $20 guide on
[27:20] how to get in shape. It's not crazy. You
[27:22] just make content that's valuable. You
[27:24] share your personality and go for it.
[27:26] Another one that I absolutely love, our
[27:27] first ever client, my first ever client
[27:30] that I ever implemented stand with, a
[27:31] woman named Tatiana London, she is so
[27:35] badass, so charismatic. She's a real
[27:36] estate agent, right? So this is of every
[27:40] different industry. Just realize that
[27:41] social media is just the new age
[27:43] marketing channel. And so in the old
[27:45] ways that real estate agents would take
[27:46] out a a picture of themselves and put it
[27:49] on a seat at a bus stop and you'd sit on
[27:51] their face. Apologies for the language.
[27:54] Now they just do that on social media,
[27:56] right? They're just like finding some
[27:57] sort of way to advertise. And Tatiana
[27:59] London, she sells real estate coaching.
[28:01] She also books listings through her
[28:02] stand store, right? And she does that
[28:04] all just sharing her story online. And
[28:06] so there are all of these little stories
[28:08] like this, whether it's the Stone story
[28:09] I mentioned of the he was 18, straight
[28:11] out of high school, didn't have to go to
[28:13] college, he was making so much money, or
[28:15] Janessa Harris, the the the mom that I
[28:17] mentioned before who escaped an abusive
[28:19] relationship. There are so many of these
[28:21] stories of people who just in whatever
[28:23] passion you whether you're a dentist,
[28:25] whether you're a lawyer, whether you're
[28:26] accountant, whether you're super
[28:28] passionate about fitness and wellness or
[28:30] organic living, like there's so many
[28:32] random pockets you there's coin trading.
[28:35] There's psychic spirituality tarot. Um
[28:37] there's someone who literally has made
[28:39] $70,000 selling a $12 guide on how you
[28:42] as a parent can help your kids play
[28:43] build uh pillow forts. There there's so
[28:46] many like so many random things that you
[28:49] can do. It's just like the determining
[28:51] factor of whether or not you end up
[28:53] being successful in that is whether or
[28:54] not you have the balls to actually go
[28:56] out there and post 10, 15, 20, and then
[28:58] ultimately over time a 100red videos to
[29:00] learn how to market your product, market
[29:01] yourself, and therefore market your
[29:03] business.
[29:03] That's it.
[29:04] Yeah. You know, I think about that um I
[29:07] think about that first moment when you
[29:08] make money from doing content.
[29:10] Oh, it's a sick feeling, dude. And you
[29:12] know, why do you even have the cuz you
[29:13] you have the reaction to that like that
[29:15] first moment.
[29:16] Yes.
[29:17] Can you can you talk about it from the
[29:20] lens of your story? And then also why is
[29:23] that such a mentality shift? Cuz I've
[29:25] had that same thing which is you make
[29:27] that first dollar from doing content.
[29:29] And a lot of the times it's not even
[29:30] with a big audience. Like we have that
[29:33] almost that limiting belief as well. Oh,
[29:35] I need to have millions of followers
[29:36] before I could ever make money and I'm
[29:37] I'm not a celebrity. Like why would I do
[29:39] that? I don't want to be famous. Can you
[29:41] Can you talk about that first moment?
[29:43] Okay, so quick one before we get into
[29:44] the episode because we have literally
[29:46] gotten thousands of comments and
[29:48] messages from you guys on our AI videos
[29:51] in the last few weeks. Many of which are
[29:53] asking for additional help or questions
[29:55] about tools or processes. And so we
[29:58] decided that we're finally going to do
[30:00] it. We are going to build our first
[30:02] digital product specifically with you in
[30:05] mind. But before we can do it, we need
[30:06] your help and we want to involve you in
[30:08] the process. And so in the link in the
[30:11] description, we have put a super short
[30:13] form. It literally takes 90 seconds or
[30:15] less to fill it out. And it's going to
[30:17] help us create the perfect digital
[30:18] product that helps you use AI in your
[30:21] life, your content, and your business.
[30:23] Oh, and one more thing. For a select
[30:26] group of people that fill out that form,
[30:28] we are going to give you early free
[30:30] access to our digital product as a thank
[30:32] you. Anyway, let's get on to the
[30:34] episode. Yeah, and we have so many
[30:35] creators who make their first and their
[30:37] first couple hundred, a couple thousand
[30:38] followers. You don't need a ton of an
[30:40] audience. And I'm happy to walk people
[30:41] through how they can make it 100k plus
[30:42] with just a couple thousand followers.
[30:44] But from the lens of my story, I hope
[30:47] that everyone out there who listens to
[30:48] this gets to the feeling of joy that you
[30:50] feel when you make that first online
[30:52] sale. That [ __ ] [ __ ] feels great.
[30:55] It's kind of addicting. It's sick. It's
[30:57] such a cool feeling. It actually makes
[30:58] me think about when I was a kid watching
[31:00] Spongebob Squarepants. Mr. crabs had his
[31:02] first ever dollar as like a poster on
[31:03] his wall.
[31:04] And as soon as I ever got that first
[31:06] stand notification that I had made my
[31:08] first sale, I was like, "Holy [ __ ] I
[31:09] get it."
[31:10] But through the lens of just helping
[31:11] everyone recognize what they could
[31:13] monetize themselves, I'll talk about how
[31:14] I made my first dollar. So, you already
[31:16] heard before that my first pieces of
[31:18] content were all about how do you as an
[31:20] underrepresented kid get your first
[31:21] dream job. So, I was making a lot of
[31:22] content on like, hey, this is how you
[31:24] get your first interview. This is how
[31:25] you cold email. This is how you crush an
[31:27] interview. These are the things that
[31:28] people who are interviewing are looking
[31:29] for. And a bunch of people in my
[31:31] comments were just like, "Yo, like, can
[31:33] I actually like use your resume? Can I
[31:35] what does your resume look like? What
[31:36] have you?" Aka your customers, aka your
[31:38] audience members, your comments are
[31:40] oftentimes giving you a signal in your
[31:42] DMs or your comments what you might be
[31:43] able to monetize. And so for me, I
[31:46] looked up my old Dropbox password. I
[31:48] reset my password and found my old
[31:50] Dropbox from college and I found my 2016
[31:52] junior year internship resume that I had
[31:54] used to actually get this job at
[31:55] Goldman. And all I did was I took it and
[31:58] I uploaded into my sans source set for
[32:00] $10. I didn't change a single thing. To
[32:02] this day, there are thousands of people
[32:03] on the internet who just have my literal
[32:06] junior year internship resume and they
[32:08] use that for themselves because it was a
[32:09] validated resume template that clearly
[32:10] got me success. And I just sold it for
[32:12] $10. And I made a couple green screen
[32:15] videos of me like walking through my
[32:16] resume. It was so lowfi, so low
[32:19] production. I literally ripped it in my
[32:21] closet. And from there, I made a couple
[32:23] thousand dollars. is like, "Holy [ __ ]
[32:25] this is sick. This is the leverage of
[32:27] the internet. This is the leverage of
[32:29] the scale of the social media
[32:30] algorithms." And then this is just like
[32:31] some random thing I already had made for
[32:33] myself. And so I would push everyone out
[32:35] there to think about what is something
[32:36] that you've created for yourself,
[32:37] whether it's, you know, for some of our
[32:40] Airbnb creators that teach you how to,
[32:42] you know, buy Airbnbs and and rent them
[32:44] out. It's just their cash flow
[32:45] calculator, their own Excel spreadsheet
[32:47] that they use for themselves. for one of
[32:49] our um customers who's a momreneur. She
[32:52] specifically has a motherboard planner
[32:53] is what she calls it, which is how does
[32:55] she stay sane and keep track of all of
[32:56] her to-dos as a mom. She just sells that
[32:58] to other moms for 50 bucks. And so we
[33:00] all have some version of that that we
[33:02] can probably provide other people. We
[33:03] call it templates here at Stan. Uh and
[33:05] that's a really easy way to make your
[33:07] first dollar.
[33:07] Yeah. Okay. You know, let's uh let's get
[33:09] into it cuz I'm I'm excited about this.
[33:11] So basically, John, to give you the
[33:12] context. So what I did is I listened to
[33:15] several of your interviews specifically
[33:18] around the topic of like what would be a
[33:20] realistic path or steps that someone
[33:23] could follow if they wanted to monetize
[33:26] and make a living through doing content
[33:28] even if they have a small following. And
[33:30] so I took these different things that
[33:32] you'd said in different places and I
[33:34] used AI as well. You have to and uh I
[33:38] got to like these three steps of how
[33:40] someone starting today could do it. And
[33:43] so I wanted to read to you the steps. We
[33:45] can go through each of them and then you
[33:47] can just elaborate on it and we can have
[33:48] fun with it. So the first thing that you
[33:51] said and you actually alluded to this uh
[33:53] earlier, step one is find your ven
[33:56] diagram. So find the intersection
[33:58] between what you're passionate about and
[34:00] then what you're an expert in. And if
[34:02] you can find that little place in the
[34:04] middle of that ven diagram, that is
[34:06] likely something that you can create
[34:08] content about and give value to the
[34:10] world. And so where I wanted to begin,
[34:14] because as we've already said, it sounds
[34:17] so simple, right? It's like what are you
[34:19] passionate about? What are you an expert
[34:21] in? But I think when you're starting
[34:23] out, it's actually kind of difficult to
[34:25] get that level of clarity.
[34:28] And so I'm curious, do you have like um
[34:32] is it that practical to you? Like are
[34:34] you literally drawing out I don't know
[34:36] on a whiteboard or on a piece of paper
[34:37] like the two circles and you're putting
[34:40] down I don't know all the things that
[34:41] you do like explain how you got to that
[34:44] level of clarity of this is my
[34:47] intersection like this is what I'm
[34:49] supposed to create around. I don't think
[34:51] it ever starts with that incredible
[34:54] amount of clarity for most folks. Which
[34:56] by the way, for anyone watching, if you
[34:57] just as we talked about this, literally
[34:58] just draw your vin diagram now. I would
[35:00] encourage you to do so. At the end of
[35:02] the day, I actually bet you just already
[35:04] know broadly what you want to make as
[35:06] everyone just has a gut feeling. If
[35:08] you're you just have a gut feeling what
[35:09] you care about, what you [ __ ] with. I
[35:10] never did the vin diagram when I first
[35:12] started making. I just made content. I
[35:14] was just like asked myself, bro, like
[35:15] what am I passionate about? Like what do
[35:16] I want to make? It's just that [ __ ]
[35:19] simple actually. In fact, most people
[35:21] over complicate it. But yes, the
[35:22] exercise does boil down to what is your
[35:24] gut actually telling you? It's something
[35:25] in that vin diagram. And so what I'd say
[35:27] to people as well, you alluded to like
[35:29] most, you know, the expertise of things.
