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I asked ChatGPT to make a plushie from Creator Science’s animated assistant, Tubey… I may have to do a print run. 😅

While we were setting up the new home studio last week, Conor Conaboy captured some photos on film. The space is designed to provide a dose of nostalgia to the viewer – which is why we pulled in wood paneling, a CRT TV, and my childhood Gamecube. But when you combine that with actual film... I have nostalgia for THIS moment – and it was a week ago!

PSA 😊

Your reputation is the one product you never stop building.

This simple, three-part approach for getting new customers from Alex Hormozi lives rent-free in my mind: 1.) Do something more 2.) Do something better 3.) Do something new More, better, new for short. These are three different customer acquisition strategies that you should consider one at a time (in this order)! 1️⃣ More Look at how you're getting customers now – what's working the best? You can likely do more of that thing. If 1:1 ​serve calls​ have a high close rate, you should do more 1:1 calls. If your ads funnel is profitable and driving new leads, you should run more ads. If your IG Reels are driving new leads, you should publish more Reels! Find what's working and simply do more of it. This doesn't require new solutions or new creativity – just discipline to turn up the dial. It's the fastest, lowest-effort, highest-impact direction to go. 2️⃣ Better If there's no obvious answer to the "more" approach, then look at how you can improve your existing systems. What's getting results but could be working a little bit better? A little bit more efficiently? Think: • Sales pages • Email sequences • CTAs from your content There are likely areas of your business that are "working," but inefficiently. Start looking at the data and do the hard work to increase the baseline effectiveness of these systems. 3️⃣ New Only once you've exhausted more and better should you look at new. New means creating new things, such as new products or systems. This is slow, high effort, and inefficient to start. Everything you could consider in the more and better categories was once new! And if you spent any time in the better category, you know that everything starts inefficient until you really dial it in. The irony is that, as creators, we often default to "new" as a solution for more customers. But in reality, this is the WORST approach in the near term. ## Every time I'm drawn by the inescapable urge to create something NEW, I ask myself, "Is there some area I should focus on just doing *more* or make something *better* instead?" This has led to a LOT of improvements in my signature product over the last two months, and the results can be seen in the business's overall performance. With AI making it easier and easier to START anything, your advantage is STICKING TO whatever it is you've started. Radical consistency. What do you think?

My biggest priority for 2025 is making my membership (The Lab) even more valuable. Here's how I'm doing that: 1️⃣ Shared my ideas at our Town Hall Every year, I host a Town Hall. I encourage ALL members to attend this, where I celebrate member wins, recap membership improvements of the past year, and share ideas for improvements in the coming year. 2️⃣ Collected feedback (anonymously) After the Town Hall, I send out an anonymous member survey to capture feedback on 1.) their current member experience and 2.) the ideas I'm proposing. This year, I had members rank 5 ideas according to what they'd most like to see added to the community. 3️⃣ Launching an in-person event Last week, we opened registration for our first members-only, in-person event. This event is at a beautiful hotel in Boise, Idaho, two days leading into Kit (formerly ConvertKit)'s Craft + Commerce conference. We're facilitating two full days of programming to help members 1.) connect 2.) identify opportunities in their business and 3.) develop a plan to achieve them (all while eating well and having a great time). 4️⃣ Making finding content easier Also last week, we rolled out Tubey 2.0. Tubey is our AI assistant in The Lab, utilizing Circle's new AI agent functionality. With a custom prompt, it's been doing a much better job of helping members find the most relevant people and content The Lab has to offer. 5️⃣ (Re)launching member-led masterminds Last night I (re)started a new round of mastermind matching. Based on member preferences, our team will match groups of 6-8 creators within the community for a quarter-long mastermind. I'm compensating the leaders and also supporting them in their OWN leaders mastermind. – So that breaks down what I've done SO FAR this year...but I have a few other tricks up my sleeve that I'll be sharing soon too. I think these ideas are applicable to most memberships, so feel free to take inspiration from them! Happy to answer any questions too.

