Ep. 78: He Built an 8 Figure AI Business in One Year

0:00:00Rourke Sefton-Minns, Gen HQ and 100K jobs

Play from 0:00:00 8:88:88 0:00:00 What's up everybody? Fast Hours Podcast episode 78. Drew Brucker, Rory Flynn. Special guest today, Ror Sept and Mens. You might know this guy, Ror Heath. Also another moniker that he uses and he's all over the place, all over social media. Super pumped to have him here. Ror, uh, why don't you go ahead and give the audience a quick intro of yourself and, uh, let's kick this thing off, man.

Play from 0:00:22 8:88:88 0:00:22 I love the energy, mate. I love it. Um, yes. So, good to meet you all. My name's Ror. Um, I'm social media creator. um and founder of a company called Gen HQ. We are basically just an education company and our mission is to create 100,000 jobs for creatives through creative AI.

Play from 0:00:40 8:88:88 0:00:40 That is a that is a very short and sweet introduction. I [laughter] mean so just like kind of a little bit of a mission there like not not ambitious, right? Yeah, [laughter]

Play from 0:00:50 8:88:88 0:00:50 a little bit. We'll dive into it in the pod. Um but we yeah we we were one of the early companies to start in education um in the AI space and when we launched I think Curious Refuge were one of the other major players and we wanted to kind of rival them and um yeah we we've we've been growing pretty heavy now. We've we've grown from zero to 12 full-time employees and scaled from zero to 8 figures in one year. So it's been a crazy year.

Play from 0:01:16 8:88:88 0:01:16 That's a run. It's a run some would say. Some would say. And also you can thank if anyone has opened Instagram in the last year, you've you're guaranteed to have seen something that Ror's done or something that someone has pirated off of one of Ror's formats. So, [laughter] you know, we can we can either thank Ror for being an awesome creator or we can uh we can also say thanks RO for populating my entire feed. Now everyone uses [laughter] your formats.

Play from 0:01:42 8:88:88 0:01:42 I don't know whether to apologize or to I mean the the thumbs are beautiful too. I mean

Play from 0:01:49 8:88:88 0:01:49 thank you ma'am. Thank you. Yeah, we we we put a lot of love into the content that we make. We try to make everything feel like as original as possible and we really want to try to set the trends as opposed to copy them. So trying to come up with unique original ideas nonstop is so hard. Um but we've got a great team to try and like facilitate that

Play from 0:02:11 8:88:88 0:02:11 and and Ror is being very modest. I think maybe Chris Branch put us in touch the first time and I had seen some of his stuff and I was like, "Oh, there's intention here. there's not this isn't just like you know I'm throwing up AI education posts cuz they work. there was there was thought behind it and then we talked the first time and I was like this dude's super humble and like not not like a you know not just like a shill out there cuz there's a lot I'm sure everyone knows here who's looked on who's been online they see that stuff but you know the we talked the first time and again I was like dude like super inquisitive you got a lot of stuff going on you've done a lot of stuff a lot of stuff in your past also not just this isn't just like a revelation as like a got you know big on Instagram because this is like luck there's a lot of stuff leading up to this.

Play from 0:02:54 8:88:88 0:02:54 This was page number five actually that we started on social media. We we had like a long history of very different social media channels prior to this and um we've tried everything from skiing vlogs to uh documentaries to live streaming yourself sleeping which I know Rory you really really want to get into.

0:02:55Five social pages before the one that worked

Play from 0:03:15 8:88:88 0:03:15 Yes, 100%. [laughter] Um, but yes, I've had like a really long journey of trying to create like um I've been very interested in like early tech for a very long time. And like I I'm an internet kid at heart. Like I grew up watching YouTube. That's my culture. I didn't grow up watching movies. I grew up chronically online. I'm I'm 27 now. Um so I, you know, spent my summers refreshing Gang Nam style to get it to a billion views. Like that's what I did in my summer. Um, and so yeah, I I come from like a very different place, but always been like obsessed with making money online, very obsessed with like creator economy. Um, and then, you know, live streaming was a big part of my like culture kind of to get me into my career

Play from 0:04:02 8:88:88 0:04:02 now because I wonder what that would have been like, you know, YouTube. Yeah, that's like that's so crazy to me. I mean, it makes sense obviously, but it's it's just different, you know? It's it's totally different. And you started doing Photoshop tutorials too, right? You were doing a lot of that to sort of get that that juicing the, you know, the path forward on the creator side. That is that what first took off or was it something else?

Play from 0:04:25 8:88:88 0:04:25 No, it was the live streaming myself sleeping is what took me off originally. But um Okay, wait. We'll pause.

Play from 0:04:32 8:88:88 0:04:32 We have to back up now because people don't know I don't think people know about this. Rory just I think happened to mention this to me,

Play from 0:04:40 8:88:88 0:04:40 but this is insane. And it like this blew up. I mean, according to what I've seen on it. So, I would love for you to kind of like visualize this and like what was the was this

Play from 0:04:51 8:88:88 0:04:51 something that was like a first big thing for you? Was was there like a plan for this or was this more or less like an impulsive kind of thing that you did?

Play from 0:05:01 8:88:88 0:05:01 It was very calculated, I would say. Um, so to give a bit of context to the viewers here, um, I first started my content creation journey as a live streamer and I used to live stream video games. Um, and then I saw another creator who had live streamed himself sleeping and when you donated money, you could um, activate his Amazon Alexa in his room and you could like mess around with him while he was sleeping and you could play really loud sounds to wake him up. And I was like, this is such a cool creative concept to make money online. And I was like, you know, this was about 6 years ago. Um, and I was like, I've never seen anything like this. It feels new. It's novel. um it's innovative and it's using technology in a way to generate revenue that like when you were in school you're not taught about these you know methods of making

0:05:03The sleep-streaming business that changed everything

Play from 0:05:47 8:88:88 0:05:47 money and I was like this is so interesting um and it and it was like blowing up like each video that this creator was making was getting millions of views and I was like do you know what if I'm going to do this I want to become the guy who does this and that's like a mantra that I've kind of kept throughout my whole life is now like if I'm going to set myself to do something I'm going to become the guy. So, when you think of AI education, you think of the guy who does this. And I was like, I'm going to become the guy who does sleep streaming.