[35:31] Some people get fearful over like, well,
[35:32] I'm not an expert yet in fitness or I'm
[35:35] not the number one world's expert in
[35:37] business or or this or that, what have
[35:39] you. Well, you don't have to make
[35:41] content from the lens of I am the
[35:43] expert. You can also do what so many of
[35:45] us are doing, myself included, is just
[35:46] build in public. It's like, hey, I'm on
[35:49] my journey to being the fittest version
[35:51] of myself and learning about nutrition
[35:52] and learning about healthy exercise and
[35:54] healthy movement and I'm going to I'm
[35:56] just going to document that journey and
[35:58] therefore build expertise along the way.
[35:59] And also, by the way, when you do that,
[36:01] you build an even stronger audience
[36:02] connection. But yeah, it's some version
[36:04] of what do I care about and what do I
[36:06] want to be an expert in? And everyone's
[36:09] gut already knows that.
[36:11] I think you're so right on the gut
[36:12] feeling. I think that um it's funny,
[36:15] I've even had the same thing as uh we're
[36:18] we're uh growing on Instagram, like
[36:19] putting more effort into the Instagram
[36:21] side of content and you tend to have
[36:24] like a few ideas on your whiteboard,
[36:26] right, of what you want to create around
[36:28] or what you could create around, but
[36:30] then there's one idea that you get
[36:32] excited about.
[36:33] Yep.
[36:33] And it's like this very visceral
[36:35] feeling. And a lot of the times you
[36:37] actually kind of push that idea to the
[36:38] side. You're like, "Oh, I don't I don't
[36:40] want to do that." usually because it's
[36:42] um it can be too vulnerable, it's too
[36:43] raw, it's too close to who you actually
[36:45] are. Yeah.
[36:46] And we have that fear.
[36:47] Yeah.
[36:48] But I think you're actually I think
[36:50] that's a really good indicator. What is
[36:52] the thing that you're the most excited
[36:54] about creating?
[36:55] Yes.
[36:56] And typically what happens is the
[36:58] audience can feel your excitement. So
[37:00] it's like um I don't it's like a success
[37:03] bias almost like the the fact that
[37:05] you're excited actually makes it perform
[37:06] better. like people can feel it,
[37:08] they pick up on it, they engage with it.
[37:10] I think it's such a good uh call out.
[37:14] Yeah.
[37:14] Yeah. You know, the
[37:16] the second piece of it and even where
[37:19] you go in your step two was show up for
[37:23] 100 days.
[37:23] Yep.
[37:24] And you say if you just show up every
[37:26] day for a 100 days, you're going to do
[37:28] well. It's as simple as you have a post
[37:32] that does well, you double down on
[37:34] whatever that pattern is. Can you talk
[37:36] about that?
[37:37] Yeah. And I can also teach people how to
[37:39] do this even more successfully with AI.
[37:40] In a second, we can walk them through
[37:42] how I do it in my own flows and how all
[37:44] of our top creators are successful using
[37:45] some of the AI tools that and workflows
[37:47] we've built. Um, but I want everyone to
[37:50] think through this. So now you've chosen
[37:52] whatever piece of content you want to
[37:53] make, like broadly the topic. Now you're
[37:55] probably like, well, what the [ __ ] do I
[37:56] make, right? What what do I make? How do
[37:58] I make sure it looks good? How do I do
[37:59] all of this? So the easiest way to do
[38:02] this is to recognize that the best
[38:04] artists steal. As in creativity to a
[38:07] large degree, every great artist will
[38:08] tell you is just a combination of all
[38:10] the things that we've taken in that we
[38:11] like and that we want to repurpose in
[38:13] our own voice, our own expression. What
[38:15] do I literally mean by this? I'll give
[38:17] you my example. So when I was first
[38:18] starting to make content and document my
[38:21] journey building a startup, I just
[38:24] thought about who are all the creators
[38:25] that I look up to. And so there were
[38:27] there was once again another vin diagram
[38:28] for me. I really grew up I was a YouTube
[38:30] kid. I grew up on Emma Chamberlain and
[38:31] Casey Neistat. I love how they vlogged.
[38:33] It was just like so fun. They're the
[38:35] homies. And then I also really like
[38:37] educational business content. So the
[38:39] Hormosis, the Gary Ves of the world. And
[38:41] so what did I do? I realized that my own
[38:43] version of my own self-expression was
[38:44] just to take their proven formats and
[38:47] remix it in my own style, which is I
[38:48] just vlogged what it was like to run a
[38:50] startup. No one had ever done that
[38:51] before at the scale that I was doing.
[38:53] And so I say that to say for anyone out
[38:55] there who wants to pick their first 10
[38:57] videos, you probably have one to three
[38:59] topics that you already want to talk
[39:00] about. You probably have some organic
[39:02] ideas. I want you to already go out and
[39:03] script those. But then what I want you
[39:05] to do is I know that you already follow
[39:07] a couple people that you really like
[39:08] their content. There's a reason why you
[39:11] like it. Some version of that calls to
[39:12] you. And whether they're doing a podcast
[39:13] style, whether they're talking to you,
[39:15] it's called a talking head video,
[39:16] whether they're doing skits, whether
[39:18] they're doing narration over B-roll, and
[39:20] it's just playing kind of the clips from
[39:21] their lives, whatever the format is, all
[39:24] you need to go do is go to their channel
[39:26] and filter by their top videos, their
[39:28] outperformers, their outliers, and
[39:30] you're just going to go and watch those
[39:32] and remix those in your own style.
[39:34] You're going to take a proven format, a
[39:36] proven tension point, a proven hook
[39:37] structure, whatever it is, and all you
[39:39] have to do is just remix that same
[39:41] video, but in your own voice, in your
[39:42] own style. And I promise you, if you
[39:45] actually do 10 posts, if you actually do
[39:47] 10 posts, you space them out over a
[39:49] couple weeks,
[39:51] they they will 100% at least one of them
[39:54] do decently. There is no I if anyone
[39:58] does this and personally and I see this
[40:00] and they they walk me through the method
[40:02] and then they personally DM me that for
[40:03] some reason they weren't successful
[40:05] after doing line by line what I just
[40:07] said. I will personally veno you $10.
[40:09] I'm so confident of this. I hope this
[40:11] goes to hundreds of thousands of people
[40:12] and you all do this and I hope one
[40:15] person even can prove me wrong because
[40:17] it's such a proven strategy. And so I
[40:19] say that to say that's how you get your
[40:20] first 10 videos out is you have some
[40:22] combination of intrinsic motivation and
[40:24] excitement about a couple videos that
[40:26] light you up on the whiteboard. Make
[40:27] those. Trust your gut because your
[40:29] passion will will will seep through. And
[40:31] then the extrinsic influence and
[40:34] inspiration is just seeing what's
[40:35] already performing in the market. What
[40:37] you're already scrolling on on your feed
[40:38] that you like and just ask yourself, how
[40:40] do I remix this in my own style? And so
[40:43] if you do those 10 posts, let's assume
[40:45] eight of them will flop. One or two of
[40:47] them will do decently, will get you more
[40:49] than a couple hundred views because the
[40:50] algorithm's job is to just serve great
[40:52] content no matter your following size.
[40:54] And therefore, what you're going to do
[40:56] from there when you'll show up for 100
[40:57] days is you take those two or three
[40:59] patterns that you get and you just
[41:01] double down. You iterate. You ask
[41:02] yourself, what about this video did
[41:03] well? How do I milk it for lack of a
[41:05] better? How do I make more videos on
[41:06] this topic? How do I repackage things?
[41:09] all the way up to the point where I'll
[41:10] actually share something that Gary Ve's
[41:11] head of content once told me which I
[41:13] hope will change everyone's perspective
[41:14] on how much they can feel comfortable
[41:16] talking about themselves and what they
[41:17] talk about. She said to me, John, I hope
[41:21] you recognize that Gary Vee has been
[41:24] saying the same [ __ ] for 20 plus years.
[41:28] If you think about he's this only thing
[41:30] he says one or two core messages and he
[41:31] says the same [ __ ] [ __ ] for 20 years
[41:34] and look where he is. Massively
[41:36] successful.
[41:37] Yeah. You feel like to a certain extent
[41:39] we overvalue
[41:41] the the importance of being like novel
[41:45] or being original. I even I even think
[41:47] about the the people that are typically
[41:51] admired for like creativity or as
[41:54] entrepreneurs as as builders, creators.
[41:56] is I think about like uh well say what
[41:59] you will about him as a person but Kanye
[42:01] in terms of like uh creating music you
[42:04] know he seems like so novel so original
[42:06] or like Steve Jobs in entrepreneurship
[42:09] the iPhone you think that uh a lot of
[42:12] what you describe in content is actually
[42:14] quite it's quite analytical it's this
[42:17] mix of like the instinct and then the
[42:18] analysis
[42:19] yes
[42:20] um and I think that sometimes it's like
[42:23] that mark of oh I have to be original
[42:25] Sure.
[42:26] It feels like a like a blocker to
[42:28] people.
[42:29] Yeah. I will say every generation you
[42:31] get someone who's a generational talent
[42:32] who's so creative like a Kanye and every
[42:36] now and then they are just so incredible
[42:39] what they do that they they can just do
[42:40] these things. I would say most of us are
[42:42] not gifted with that same level and
[42:43] intensity of talent. But even then if
[42:46] you talk to Kanye and study his process,
[42:48] he studied all of the great artists
[42:49] perform. He obsessed over the musicians
[42:51] perform in the same way that Steve was
[42:53] incredibly creative. But what you're
[42:55] alluding to as well as I've studied all
[42:56] the top creator entrepreneurs, Steve was
[42:58] incredibly creative and visionary and
[43:00] went off and did a psychedelics, but he
[43:01] was also a business killer. He also knew
[43:04] how to execute after decades of
[43:05] executing in a data driven way. And so I
[43:08] I I don't want to delude anyone into
[43:09] thinking number one, you have to be that
[43:11] original to break out, you don't.
[43:12] Because even if, let's do the math on
[43:14] this, even if you get one 1 million view
[43:16] video on your quote unquote novel idea
[43:18] to reach a billion people, which by the
[43:19] way, there are eight plus billion in
[43:21] this world, you would need to do that
[43:22] video a thousand more times before it
[43:24] ran out of its quote unquote novel to
[43:25] those billion people. And that's just
[43:27] the first time. Once again, Gary Vee has
[43:28] been posting the same [ __ ] for 20 years.
