🧑🏼‍🚀 Blueprint 056

Welcome back to Blueprint.

If you’re new to the series, it’s been 56 weeks (1 year + 1 month) since I went full-time as an entrepreneur.

My goal is to go from $0 → $1M/month while transparently documenting the entire journey, strategy, and moves to get there.

Each week, I share learnings & experiments. Each month, I share income & strategy. You can watch the Year 1 recap video here.

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 👩🏻‍🚀

MONTH 13 METRICS & UPDATES

Month 13 Metrics + Updates

Really appreciate all the messages lately…means a lot to hear Blueprint is resonating.

In this section, I’ll share a few of my biggest focuses and learnings from the past 4 weeks. But to be clear…I am making this up as I go lol

• 🧮 | Content Volume: Number of posts was down this month. Views still cooking (6.54M) and audience grew nicely (2.2% MoM). Posts were down because of travel opportunities (Meta panel, met GaryVee) and focused significant time on hiring👇🏼

• 🤝 | Hiring: Biggest priority was finding and training a short-form video editor. My goal was to hire someone that could consistently make 2x video quantity (I’m posting 2-3 per week right now, I’d like that to be 4-6) while maintaining my average quality (9+/10). This was a tall order because I’m extremely detailed oriented and my eye catches single frames that are off. Probably not wise, but this how I am. I trialed many editors and finally found one that is amazing. He has the sauce. We’ve spent many cycles pair training (he makes video, I make my version of same video, then I do a deep side by side review). This has been the only training method that seems to work for me. I’m so pumped for this and can’t wait to have him on the team. Editing was the biggest thing holding me back from exploding my content operation. My content team now consists of:

  • 1 YouTube Editor (4-5 long-form videos per month)

  • YouTube Packaging Team (titles + thumbnails)

  • 1 Short-Form Editor (16-20 short-form videos per month)

• 🤖 | Automation: The other priority was layering automation into my content workflow. How can I build a content factory that takes a raw idea in and produces a Kallaway content asset out, indistinguishable quality with automatic repurposing for every platform? To me, if solved, this is the holy grail of content. If every piece of content is like a sales agent, this would be like building a factory that prints sales agents automatically. I’ve been working deeply on this and have made huge progress. Will showcase in the next month once it’s operational. You should see a huge quantity uptick in high quality content from me…very excited for this. Quantity at Minimum viable Quality = faster growth everywhere. Faster growth = higher income potential

• 🚀 | Management: I’ve just signed with a new management team that will be a huge tailwind in locking in bigger brand deals with A-tier partners. I chose them because they’re positioned specifically to work with knowledge creators and share a similar vision for how the content world could play out. We already have some great momentum here. This should help take my brand deals from ~$8K/month to ~$50K/month over the next year or two

• 🎥 | Youtube: I’m starting to vlog on YouTube. Never thought I’d see the day, but here we are. The reason is simple…I want to spend more of my time making content that builds a deeper connection with my audience. I’ll explain this further below👇🏼

Why Vlog?

If you’ve been reading Blueprint for a while, I wrote about a framework called content minutes in Week 32.

The basic idea is that to go from stranger to superfan, you need people to consume a certain amount of your content.

Let’s break content into single minute blocks. Assume to go from stranger to “aware of you” only takes 5 content minutes, but to go from stranger to die-hard superfan, it takes 90+ content minutes.

You can build up to that 90 in a number of ways.

• Each Livestream = 60-120 content minutes

• Each Podcast = 40-60 content minutes

• Each YouTube video = 10-20 content minutes

• Each Email newsletter = 2-5 content minutes

• Each Short-form video = 1 content minute

• Each Tweet/IG story = .5 content minutes

• Each static photo post = .25 content minutes

Per this framework, I’d have to make 10-20 shorts to unlock the same level of fan depth as 1 YouTube video.

And you math wizards out there might be thinking…well ser, if you’re getting 10-20x the number of unique viewers on a short, then the absolute number of new content minutes in the funnel is bigger with shorts…so are they actually a more efficient fan acquisition vehicle?

And that’s right in theory, but wrong in reality.

Because it turns out, having millions of “aware of you” fans (with 2-10 content minutes) is actually not super valuable because you can’t activate them.

Shorts as a medium (in a vacuum) is the best format for generating massive “aware of you” fans at scale. But unless you have proper funnels and ramps to get them off shorts, that’s where many of them will stay.

Turns out, getting someone to sit down and consume your stuff for 10, 20, 30+ minutes in a row has a much stronger effect on fandom than I realized.

So…this means I need to take my medicine, go higher on the content minute stack and start creating longer pieces of content that people want to consume.

The want to consume part is the key piece here…because so far, I’ve approached YouTube from a super heavy value-first/tactical tutorial perspective.