Play from 0:06:16 8:88:88 0:06:16 So, I live stream myself every Saturday for for 2 years. Um, and the core concept, yes, two years. Uh, every Saturday night um through through co and then kind of as co fizzled out a little bit through then. And I basically paid a programmer so that you could interact with smart objects in my bedroom uh through watching the live stream. So you could interact with my lights, my blinds, my speakers. You could order things to my house. My address was public. Um people would send Drew, people would send the craziest stuff to my house. They'd show up. It was like, you know, repeat c like repeat people who would show up on the live streams.

Play from 0:06:56 8:88:88 0:06:56 like these characters would evolve and it was this culture of like the Truman Show kind ofesque vibe um but through live streaming and it taught me so much about building community and fandom around a totally niche thing. Um but at that time I cared so deeply about being a creator but I didn't know in what capacity and it was the first piece of like content medium that I found that was getting an audience and traction.

Play from 0:07:24 8:88:88 0:07:24 So, I just ran with it. Um, and it and it's still bigger than my [ __ ] page than this one is today, which is still annoying, but I need to like overtake. So,

Play from 0:07:33 8:88:88 0:07:33 okay. So, I didn't know this I thought this was like a singular thing. First of all, I didn't know this was like a consistent thing that you were doing. Yeah.

Play from 0:07:40 8:88:88 0:07:40 Yeah. So, that's that's a whole another level. Two years straight every Saturday just sacrificing yourself. So, I'm I'm imagining you're like getting up and constantly being woken up and stuff. But the the part that stuck with me is this experience that I think you got which is probably this inflection point of like I have now experienced something so unique in terms of that community and what people will do and gravitate toward that that almost gave you this like I don't know this energy backpack to like keep going with more enthusiasm now because I I don't know that I've I haven't experienced to that degree But I would sort of relate it to, you know, when we were posting on LinkedIn

Play from 0:08:25 8:88:88 0:08:25 in 2023 about Midjourney and people were just gloming to it and it was just like, oh, like, okay, I feel like this is the right place to be and the right thing to do.

Play from 0:08:35 8:88:88 0:08:35 And that just gave me life. Even in the days I didn't want to do anything, I was like, oh, like there's something bigger happening here.

Play from 0:08:42 8:88:88 0:08:42 And it sounds like that for you was like this critical moment, especially early on. Like imagine getting that experience early on in your 20s, Rory. Like I I didn't experience that till late 30s and and probably not even to that degree. I just can't imagine what that does for you to energize you and kind of keep you pushing. Well, it actually does a bit of both, you know, because I was 21 at the time and had just started to make like 10K a month like live streaming.

0:09:03Making $10K a month at 21, then burning out

Play from 0:09:11 8:88:88 0:09:11 And these live streams would pull in roughly around like anywhere between 2 to 5 grand a night that I was streaming. So, it was so bonkers. It was so bonkers. And like I just couldn't fathom this like degree of of money at that time when I was so young. I I didn't know what to spend it on. I spent it on Domino's Pizza and ASOS clothes. I had nothing else to spend my money on. Like it was genuinely like I I was so irresponsible. Um but I saved a lot of it. And when at the moment that I that I quit and I stopped, I completely cold turkeyed it and just cut it off entirely because I got sick of it. I felt like a performing circus monkey. Um and it was just like dance monkey dance like you know throw money. Um and it was

Play from 0:09:56 8:88:88 0:09:56 drinking beer. A lot of beers. Oh my gosh. Stripping. You were stripping. You were I was stripping. Hey, look. You got to make a hustle on the on the corner, bro. I was doing my thing at the time.

Play from 0:10:06 8:88:88 0:10:06 Yes. That's it. Well, you've got the face for it, bro. Go for it. Like, I was I at that time, like, you know, I was like, "Fuck it. I've just got to go for it." So, um, but the numbers, you know, as you said, uh, Drew, like it was I was controlled by the numbers. The numbers were the the volume of success. It was the views and the engagement, you know, as you were saying about LinkedIn. Um, it's really interesting because that is what like how we kind of indicate that we're on the right track. Like, oh, I'm posting things that people care about and I'm on the right track. And so, I let the numbers decide my life and it was so unhealthy and I was making content on something that I I actually didn't want to do, but I was just doing it because the numbers made sense. But then you but there was something that probably was in like this piece that you knew, okay,

Play from 0:10:53 8:88:88 0:10:53 like there's it doesn't have to be me sleeping, but I kind of have these raw materials now that I know could work for maybe something that I better align with. I'm imagining like as you're feeling a little burnt out, you still could walk away with that and that's probably helped you sort of that next stage or that next pursuit that you had because of that. Correct.

Play from 0:11:14 8:88:88 0:11:14 Big time. I mean, even just learning about overcoming burnout is something that so many entrepreneurs like have to deal with and and face and and every not even entrepreneur but like somebody who works at a job, you know, figuring out how to get overcome burnout is such a big thing. Um, and I think at that age I had hit burnout and I didn't know what to do. So I literally cold turkeyed it and I just left. um at the first time that I hit burnout and and I had 3 years after that where I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life and I had no idea and I regretted quitting so badly. Um because I then left that job to then go and work, you know, making uh 30 grand a year, like being an estate agent and having phones thrown at

Play from 0:12:00 8:88:88 0:12:00 the back of my head cuz I wasn't making enough calls in an hour kind of thing. And and I was like, what the hell am I doing here? like I had my life planned out and now I'm like, you know, I I took so many steps backwards, but I am so grateful for all of like the stages of my career that I've that I've gone through because every single one was was was so um pivotal for learning for the next stage of the career. And and yeah, I learned so much about like packaging content and um building community. I had a Discord community of like 2,000 people and like managing a community and you know lo and behold now we've got a community with like nearly 2,000 people in which I'm doing the same thing just on a more mature level and it's not around drinking and sleeping and being

Play from 0:12:46 8:88:88 0:12:46 degenerate. So now it's like around some way shape or form.