[43:30] You can do that same video seven times.
[43:32] And actually, I'll share a quote that uh
[43:34] top creator told me the other day. This
[43:35] is this is the sauce. This is really the
[43:37] sauce here. She goes, "You know, John,
[43:38] how I get millions of views? gets like
[43:40] over 200 million views a month. I take a
[43:43] horse, I raise it, I figure out it's a
[43:45] good horse and then I beat the horse to
[43:46] death and then I beat it to death again
[43:48] and then I raise it again and I beat the
[43:50] horse again. Very extreme statement, but
[43:53] I hope it helps the creators understand
[43:54] that like, hey, your job is to come up
[43:57] with that an original hidden content and
[43:58] then milk it and maximize the
[44:00] distribution of it.
[44:02] You know what? Because I want to make
[44:04] this so practical and so real for
[44:06] people. You mentioned the value of like
[44:08] the 10 posts and if you can just do this
[44:11] analytical approach which you described
[44:13] where you're looking at proven formats
[44:15] and then you post the 10 videos, one of
[44:18] them will do decently well. And so I'm
[44:22] curious
[44:24] for that person that's sitting at home
[44:26] and they're like fed up like they've
[44:28] been thinking about doing content for so
[44:29] long and it hasn't happened. Can you
[44:31] even give like a timeline
[44:34] when you're creating content and when
[44:36] you were growing at your fastest? What
[44:38] kind of cadence were you even posting
[44:40] at? Like if someone's like, "Okay, 10 10
[44:43] videos.
[44:44] When should they have completed that?"
[44:47] Everyone's on a different timeline. What
[44:49] I would tell everyone is nothing negates
[44:51] the power and learning of volume. As in
[44:55] you can have an artistic take where you
[44:57] know you do a video week, a video week
[44:59] there, a video week there. But if you
[45:01] think about the difference in your
[45:02] trajectory if you have 52 iterations in
[45:04] a year rather than 365, it's not a
[45:08] difference in just like 6x in terms of
[45:10] that time. The compounding the learnings
[45:12] over 365 times is significantly higher.
[45:15] And so I don't want to you know what I'm
[45:17] hesitating? I'm hesitating because I
[45:18] don't want to be hard on people. But I'm
[45:20] going to tell you the super honest
[45:21] truth. The people who will be most
[45:23] successful are the people who rip as
[45:25] many posts as possible in a week. If you
[45:27] can sit there and rip at least one post
[45:28] a week for your first few weeks and just
[45:30] like accelerate that learning, you will
[45:32] be significantly more successful than it
[45:34] would be easy on you. Be like, "Oh,
[45:35] well, I know it's hard. I got a lot of
[45:36] stuff. So, like maybe one post a week
[45:38] and we can figure out over time." I'm
[45:41] realizing that that's actually me being
[45:42] a bad parent and me being too nice to
[45:43] the kids. If you want to be successful,
[45:45] you need to recognize that the top
[45:46] creators out there like Hormosi rips 250
[45:49] clips a day across all platforms. Yeah,
[45:52] you want to beat him. You know why he's
[45:53] so good at making content, why his
[45:55] content shows up is because they've
[45:57] massively tested across 250 different
[45:59] pieces of content, what exact lines,
[46:01] what exact hooks works for him. And then
[46:03] he makes and then he doubles down on
[46:04] that bet. And so my super honest answer
[46:06] to anyone who's just starting is I want
[46:08] you to rip 10 posts in the next week.
[46:10] That would be extremely aggressive. That
[46:12] would be very hard. But for those of you
[46:14] who are listening to this who want to do
[46:15] that, I promise you if you do that plus
[46:17] the formula and process I gave you the
[46:19] framework before, I promise you if you
[46:21] take that kind of hunger, I'm like,
[46:23] dude, I would [ __ ] bet on that
[46:24] person.
[46:25] Yeah.
[46:25] Cuz I don't even know if I would do
[46:26] that. That's hard.
[46:27] Yeah. You know what? You you mentioned
[46:29] it even in your story that when you
[46:31] first started creating and you're at
[46:33] Stanford, there was like a a group of
[46:38] people, let's say.
[46:39] Yeah. that weren't exactly the most
[46:41] complimentary about the the content that
[46:43] you were putting out. And I think that
[46:45] that's actually a very visceral fear for
[46:46] people is uh what are my peers going to
[46:49] think? What are my colleagues at work
[46:50] going to find my videos? Is my friends
[46:52] from high school?
[46:54] Can you first of all describe what
[46:56] happened?
[46:57] Yeah.
[46:58] And then for you, how did you overcome
[47:00] that?
[47:00] Yeah. And to be clear, I started out two
[47:02] posts in a week, right? So I'm giving
[47:04] you guys 10 to break your mental model
[47:06] and break your fear pattern because I
[47:07] promise you nothing matters and we'll
[47:08] all die. Um but what I will paint a
[47:13] picture for you is this is five plus
[47:14] years ago. So it wasn't normalized to be
[47:16] an online entrepreneur and a creator. It
[47:18] wasn't a cool thing at all. It wasn't
[47:20] aspirational especially in the circles
[47:21] that I had sit in there. So I want you
[47:24] to think about the scene of the people
[47:26] that I went to school with. Many of them
[47:28] came from immense privilege. Like we're
[47:29] talking not like millionaires, like
[47:31] literal billionaire. Like they were
[47:33] literally billionaires. They were the
[47:34] libraries around campus were like named
[47:36] after them. Like I was like, oh wait,
[47:38] your last name is also, oh, like it was
[47:40] like that level of wealth and status.
[47:43] And so when people are like competing
[47:45] for certain jobs and private equity and
[47:48] VC and what have you, it's like there's
[47:50] a there's there's a snobbyess to it. And
[47:53] so when some kid in your class starts
[47:55] making Tik Tok videos, which is a kids
[47:57] dancing app at the time, dude, people
[47:59] are [ __ ] mean. And the thing is is
[48:03] they'll obviously be super mean behind
[48:04] your back and you hear about it from all
[48:05] your friends, but they'll say snide [ __ ]
[48:07] to you. Like, oh, how's your little Tik
[48:08] Tok thing doing, right? Like, oh yeah,
[48:11] like how's your little dancing thing
[48:12] doing? And it was so funny to me because
[48:15] I was seeing that same person walk into
[48:16] a job interview for a job that I had
[48:18] before, graveling for that job, like
[48:20] you're going to be [ __ ] miserable.
[48:22] But I say that all to say is like no
[48:24] matter where you are and what you're
[48:25] doing, if you think about how society
[48:28] works and therefore how you can make
[48:29] enough value, you need to recognize that
[48:32] if everyone is going one way, there's
[48:34] likely no alpha. There's likely no
[48:36] outsiz opportunity in that. And the
[48:38] entrepreneurs and founders who make the
[48:39] most money, they're the ones who have a
[48:40] contrarian vision. They're the ones who
[48:42] see an opportunity before everyone else
[48:44] does because if everyone else has
[48:45] already seen that opportunity, the alpha
[48:46] has been competed away. And so it is in
[48:49] those moments, the people who have the
[48:50] bravery and the conviction and then also
[48:53] the gall and ability to execute on that
[48:55] vision are the ones who make the most
[48:56] money. When everyone else is going
[48:58] right, if you've really thought about
[48:59] left and you truly have diligence that
[49:01] and you go left, of course all these
[49:03] people are going to judge you and think
[49:04] about you in a different way or laugh at
[49:05] you. But first they laugh at you, then
[49:07] they join you. Then they respect you.
[49:10] maybe maybe they don't want to, but then
[49:12] they start coming to you and they ask
[49:13] for a job or they start asking to invest
[49:15] in your company like all of my
[49:17] classmates and peers who made fun of me
[49:18] before. And so I'd share that that story
[49:21] there to say first of all, none of those
[49:24] people [ __ ] pay your bills.
[49:26] Just just get that right. Their opinions
[49:28] do not pay your [ __ ] bills and they
[49:29] will never ever make your success
[49:31] because they'll never even help you in
[49:32] the first place. They will never make
[49:33] your success. Only you can make your
[49:34] success. And in some ways if people are
[49:37] acting in a certain way or laughing
[49:39] about you in a certain way there
[49:40] actually might be something there truly
[49:43] you can see it as a positive signal in
[49:45] some ways assuming you've really deeply
[49:47] diligent that this is actually a good
[49:48] idea.
[49:49] Yeah. You know at the time like when you
[49:52] hear those things the little Tik Tok or
[49:54] how the dancing videos going and I I
[49:57] remember that from my own journey you
[49:58] know how's the little the podcast that
[50:01] podcast thing you were doing. Um, was
[50:04] that fuel for you?
[50:08] The way I work as a people pleaser at
[50:10] the time, no, it it it hurt. It
[50:12] genuinely hurt. Now it's a [ __ ] feel
[50:15] for me. Every time someone doubts us or
[50:16] what have you, or rejects us, what have
[50:18] you, I'm like, I'll show you cuz
[50:19] everyone who believed in me, I'm going
[50:21] to make sure they make [ __ ] millions
[50:23] of dollars. I'm going to make sure that
[50:25] they do and I will make sure that you
[50:26] know that when you pass on us or you
[50:28] said that thing, look at everything you
[50:30] missed out. And that's feel for me. It's
[50:32] not as much of a feel as the the mission
[50:34] everything else and just like being with
[50:35] great people and building cool [ __ ] but
[50:37] god damn when I turn on that like angry
[50:39] side, I'm like, "Yeah, [ __ ] you, dude.
[50:41] [ __ ] you and your miserable life."
[50:42] Yeah. I think there's always a there's
[50:44] always a mix of uh the inspiration. I
[50:47] think people that achieve things on a
[50:48] huge level, there's a mix of uh
[50:50] inspiration, but then also like the chip
[50:52] on the shoulder.
[50:53] Totally.
[50:53] Um so that makes sense.
[50:55] You know what? So, you you mentioned the
[50:58] uh the 10 posts, especially when
[51:00] someone's starting out, and one of the
[51:02] things that you say is like if you do
[51:04] those 10 posts, one of them will do
[51:06] decently well. And I think when you get
[51:10] kind of more used to doing content,
[51:12] you've done it over a number of years,
[51:14] you actually have this framework and
[51:16] these set of steps of like analyzing and
[51:19] understanding what good performance is.
[51:22] But for the person that's listening at
[51:23] home does decently well
[51:27] really it's just like they're looking at
[51:29] the views probably maybe like the likes
[51:30] or the views.