My initial hypothesis was that most business content is surface level and not tactical enough. So if I went the other way…and made videos that were super super tactical…it should work.

Hasn’t really played out that way. Other than my video with Zuck and a random AI tutorial, I haven’t had any YouTube videos break out.

And that’s after 28 quality reps.

The lack of performance is signaling to me that either my face is extremely punchable (probably), or people on YouTube actually like being entertained while they’re being educated.

And that makes sense if you think about it.

If you’re looking for a specific answer to a specific question, you’re going to want the creator to cut the nonsense and get to it as quickly as possible.

But I’m not sharing simple tips packaged in a question format that you’d search for.

If you’re trying to pick up bits and pieces of useful info passively, because you are a fan of that category, you’d want to be entertained in the process.

For me, vlogs + substance (showing the process of building businesses) is a much better way to entertain while educating.

If you can’t tell from reading Blueprint for 56 weeks…this whole entrepreneurship game is just crafting a narrative in your head strong enough to justify an action to try something. When it works, you wonder what’s next. When it doesn’t, you wonder what’s next. The forever loop.

So there you have it…I’m gonna start vlogging. I shot the first one this weekend and will have it posted by end of week. Subscribe and turn on the bell if you want to watch me embarrass myself in San Diego’s most famous bakery.

MONTH 13 STRATEGY

Which direction should I take?

Here’s how I’m thinking about my strategy right now (I wrote this in stream of consciousness. Not sure if this is interesting but this is what I would have wanted when I was starting out)

To hit the $1M/month target, I’m eventually going to want to sell a high margin, recurring subscription product/service at scale. I’m not sure what that product/service should be at the moment, so I’m going to table that for now.

In the meantime, having max content leverage can only be helpful. I think I can scale the Kallaway media brand to at least $100K/month via brand deals, affiliate partners, and content strategy consulting. I’m going all in on that for the next year.

Growing the Kallaway media brand means:

• More pieces of content weekly (more inventory to sell brand deals against)

• More people authentically engaging with each piece of content

Essentially, I need to build as many relevant and valuable media properties as I can, preferably via formats that advertisers would spend money on…YouTube and newsletter are best here, short-form video will also work well.

The reason my monthly income went down for the last few months of Year 1 is because I realized I was in a bit of a pickle.

I am basically making content across 3 different niches right now:

1. Tech/AI - where I give my tech on emerging tech & AI news (Main IG, Tech IG, Tiktok, YouTube Shorts, LinkedIn)

2. Content Strategy/Marketing - where I break down how cult brands have grown, share deep tutorials/playbooks for making better content (Main IG, Marketing IG, Breakdowns IG, Main YouTube, Blueprint, LinkedIn, WavyWorld)

3. Entrepreneurship Journey - where I share my learnings from the journey to help other entrepreneurs (Walking IG Stories, Main YouTube, Blueprint)

Not only am I fracturing my time by making content across multiple buckets, but I’m also confusing new fans, by not signaling a clear and consistent message of what to expect.

I’ve often said “you are the niche” and that having a unique combination of different interests where you make content is the best way to become 1/1.

And while I still believe this to be true, it can cause you to play the game on hard mode in the beginning.

If I could clone myself twice, I’d have each version build out one of these tracks (across all formats). High volume, tight focus, print.

But since I am not a sheep, there can only be one of me…so which way do I go?

Here’s a quick sense into how I am evaluating this…if you have any thoughts or see holes in my logic, please share them!

1. The Tech/AI route is the easiest path to see from here. If I make YouTube videos covering new tech/AI news, had a podcast discussing the latest releases, kept making the shorts I already make, and wrote a roundup newsletter like The Neuron or Rundown…this would make for a decent tech media brand. I think this could easily be a $1-$2M/year business in 5 years. The downside is that it’s hard to envision what products you sell from there if you’re the “AI news guy,” other than course/education products about using AI or premium media subscriptions (paid AI community, paid premium newsletter, etc.). The question I’d continue to ask myself is, “Are people following you for you or because you’re sharing the news they want to know about?” This is the MKBHD path, but with a different flavor. People obviously love MKBHD for him, not just because they like tech, but he’s the exception not the rule. If I’m being honest with myself, I really like making the tech/AI shorts and going deep enough down the rabbit hole to tell amazing stories, but that’s it. There are so many amazing technologists that live and die by tech. They have the potential to be 1/1 here…not me

2. The Content Strategy/Marketing route has come the most natural to me. My brain seems to gravitate towards thinking about how distribution works and coming up with frameworks/strategies to explain what is working for creators and brands. I love giving advice to others here. I also have a pretty endless supply of interesting ideas for YouTube videos breaking down different company playbooks, my own frameworks, scriptwriting sessions, etc. The clear play here is building a content marketing agency, angling my short-form more towards content breakdowns, continuing to post YouTube videos with deep tactical playbooks, write a newsletter sharing hyper specific content case studies/strategies, etc. This play could be much much bigger than the first. There’s a pretty straightforward path where this could be a $10M+/year operation with the right operator partner. This seems like the smartest path

