⚠️ We're closing the doors to The Lab on June 1 (temporarily).
First, the good news: We just started the mastermind matching process! This only happens a couple of times per year. I literally review each member's information, priorities, and time constraints and match them with a group that works for them. We last did this in January, bringing together 10 groups of 6-12 members, and all of those groups met consistently—it was a massive success.
Standard or VIP members of The Lab can apply to join a mastermind group between now and June 1.
Now, the less good news: On June 1, we're closing the doors (to all membership tiers) for a short period while we help those groups get off the ground and make some upgrades to the space. If you've been on the fence, I recommend you join before June 1 (otherwise you'll wait until July).
I spent half the week at Colin & Samir's Press Publish LA event. It was beautifully produced. I spent time with members of The Lab, internet friends I hadn't met in person yet, and others who I hadn't met on the internet yet.
Now that I've had some time to let the conversations simmer and settle in my brain, I'm coming home with four main takeaways:
1. Make more of the things I want to make
We heard from several uber-successful YouTubers. In particular, Markiplier, Michelle Khare, and Johnny Harris stood out to me because they had such a strong vision for the things they wanted to make. There was no, "I have a deadline, and so I need to come up with a video idea." There was no discussion of keeping a schedule. They were making things they genuinely wanted to make.
Even when it came to brand partnerships, they are picky about who will help support THEIR vision. Johnny Harris said he had skepticism about "letting too many cooks into his creative kitchen."
2. Give myself permission to think bigger
The guests we heard from are thinking big. I'm not in a season of life where traveling the world and filming feature-quality documentaries is something I aspire to, but I could certainly think bigger with my projects than I am now.
The Press Publish event itself was a great example of this. When I attend something like this, my brain starts picking apart the operations and logistics, and I start to panic—I couldn't do all of this! Where would I even find the time?
The panic is followed by despair. I could never.
But here's the thing—no one person does all of this! These big visions are shared and executed by a small army of passionate, talented people. Often with no idea (initially) for how they'll pull it off. The big vision is what gets people excited and pushes them to do their best work.
Someone once told me they have a rule that they never tell themselves "no." They make THE WORLD tell them they can't do something (after they try every possible route). How often do we talk ourselves out of things because they're impractical, infeasible, or too big? We kill our own ideas before sharing them or even giving them a chance.
3. Hold the audience's trust and attention sacred
I was really taken by Markiplier's clear respect for his audience's time. This is someone with nearly 40 million subscribers, a movie he just brought to theaters, and by all accounts an adoring fanbase.
He spoke about his audience at the individual level. He said that everyone has the same limited amount of time, and so everyone's time is equally valuable. It inspired me to use a finer-tooth comb in everything I publish (audio, video, this newsletter). Everything that's in there should be in there for YOUR sake.
This is a risk with AI, by the way. When you generate things and don't take the time to review them before shipping them, you're taking your audience's trust in you for granted. You're saying, "This isn't worth my time to review, but I do expect you to use YOUR time to consume it." Something I'm thinking a lot about.
4. Nothing beats belly-to-belly
You just can't beat in-person experiences. We do our best online, and we get a ton out of our online interactions in The Lab. But when you're face-to-face, belly-to-belly with people, it's just different. It's more human, more exciting, and everything moves faster.
The conversations over dinner, invitations to collaborate, deals outlined on the spot, even just the very kind, "I love your channel" remarks from people I've never met before gave me some new fuel. I can't wait for our Lab Offline event Powered by Circle next month, and I'm back in the headspace of thinking through how we can enable more in-person interactions for the community.
***
A creator is part entrepreneur and part artist. This event really spoke to the artist side of me. I've been guilty of rushing past the "doing" to get to "done," obsessed with checking the next item off of my (admittedly long) to-do list.
But the doing is everything.
The doing is where real value is produced and, hopefully, where we're having the most fun. If it's not, things may be out of whack. Maybe the entrepreneur has taken too much control, and the artist is feeling stifled. That may be necessary in some seasons, but can create problems if left unchecked for too long. The artist within us creates so much of our unique value. It's what truly connects with our audience and makes our work different from others.
I'm putting the artist back in the driver's seat for a while. I hope it comes through.
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Meet Agent A: the AI Agent Built to Do the Marketing Work You’d Rather Not
I've been playing with Agent A, a new AI workspace powered by Ahrefs data, and I've been really impressed. It's an AI agent, but not the "write me a tweet" kind, and not like a CustomGPT. The difference is that it's much more proactive and collaborative.
Some important basics—Agent A has access to your Ahrefs data. I have a free Ahrefs account to track my Domain Rating, Referring Domains, and Organic Traffic. I've never been super great at using this information. But now, Agent A can access and explain it to me.
I asked Agent A to see how I'm showing up in LLMs, and it performed a full audit of both CreatorScience and JayClouse as a markdown file that I can leverage in Claude or any other tool that I want. But then Agent A proactively suggested some tasks it could do to improve my outcomes, including:
Build a podcast and newsletter outreach list
Draft a press kit + author bio
Prepare the copy for some of the hallucinated pages LLMs were creating about my business that didn't actually exist so I could take advantage even of the hallucinations!
You chat with it like you'd chat with a really capable marketing ops hire, and it goes and does the thing. Use it to research competitors, investigate a traffic drop, pull this month's report, find content gaps, and create apps and automations for repeatable tasks—in minutes.
It also comes with ready-made skills, apps, and reports, so you’re not starting from a blank prompt every time.
#306: What 16 Years Behind YouTube's Biggest Channels Taught Josh Mattingly About Hiring And The Current State of YouTube
JoshMattingly describes himself as a creator without a channel.
He's the founder of Upright Media, an operating partner for content creators handling operations, consulting, recruiting, and post-production. Josh has 11 full-time staff and about 40 contractors worldwide. His clients include some of YouTube's biggest channels: Airrack, Smosh, Emma Chamberlain, Dude Perfect, Matthew Beem, and Chris Williamson.
We talk about:
What he's learned about hiring
What YouTube actually rewards right now
Why "companionship content" is quietly eating the internet
The concept of the "shitty flow state."
I spent some time with Josh at Press Publish this week too—he's one of my favorite types of people: honest, direct, and an open book.
PS: If you're selling a membership or considering selling one, keep an eye out for more emails from me over the coming weeks. My team and I have been developing something (free!) to help.