[51:31] Correct.
[51:32] And so but for you specifically when you
[51:35] say one of them will do decently well.
[51:38] What do you mean?
[51:39] I mean something above whatever your
[51:40] account's baseline is right now. Which
[51:42] like if you rip your first 10 posts and
[51:43] the average post is like 50 views. by
[51:45] the way, that's totally okay and that's
[51:47] actually in some ways a good thing
[51:48] because you're still learning how to do
[51:50] well and you don't want to flop in front
[51:51] of a million people. Um, but basically
[51:54] decently well is, let's say, three to
[51:55] five times your average baseline. So for
[51:57] someone who just starting posting on a
[51:59] fresh account, a couple hundred, a
[52:00] couple thousand views on a video, that's
[52:03] actually like really really solid,
[52:05] right? Anything definitely above your
[52:06] follower count threshold is a very very
[52:08] good view video for you or post for you
[52:11] when you're just starting out.
[52:12] And then when you mention because the
[52:14] the the thing that you say afterwards
[52:16] you double down on whatever that pattern
[52:18] is. Can you take people behind the
[52:20] scenes?
[52:22] What does doubling down on that pattern
[52:25] like when you when your first video rips
[52:27] and you're you're doing this story of
[52:29] how you got your first dream job.
[52:31] Yes.
[52:31] As an underrepresented minority. What
[52:34] does that double down process look like?
[52:37] It can be as simple as the example that
[52:40] I gave in the beginning, which is my
[52:41] first post was how do you get a job at
[52:43] Goldman? This is my number one tip. As
[52:45] soon as that video hit, what did I do? I
[52:47] made five more on tip number two, tip
[52:49] number three, tip number four, tip
[52:50] number five. Make it a series, right?
[52:52] That's one of the most obvious ways.
[52:53] When you think about some of the most
[52:54] successful creators of this generation,
[52:56] they take you on a journey. It's a
[52:57] series, right? It's like the 30 lessons
[53:00] I learned by 30. And then you have 30
[53:02] videos. This is my journey building a
[53:04] billion-dollar company. That's an
[53:05] unending series. And so really take the
[53:08] signals of what works and turn it into
[53:09] some sort of series.
[53:10] You know, that's powerful. I think about
[53:12] um the idea of like find your series.
[53:15] Like if you could just find your first
[53:16] series, like what's that? What's the
[53:19] thing that you could do like 30 days?
[53:21] Like the challenge, you know, we've all
[53:22] seen those challenges.
[53:24] You know what? So we start with step
[53:26] one, find your ven diagram. Step two,
[53:29] show up for 100 days. Step three was let
[53:34] them tell you what to sell. Yes.
[53:36] And then provide it.
[53:37] Yes.
[53:37] And so this is what you said. You said
[53:39] your audience or the people around you
[53:42] will tell you what to sell. There's no
[53:45] science behind this. You know, even the
[53:47] way that you like the way I read it out,
[53:49] the words that you use, there's no
[53:51] science behind this.
[53:53] It sounds very simple.
[53:56] Can you explain it to people? your
[53:58] audience will tell you what to sell.
[54:01] The market pulls. You will feel the
[54:05] market pull. What I mean by that, and
[54:07] I'll give an example of my story. So,
[54:10] especially for folks who are like, I
[54:12] only have a couple hundred followers or
[54:13] maybe a couple thousand followers. I'll
[54:14] never make money. I'll give you me as an
[54:16] example. And I can give you so many
[54:17] stand creators as an example. So, when I
[54:21] first started Stan, I made a second
[54:22] account. It's called Coach Hoovie.
[54:24] Coach_hoovie. You can still look it up
[54:25] on Tik Tok. The videos are incredibly
[54:27] cringe. I'm so impressed that they're so
[54:28] online, but I keep it up as proof. I
[54:31] posted a video on Coach Hobie every day
[54:32] for 60 days specifically teaching you
[54:35] how do you monetize online. And I say
[54:37] that to say every single day I would go
[54:40] through and I see who would comment and
[54:41] who would follow my account. And for
[54:43] anyone that would follow my account that
[54:45] seemed like a qualified leader, a
[54:47] qualified customer for the business I
[54:48] was building, which is Stan, I would
[54:49] follow them back and I would shoot them
[54:50] a DM. And I would just generally try to
[54:52] understand how they wanted to monetize,
[54:54] where I could help. And then we get on a
[54:55] call and I would offer a free coaching
[54:57] call. This is the kind of hustle you
[54:58] have to do when you first start a
[54:59] business. You have a couple hundred
[55:00] customers or a couple hundred followers.
[55:02] In the comments on every video, people
[55:04] would be like, "Hey, well, like what do
[55:05] you think about this? How do you
[55:06] optimize your funnel here? How do you
[55:07] optimize the conversion? How do you make
[55:09] sure to get more views top of funnel?
[55:10] How do you convert those followers into
[55:12] into customers?" Basically, the market
[55:14] will tell you, the customers will tell
[55:16] you based number one on the signal of
[55:17] which videos do well or which posts do
[55:19] well and then what are their follow-up
[55:20] questions and what are their DMs to you
[55:21] as well. And so the process in which I
[55:24] got validation for Stan and this product
[55:25] that we were building was like
[55:26] everyone's like hey John I'm really
[55:28] struggling converting on this or even
[55:30] back in the day with my first product on
[55:31] Joovie like my original account with the
[55:33] resume. It was just literally everyone
[55:35] was like hey can I get that resume
[55:36] template and like you can throw up a
[55:38] story on your Instagram and be like hey
[55:39] like I'm thinking about like building a
[55:41] business out of this. I'm really
[55:42] passionate about this. I want to make
[55:43] sure this is sustainable living for
[55:44] myself. Like what of all these things
[55:46] would you find most valuable? Or like do
[55:49] you have any sense with a survey? Do you
[55:50] have any sense of like what you would
[55:52] want to purchase from me or like what
[55:53] you'd need help from? Your customers are
[55:56] rooting for you to help them more.
[55:57] That's why they followed you in the
[55:58] first place. And so the market will tell
[56:00] you, aka your audience will tell you,
[56:01] the comments will tell you, the DMs will
[56:02] tell you. And then if you don't have
[56:04] enough signal there, then you reach out
[56:05] to people that are following you and you
[56:06] build a relationship and you just got
[56:08] get on a call with them. cuz nothing is
[56:11] a proxy for you putting the manual
[56:13] nittyritty unsexy effort of getting on
[56:16] the phone with people and just
[56:17] understanding how can I be helpful to
[56:18] them really consulting them through
[56:19] their problems and then over the course
[56:20] of 10 calls understanding the key
[56:23] patterns that you can productize.
[56:24] Yeah, actually I love that advice
[56:28] of
[56:29] you you'll start with the 10 posts. One
[56:32] of those posts will do decently well.
[56:34] you'll start getting a few followers
[56:35] from that and then typically you're like
[56:38] I think the problem is is that in the
[56:40] beginning without having hundreds of
[56:41] thousands of followers or tens of
[56:43] thousands of followers, people are
[56:45] waiting for this um signal where people
[56:47] are like DMing them. They're like kind
[56:49] of they're it's like um you you're in
[56:52] this passive state where you're like,
[56:53] "Oh, okay." But they haven't literally
[56:55] shouted in my face yet that they want
[56:57] this product.
[56:58] Yeah. But that's why I love what you
[56:59] mentioned, which is you could just
[57:01] follow back the people that's followed
[57:03] you from the video and then you could
[57:05] just reach out in their DM and even
[57:08] there's like tools like even like a many
[57:09] chat or whatever where you could
[57:11] automate this process and you're
[57:13] reaching out to people and that mindset
[57:15] of just being curious of just like
[57:18] asking questions.
[57:19] Totally.
[57:19] And that will kind of give you there
[57:21] will be a signal just from having that
[57:23] volume of conversations. Yes.
[57:25] And then that's the thing that you
[57:26] create. Yes.
[57:28] Um,
[57:29] you know what? For Stan specifically,
[57:31] cuz at this point you guys have over
[57:33] 90,000 creators,
[57:37] give us a a look into the behind the
[57:39] scenes for a second and the data
[57:41] specifically that you guys are seeing.
[57:43] Are there certain types of products,
[57:46] offerings that you see
[57:50] typically do well specifically for
[57:53] people if it's like their first offer?
[57:55] Like, do you even have like a
[57:56] recommendation of what someone should
[57:58] consider for their first offer?
[58:00] I will give a very specific
[58:02] prescription, but I don't want anyone to
[58:04] think it's gospel. I will tell you that
[58:06] if you use it, you will likely be
[58:07] successful, but everyone's business is
[58:08] different. You get to do what you want.
[58:10] If some part of it doesn't resonate with
[58:11] you, totally cool. So, if I were
[58:13] starting up from zero and I wanted to
[58:14] build with high certainty a $100,000
[58:17] business, I would start first with
[58:20] obviously posting content. And then the
[58:22] first thing I would ever offer is some
[58:24] sort of coaching call or booking call
[58:26] for a relatively low price. We're
[58:28] talking 30, 40, 100 bucks, something
[58:30] like that. And my goal is just to
[58:32] consult with people and get them on the
[58:33] phone for for let's do 10 calls. So,
[58:36] let's say I'm in the fitness category.