3. The Entrepreneurial Journey route is the one I enjoy the most. I genuinely love writing these posts and am super grateful you take the time to read them. If I could, I would just make vlogs about my life/travel, partner with people and build companies. But that’s just the thing…the gap in most people creating content about their entrepreneurial journey is that their journey is about making the entrepreneurial content and the content is about their journey. It’s a circular reference error. There is no substance or company underneath the surface that makes the lessons they share worth watching. Quickly, this angle just becomes a lifestyle creator (which is the hardest path to differentiate). There are only a few people doing the entrepreneurial journey content well (from a vlog perspective), and I think they’re both gonna be huge. One is my homie JT Barnett and the other is Daniel Dalen. Both of them do have legit businesses that they’re referencing in their content so the journey stuff is a layer on top. This is the approach I want to take as well, which means I need to pick one or both of the lanes above as my main focus and keep making the journey content as a way for superfans to go deeper

For now, I’m going to continue to make the content I’ve been making, but ensure that the flow through to various channels makes more sense, so a new follower can more easily understand what they will and won’t get on my various channels.

2 COOL NEW VIDEOS

I made two new videos with unique formats

Last week, I dropped two videos in a style I haven’t seen anywhere else.

1. The first was a “live content strategy consulting session” for Wander. I did a full audit of their content channels and then brainstormed 5 unique content ideas that would help them grow faster. I’ll make more like this if you like this one. Link

2. The second was a Facetime podcast with Ashwinn (@shwinnabegobrand). The vibe on a Facetime call is so much more relaxed and conversational than a normal podcast recording. Apple doesn’t actually let you screen + voice record FT calls so we backdoored a process that worked pretty well. Would love for you to check this out and lmk what you thought of the vibe. Link

Btw, I’ve been told by the YouTube gods that instead of giving you the direct link to each video, it helps my channel a ton if you go to the channel homepage and then click the video from there (even better if you search kallaway in YouTube search → click to my channel → click the video). I don’t make the rules. Here’s the link

KALLAWISMS

Kallawisms

Back by popular demand.

1. New things: Humans tend to overestimate the difficulty of learning new things and underestimate the compounding value that comes once the new thing is mastered. The best way to become someone that gets good at new things is to try news things often. We create stories in our own minds about how hard something will be. Most new things aren’t

2. Main character energy: You’re the main character in your own story, but you’re just a side character (or an NPC) in everyone else’s. The fear you feel that people will think you’re lame for trying and failing is an illusion. Not only will people not think that, they won’t even notice what you’re doing. You are another tree in an endless forest to them. They simply do not care. Not in a bad way, they just don’t. You should operate under the assumption that getting them to notice you is the hardest thing in the world. This will give you the freedom to try a million things without fear

3. The chase: Most people chase what others want. Some people chase what they think they should want. At some point you’re going to have to start chasing what you actually want and forget about everyone else. The thing I wanted most was time freedom. Freedom to choose how I spend every day. That freedom comes from cash flow. This might not be what you want, and that’s okay. Figure out what it is that you want and chase relentlessly

4. Intensity: I’ve found that my capacity for intensity ebbs and flows. During some periods, I am a maniac. During others, I don’t seem have that extra gear accessible. The goal is squeeze the juice out of the lemon during the prime periods and increase the floor during the others. When you are one a heater…let it burn

5. Info Pipes: Until we get chips in our brains, you cannot simultaneously take in information and put out ideas. Information pipes are a one-way valve. This means you have to be very careful about how and when you are consuming. I was a “forever Airpods wearer”…any free second I had, I was listening to some podcast trying to get an edge. What I didn’t realize was that more info in didn’t necessarily map to better creation out. In fact, the flooding of info slowly began to zap all mental function. I was wasting my creative burst on processing nonsense instead of focusing every ounce on creating something great. Be careful what you let into the pipes.

WEEK 56 BEST CONTENT

My best content from last week:

1. 🤖 | We’ve just crossed the Uncanny Valley: Watch

2. 🎰 | There’s an underground internet casino that nobody knows about: Watch

3. 🎯 | Cool free database of public domain imagery: Watch

4. 🤝 | Brainstorming 5 unique content ideas for a $100M luxury travel brand (Full Strategy Session): Watch

5. 🧠 | Branding expert reveals formula to build cult brands in 2024: Watch

6. 🧑🏼‍🚀 | Blueprint (Week 54) -AntiPatterns, The Smart Kid Trap, Short-Form SuperTips, Lottery Numbers, Ghost Protocol: Read