🧑🏼‍🚀 Blueprint 051

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 51 weeks since I went full-time. Next week is the full 1 year review!

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 51 METRICS & RECAP

The Realness Epidemic

People are craving realness…it’s the biggest content trend I’m noticing lately.

To me, authenticity and realness are cousins, but they’re not the same.

Authenticity represents the interests and passion you have for the things you talk about it.

It’s the angle.

Realness, on the other hand, is about being raw & vulnerable…it’s the filter (or lack thereof).

When you watch someone’s content, can you feel their emotion as much as you hear the words they’re saying?

This is how you to gauge if they’re being real.

Why are we seeing this “realness trend” emerge?

Two main reasons…people are lonelier than ever and they’re sick of being overstimulated.

The pandemic accelerated a permashift to remote work.

For someone like me that hated the wasted energy of commutes & unnecessary meetings, this was a celebrated change.

But I, like many, underestimated the medium and long-term loneliness that would come with working in isolation for extended periods.

Social media used to be social…it was initially designed to help you stay connected with friends, even if your real life/job didn’t allow you to do so.

But with the emergence of For You feeds, almost all social platforms have turned into streaming apps…prioritizing content from strangers over friends and family.

This combination…working alone plus social apps becoming streaming apps, propagated mass loneliness.

But this is only half the issue…

The other half, is that most content is designed for retention & drains brain function.

People feel tired because they are literally frying their brain from overstimulation.

If you had a personal, over-the-shoulder security camera that let you rewatch your “5-minute phone break”…you’d be horrified.

The amount of app switches, notification checks, content scrolls, and on-screen flashes from each piece of content would give nausea to the 2018 version of you.

I remember when listening to podcasts on 2x speeds seemed unenjoyable…now, if I don’t, I get bored before the punchline.

This combination of factors has caused most people to swing their content preferences the other way.

They want the “relaxing stroll on the beach” content…which I call, hyperreal.

In practice, what does hyperreal look like?

It’s the type of videos made by my friends JT Barnett and Ben Kaluza.

Chill, slow, minimal cuts, room to breathe. It’s so much more enjoyable to watch.

Do I think all content will shift to this style…no.

If I look at my own content, does the majority of my stuff fit within this style…no, not yet (other than my IG stories).

But even if my own actions haven’t fully made the adjustment, I try to point out when I feel the pendulum swinging so you can zag before the others…and this feels like a moment to start zagging.

To play devil’s advocate, the hard part about making content in this hyperreal relaxed style, is that it can be incredibly hard to get people to notice you and stop scrolling, especially via short-form platforms if you’re starting from scratch.

This is why both of the examples I shared are from YouTube…and it feels like this strategy is more primed to win on YouTube than anywhere else.

The takeaway is this…if you’re making content, do everything you can to inject as much realness into it as possible. Be vulnerable, be emotional, be raw.

BLUEPRINT MONTH 12 VIDEO

Blueprint Month 12 Video

If you like reading these weekly, you will love watching the monthly video versions even more. We continue to raise the bar on the quality…my editor Charlie went crazy on the Month 12 edit (Watch).

This episode breaks down:

• 🧮 | Month 12 Metrics

• 🧐 | Biggest learnings across short-form, YouTube, LinkedIn, approach, likability, automation

• ⚔️ | The Samurai, The Smith, The Swordsman

NO SOLICITING

No Soliciting

As a kid, my middle school let a magazine company brainwash me into selling zines door to door.

Shoutout to my grandpa who signed up for 18 monthly copies of Reader’s Digest (Large Print) to help me get the grand prize.

I remember going up to certain houses and seeing a gold plate on their door “NO SOLICITING”

I was 10…and had no idea what that meant.

After ringing the doorbell, I quickly found out 😬

Turns out, most people in the real world don’t like being sold to.

As a creator, I think about every account on social media as a digital house.

And guess what…most don’t like being sold to on social either.

So much of the content I see is trying to sell someone to take an action…asking them to watch this, download that, like this, pay for that, etc.

This is transactional fandom and feels a losing strategy long-term.

Think of the ratio of asks to value as your sell rate.

What percent of your content is trying to sell something, either a soft sell (like a link click or an email subscribe) or a hard sell (actually selling a product)?

The god tier creators rarely ask.

They make exclusive high-value bangers for years, often times cashing in that fandom 1-2x times per year at most.

My goal from the beginning has been to give everything away for free, trading in short-term gains for long-term trust.

It’s impossible to know how well I’m doing, or if this is even the game optimal strategy (I’ve been fasting for months now), but it feels right in my gut.

Would love to hear from others on this…what is the optimal sell rate?

CREATIVE PRIMING

Creative Priming

My best ideas seem to come from common physical triggers…walks, showers, exercise.

Rarely do I have original thoughts when I sit down and “try to generate ideas.”

Why is this?

For me, great ideas come from connecting two random things that don’t normally belong together.

This process happens more often when I’m in the right creative state.

Weirdly, the source of where those two things come from doesn’t matter…it’s the fact that I’m in a mental place to be able to connect them that facilitates the idea generation.

I call this process creative priming.

I’ve found the best way to get into this primed creative state is to do things that aren’t work.

There’s something about using physical tasks to occupy your subconscious that opens up the portal for ideas.

I love being in these pockets.

If you want to start coming up with better ideas, try going for long walks/workouts without your phone and then showering right after.

KALLAWISMS

Kallawisms

I don’t think I’m cool enough yet to brand my own category of aphorisms, but the wife was out of town so we ride…

1. Play in markets where demand is high but the bar for greatness is low. I’ll spare you the 2×2, but think about it. Places like hedge funds, Ivy Leagues, etc…demand is high but bar for greatness is high. You can win, but it will be difficult. Places like local HVAC businesses, B2B social media, etc…demand is high but the bar for greatness is much lower. Easy for you to come in and dominate. When you see high traffic and low average bar, sprint at it

2. It’s easier to find chefs and let them cook than to find apprentices and teach them the menu. The easiest way to win is to find people that have already done what you want them to do and just get out of the way. There’s a reason The Avengers always win

3. Nobody cares about you or your brand…they just want to know how you can help them. This is a bit of a harsh reality, but it’s true. You are the hero of your story, but you’re not the hero in their story…they are. When you message, prioritize it around what you can do for them

If you liked these, lmk and I’ll do more of them.

WEEK 51 BEST CONTENT

My best content from last week:

1. 📹 | How I Edit Viral Shorts To Consistently Get +1M Views (Step By Step Tutorial): Watch

2. 🎯 | Blueprint Month 12: Watch

3. ✂️ | This audio tool is insanely good: Watch

4. 🪩 | This is how you world build: Watch

5. 🧑🏼‍🚀 | Blueprint 050 - Grooves, Content Armies, Scheduled Rest, The Future of Attribution, Content Factories: Read