[58:38] I'm specifically going to try to get
[58:39] people to do a personal training session
[58:41] with me virtually or a personal training
[58:43] consult with me or or a health plan. My
[58:45] goal is just to get 10 people on. I
[58:47] don't need to make a ton of money from
[58:48] this. It's about testing and validating
[58:50] whether or not people will book with me
[58:51] in the first place and what my message
[58:52] needs to be. Is it I will help you lose
[58:54] weight in 30 days. It was it is it I
[58:56] will help you as a busy mom who works a
[58:58] 9 to5 and has two kids and has no time
[59:00] to exercise. Uh help you lose weight in
[59:02] the 5 minutes between uh when you go to
[59:03] bed and when you know when you wake up,
[59:06] whatever that is. Basically, how can I
[59:08] get people to book with me in the first
[59:09] place and use me as a container or a
[59:12] vehicle through which they can achieve
[59:13] their outcome? The point of booking
[59:15] those calls is to spend that ambient
[59:17] time with your customer. If you do 10 of
[59:18] them, you'll start to understand the
[59:19] patterns of what to productize. Because
[59:21] once you understand the patterns of what
[59:23] to productize, let's say, for example,
[59:24] of the 10 people that booked with me,
[59:25] seven out of 10 were indeed moms. And
[59:27] they specifically voiced the pain point
[59:28] that like they didn't have enough time
[59:30] to work out. And so, they wanted
[59:32] something that they could do in the
[59:33] carpull line. And so maybe that is the
[59:35] signal you have to like okay that's the
[59:37] that's the productized signal I'm going
[59:38] to turn that into a digital product. The
[59:39] second thing I would do that we see a
[59:41] lot of success on with Stan helps you
[59:43] generate recurring income over time
[59:45] which is a community subscription which
[59:47] is how do I bring together a bunch of
[59:49] like-minded people who all are
[59:51] passionate about fitness who actually
[59:53] there's value in having a group actually
[59:54] it's the accountability piece like I'm
[59:56] here as your recurring coach on a
[59:58] onetoone we'll do group calls or we'll
[01:00:00] do coaching calls as part of this
[01:00:01] community subscription you also get free
[01:00:02] content that I don't give anywhere else
[01:00:04] but only in the community and then on
[01:00:05] top of that you have this whole other
[01:00:06] community of people who are also trying
[01:00:07] to stay fit as
[01:00:09] And so if I were to try to build my
[01:00:10] first $100,000 business, I would first
[01:00:12] start with what are my high ticket
[01:00:14] coaching calls, right? So what are what
[01:00:16] are the times that I can spend time
[01:00:18] helping someone in some sort of way? And
[01:00:19] I say coaching call, but what I just
[01:00:20] mean is like any version of can you get
[01:00:22] someone on the phone to help them in a
[01:00:24] very manual way so you can learn and
[01:00:26] also help them really really
[01:00:27] meaningfully. So whether you're auditing
[01:00:28] something about them or you're literally
[01:00:30] helping them get to part of the journey.
[01:00:31] Then the second piece is that okay the
[01:00:33] next tier of this is how do I provide
[01:00:34] more scalable income for myself? And
[01:00:36] those two pieces that I think about is
[01:00:38] number one, a digital product that I can
[01:00:39] scale that will literally I can sell in
[01:00:41] my sleep and literally build once and
[01:00:43] sell infinity times. And then the second
[01:00:46] piece is just a community subscription
[01:00:47] to build more recurring income into my
[01:00:48] business.
[01:00:49] Yeah. Okay. So So you let me know if we
[01:00:50] if I have this right. So it sounds like
[01:00:53] for people that are starting out,
[01:00:54] they're thinking about how they can
[01:00:55] monetize uh their content with a small
[01:00:58] following like a few hundred maybe like
[01:01:00] a thousand followers.
[01:01:02] first offer typically what would work
[01:01:05] coaching call and it sounds like from
[01:01:07] what you're saying it's not even about
[01:01:09] the price necessarily on the coaching
[01:01:11] call like it's not that you you're
[01:01:13] charging the highest price
[01:01:14] that's correct
[01:01:15] it's more that you're trying to you're
[01:01:16] trying to figure out positioning
[01:01:17] yes
[01:01:18] how you can frame your offer what sort
[01:01:19] of things people need um so there's
[01:01:22] certain questions that you're asking in
[01:01:24] order to get a sense of positioning you
[01:01:26] know actually just quickly for people
[01:01:29] could you very quickly what are some of
[01:01:31] those questions like those positioning
[01:01:33] style questions that you're even like
[01:01:36] what's the top three that even you would
[01:01:37] ask
[01:01:39] people over complicate this you just ask
[01:01:40] your customer why did you book with me
[01:01:43] what do you think I can help you with
[01:01:44] what's the most important thing I can
[01:01:46] help you with that those three questions
[01:01:48] themselves will just tell you everything
[01:01:50] you need to know about what you can
[01:01:51] offer and over time it's like what if I
[01:01:53] were to do these things for you what
[01:01:55] would you be open to paying me
[01:01:56] can you share with people maybe some
[01:01:59] examples of
[01:02:03] creators that have hugely monetized off
[01:02:06] of seemingly pretty small digital
[01:02:09] product offerings.
[01:02:11] Sure.
[01:02:12] I mean, you just gave a great example of
[01:02:13] someone selling AI prompts. So, I'll
[01:02:15] give an example of someone who sells AI
[01:02:17] prompts on stand and makes like hundreds
[01:02:19] of thousands of dollars per month. Um,
[01:02:21] specifically, oh, nice. It's O neis.
[01:02:26] He is one of the gods on social media
[01:02:28] around how do you make AI generated
[01:02:29] video look cool which actually is a very
[01:02:31] complex prompt of like make sure it's
[01:02:33] cinematic and this shot angle and this
[01:02:35] this and this and I'm not artistic
[01:02:37] enough to know the rest of the prompt.
[01:02:38] Dude, those are like 12 13 bucks. Well,
[01:02:41] guess what you have at the power of your
[01:02:43] fingertips? The internet. Guess what's
[01:02:46] on the internet with these social media?
[01:02:47] Millions of people. And so it's a $12
[01:02:50] prompt, but think of also the velocity
[01:02:52] in which she's shipping these. Every
[01:02:54] week he's dropping a new prompt with a
[01:02:55] couple new videos. And so he's clearing
[01:02:57] thousands of people purchasing these
[01:02:59] prompts all the time because it's like,
[01:03:01] wait, that video you're playing is sick.
[01:03:03] I want to do the same thing for myself,
[01:03:04] for my own brand or for my own business.
[01:03:06] $12. I'll easily rip one of those. And
[01:03:08] then he drops another one the next week.
[01:03:10] And so the thing about these these
[01:03:12] digital pocket times is they're very
[01:03:13] high velocity. They don't He already
[01:03:15] made it for himself. Once again, he
[01:03:17] literally just uploads the prompt into
[01:03:18] his stand store and sells it. Like it's
[01:03:20] just like it takes 2 seconds and then
[01:03:22] you just rip videos on it.
[01:03:24] Yeah. It's actually a really good
[01:03:25] framework and it reminds me of how you
[01:03:27] started which is you just take the thing
[01:03:30] that worked for you.
[01:03:31] Correct.
[01:03:32] To get the result and then you can just
[01:03:33] package that and sell it. And it's not
[01:03:35] even saying it's package it.
[01:03:37] You just shared your resume.
[01:03:38] Yes.
[01:03:39] That successfully got you like the job
[01:03:40] at Goldman.
[01:03:41] Yeah.
[01:03:42] And that was the the way that you made
[01:03:43] your first 10,000. Okay. That's um
[01:03:47] that's valuable. And so Okay. So you you
[01:03:49] make the digital product and then even
[01:03:52] in the example that you gave, it sounds
[01:03:54] like the the way that that product is
[01:03:56] promoted and sold is through the
[01:03:59] content. So for example, if I'm using if
[01:04:02] I'm doing all of this on Instagram, it's
[01:04:04] like I'll have reals that I'm putting
[01:04:06] out on my page and then I guess there's
[01:04:09] some sort of like call to action or CTA.
[01:04:12] How are you directing people to the
[01:04:14] digital product?
[01:04:15] There are millions of different ways to
[01:04:16] do this and everyone has a different
[01:04:17] way. One of my favorites though is to
[01:04:18] show not tell. And so I gave an example
[01:04:21] before of the fact that we have a bunch
[01:04:23] of Airbnb creators who use stand. So
[01:04:25] I'll use the example of Michael
[01:04:27] Elephante. He's one of the top creators
[01:04:29] in that category. And the way we made
[01:04:30] his first $200,000 was with a $50 cash
[01:04:34] flow calculator. It was literally an
[01:04:36] Excel spreadsheet. It was literally just
[01:04:37] an Excel spreadsheet he was using where
[01:04:40] when Michael would go out to analyze
[01:04:41] whether or not he wanted to buy a
[01:04:42] property and he think he thought he
[01:04:43] could make money off of it as an Airbnb
[01:04:45] property, he would just throw in all
[01:04:47] these metrics around um the specific
[01:04:49] property. So what what he was buying at,
[01:04:51] what his mortgage rate was, what he
[01:04:52] thought he could get on a month-to-month
[01:04:53] yield, all these kinds of numbers or
[01:04:55] inputs, and then he would put that in
[01:04:57] through the calculator. It would help
[01:04:59] him understand, can I do I have a decent
[01:05:00] chance of making money on this? And so
[01:05:02] he just started ripping videos. I I was
[01:05:05] like, first of all, Michael, why don't
[01:05:06] we just package this into something? So,
[01:05:07] he just cleared out the numbers and the
[01:05:08] inputs and then he uploaded to a stand
[01:05:10] store. And I go, Michael, why don't we
[01:05:12] just rip a couple videos where you just
[01:05:14] analyze different properties and see
[01:05:16] whether or not you'd make money with
[01:05:17] them? And so, he just started making
[01:05:18] super viral videos of like, will this
[01:05:21] million-doll home in Boca Raton,
[01:05:22] Florida, make me money for Airbnb? And
[01:05:25] he would just go through the cash flow
[01:05:27] calculator and analyze it with them. And
[01:05:28] then at the end he'd be like, "By the
[01:05:30] way, if you want to use this same cash
[01:05:32] flow calculator, you can build this for
[01:05:33] yourself or you can just get it in my
[01:05:34] stand store." What do you know? $200,000
[01:05:38] off of a $50 spreadsheet.
[01:05:40] So, he was just showing and giving value
[01:05:42] in a way that the video would naturally
[01:05:43] perform because he's just teaching and
[01:05:45] educating people about can you analyze
[01:05:46] this property? And he's just like, by
[01:05:48] the way, if you want this, just get in
[01:05:50] front of my store.
[01:05:51] Yeah. Can you describe and explain to
[01:05:54] people why do you have that level of
[01:05:56] excitement when we take everything that
[01:05:59] you've just described in terms of
[01:06:00] content creation, in terms of how people
[01:06:02] can monetize and make a living from
[01:06:03] doing it, but then adding that component
[01:06:06] of AI into it, it increases your level
[01:06:09] of excitement. Why is that? Because our
[01:06:11] jobs as human beings now in this AI
[01:06:13] world is to be creative and have great
[01:06:15] ideas.
[01:06:16] what the AI we've built now just
[01:06:18] compresses all of the work that and the
[01:06:20] muck and the [ __ ] you had to do before
[01:06:22] like let's say you and I can we do a
[01:06:25] live example right now which is if you
[01:06:26] were to think about what what is your
[01:06:27] version of a guide template you would do
[01:06:29] right now.
