🧑🏼‍🚀 Blueprint 046

Welcome back to Blueprint, a weekly series where I share an unfiltered, behind-the-scenes look into my journey as a creator entrepreneur.

It’s been 46 weeks (11.5 months) since I went full-time.

Active channels: YouTube | Instagram | X | Tiktok | LinkedIn | WavyWorld

A reminder that the internet game is not zero-sum. Everyone reading this can win at an unlimited scale. I’m writing this for the internet astronauts building their own worlds. If that’s you…let’s ride 👩🏻‍🚀

WEEK 46 METRICS & PULSE

Pulse Check

I’ve turned the intensity knob to 11.

It’s not yet showing up in the metrics (esp. not the $$), but I’m putting out as much quality content as I can, trying to help as many people as possible.

I can feel the cult growing and the momentum building.

Before I was experiencing spurts of audience growth, but my following felt a bit hollow if I’m being honest.

There’s a serious density to it now.

It’s funny, as soon as I committed to a strategic direction with full intention and clarity, everything started clicking.

Experiments:

• 📺 | Livestreaming - I hosted my first impromptu livestream on Tiktok. Did it for an hour, had 800 people jump on throughout the session. Really enjoyed doing creator Q&A. Hosting my first proper Live Content Brainstorm Session, free in WavyWorld next Friday at 11am PT. Will be giving 1:1 content feedback, ideas, strategy help, etc. If you’re interested in joining, make sure to hop into WavyWorld.

• 🎯 | WavyWorld - The activity in WavyWorld has blown me away…seeing community members helping each other proactively is amazing to watch. Word is spreading fast, up to 625 members already!

• 🤝 | LinkedIn - Serious opportunity here. I’m testing some things and will report back for when I have a sense for the proper playbook. For now, if you want to follow me on there and watch what I’m doing, here’s my profile

• 💰 | Outbound Brand Deals - Brought on a new team member to run outbound sales for brand deals. He just started but will report back on how this tracks over time

• 🧐 | Special Projects - I have several exciting things in the works, aiming to productize various aspects of my workflow & diversify revenue. Again, will update as we go on

Thanks so much for reading! Blueprint will be free forever, but if you like it and want to help support, consider becoming a Blueprint Patron.

EMBEDDED BEHAVIORS

Embedded Behaviors

Here’s a working theory…

A few weeks ago, I wrote about platform slants.

The essence of that piece was that different platforms have different types of content that users are looking for.

Short-form users typically want to be entertained (and raw educational content doesn’t translate as well) vs podcasts/email where people are much more open to being educated. YouTube lands somewhere in the middle.

A potential extension onto that thinking…

I have very different mental reactions after consuming on different platforms.

For example, when I get into a “short-form wormhole” I often feel like I’m in a zombie-like trance, having mindlessly scrolled for 30-60 minutes…as if I was hypnotized and trapped by the dopamine slot machine.

When I break out of it, my first thought is often, “I shouldn’t have done that.”

It’s almost always a negative subconscious response, no matter which creator or topics I consumed.

On the flip side, when I listen to a long-form podcast, I almost never think negatively after the consumption experience.

It’s not as though I literally jump up, click my heels three times and say, “wow, what a pleasant experience!”

But it’s definitely not a viscerally negative response.

• YouTube videos don’t seem to have an affect on me either way

• Twitter scrolling feels negative to me

• IG story binging feels a bit negative to me as well

And so my theory is that there are certain mediums where our brain chemistry and/or societal expectation is designed to react positively or negatively after consuming them.

Your responses may be different than mine, but I suspect there are certain content types where you don’t feel great after consuming them.

Now why does this matter?

If my theory is true, and most people “feel bad” after consuming certain content, it means that over time they will likely consume less of it.

And if this is true, that means that there would be less aggregate “intentional attention” going into that medium…I say intentional because maybe people are so addicted that they’ll keep consuming it even if they don’t want to be.

Again, this is a working theory, so I’m not sure if this is a trend or even matters.

But I bring it up because my job as a creator is primarily as a time allocator.

I only have so much time in the day and there are dozens of types of content I could be making.

My goal is to best allocate my time to the buckets that will maximally convert on my intended outcome.

I want to skate to where the puck is going.

Will people maintain their consumption on short-form or will we see a permashift to longer-form?

It’s an interesting debate (at least in my head).

QUICK STORYTELLING/SCRIPTWRITING TIPS

Quick Storytelling/Scriptwriting Tips

A popular question I get asked is, “How can I level up my scriptwriting for short-form video?”