Play from 0:12:53 8:88:88 0:12:53 True. [laughter] Yeah. So, so talk about the uh so then you moved out of that, right? That that sort of that sort you you you know archived that portion of your life and then you moved into you you got back into the creator game and that was sort of like

0:13:04Betting everything on a six-month ski channel

Play from 0:13:08 8:88:88 0:13:08 I I saved all my money from from that except for Dominoes and ASOS. Um I I saved all my money and I moved to France with my wife, four of my best friends, a videographer and an editor and I paid for everyone to go. So, I rented a ski chalet for 6 months and I said, "Right guys, let's go and make skiing vlogs for 6 months and let's go make like reality TV style content and post it on YouTube." I experimented with a new format of content and I was like, "This could work. There's no one doing this right now." And so, we tried it and I actually ended up hating life out there and I invested every penny that I had. I think it was about 30 grand. I put everything that I'd saved up into it and it didn't work out. That channel has 800 subscribers. We posted every week for

Play from 0:13:54 8:88:88 0:13:54 six months and it didn't work out. But the big butt is I learned so much. It was like a crash course of just maturing, understanding like, you know, what failure looks like and and all the lessons that come from it. Um, and I then came back from France with no money in my account and I was like, "Fuck it. I'm going to make documentaries. I'm going to make documentaries about celebrities and that's going to be my calling. So, I used to do all this journalism where I'd research about all these celebrities like Post Malone and others. Um, and I would make content about them. Um, and I'd practice my video editing skills and I'd do loads of After Effects work and Premiere Pro and I'd learn more about packaging, titles, YouTube, the algorithm, um, you know,

Play from 0:14:39 8:88:88 0:14:39 scaling and and all these kind of things. And I spent six months on it. um from you know using any last drips of money that I had left in crypto or whatever I'd sold to just try and keep going. Um and I I I used like six grand of my money to just like keep going on my savings and eventually hit zero and I was faced with a decision. Go get a real job or continue working in, you know, try make it work in social media somehow. But I I'd reached a point where I had to make a decision.

Play from 0:15:13 8:88:88 0:15:13 That's this is this sounds very familiar. Um I think you know probably a lot of us who've gone down the either entrepreneurial entrepreneurial you got that one out there

Play from 0:15:26 8:88:88 0:15:26 or fre freelance route have hit that you hit that space where it's like do or die like I got I got to go back and I'm probably not coming back to this route or I can just try one more thing like one more big sort of leap and uh you know a lot of times it feels like when you're at that point that leap tends to work. It's like if you don't if you're at that point, I would say majority of the time from people that I've heard this from. It's like when it's the absolute last straw and you have to make something work, typically it works. Um, which is like, you know, just like a perseverance type thing. I don't know if many, you know, do you have that, too? I just think that's like, yeah, I I I I think that's true. But I I also think it's interesting that you had this like YouTube experience that that probably didn't I mean maybe it did, but it it

Play from 0:16:12 8:88:88 0:16:12 seems like it it probably didn't cost you that much. Not just in terms of like money, but like risk at the time. You were young, right? Like

Play from 0:16:21 8:88:88 0:16:21 but you got to experience all that came with it without really a lot of major sacrifice that maybe somebody later on, you know, would have to give up. And so you learn these valuable lessons at a very lowrisk time in your life, right? And I just think about like even me going out on my own. I had never been out on my own. So like there's this fear, right, of like what if you know then you're kind of attached to a job and it's like man well I need this, right? I need this. And then what if something happens? I got to wait and find another job, right? Like if you had that experience of going out on your own early or at least experiencing some success with it, it it kind of it almost feels more like a video game. It's like I don't have anything to lose, right?

Play from 0:17:03 8:88:88 0:17:03 Like I've already learned these lessons. I already know how this level works. So I just need to go and try and do it again.

Play from 0:17:09 8:88:88 0:17:09 So I just think that's like really interesting, too. The story the story is the same for every entrepreneur. You know, sometimes, sure, you get hit the jackpot, you get lucky, you find a a format that works, and you know, you make it on the first try. Um, and as you say, it's like a video game. I grew up playing video games a lot, and you know, the story is all the same. If you don't give up and you keep going, you eventually get to the end, the end game. Um, it's just about perseverance and resilience. And I'm still learning today what what those things actually mean. Um, but you know, it's it's just about um kind of being really harsh with yourself and saying, "I'm not giving up. I'm just not not I'm not going to give up. Like, no matter how many times I get knocked down, I'm going to keep going." Um, and and that

0:17:11The persistence lesson behind hitting zero

Play from 0:17:55 8:88:88 0:17:55 moment for me was when I had zero in the account. And my nan, who's still alive, gave me 14 grand to keep going. She was like, "I'm going to give you your inheritance early." Like, keep going. Keep chasing your dreams. grandma for the win. You know, [ __ ] grandma came in clutch, man. Like, she she she really did. Um,

Play from 0:18:15 8:88:88 0:18:15 and I wish that was like the the fairy tale ending and all of a sudden everything went perfect from there, but truth be told, I kept chasing my dreams and I reached zero again. So, I had to get a real job and that's when I became a real estate agent and hated my life for 2 months. And I learned even more about like, you know, if you think you're at rock bottom, you can always go lower. Like I was like to me I was like [ __ ] this is my real like rock bottom.

Play from 0:18:40 8:88:88 0:18:40 Um and I know that rock bottom may come another time in the future but like for me that was my career rock bottom. Um but I learned the most in that 2 months about like pushing through than any other experience uh in my life. And you know I applied to be a bin man. I applied to be uh a PE teacher like um like a sports teacher in schools. I applied to everything at that point and I had all this experience with YouTube and growing online and and I was like I'll do anything anything else but being a real estate agent. Um and I eventually moved to a creative agency in London which got me back into content creation.

Play from 0:19:18 8:88:88 0:19:18 Yeah. Would I would just like to to pause there for a second. I didn't know this. I didn't know the real estate piece before in my in my freelance journey

Play from 0:19:28 8:88:88 0:19:28 when I was at rock bottom. The last piece before I got back into like before I started getting you know on the upward swing again was I applied for my real estate license worked for one month did the real estate thing for one month and said I am never doing anything like this ever again. It was like the it was like the shock to the system. So that's weird that you had that too cuz you see how dirty it is and how like just soul sucking that industry. Not any real estate agents. You can you can like it.