[01:06:31] [sighs]
[01:06:32] So I I have a few ideas. So one would be
[01:06:36] um I think I think one of the things
[01:06:39] that we we've done through the show
[01:06:40] which I'm like really passionate about
[01:06:42] is uh the number of people that have
[01:06:44] like bet on themselves and directly from
[01:06:46] this con conversations they've heard
[01:06:48] either like built their first AI agent
[01:06:52] or uh like started the first business or
[01:06:55] done the first digital product. So, I
[01:06:57] think about using AI in that process and
[01:06:59] even like prompts and a list of prompts
[01:07:02] that could help someone kind of get
[01:07:03] clarity on what they should do next
[01:07:05] would be interesting. Um, you know what?
[01:07:09] Let's let's start with that. I could I
[01:07:10] could list off quite a few.
[01:07:11] Yeah. So, the Kickstarter, some sort of
[01:07:12] Kickstarter guide on how to get to your
[01:07:14] first AI agent or first product.
[01:07:15] Yeah.
[01:07:16] Right. That's clearly in your head.
[01:07:17] So, in a nonAI world, I would argue that
[01:07:20] probably one of the reasons you haven't
[01:07:22] done that is because it's a sheer amount
[01:07:23] of work. Actually, it's a great idea,
[01:07:25] great fit for your audience, but like,
[01:07:26] are you going to spend the next 24 hours
[01:07:28] building that well amongst everything
[01:07:30] else you're going to do? Are you ready
[01:07:31] to pop open Canva and make that guide
[01:07:33] and then pick the little colors?
[01:07:34] The evidence would show,
[01:07:36] right? And so now all you have to do is
[01:07:38] you have the inherent ideas. Also,
[01:07:40] you've shared it a ton of your content
[01:07:41] in the same way you did research with me
[01:07:43] on AI before this. What What does
[01:07:45] Stanley, our little AI agent do? He
[01:07:47] transcribes all he goes through all of
[01:07:49] your content across all the platforms,
[01:07:50] understands your unique voice, your
[01:07:51] unique points. You talk to him a couple
[01:07:53] times. You're like, "Hey, I want to do
[01:07:54] this guide. These are some of the things
[01:07:55] I want to hit. This is like prompt
[01:07:58] number one, prompt number two, prompt
[01:07:59] number three." You know, maybe you
[01:08:00] connect your notion where all your
[01:08:01] prompts are. He ingest your notion, too.
[01:08:03] And out pops the entire thing that you
[01:08:05] need, right? Because he's doing the
[01:08:07] manual, like you already have the
[01:08:08] insights and the ideation. What AI is,
[01:08:11] if you think about it, in the first
[01:08:12] stage of it, it's just a really cracked
[01:08:14] intern. It's just the intern who's going
[01:08:16] to take all of your great ingenuity and
[01:08:18] turn that into a digestible product. And
[01:08:20] so I get really excited about stage one
[01:08:22] of AI which is it just feels like when
[01:08:24] you start using it feels like you have
[01:08:25] superpowers. It literally 10xes your
[01:08:27] productivity because you go from idea to
[01:08:29] execution much faster. Whereas before
[01:08:31] like you'd have all these good ideas.
[01:08:32] How many projects have so many people
[01:08:34] started and never finished because there
[01:08:36] was too much manual work required to do
[01:08:37] those things. But anything that's that's
[01:08:39] called a jamming on a keyboard activity
[01:08:41] AI can do for you. M and so whether it's
[01:08:44] in this case Stanley making your digital
[01:08:45] product for you or whether it's also
[01:08:47] knowing what content to make to to
[01:08:49] actually help you market this he has all
[01:08:52] the data on all the top performing posts
[01:08:54] on social media so he can be like hey
[01:08:56] you know these are the four videos that
[01:08:58] you should do that are related to this
[01:09:00] that have outperformed so far that match
[01:09:01] your voice and style and this is the
[01:09:03] suggested script I have for you so
[01:09:06] yeah you know okay John because this is
[01:09:07] what I this is what I want to do because
[01:09:09] to give people the context So Stan, at
[01:09:13] least how I understand it, starts as
[01:09:15] like this all-in-one platform for
[01:09:17] creators uh to monetize from their
[01:09:20] content. So you can just put your you
[01:09:21] can take your Stan link, which has
[01:09:23] access, I don't know, to all your
[01:09:24] digital products, your community, all
[01:09:26] the everything you have,
[01:09:27] and you would just stick that in your
[01:09:29] bio. And so you'll see a ton of creators
[01:09:30] that have their Stan store. I've seen it
[01:09:32] with Arlin as an example.
[01:09:34] And now it's like you're in this
[01:09:36] evolution where you're building Stan
[01:09:38] Lee. Yeah. which is like the the AI
[01:09:40] agent that actually helps people create
[01:09:43] and build products and all of these
[01:09:45] different things. And so one of the
[01:09:48] things that I said to you before we
[01:09:49] spoke or before we uh sat down for this
[01:09:51] conversation,
[01:09:52] I was like, it'd be really cool if you
[01:09:54] could just show people
[01:09:55] what it is. So yeah, let's let's just do
[01:09:57] it.
[01:09:57] You ready?
[01:09:58] You ready for some magic?
[01:09:59] Yeah, let's do it.
[01:10:00] So let's say we're starting as a creator
[01:10:02] who's never created content before, and
[01:10:03] you're like, "Holy [ __ ] what I make
[01:10:05] content wise, and you're like, John, I
[01:10:06] don't want to do all this work." So,
[01:10:08] we've basically built this internal
[01:10:09] workflow. We've basically built Stanley
[01:10:12] here, this AI agent, in a way that he
[01:10:14] will help you understand first what kind
[01:10:17] of content you want to make. So, if
[01:10:18] you've already made content before,
[01:10:19] he'll go in and adjust all of your
[01:10:21] YouTube, all of your Instagram, all of
[01:10:22] whatever written form content you've
[01:10:24] done. So, he deeply understands your
[01:10:25] voice and style, which is something that
[01:10:26] when you think about the base LLM
[01:10:28] models, they really struggle with. It's
[01:10:29] like everyone's had the experience of
[01:10:30] asking Chachev to write them something.
[01:10:32] It's like this is AI slop. So, we've
[01:10:34] built our own proprietary brain that
[01:10:36] deeply understands how to make great
[01:10:37] content and how to write in your unique
[01:10:38] style. And so, the first place you land
[01:10:40] on once you start training Stanley is
[01:10:42] just this dashboard of just like how are
[01:10:44] you performing across the board. But
[01:10:46] more specifically, I mentioned before
[01:10:48] one of the best ways that top creators,
[01:10:50] you and I both know this, make great
[01:10:52] content is they just see what's already
[01:10:53] performing in the market. So, you
[01:10:54] already have here on your dashboard a
[01:10:56] bunch of niche related content that's
[01:10:58] outperforming. So, this is 180x from
[01:11:00] Brand Smithwick. This is actually about
[01:11:02] LinkedIn actually. In fact, um, it knows
[01:11:05] that specifically I make a lot of
[01:11:06] content about LinkedIn as a platform.
[01:11:08] And so I can sit here and just remix
[01:11:10] this in my specific voice and it'll make
[01:11:12] me content here. It's also already made
[01:11:14] me a carousel for today that I could
[01:11:15] easily edit myself and just change the
[01:11:18] wording on, change the text, but it's
[01:11:19] also picked the right photos. So it's
[01:11:21] went through my entire photo album and
[01:11:23] based off of a hook that it deems pretty
[01:11:25] strong that I can also give it feedback
[01:11:26] on, it's made a carousel for me.
[01:11:28] Yeah.
[01:11:28] So this is like the definition of what
[01:11:29] we call like done for you content. We're
[01:11:31] trying to accelerate the ability for you
[01:11:34] to make as much content as possible.
[01:11:35] That's valuable.
[01:11:36] Yeah.
[01:11:36] We're trying to take your IP as a
[01:11:38] person, right? Your name, images, and
[01:11:40] likeness, your your unique insights and
[01:11:42] help you maximize the distribution of
[01:11:43] that.
[01:11:44] Yeah. Can you just share how does it do
[01:11:46] that integration? Like is it is it
[01:11:49] manually am I like uploading things into
[01:11:52] it? Does it just connect to my YouTube
[01:11:54] account? Like how is that done? It
[01:11:55] connects to all of your socials first
[01:11:57] and then if you want to additionally
[01:11:59] train Stanley's brain on you in the same
[01:12:00] way that if you were onboarding with an
[01:12:02] agency who is doing this for you, you
[01:12:04] would just give him everything that you
[01:12:05] have in terms of your context. So any
[01:12:07] writing that you haven't published
[01:12:08] online would have you. If you don't have
[01:12:09] those socials yet or you don't have
[01:12:10] enough online content, then you would
[01:12:12] just share with him your voice. You just
[01:12:13] be like, "Hey Stanley, interview me."
[01:12:15] And you can just voice chat with him and
[01:12:17] be like, "Hey, like you know, ask me 20
[01:12:19] questions to get to know me so we can
[01:12:20] make great content." And then he's been
[01:12:21] trained in a way where he'll pick up
[01:12:22] your most interesting stories. He'll
[01:12:24] pick up the most interesting parts about
[01:12:25] your personality. He'll pick up the
[01:12:27] exact words you like to particularly use
[01:12:30] to really match your style.
[01:12:31] Interesting. So, you actually have it's
[01:12:33] almost like chat GPT or Claude, like you
[01:12:35] you have it, you have that chat bot
[01:12:37] built into it.
[01:12:38] Yes. But the thing about Stanley that's
[01:12:40] important to know is that he's much more
[01:12:42] than just a chat agent, right? He's an
[01:12:44] employee who's practically doing work
[01:12:45] for you. So, for example, I can tell
[01:12:47] them every day at 9:00 a.m. shoot me a
[01:12:49] text with a daily brief of all the top
[01:12:53] performing content in my in my niche or
[01:12:55] all the top news and then suggest to me
[01:12:57] some remix angles.
[01:12:59] So, these are things we're building that
[01:13:00] we're launching because all of Stanley
[01:13:01] right now is exclusive. This is
[01:13:02] exclusive beta. We haven't launched the
[01:13:04] public, but in that he's already sourced
[01:13:06] for me all the outperformers for today.
[01:13:07] He's already made me a carousel. And so
[01:13:08] he's this proactive we think of like
[01:13:10] cracked content team that does all the
[01:13:12] work for you because and but it gets I
[01:13:14] will say it's it's about to get way more
[01:13:15] interesting. I'm going to show you a
[01:13:17] really really special feature in Stanley
[01:13:18] too that we're launching soon.