One of the best testimonials I've ever received from Gannon, an Instagram creator with 97K followers: “I have been in The Lab for about 45 days at this point, and...I have already made my money back.” And also: "If you've ever showed up to the first day of school and you're at lunch in the cafeteria, and there's like 30 different tables to sit at...it's very hard to find the correct table to sit at because nobody is just openly inviting you to sit down with them. The Lab is the complete opposite of that. It's like you walk into a cafeteria, and there are 30 tables, and everybody wants you to sit with them." closing with: "It shouldn't have taken me seven months to make the decision." Maybe you should join us too? → https://lnkd.in/eJT2eEuh

Certainty has become a red flag to me. Is it just me?

Hire excellent people and treat them well.

I think I’ve found the secret to understanding and working with anyone. Here it is: Everyone (including you) is constantly (and unconsciously) thinking about themselves. We go about our day looking at things through the lens of, “What’s in it for me?” “Why should I care?” “What does this say about me?” “How does this serve ME?” Look, no judgment. This is everyone — myself included. And I’m not trying to be cynical — I’m an optimist. But if you accept that everyone is unconsciously self-interested, it gets a whole lot easier to understand people’s actions and motivations (again, including your own)! People do what they want to do. They do what they believe is the best course of action for them. If people aren’t doing the things YOU think they should (or the things YOU want them to do) it’s because they don’t want to. They don’t believe it’s their best course of action. They are following their self-interest. Just as you are almost certainly following yours! The key is to find where your self-interests align for mutual benefit. How do you both get what you want? How do you both win? Relationships are built on cycles of proven mutual benefit. And collaboration is about trust. When we trust you are looking out for our best interests and we come out better because of it, the relationship strengthens. When we trust you to have our interests in mind but come out WORSE, then the relationship is weakened. When you find the mutually beneficial path forward, everybody wins. And the counterintuitive truth is that the path is rooted in self-interest. What do you think?

The Creator Science newsletter started in 2017. I wrote on MailChimp for three and a half years before switching to Kit (formerly ConvertKit). I remember bringing 1,800 subscribers over, and as soon as I started using it, I thought, "I'm so mad I didn't make this switch sooner." This image shows what growth has looked like since. Now, I can't claim that this is ONLY because Kit is better software than MailChimp. I believe that is true 100%, but I also ramped up learning about email around this time. Regardless of what email tool you use, I believe every creator should make email a core part of their business strategy. Building a list of subscribers who know, like, and trust you is your business's most valuable asset. If you haven't started building an email list yet (and haven't had much success with your email effort so far), I want to help you. 📆 On Wednesday, March 26 @ 10 am ET, I'm cohosting a workshop called The Email Growth Engine: Boosting Subscribers & Revenue. It's cohosted with my friends at Kit and is free to attend. Because Kit and I want you to be more successful with email, we're making it as practical as possible. Yes, we recommend using Kit as your email service provider, but you don't need to use Kit to get value from this session. And if you DO choose to use Kit, they have a very generous 10,000-subscriber free plan. This workshop will teach you: • How top creators are using email marketing to earn a full-time living online • How to start building your list right away, even if you have a list of 0 and no tech experience • How to brand your newsletter to attract super fans and future buyers • The best way to monetize your list I'll be alongside Shiv Chibber (who leads education at Kit), sharing our recommendations and answering your questions live. Again, it's totally free! And yes, it will be recorded! As long as you're registered, you'll receive the recording. Register for free here: https://lnkd.in/ei4gvxPS

Something I've recently changed my mind on (and I know this will ruffle some feathers):

I have to say something because I see creators making this mistake every day: Promoting a brand they don’t actually believe in. I used to accept sponsorship from anyone who wanted to pay for it. After all, these spots are just advertisements, right? I’m not ENDORSING the brand…I’m just giving them ad space. (or so I thought) But when your audience takes action on an ad from your content, they’re doing so at least in part because they trust YOUR judgment. And if they are disappointed by the experience… That trust in YOU is burned. It’s much better to consider ads in your content as explicit endorsements. If you wouldn’t explicitly endorse the brand, don’t take their money. These days, I leave so much money on the table because there’s nothing more valuable to me than the trust of the people I serve. And if I’m sharing something on behalf of a brand, it’s because I trust it’s worth your time. Have you ever trusted an ad because of who shared it and then regretted it?