Play from 0:19:58 8:88:88 0:19:58 Not for me. Don't ask don't ask the real estate agents for subscriptions today. Rory. No, we we'll pass on that. Yeah,

Play from 0:20:05 8:88:88 0:20:05 king of transitions here cuz I want to I want to move into the when the when the moment was for Gen AI for you creative wise because it seems like you know you it feels like Rook you come from a different mentality than maybe Drew and I did because we just didn't grow up with YouTube and having YouTube University and like being able to teach all of oursel, you know, we had to find like mentors and like all this other stuff because YouTube wasn't as good then. It was like cat videos and like it wasn't like people teaching stuff. So, it's like you have like this whole like a it's like the testing optimization sort of mindset where it's like we throw stuff out there, see if it works, make it better, make it better, make it better, make it better, which I feel like is social native. But where when did like the the AI [ __ ] start to kick in? Like when was that like this is the this is the the path? Yeah. So, there was a real turning point for us. So, um

0:20:50420 days of posting before the AI pivot

Play from 0:20:51 8:88:88 0:20:51 when I started doing educational content, I I was like I need to just teach something and I was like I've got no skills to teach here, but I'm going to do something. So, I dove into Photoshop and was like, "Look, I've got to start teaching this." And what I did was I would go on YouTube, I'd learn a skill in 10 minutes, I'd practice it myself, and then I'd teach it in 30 seconds. And I and I do that every single day for 420 days. And around two, day 250, I had made a single penny um of posting every day without fail on holiday. Uh you know, whatever circumstances were in personal life, a video had to go out. I didn't care if I didn't sleep. A video had to go out. I said to myself, I'm going to make a video every day for a year. And if at the end of it I had 10,000 followers, I

Play from 0:21:38 8:88:88 0:21:38 I I don't care. I would have learned something in that time that I will then take on for the rest of my life. And I just wanted to prove to myself that I wasn't a bomb and I could do it. Um so I set that goal and around day 250 um you know Photoshop had generative fill come in and a couple of AI features and I started to make content on that and I noticed this visceral or emotional reaction from an audience where they were like hold on a minute this is interesting here or it was hold on a minute I hate this and I was like this polarizing spectrum that was presented in front of me in the comment section was exactly what built my career. area because I was like, I want to help you over here and I want to help you over here. I want to support both of both

Play from 0:22:24 8:88:88 0:22:24 sides of these arguments. Um, so I was like, I'm going to make content on Gen AI. And I also remember when I was doing Photoshop, the ceiling uh was working with Adobe, right? And I was like, yeah, these videos here, right? And

Play from 0:22:39 8:88:88 0:22:39 I'm going all the way back. I'm rowing as far as I can here, brother. [laughter] Um gosh, the early videos, you should have a look at them. They were terrible. Um, but in the early days of Photoshop, my ceiling was working with Adobe. That's like the best thing that I could have done. And I eventually got to that ceiling and I was like, how do I, you know, get higher than this? You know, what where do I go from here? And then I got a sponsorship and it was for £25,000. And can I just put out there at the time I hadn't made more than like $800, which is like equivalent £600 on a single video ever. Um, and I was like day 300 in at this point. I was just doing it for the love of the game. Okay.

Play from 0:23:18 8:88:88 0:23:18 And and I then got the sponsorship for two and a halfk from this random guy who'd set up his own website. And I was like, and it was about um changing clothing uh with AI. And this was like 2 years ago. And I was like, this is mental that I can change my clothing. Um, and so I made a video on it and it got like 50,000 likes and like went super viral on on short form and I was like, I've got to do more of these. And then he came back and he was like 5k and I was like, I beg your pardon like what do you mean £5,000 to make a video? Um, but little did I know on the background guys making like 80 grand off of me and like you know charging me five, but I didn't know at that time. So I then was like I'm just

Play from 0:24:03 8:88:88 0:24:03 going to go all in on this. Um, and I eventually pivoted into generative AI through that. Incredible.

Play from 0:24:10 8:88:88 0:24:10 I found the bottom, by the way. I don't know if you saw that while you were you were talking, but I did find the bottom. Yes. This is uh my first ever video. Um, which is uh I just film on my iPhone and I'd edit these on like, you know, when people when I said to myself, look, I want to make content every day. I was like, I I work a 9 to5 at this point. How on earth am I going to get the time to do this? Um, you know, I'm lucky. Uh, well, unlucky or lucky. I know both of you have got kids, but I didn't have kids. I didn't have that commitment. Um, I had time on my hands. So, I I would record it on my phone and then on the train on the way to work, I'd edit it on Cap Cut. Um, and I'd do the voice over when I came back from work and then I'd go again and I'd just keep doing that cuz I had half an hour on the train to get to work. I'd just do that, you know,

Play from 0:24:58 8:88:88 0:24:58 kind of day in day out and and find the pockets of time. Um, activity, man. Perfect train activity right there. Yeah. Yeah.

Play from 0:25:07 8:88:88 0:25:07 Right. Oh, that's incredible. What a journey. Yeah. Um, so that was a kind of evolution. Rory, you're still on mute, mate. I hope you're you're probably sharing unbelievable amounts of wisdom right now.

Play from 0:25:19 8:88:88 0:25:19 Thanks for telling me. It was my daughter screaming screaming in the background. I didn't even notice. We're going to see Rory's mouth. I'm probably just talking and like to myself. I'm like, "All right." But [laughter] the I was going to say for anyone listening, this is what this is what getting to almost a million followers on Instagram looks like. This level of like determination and like consistency and let's like always pushing it some new direction. It's never you can never do the same thing for years. You can never do the same thing for 200 days. It's like you got to keep going. And I feel like you you've done just that. It's like the the playbook for making it work on social.