[01:13:19] Okay. So it's actually it's it's from
[01:13:21] the sound of it it's actually uh more
[01:13:24] than just like a chat feature which is a
[01:13:26] feature within it. It's actually like an
[01:13:28] agent like it can do autonomous work. So
[01:13:30] you could say yeah you can set it on
[01:13:32] task and it can do it at an actual
[01:13:34] scheduled checkpoints.
[01:13:36] That's correct. In fact, he can also he
[01:13:38] is also very proactive in a sense that
[01:13:40] his job what we've given him is to
[01:13:42] maximize your distribution. So I got a
[01:13:44] text early this morning saying, "Hey,
[01:13:45] John, you actually had this outperformer
[01:13:47] on LinkedIn. Would you like me to cross
[01:13:48] post it to Twitter and optimize it for
[01:13:50] Twitter?" And so what you think of this
[01:13:51] guy as this little cute Stanley, he's
[01:13:53] your AI head of content. And his job is
[01:13:55] to take you and maximize your
[01:13:57] distribution and optimize it per
[01:13:58] platform. And so the end goal is to
[01:14:01] basically just have a content calendar
[01:14:02] here that is full of all of your updated
[01:14:05] content for the week and then that
[01:14:07] posted across all these places because
[01:14:08] you can store all your ideas. You can
[01:14:10] voice note them anytime. You can shoot
[01:14:11] him a voice note over text when you're
[01:14:12] in the shower, when you're on a walk,
[01:14:14] when you have that bright idea. His job
[01:14:15] is to help you package that in a way you
[01:14:17] don't have to do all like the the the
[01:14:19] cranking through like what's this word,
[01:14:20] this word, this word. And he can just
[01:14:21] like fully form that idea for you, store
[01:14:23] it on your idea bank,
[01:14:24] and then help you post that.
[01:14:26] Yeah,
[01:14:26] he'll post and schedule for you too.
[01:14:27] This is really cool. I need to get this
[01:14:29] Okay. Yeah.
[01:14:30] So, so tell me cuz you mentioned that
[01:14:31] you had something exciting to share.
[01:14:34] Yes. And so what I'm going to do is I'm
[01:14:35] going to tell him that I'm currently
[01:14:38] with Callum Johnson
[01:14:42] of the Callum Johnson show.
[01:14:47] Um, what video should we make together?
[01:14:51] I'm thinking something simple like this
[01:14:52] that we can film in the next minute. The
[01:14:54] advice we wish you got.
[01:14:56] I'd be down to do that one.
[01:14:57] Okay. So, the reason why we're going to
[01:14:58] make the video real quick for a minute
[01:15:00] is because I I'm going to show you how
[01:15:01] Stanley actually is going to edit this
[01:15:02] video entirely for us.
[01:15:04] Oh, nice. Okay. I didn't even know that
[01:15:05] it it edits.
[01:15:06] So, we're about to roll this out.
[01:15:08] He's very good at a couple different
[01:15:09] formats, including talking heads right
[01:15:11] now, and then we'll be good at all forms
[01:15:12] of editing over time. Yeah, we'll film
[01:15:14] this. We'll see how he does and then we
[01:15:18] can make any changes we want. And then
[01:15:19] theoretically, I can just press post.
[01:15:20] Okay, let's do
[01:15:21] I just tell him to post it. So, you
[01:15:22] ready? Cool. All right. So, we're going
[01:15:24] to do advice we wish we got.
[01:15:26] Let's do four lessons so we can go back
[01:15:29] forth. All right. I'm with Callum
[01:15:31] Johnson and we're going to share four
[01:15:32] lessons that we wish we got when we were
[01:15:34] younger. Tip number one, Callum goes
[01:15:36] first.
[01:15:37] Okay. Snap. Damn, you put me on the
[01:15:38] spot. Um, advice I wish I'd got. Is it
[01:15:40] We're doing around content creation or
[01:15:42] just anything?
[01:15:43] Anything?
[01:15:44] Anything. Um, failure. I think that we
[01:15:47] should I think that we should uh we
[01:15:49] optimize to be successful. I actually
[01:15:51] think that we should optimize to fail
[01:15:53] more and at a faster rate. Uh, and that
[01:15:56] will give us the signal of how we can be
[01:15:58] successful.
[01:15:59] Cool. Advice I wish I got. Number two,
[01:16:03] damn, this is hard. I'm on the spot. And
[01:16:05] we're also going to see if Stanley edits
[01:16:07] this. He theoretically should edit all
[01:16:09] this out. Um, it is much harder than you
[01:16:12] think. It's truly People will tell you
[01:16:13] it's hard, but it's actually much harder
[01:16:15] than you think. All right, number three.
[01:16:18] Uh, turn your back on the audience. I
[01:16:20] think I think too often we're we're
[01:16:22] looking at people's reactions, thinking
[01:16:24] about what what are people going to
[01:16:25] think. Um I think that we create our
[01:16:28] most powerful inspired content,
[01:16:30] inspirational content that resonates
[01:16:32] with people when we turn our back to the
[01:16:35] audience.
[01:16:36] Wow, that's a powerful one. Number four
[01:16:38] and last is to give immense value. If
[01:16:41] you give value, you will succeed over
[01:16:42] time because karma is real. All right,
[01:16:45] so we stumbled a couple times there. We
[01:16:47] took pauses. What I'm going to do is I'm
[01:16:49] going to upload this now.
[01:16:50] I love this is all off the dome. All in
[01:16:52] live time.
[01:16:53] Yes. So, we'll see how he does. You
[01:16:55] never know in these demos, but we'll see
[01:16:57] if he does a good job airdropping the
[01:16:58] video.
[01:17:00] Nice. So, now all I'm going to do is I'm
[01:17:04] going to upload him. And so, now we're
[01:17:06] going to go through this and we're going
[01:17:07] to see whether or not he edits this
[01:17:09] well. So, right now he's scanning the
[01:17:10] footage.
[01:17:12] And what he's going to do is he's going
[01:17:14] to analyze the he's going to transcribe
[01:17:15] it. He's going to analyze the video.
[01:17:18] He's going to analyze where we messed
[01:17:19] up. If we did a couple different takes,
[01:17:21] he'll take the best take and he's going
[01:17:22] to cut it all together.
[01:17:24] He can add captions. He can add
[01:17:26] stickers. He can add music. All that
[01:17:27] kind of stuff. And what's really really
[01:17:29] cool that we're getting to is
[01:17:31] specifically um in this um soon you'll
[01:17:36] be able to do this all over your phone
[01:17:37] over iMessage. So, as in like you send
[01:17:40] all your footage to Stanley because he
[01:17:41] he helped you script it. Then you just
[01:17:43] upload or send all the footage over
[01:17:44] iMessage. You give them a prompt like,
[01:17:46] "Hey, I want you to take this talking
[01:17:47] head and then I'm sending you some other
[01:17:49] B-roll clips. I want you to take the um
[01:17:52] narration. I want you to take this clip
[01:17:54] from this B-roll and put it over this
[01:17:55] piece of the narration." Um, you can see
[01:17:57] I'm cutting right now. He's cutting all
[01:17:58] the clips into different segments. Um,
[01:18:00] and then I want you to overlay this
[01:18:02] B-roll over this part of the narration,
[01:18:04] this B-roll here. I want you to add this
[01:18:05] sticker, what have you. And then he
[01:18:06] should theoretically, just like how I
[01:18:08] have a human editor, send me back
[01:18:10] content on on my side. He'll send it to
[01:18:11] you over text, too. And then you can
[01:18:12] give him any thoughts or you can
[01:18:14] obviously edit it yourself as well.
[01:18:15] Yeah. So that's interesting. So it's
[01:18:17] actually almost a what's that like vibe
[01:18:19] editing. You could you can give it so
[01:18:21] once it gives you the first output you
[01:18:24] could uh give feedback over the text
[01:18:27] message and then it will action. Yes.
[01:18:29] Oh that's a game changer.
[01:18:30] We're building one of the world's first
[01:18:32] five editors.
[01:18:32] Yeah.
[01:18:33] It's pretty cool.
[01:18:33] That's really cool.
[01:18:34] Yeah. It's like it's crazy what AI can
[01:18:37] do in a way that actually truly helps
[01:18:38] you unleash your creativity. Yeah.
[01:18:40] Rather than suppresses it or replaces
[01:18:42] it. And that's really our goal with
[01:18:43] Stanley is like we all at our fingertips
[01:18:45] with so many cool creative ideas and
[01:18:47] business ideas. Can we build Stanley to
[01:18:48] be basically your AI co-founder or your
[01:18:50] AI COO who sits there and executes all
[01:18:52] the content [ __ ] that you don't want to
[01:18:54] be doing and then also all of the actual
[01:18:56] business stuff. So like building your
[01:18:57] sales pages, AB testing your sales
[01:18:58] pages, building your digital product,
[01:19:00] all that kind of stuff.
[01:19:01] Yeah. You know, when I think about what
[01:19:02] we spoke about in the beginning of the
[01:19:06] potential for everyone to be an
[01:19:07] entrepreneur or like monetize content,
[01:19:11] it feels like that takes by taking out
[01:19:13] all of like the operational side of it.
[01:19:16] You bring that reality way closer.
[01:19:19] Yep.
[01:19:19] Yeah, that's pretty special.
[01:19:21] All right, you ready to see if this is
[01:19:22] good? It says the edit's ready.
[01:19:23] Let's see. I'm nervous. I'm nervous.
[01:19:25] It's always it's it's always a crapshoot
[01:19:27] at these early betas, but let's see our
[01:19:28] edit and see if it's good.
[01:19:29] I'm more nervous. that I give it enough
[01:19:31] to work with.
[01:19:31] Yeah. Yeah. We'll see. All right. And
[01:19:33] also, my I'm realizing my camera angle
[01:19:35] wasn't great when I tried to do the
[01:19:36] selfie style, but you've got the whole
[01:19:37] transcript here and we can um cut stuff
[01:19:39] as needed.
[01:19:41] And we're going to share four lessons
[01:19:42] that we wish we got when we were
[01:19:43] younger. Tip number one, Calvin goes
[01:19:45] first.
[01:19:46] Okay. Snap. Damn, you put me on the
[01:19:47] spot. Um I actually think that we should
[01:19:49] optimize to fail more and at a faster
[01:19:52] rate. Uh and that will give us the
[01:19:54] signal of how we can be successful.
[01:19:56] Two. Damn, this is hard. I'm on the
[01:19:59] spot. We're also going to see if Stanley
[01:20:00] edits this. It is much harder than you
[01:20:02] think.