If you want your videos to perform well, you need to:

1. Pick interesting topics

2. Find the hyper interesting nugget or storylens within that topic

3. Write and deliver a script that communicates that nugget or lens in an interesting way

This is a craft that takes hundreds of reps to master.

The best way to learn how to write better short-form video scripts is to watch the raw process.

So on Friday, I created a YouTube video sharing a “Live Scriptwriting Session.”

The video was the behind-the-scenes process from making was this AI Netflix short I posted last week (currently at ~270K views across all platforms).

In the Livestream, I took the raw topic (with zero research or planning), and went through my entire process to find the hyper interesting frame + write/iterate the script.

As I did it, I was talking out loud to the camera explaining my thoughts. Watching this will help improve your scriptwriting process significantly.

If I get enough positive feedback on this video, I’ll make more of them!

A few of the extracted lessons from this and other sessions I’ve had lately:

1. Your goal when scripting is to open a curiosity loop inside the viewer’s head that you eventually close towards the end of the video

2. If you want the video to be shared, you need a unique perspective or “storylens” that communicates the idea differently than everyone else

3. Each line must be necessary. If you’re adding filler that doesn’t progress the story, cut it

4. You probably only have 2-3 seconds of the viewer’s attention before they’re scroll away. This is 1, maybe 2, lines

5. What emotion are you intending the viewer to feel when they finish the video? Do you feel that as you read the script back? If not, cut facts and add more plot/conflict

EDGERUNNERS

Edgerunners

There is a phrase/joke in camping…if a hungry bear attacks your campsite, as long as you’re faster than the slowest camper, you won’t be eaten.

It’s a crude joke, but a good lesson on relative ability.

I think similar logic can be applied to knowledge, curiosity and learning.

Most of my non-creator friends are super concerned with the rapid change coming from AI.

Uncertainty can be paralyzing.

But as things change, as long as you’re more willing to learn than the most stubborn or lazy people in your field, you’ll be alright.

However, there is a particular type of person that thrives in these high uncertainty, rapidly changing environments.

These are the people that like to spend their time sprinting to the edges and relaying info back to the masses about what they see.

A knowledge worker equivalent to the ancient army scout.

I call these people edgerunners.

An edgerunner is able to sprint to the edge with the earliest adopters, quickly understand what’s going on, form a point of view, and then teach back to the masses.

If you’re able to do this, you will be forever valuable, because as the edge expands you’re able to keep running to it.

There are three types of edgerunners:

• Forever Teachers: They sprint to the edge and come back, but then fall in love with the art of teaching. They like it so much that they just keep teaching and stop running back to the edge as it expands further. These people are extremely valuable for a period of time, but then eventually get outpaced by the next wave of innovation as their initial learnings become outdated

• Forever Runners: They sprint to edge, but never turn back to teach. They love the running so much, they just keep doing it forever. These people are often the nerdy researchers that are first to discover things. They seem to always be way ahead of trend…the earliest adopters. Usually they either get rich (buying Bitcoin at $1) or live in a van.

• Hybrid: They sprint to the edge, learn, teach for a while, get bored of teaching, turn, sprint back to the new edge, and repeat. To me, this is the optimal state because it balances helping the masses with satisfying persistent curiosity

In a state of rapid change, it’s important that you have the intellectual curiosity to want to run to the edge.

If you do, and become an edgerunner, you’ll be valuable in all environments.

QUICK PULSE

Quick Pulse

If you’re a fan of Blueprint, would love to hear from you!

Do you enjoy the theoretical frameworks/ideas or prefer the more tactical breakdowns? Would you prefer I skip writing on weeks where I don’t have tactical playbooks to share?

Reply to this email and lmk!

WEEK 46 BEST CONTENT

My best content from last week:

1. 📺 | This company is building an AI Version of Netflix: Watch

2. 🤖 | Zoom CEO says digital clones will attend meetings for us: Watch

3. 🧢 | 2 viral content series ideas for Huega House, a clothing brand: Watch

4. 🚀 | SuperUGC…every brand will be using this strategy in 2-3 years: Watch

5. 🧱 | Taking on Harvard to build a 9-Figure Media Empire (with Alex Garcia): Watch

6. 🧑🏼‍🚀 | Blueprint 045 - WavyWorld launch, increase YouTube subs with this one trick, every brand should follow this playbook, best newsletter growth playbook: Read