Play from 0:25:52 8:88:88 0:25:52 There are two things too that stuck out to me was with it's both one being this idea that you're teaching yourself something new every day very quickly, right? But then you're teaching it, right? And so the retention of information is much stickier when you have to then teach it, when you have to talk it out loud and teach it. And so like you know before the you know I think that was also Rory like going back to our yeah Midjourney stuff right it's like when we're doing these car like it's like one thing to be in the tool and like we don't even think about it mindlessly because we've we've done so many reps in there but then when you're like trying to teach it to somebody or explain it like back up and kind of put it in someone else's shoes right it just

Play from 0:26:38 8:88:88 0:26:38 retains differently which also kind of blended itself into other opportunities right so say I wanted to do a one-on-one or a team training now which we which we did right where it's like okay well that makes it easier now because now I know exactly how to sort of back up and package these ideas in that may be a little bit complex but I know how to simplify it and so that retention thing was interesting two everybody's heard this before but I think this is a perfect example start before it's like really polished you don't have to be at you know operating at this 90% capacity right like you were doing this with your phone these are not

Play from 0:27:15 8:88:88 0:27:15 you know where you ended up, but you're learning all these lessons along the way that get you to this. And people actually like some of the raw stuff, too. It's not necessarily this turnoff. People like you being real, too. So, there's the flip side of don't be afraid to start even if it's not perfect. And if you don't look back and think, "Oh, that was kind of bad or I could have done so much more." Like, you're not growing either. So, I think like those two points really stuck with me.

Play from 0:27:42 8:88:88 0:27:42 I'd like one one quick question, man, because I'm I'm very I'm very curious about Are you Are you technically Gen Z?

Play from 0:27:51 8:88:88 0:27:51 Yeah, I think so. I'm on the cusp. Uh, but I would definitely say that I lean more to I relate more to younger people than older people, I would say.

Play from 0:27:58 8:88:88 0:27:58 All right. So, in your friend group or your peer group, maybe I know that Gen Z has been sort of pushing back hard. Do you get any of that ever? Like, is anyone just like, "Dude, what are you doing?" That kind of stuff.

Play from 0:28:09 8:88:88 0:28:09 Yeah. I mean, oh, dude. I mean uh two two answers to this question. When I was sleep streaming I I had a lot of people who were like what the hell are you doing? Um you know and yeah including family. Yeah. Yeah. Including family, including wife, including every everyone. Um but it was just like a self-d delusional level of like I know that this will work that I just kept me going. But um yeah, I guess um yes and no. Um what what I have noticed about like the Gen Z audience with Gen AI is that they they actually see Gen AI as the enemy. And and and to me this is really interesting because you see the reactions from like schools, you've seen those videos online of like um you know people at graduation getting booed when

0:28:40Why Gen Z sees generative AI as the enemy

Play from 0:28:55 8:88:88 0:28:55 they talk about AI. And it's so interesting for me because it's these young people who are starting to join the workforce and they see AI as the enemy and they're like, "This thing is competing with me to get my jobs and it's effectively taking my jobs." Um and and what I really want to try and do is say I understand this is absolutely like um one way to feel about it, but why don't we actually inside schools teach people about what AI can do um to aid and benefit like what you're trying to do um as opposed to like viewing it as the enemy. And I think it starts at grassroots. I think it starts in like you know you see kids in China who are in school and they're learning about AI early implementing it and like becoming super machines like you know it's not

Play from 0:29:41 8:88:88 0:29:41 life isn't also about becoming the most efficient most optimized version of yourself it's about emotions and lots of other things but I would say that especially career-wise I think we need to fix the grassroot education system first

Play from 0:29:56 8:88:88 0:29:56 too we we might have to we might have to transition off this only because this could I could talk to you about this for probably like 6 hours and we have you know we only have limited time but I think that's it's interesting because I I said the Gen Z thing I've noticed it a lot more talking to a lot of people you know getting a little bit more perspective especially people that skew their audiences younger and it's like [snorts] you know I was even having a conversation with you know some college professor in uh in New York and they were looking for someone else to looking for someone to come teach a class and like the way they're positioning it to the instructors is like everyone here is kind of going to hate you but you like your job is to turn their sort of like turn their perspective. I'm like that doesn't sound like a great job. But it's, you know, that's interesting that that's that's the group that's coming in because they don't see it.

Play from 0:30:40 8:88:88 0:30:40 Um, I feel like like it's almost like we created this like cuz there's you have so many people that have just like hyperbolized what's happening and fast forwarded to like this idea that AI is going to take over completely. And I don't I don't know like there are several different paths this could go, right? But like this is not here yet and I think we're all trying to figure this out. But like when you when you're this environment of like AI is going to take all the jobs and like everything is just completely fear dooming you know it it's just I could see why that would be the case especially like if that's also the same generation to some degree that like went through co you know where you know school was normal and then it wasn't normal and you know like I I guess they've maybe seen more of these like really big disruptions in that sense and

Play from 0:31:26 8:88:88 0:31:26 and I don't know maybe that has something to do with it but it's interesting. I think this is like a perfect perfect spot, you know, to to show like one of Ror's videos where he goes like he does all of the like this is the this is the anti- AI is going to take your job post where you show how much actual work goes into producing one of these videos and it's not just one prompt that goes into C dance, right? Like I noticed this again early on that I was like, "Oh, there's a lot of thought and craft behind each one of these posts. this isn't this isn't your like I'm going to lip-s sync with hey Jen and like throw this out there and I'll make 150 videos and hopefully one of them works. Like I think there was there's a few here that I've seen where it's like

Play from 0:32:07 8:88:88 0:32:07 you go through a whole process. Like there is a system to this and there's a way to build really compelling narrative and awesome stuff. Like I feel like the audience would probably like this to understand what you do here. So

Play from 0:32:21 8:88:88 0:32:21 maybe maybe if you talk through some of this stuff that would be that would be helpful for everyone that's listening. Yeah, for sure. Um I have something that I want to come back to. I have a question that I want to ask both of you guys. So remind me. It's about your kids and and how you want them to interact with AI growing up. Um cuz I think that'd be also really interesting for the the audience. But um I would love to talk about this process. So for us when we're making a video um it's interesting. We've discussed in this kind of session here about kind of communication I think and how important communication is for all businesses at the end of the day and when you're interacting with AI it's really about how effective of a communicator can you be and you know our jobs are to be educators and we teach people about how

0:33:01Why great AI content starts with communication

Play from 0:33:07 8:88:88 0:33:07 you can use AI and as you said uh it was either Drew or Rory was saying that um you know it's about like retaining that information comes from doing the thing and then teaching the thing. And when you teach the thing, it's not just about doing the thing, but it's about um articulating yourself in a clear way and as simple way as possible so that the audience member on the other side of this video or speech or whatever the medium is in which you're delivering content um can understand and process this in the simplest way possible, in the least amount of words possible, in the least complex way possible. So for us when we're making a video we will design the entire visual process first.

