🧑🏼‍🚀 Blueprint 049

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 49 weeks since I went full-time.

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 49 METRICS

THE ZUCK INTERVIEW

The Zuck Interview

This was a big week…I got the chance to interview Mark Zuckerberg + speak on a Meta panel at VidCon.

I know for most of you, this seemingly came out of nowhere.

So in this episode, I’m going to give you the full behind-the-scenes:

• 🧠 | Zuck’s genius PR strategy + how I landed the opportunity

• 📈 | How it went (my approach + metrics)

• ✍🏼 | Takeaways from the interview

• 👀 | What’s next for me

Zuck’s PR Strategy + Landing the Interview

If you’ve noticed, Zuck has gone through a dramatic personal rebrand over the past several years.

5+ years ago, he was much more private…if we heard from him, it was the occasional family IG post or corporate obligation (annual launch event, earnings calls, senate hearings, etc.).

But that has completely changed.

Between the content about his passions (raising cattle, training MMA, making music, designing clothing), hilarious memes, or candid reviews of new Meta products, Mark’s availability and relatability have massively improved.

Most of the general public now sees Zuck for what he is…a super talented & creative founder/CEO with a self-aware and balanced view of the future.

This is probably the best “celebrity founder” rebrand of the past few decades…

And it didn’t happen by accident.

Mark and his comms team deeply understand culture.

Culture drives the narrative and the majority of current culture is happening across creators, influential podcasts, and memes.

It is no longer happening via linear TV, mainstream media, or paid for publications.

Mark is cool/relatable and these longer format discussions allow him to more relaxed conversations spanning a variety of interesting topics.

Fortunately, one of the first creators to interview Mark in this way was my friend Roberto, and he passed my name along as someone to meet.

So in a way, I was the perfect match for this conversation given what they were launching (AI tools for creators), my community, and the vibe of my content.

I think we’re going to see a lot more founder/CEOs start doing this. Cultural relevance and optics will only matter more in the future. Establishing an authentic relationship with the public is the best way to leverage culture in a positive way. Those that remain in the shadows will have narratives created for them…few want this.

How it went (approach + metrics)

My approach was super simple.

All I wanted was:

1. Mark to enjoy the conversation

2. To ask questions I was genuinely curious about, in a way that represented the creator community

And fortunately, I think I was able to achieve both!

I prepped an insane amount for this and was super happy with the final edit…it truly was my best effort.

It was also cool to get to share some of my own perspectives and product ideas (AI shopping, creator research agents, etc) with Mark during the chat.

From a distribution standpoint, the goal was to drop the full interview on YouTube and then make a hero short-form video that we could post everywhere else.

This reel was actually the first time Mark collab posted on IG with anyone else besides his wife (showed up on both his profile and mine)…so that was dope!

The metrics from the dashboard above reflect the total reach in the first ~3 days, but I expect this to have a long tail, especially on YouTube.

I will say that the combination of the Presidential Debate and NBA Draft Coverage may have eaten into a bit of the virality on launch day, but it was cool to see it covered by Business Insider, TechCrunch, Entrepreneur, and nearly every other major tech publication.

After the conversation dropped on Thursday, I got to participate as a panelist at VidCon, sharing my perspective on the future of creators & AI.

Takeaways from the interview

The interview itself was full of really interesting nuggets, many of which I had never heard Mark talk about publicly before.

My favorites were:

1. Creator AI → this will eventually evolve into a network of AI agents, customized for every creator and small business, that enable creators to reach more fans and improve their operation. This week, Meta is rolling out the initial test for an Auto-DM responder AI agent (“Creator AIs”), but in the future this should get much more interesting and customizable

2. Neural Wristbands → Meta has been working on a neural wristband that can pick up subdermal micro movements when your brain signals to your muscles to move. This could end up being a hands-free controller input for Meta AR Smart Glasses/VR headsets or a standalone product that becomes it’s own platform. For example, in the future, you might be able to map the slightest curl of your right index finger to turning off the lights, a small swipe to change the TV app, a tiny twist to adjust the volume dial, etc. This could be the future of the mouse

3. Fully Holographic AR Smart Glasses → Meta’s current V2 version of the Ray-Ban Smart Glasses has been a smash hit. I was super curious how Mark thought about what other features needed to be in the glasses for them to replace the smartphone as the primary mobile hardware device…this led him to describe their future product strategy for smart glasses, a 3 model approach, with varying graphics fidelity. This was my favorite part of the conversation, because he looked super excited as he painted a picture for how they could function

4. Mark Building From Scratch → I wanted to hear Mark’s take on how he would build his own creator brand from scratch. It’s always fascinating to see how legendary builders think about going from 0→1

What’s next for me (bc of this interview specifically)?

One of my favorite things to do is come up with unique questions that nobody has asked before.

I’m not going to become a professional interviewer (I think we have enough of those), but it would be fun to have a few more of these chats with tech visionaries.

Would love to hear your feedback!

If you had the chance to listen to the interview, what’d you think? Is this something you’d like to see me do more of?

Also, I mentioned this on my IG story, but really just wanted to share how grateful I am for all of you that read and watch my stuff. Without you, none of these cool opportunities would be possible. Thanks for the continued support!

LEARN DO TEACH SELL

Learn Do Teach Sell

The optimal order to do monetize a skill is Learn Do Teach Sell.

The reason why many internet knowledge products are often labeled as “snake-oily” is because the creator skips one of the steps in the middle.

The most frequent scam is jumping from Learn → Sell.

People spend a few weeks “learning” a skill and then immediately attempt to sell a course about it to others.

This is flawed for two reasons…they have never actually used the skill in practice (DO) nor have ever taught anything to anyone before (TEACH).

These programs aren’t often purchased at high volumes because it’s easy to tell when someone is a poor communicator and not an effective teacher.

The most egregious scam, in my opinion, is the Learn → Teach → Sell.

These people learn a skill and are naturally gifted at talking/teaching, but have never actually used the skill in practice.

When they go to sell the course, it is packaged in a way that makes you believe they know what they are talking about.

But the truth is, as many of us learn, they aren’t…and the course lacks the level of detail and substance required to help you use it practically.

If you’re going to buy a knowledge product, you should look for this:

• The person has spent time deeply learning the skill

• The person has used the skill in practice across many of clear examples

• The person has experience teaching this or similar skills to others before

One of the reasons I launched WavyWorld as a free community was because I wanted to hone the skill of teaching to others before selling anything.

MYSTERY BOX

1. “Beer marketing”
2. “Discounted furniture”
3. “Life”
4. “Better screenshots”
5. “Overthinking”

WEEK 49 BEST CONTENT

My best content from last week:

1. 🎥 | My full Zuck Interview: Watch

2. 🏠 | Zuck on the future of creators: Watch

3. 🧑🏼‍🚀 | Blueprint 048 - Month 12 Strategy Update; The Samurai, The Smith & The Swordsman; The Psychology of Traction: Read