This screenshot is from a recent application for my membership, The Lab. Before I get into why I'm sharing it, let me give you some surprising facts: • The Creator Science Podcast is my smallest, slowest-growing platform • 60% of applications for my membership come from the podcast • 51% of my overall revenue in 2024 came from my membership Despite being one of the "smallest" platforms by reach, the podcast has arguably the largest impact on my overall business (not even accounting for sponsorship revenue)! This is the power of podcasting. Podcasting is *not* new audience acquisition. It is *not* top of funnel. Podcasting is close to the BOTTOM of your marketing ecosystem. I'm constantly trying to convince social followers, YouTube viewers, and email subscribers to listen to the podcast! And this screenshot is why. I'm not sharing this screenshot because it's exceptional – I'm sharing it because, according to an analysis of ALL membership applications, 60% mention the podcast! (Analyzing application data is a great use case for ChatGPT, by the way). Podcast listeners may be hard to grow – but they are some of the most valuable relationships you have you have in your business. If you love podcasting, don't give up on it!

How do you tell an 8-month-old that Saturdays are for sleeping in?

My little membership (The Lab) just broke $450K ARR! Up 43% from a year ago. Here's what has helped us to grow: 1️⃣ Make speed your competitive advantage People often ask me how much time I put into the community each week. It's the wrong question. It's not about the cumulative amount of time, it's that I'm committed to helping everyone get support *FAST*. That's our advantage. When someone has a question about their creator business, asking it in The Lab gets them the best answer the fastest. 2️⃣ Optimize for renewals (not new members) If I could tell any membership creator anything, you want to optimize for renewals, not new members. Of course, you want new members – but if you have a high renewal rate, your business can grow with very few new members. Plus, every churned member is another former customer in the world explaining to potential members why they didn't renew. So how do you do that? 3️⃣ Underprice the value Hear me out – I'm typically the first person to tell creators they are undervaluing their products. With most products, the optimal price is the highest amount you can charge while capturing the most customers. You want to choose a price perfectly aligned with the customer's perception of value – or maybe a tad lower. With a membership, you want the renewal to be a no-brainer. The best way to do that is to underprice slightly. 4️⃣ Act like an elected official, not a dictator Communities are little societies. You need a leader, but that leader serves the people. They "vote" my staying (or going). If you value your citizens, listen to their feedback, and continue to invest in making the place better, they'll want to stick around. If you act like a bully or egomaniac, they might just pick up and go. 5️⃣ Add new value (without increasing the price) This is what I'm trying to do the most right now – add NEW elements of membership that further make the investment a no-brainer (without raising the price). A few additions just in the last week: • Opening registration for our first in-person event in June • Offering small group masterminds to members • Rolling out an AI assistant to help members find the best resources quickly And I have a few more tricks up my sleeve coming up! – I'm striving to create the absolute best community for creators. If that sounds like a peer group you need in your life, consider joining us: https://lnkd.in/eKZyhwE5 Here to answer any questions about memberships you may have too!

OK fine, here's the secret to my success:

NEW STUDIO REVEAL! I've spent the last two days (the last four months, really) working with Kevin Shen's team to design, prepare, and build the new Creator Science studio. We have three cameras, two audio sources, and two fully dynamic scenes that I can activate at the touch of a (few) buttons right here from my desk. It's perfect for day-to-day calls but also interviews and solo videos. The goal was to create a perfect extension of the brand and my personality. The main shot is inspired by a classroom because we think of the Creator Science Podcast as "conversational education." The second shot (wait until the end of the video) is inspired by the basements of my youth where we would play video games. Typical of the brand, the shots are meant to have a touch of 90s nostalgia. What do you think??

When Matt McGarry sent me this email, do you know what I did? Well, first I smiled and did a little dance. But then I did something more important… I asked him if I could save and share it as a testimonial for my speaking work. Here’s the thing — there is nothing more compelling than an authentic, unprompted testimonial. People want to know that: 1.) You understand their problems/desires 2.) You’re offering a solution for it 3.) You’ve been successful delivering that solution in the past Most people focus their sales messaging on all the STUFF you get by buying the [thing]. But what we need is 1.) belief that what you’re offering is for ME and 2.) confidence you can deliver on your promises. You could level up every one of your sales pages right now by adding in more customer success stories. Social proof from people like me saying you helped them if far more convincing than a list of stuff I get in return for my payment.

A message for creators (in the age of AI):