Play from 0:33:47 8:88:88 0:33:47 So we will wireframe out like a video for example. So you can literally click on any single one. Um so this one is a what I would call an inspiration piece where we our goal is to just inspire people to want to try AI. So this is like where we're just creating crazy visuals and we want people to be like wow that's really cool. How do I learn how to do this? Um, and then we've also got other pieces which are more like um, instructional, informative. So, this is a tutorial on how just how to remove people from the background of your shots. Um, and then we'll go into a tutorial and we'll almost like lay it out. So, the we start with an initial idea. So, a concept. What is the message that we're trying to tell here? Core message is okay, we want to remove people from videos. Okay. How can we

Play from 0:34:34 8:88:88 0:34:34 easily do this in the simplest, easiest visual way possible? Well, you have a video on top, maybe you have a video underneath and you show that there's a clear differentiation through visual communication that what have we done in this video? We've removed the people. So, we'll come up with like a load of different ways in which we can like ideulate a concept. And I'd actually love to share my screen if possible and take you behind the scenes just to show you what like ideiation looks like for us. We

Play from 0:35:03 8:88:88 0:35:03 love it. Do it, man. Okay. [clears throat] Uh let's see. Okay. So, in here, um, we have vibe coded this thing which is called rock ideas. Um, and we've got YouTube. Um, we've got Instagram. Um, and we have So, let's let me like put this down here. So, in here we we basically structure everything out and we like ideulate uh all our ideas in here um before we actually do it. And you can see that we literally draw it out. and we're like this is this is how like we plan for the video to look. Um or like you know we'll mock it up with AI in terms of how do we plan to do this? So for this one it's like I go travel to Stonehenge and then we record footage and then we make it like look

0:35:10Inside his vibe-coded content idea system

Play from 0:35:50 8:88:88 0:35:50 crazier with AI. Um or we'll like mock up what does the first frame of the video look like. So when you scroll onto the video it's very intentional that like it's it's a compelling frame. Um, so we'll like mock up an idea in its totality. So in here we can like mock up like you can do this, you can draw in it, you can do whatever you want. Um, and all the editors and myself will go in and ideulate all these concepts. And then we'll like summarize what the video is about and like the step-by-step process of like how we we plan for it to go. Um, and then in here we'll also upload all of our assets. So, we'll like draw it out and then we'll like upload like a visual a visual asset. So, if I just mute this here and we just play this out. So, like um this idea here is

Play from 0:36:36 8:88:88 0:36:36 like obviously we want to we wanted to use AI with real footage to create something that was super cool. And this was like a mix of 3D plus AI plus real footage to create like a project for for Google Pixel. Um and a lot of it is just like wireframing ideation. Um, and then discussing ideas collectively until we settle on something that is the the minimal like easiest thing to explain verbally, the minimal easiest thing to explain visually, and then how do we align those two things together to create a video that's going to resonate with as many people as possible.

Play from 0:37:16 8:88:88 0:37:16 So, we are we are in knee deep in it, folks. This is exactly what this is exactly the kind of stuff that I nerd out over. This is this is sick, dude. I love the I love the platform. That's this is the cool thing about the vibe coding space, too, is like this is built like out of your head and your process, what works for you, right? Like, and I think that's

Play from 0:37:35 8:88:88 0:37:35 it's so much easier to do that when you actually can now create a tool for yourself versus like having to work with the existing tools that are there just like you have to do it their way. But there's some I mean it's it's so intentional which I love and I just I always want to hint on that for every single person that comes to this goddamn podcast like everything here is intentional like there's a thought process behind all of this. Yeah, machines vibe coded it. But look at just come on like any anyone who sees this

Play from 0:38:04 8:88:88 0:38:04 idea to execution now man. And I mean this is great like this these are the kind of tools too that like may like

Play from 0:38:10 8:88:88 0:38:10 they probably don't get shown like this is the other part of AI right that is probably more private because it's more IP but like these things are happening with everybody like everybody is sort of like creating these tools that are custom to them that work for them as a part of their process too and maybe they're not like public but they're absolutely critical and that's probably one of the most valuable parts about AI right is like you now have this surface that you customize ized for you that works for you. Um, how how long does it typically take you? And maybe there's different levels, right, depending on the video, but like let's just say you've got the idea down.

Play from 0:38:47 8:88:88 0:38:47 H how how much time does it take you to create one of these because also Roric, I know that there's like this speed element of getting things out there quick too when you're doing what you're doing. H how do you know what does that look like for you? How long do these videos take when you when you have an idea, you know, you want to get something out, maybe there's a time sensitivity to it as well?

Play from 0:39:10 8:88:88 0:39:10 Yeah, so we actually band every video into like a category. So we have like a A, B, and C videos. So like an A video will be like a one day turnaround and it's like a quick idea idea to very fast execution. and like a one like a one day turnaround is very typical for us. Like 15 hours um of like a a working workday across maybe two people working across that project to turn something over. Um an example of like a a 15-hour video for us might be one like uh let's pull up um this one for example. This we turned over in 15 hours. Why? One, it doesn't require me to record. It's like it's just the AI generations. So, it removes that element from like my time needing

0:39:19How long a viral AI video takes to make

Play from 0:39:57 8:88:88 0:39:57 to be involved in the process. I spent a lot of time on the ideation and execution of this video. So, my time was consumed um with the actual video itself and the idea. Um but like it's quite easy to edit this one. It's just generations with subtitles, sound design. It's and maybe a slight amount of color grading adjustment, but it's like pretty minimal editing. Um, and then we might have like a B tier. This one might be more of like a B tier where it's requiring me to film. We've then got some After Effects working there, but it's not too complex after effects work. It's just enough that maybe this would be like a 2-day turnaround. Um, and so this is more of like what we would call like a B tier uh kind of video. And this is like a lot of like motion graphics and things like that, which takes a bit more time. And then