[01:20:02] Turn your back on the audience. I think
[01:20:04] too often we're we're looking at
[01:20:05] people's reactions, thinking about what
[01:20:07] what are people going to think. I think
[01:20:08] that we create our most powerful
[01:20:10] inspirational content that resonates
[01:20:12] with people when we turn our back to the
[01:20:14] audience.
[01:20:16] Wow, that's a powerful one. Number four
[01:20:18] and last is to give immense value. If
[01:20:20] you give value, you will succeed over
[01:20:22] time because karma is real.
[01:20:25] Nice.
[01:20:25] It wasn't bad. There was one place where
[01:20:26] I wanted to make a different edit and it
[01:20:28] had me say number three, but you can see
[01:20:30] I can just simply add that clip back in
[01:20:32] and get that cut. But like it cut
[01:20:34] through all of the dead space that we
[01:20:35] had there.
[01:20:35] Yeah.
[01:20:36] So it took a minute and a half long
[01:20:37] video and made it
[01:20:39] 40 seconds.
[01:20:40] Yeah.
[01:20:40] So
[01:20:40] you know that's you know um John before
[01:20:44] we get out of here.
[01:20:46] There's so many things that you can do
[01:20:49] with Stanley, right? So, you've
[01:20:50] mentioned a few of them like the it
[01:20:52] feels like it could be incredibly
[01:20:55] beneficial for creators on the research
[01:20:57] side, uh, on the editing side. if I
[01:21:00] wanted to repurpose content. So, I
[01:21:01] wanted to take something that I put on
[01:21:03] Instagram and help me draft something
[01:21:04] for Twitter or LinkedIn or Tik Tok, like
[01:21:07] something else
[01:21:09] in your mind,
[01:21:11] given that you've been across all of
[01:21:13] this and you've obviously been an
[01:21:14] integral part of building it. Is there
[01:21:17] one area in particular where
[01:21:20] specifically for those creators that are
[01:21:22] like you're starting out, especially in
[01:21:24] that kind of like monetization journey,
[01:21:27] is there a specific thing that Stanley
[01:21:29] does which you actually think like
[01:21:32] projecting forward for when you do
[01:21:33] release this? You think it's going to be
[01:21:35] the most valuable to someone?
[01:21:38] I think for someone first starting out,
[01:21:39] the number one thing you need to do is
[01:21:41] you need to figure out your voice and
[01:21:42] your unique angle. And what Stanley can
[01:21:44] be an incredible thought partner on is
[01:21:47] specifically that he will help you guard
[01:21:49] rail and understand what about you is
[01:21:50] uniquely interesting that we should
[01:21:52] first focus on and post about because
[01:21:55] usually you can't just be your full
[01:21:57] self. You've got to find that entry
[01:21:58] wedge or that entry niche. So Stanley
[01:22:00] will help you hone in on that and then
[01:22:02] most importantly give you confidence on
[01:22:03] what good looks like because I think
[01:22:05] there's a lot of fear when you first
[01:22:06] start around like holy [ __ ] is this
[01:22:08] video even good? what have you. And if
[01:22:09] Stanley is sitting there presenting you
[01:22:11] outperforming validated formats from
[01:22:13] other top creators in your niche, he's
[01:22:14] like, "Hey, John, you should actually
[01:22:16] use this post from Alex Hormosi that is
[01:22:18] a validated format in Hook and let's
[01:22:20] actually weave in your particular story
[01:22:21] of being an immigrant kid or going to
[01:22:23] business school, what have you." Stanley
[01:22:25] will able to do that for you. And then
[01:22:26] also on top of that, we've trained him
[01:22:28] to not be a yes man, right? Like kind of
[01:22:30] the base models. Instead, he'll give you
[01:22:33] very cand
[01:22:34] as we just saw.
[01:22:35] Yeah. So,
[01:22:36] yeah.
[01:22:37] You know what, John? before we get out
[01:22:38] of here and this is where I wanted to
[01:22:41] leave it because I think momentum is so
[01:22:43] important like just taking the action
[01:22:45] like just doing the thing
[01:22:48] and so I think about the person that's
[01:22:49] listening at home that you know we said
[01:22:52] this earlier
[01:22:53] sitting here right now they don't see
[01:22:55] themselves as a creator
[01:22:56] sure
[01:22:57] or even as like an entrepreneur
[01:22:58] sure
[01:22:59] um and there's this belief of like oh
[01:23:01] I'd have to have a huge audience in
[01:23:03] order to monetize and that's never
[01:23:04] something that they've wanted and so if
[01:23:07] that person is listening ing at home and
[01:23:10] they have this like fear of their job
[01:23:11] prospects or how things could look. They
[01:23:13] want to start creating,
[01:23:16] what is it that you would advise them in
[01:23:18] the next week that they should do
[01:23:21] immediately after having heard this
[01:23:23] conversation? Well, first I'd start with
[01:23:25] the identity piece that you just
[01:23:26] mentioned around not seeing yourself as
[01:23:27] a creator or entrepreneur. You don't
[01:23:29] need to do either of those things. You
[01:23:30] don't even ever need to feel aligned
[01:23:33] with those terms. Instead, what I want
[01:23:34] you to see yourself as is number one
[01:23:35] being helpful to other people. I want to
[01:23:37] be helpful to other people, including my
[01:23:38] younger self. And then I want to be
[01:23:40] successful. And what do you know? Some
[01:23:42] of the inputs oftentimes to both of
[01:23:43] those things is to make content and to
[01:23:46] start a business or a product or service
[01:23:47] that allows you to sustain yourself over
[01:23:49] time. And so, if you don't resonate with
[01:23:50] the term creator, entrepreneur, that's
[01:23:52] totally okay. What I hope that you
[01:23:54] resonate with, and I think we all do as
[01:23:55] innately as humans, is I want to help
[01:23:57] other people and build a world that is
[01:23:59] better than the world that is today.
[01:24:01] That needs a lot of helping. And the
[01:24:03] most successful vehicle through which to
[01:24:05] achieve that is oftentimes building a
[01:24:06] business that has a mission involved
[01:24:08] with it. And so I'd start there with the
[01:24:09] framing of like, you know, I don't know
[01:24:11] if I'm one of those things. I want to
[01:24:13] remind you that both of us started from
[01:24:15] nothing. And now we're here with
[01:24:16] audience because we did it for years,
[01:24:19] right? You've done this for years. I've
[01:24:20] done this for years. But when we first
[01:24:21] started, you didn't have the identity of
[01:24:23] being a creator entrepreneur. I
[01:24:24] definitely didn't either. I was just
[01:24:26] doing something that my gut said that I
[01:24:28] deeply wanted to do. And so then I had
[01:24:30] asked myself the second question of
[01:24:31] like, do I want to continue living the
[01:24:34] life that I'm doing? How disappointed in
[01:24:36] myself would I be if a year from now or
[01:24:38] 5 years from now I was still on the same
[01:24:39] track, the same linear track. And so
[01:24:42] it's it's up to you as a human being to
[01:24:43] decide if like this is if this is what
[01:24:45] you want or if this is what you want
[01:24:46] then you you can't have that different
[01:24:48] outcome unless you put in different
[01:24:49] inputs. And so to be very very tangible
[01:24:52] what they should do next is they need to
[01:24:54] find some way to put themselves out
[01:24:56] there. this week. You have to commit one
[01:24:57] way to put yourself out there. That can
[01:24:59] be making content. And by the way, once
[01:25:01] again, the formula I gave of like take
[01:25:03] the 10 videos in your niche from the
[01:25:05] favorite accounts that you love and just
[01:25:07] remix them in your style, talking about
[01:25:08] whatever you want to talk about. I
[01:25:10] promise you at least one of those 10
[01:25:11] will do decently well. That's one way to
[01:25:13] put yourself out there, make your first
[01:25:14] post. The other one can also just be
[01:25:16] going door to door and asking for
[01:25:17] feedback on a business idea you have.
[01:25:19] Pitching that. That's terrifying. You
[01:25:20] can go out to like strangers cold and be
[01:25:22] like, "Hey, what do you think is a
[01:25:23] business idea?" Most people don't have
[01:25:24] the balls to do that, but that would be
[01:25:25] a really fun one. Or there's some other
[01:25:27] way that you can just make progress on
[01:25:30] building that app idea you've always
[01:25:31] had. There's so many tools out there to
[01:25:33] do that, right? To set up your stand to
[01:25:35] to build an app with Level, like
[01:25:36] whatever that is. There's so many things
[01:25:38] that you can just take the first step
[01:25:39] on. And so I would just have them take
[01:25:41] the first step. Recognize the people
[01:25:43] that you're watching now. They started
[01:25:45] by taking that first step and then
[01:25:47] constantly taking one step by one step
[01:25:48] by one step and then getting knocked
[01:25:50] back seven steps. And then what do we
[01:25:51] do? We kept going. And so if there's
[01:25:54] anything I leave anyone with, it's just
[01:25:55] never give up. It's just like
[01:25:57] entrepreneurship is a p a test of pain
[01:25:59] tolerance. Uh it is deeply painful and
[01:26:02] will rock you all the time in ways you
[01:26:04] didn't expect. But the people who get
[01:26:05] through that are the people who win the
[01:26:07] outsized outcomes.
[01:26:08] Yeah.
[01:26:09] So yeah, you know, John, first of all,
[01:26:11] just thank you for coming on the show.
[01:26:13] You nailed it. And I think the to your
[01:26:16] point I think so often uh identity like
[01:26:20] follows actions you know it's like uh
[01:26:24] you become a creator when if you post
[01:26:27] 100 videos doesn't that make you a
[01:26:29] creator? If you run every day for the
[01:26:31] next or you run every week for the next
[01:26:32] year you're you're a runner like you
[01:26:35] run. And so I think a lot of the times
[01:26:37] it's like we're waiting to feel that
[01:26:39] comfort and that being first when it's
[01:26:41] like just just do the thing like start
[01:26:44] with the action. And so I love that
[01:26:47] almost like that homework like
[01:26:49] immediately after listening to this
[01:26:50] conversation just find one way to put
[01:26:52] yourself out there especially online
[01:26:55] just one way to put yourself out there.
[01:26:57] You stack that up over a consistent
[01:26:59] period of time. You'll wake up one day
[01:27:02] you'll be a creator if that's what you
[01:27:04] want to be.
[01:27:04] Yeah. Um,
[01:27:06] John, thank you. This has been awesome.
[01:27:08] Absolute pleasure.
[01:27:10] So, if you enjoyed this conversation and
[01:27:13] you want to hear even more stories like
[01:27:15] this, then just click here. And also, my
[01:27:18] team is going to put some more videos
[01:27:19] that you can watch here. Thank you.