Play from 0:40:44 8:88:88 0:40:44 we've got C tiers. So a C tier um would probably be something more like this where okay this is like a new AI tool that we've never played with before that's one going to require R&D. So that's R&D time invested. We've also then got to come up with a cool concept then figure out how the tool and platform works. Then we've got to package it in a way that it's simple and easy to understand and also it's like new to the industry. A lot of like casual creatives have never played with 3D before. So if we're making a a video on a topic that's a bit more complex, like when we first made content on node-based workflows, thanks Rory Flynn for introducing me to that. Um, you know, when I first learned about that, like through Rory, I made videos on it,

Play from 0:41:29 8:88:88 0:41:29 but I knew audiences might get really confused because they were just used to just seeing write text in, image out, not this crazy noodle like craziness. So, I was like, I need to simplify it. I need to make it easy to understand. And to do that R&D and create something that's like motion graphics, it tells a story and like can like bring you along with it. This took us about a week um to to put this one together um between two people. It's sick. I mean, this is like again the the the skill in all of this is making things digestible. Um cuz it's really hard to explain a lot of this stuff, especially if you come from a very spec I feel like sometimes it's harder to explain it when you come from an industry with specific knowledge cuz you're using the terminology which

Play from 0:42:15 8:88:88 0:42:15 people who aren't familiar with it. Like if you're a 3D artist explaining this to me, you're probably explaining it in totally different terms than someone who just learned it, right? Because the there's like there's a technique, a terminology, a way to explain it. This, you know, actually sometimes I think it's easier to not have the experience and you're just like this is what you do. this is how it works and you try to like even explain it to yourself, right? Like that's kind of how it feels.

Play from 0:42:37 8:88:88 0:42:37 It's cool, man. Some of these some of these things you've been doing with 3D and the VFX stuff too is like again it's just like one step ahead of where the industry is at the moment. You know, it's not,

Play from 0:42:45 8:88:88 0:42:45 you know, we're not living in the present. we're living forward, which is, you know, it's sort of a I feel like that's that's been

Play from 0:42:53 8:88:88 0:42:53 a good strategic move on your part at all times is just, you know, but the burnout, as you say, keeping up with this stuff and always being forward is is difficult.

Play from 0:43:02 8:88:88 0:43:02 My god. Yeah, I am like I'm like so burnt. I'm like overly cooked at this point. Like I I I have reached burnout in this process. Like I would say probably like seven significant moments of burnout in the AI space alone where I've just been like either this is getting boring or like like how do we make this fun again because you know the AI space moves so quickly and audiences get overwhelmed. We get overwhelmed making the content let alone like posting it. So I think like a good vibe check senses for us now is like are we making something that like we actually enjoy and like are we having fun while making it and if that's the case we typically audiences are also going to like it as well. It's a good like sense check.

0:43:20Why AI creators burn out

Play from 0:43:46 8:88:88 0:43:46 Starting to be a little theme we're hearing here. You know Ror experienced burnout with AI. Rory and I have experienced moments of AI. Finn was on the podcast talking about it. It's just be, you know, it's all of those things. It's moving so fast. It's this burden too of like you've got constant open loops of like oh I don't know this tool but I need to learn it or I want to try this or I've got all these things bookmarked or you know I know I like have these other projects but I've got to fit in time for this and then anytime I open up my social feed doesn't matter if it's X Instagram Tik Tok whatever it is because you're in the AI echo chamber that's all you see right and and so there's um something psychological there for sure and I think this is a pattern now. We've

Play from 0:44:31 8:88:88 0:44:31 heard this several times that um you know battling that is really interesting. Have you found any ways to like combat that? Like you mentioned just like leaning into things that obviously a little bit more fun and enjoyable and kind of like taking a step back and say, "Oh, like this is what kind of gives us the spark, but is there anything else? Like do you take days off? Do you go for a walk in the park?" Like I mean how do you

Play from 0:44:53 8:88:88 0:44:53 how do you combat that? Um I don't take days off but I do take walks in the park. Um for sure. um that is something that I do. I don't think that there is like um any specific individual piece of advice that I could give to anyone watching this because burnout the way that you treat burnout for every individual is extremely different. You know, for for some people it might be going to a spa and floating in some water. For some people it might be going on a walk with their dog and for some people it might just be [ __ ] sleeping more. Like there's there's a lot of different things that that cure burnout. um for for us um a lot of the time like I think it's more important to acknowledge like how do we avoid burnout as opposed to like remedying it and I often um find myself in a place of

Play from 0:45:39 8:88:88 0:45:39 burnout when I feel like I'm no longer progressing um and I'm not like you know if it's if we talk about it in video game terms again it's like I'm stuck on the same level I I can't progress and I think it's about like trying to find what you love about the game and then going and doing that again. So go back, take steps backwards and and like go like for me I outsourced uh a lot of my creative work when I brought in a team and we had 12 people working at the company. Um I outsourced a lot of the work that I love doing and that led me to burnout because I wasn't doing the thing that I enjoyed the most and and then I didn't feel like I was progressing. I was becoming a leader and a manager which is not what I want to be. I want to be a creative and I want to create. So, you know, it's about like

0:46:14Outsourcing creativity made burnout worse

Play from 0:46:26 8:88:88 0:46:26 going back, take steps backwards, figure out what works, like you know, what stimulates your brain and then just do that. Just do that.

Play from 0:46:35 8:88:88 0:46:35 So, does the video is the video game boring now? Is like is it Yeah. Uh the video game got boring for me for like the last couple of months to be honest. Like it you know you do the same thing every day for a long period of time. like naturally you get kind of like tired and burnt out of it. Um, and I get really excited when we find like a content medium that works that we is different to what we've done before. So like we've made hundreds of talking head videos where it's me talking at the bottom, visuals on top. Now, you know, we we try different formats all the time to try and get us out of that cage of being in a certain content format. And we tried this new format recently which was like narrative driven where we're telling stories and we're we're making comedic jokes and and I'm making myself

Play from 0:47:22 8:88:88 0:47:22 laugh with how ridiculous it is. And I realize other people like it too and I'm like wait I'm actually just making content for myself that feels like something that I would want to watch and then other people also want to watch it. Shock horror. Like it's it sounds ridiculous but

0:47:27Why changing formats brought the fun back

Play from 0:47:38 8:88:88 0:47:38 here we go. But have you tried the smart edit feature yet? No. What is that? Watch this. WA, THAT'S CRAZY. What else can it do?

Play from 0:47:46 8:88:88 0:47:46 You can edit videos just by thinking about it. Let us show you. Okay, let's edit this video. Don't even think about it.

Play from 0:48:13 8:88:88 0:48:13 Stop [screaming] enough. Why can't we just use it for useful things like removing people?

Play from 0:48:22 8:88:88 0:48:22 Well, you could also adjust the lighting. Are you kidding me? Whoa. It's called SmartEedit for a reason.

Play from 0:48:31 8:88:88 0:48:31 This is amazing. What if everyone else wants to try it? They can do it exclusively on Dreamina. Comment AI and we'll send you a link right now. Don't forget.

Play from 0:48:43 8:88:88 0:48:43 Yes, I have tried. And then back to that. That's That's a hitter, dude. That's crazy.

Play from 0:48:50 8:88:88 0:48:50 We We really enjoy like narrative loop based videos where we're telling a story and like at the end of the video, you kind of learn about how the start of the video starts. So, we're like kind of on this like hype right now of just like really enjoying storytelling and I'm looking to hire like script writer right now to help us with this. Um, because right now it's just me writing all the scripts. So, yeah, it's always like we find a new format, we hire people to make it work and then we kind of scale heavily in that direction, especially once we found something that works. that that was brilliant in terms of showing just like the uh it's like f you're almost doing the same exact thing excepting like attaching a narrative into each portion of it like oh we can change the lighting but what happens

Play from 0:49:36 8:88:88 0:49:36 when we change the lighting like that's a good little like I like I see I see the thought process behind it where it's like you dive back into like what are we actually trying to show

Play from 0:49:45 8:88:88 0:49:45 yes I want to show this but then also let's attach a little scenario to it um yeah which is At the end of the day, like we're always we're always trying to help like educate people on what's actually possible with real world scenarios in like actual helpful like studios and genuine creatives who are using these tools. You know what what how does it help them? I don't care about just like making something pretty just to show you like this is cool. Like I want it to either inspire you or like I want it to help you specifically in your business to help you get a job or to help you become more employable or to make money.

Play from 0:50:21 8:88:88 0:50:21 And that's I think that's that's you know good a good sort of transition point too because like I think you know really this is another route again people have asked us a bunch of times like how do you how are you people are like making money with this and like they're doing things like you've started a community it's a it's a school community right like and uh the you know you've grown it by having the social media drive as top of funnel to the you know to the community where you now educate on a ton of different platforms I'm sure you have a bunch of community engagement, but like also you're now not just a creator anymore. Now you're a business owner, right? Like talk just talk about that situation cuz I feel like that's again something that's unique to this to this uh you know to the to our audience probably and people that have been listening to us for a

0:50:25How narrative-loop videos create retention

Play from 0:51:06 8:88:88 0:51:06 while. But um you love to just get into that one a little bit more specifically. Yeah. So, um I have always been like inspired by a lot of these creators online who you've seen have created billion-dollar companies. You know, creators, uh if we go, you know, pull out some of the cliche ones, you've got like Logan Paul if you've ever heard of this guy or, you know, Mr. Beast if you've ever heard of him. Um these people have been able to channel their audiences to drive traffic to their their businesses organically. And I've always been very interested in this and I wanted to do do it for myself for a very long time. Um and we have like uh a couple of ways in which we drive traffic back to like uh you know or or that we drive revenue at our company. The primary revenue driver at our company is brand partnerships on social media. And

Play from 0:51:53 8:88:88 0:51:53 this typically brings in anywhere between 350 to 600k a month in brand partnerships um through sponsorships with different AI companies.

Play from 0:52:03 8:88:88 0:52:03 Um and congrats on that by the way. That's epic. Thank you sir. [laughter] That's awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Um, and that has that rate has increased by 20% month- on month the last nearly two years. Um, and it's not slowing down. So now is as good a time as ever to start educating and teaching people and start working with, you know, top AI companies. Um, cuz they're always looking for more audiences to get out there. So um, that's our primary revenue driver. Then we have Gen HQ which brings in roughly around 150k a month in revenue. Um, but we don't make a lot of money over on the GenHQ side to be honest. Like that's actually not a lot of that is profit because I'm reinvesting pretty much everything I can back into that to just

0:52:44How his 8-figure AI business makes money

Play from 0:52:48 8:88:88 0:52:48 be as helpful as possible for creatives to actually get hired. That's my passion project. That's where like I want to get creatives together. I want I want everyone who joins that program to genuinely succeed more than myself. So I do as much as I can. I pay great educators to come in and educate. Um, and I just wanted to deliver like the highest tier of education in there. Um, so we have that kind of subscription based platform um, which we're constantly reinvesting in. And then we have our new company which we're about to launch which is an official marketplace where creatives can actually get hired, find full-time work, and also do marketplace work. If you want, if you're a freelancer and you want to get a gig for like anywhere between $500 to 10K, you can find it all on the

Play from 0:53:33 8:88:88 0:53:33 platform. Um, so that's our like mission now is to physically put people into jobs and and be that matchmaker for people. So we're building a platform to facilitate that.

Play from 0:53:45 8:88:88 0:53:45 Perfect perfect match in the marketplace too. I feel like there hasn't been something that really has focused on that. Obviously Upwork's done some things, but like you know that's still that's still not niche. Like dude, you've been good at finding niches, man. Like it's a really good another one that's a

Play from 0:53:59 8:88:88 0:53:59 that's impressive. But like does it how does your like from a business ownership standpoint now communitywise if anyone's not familiar with community I'm sure Ror can also speak more clearly to this than I can but you know a lot of it is monthly based so you're having to you know again just acquire people there's retention there's churn there's things like that it's a whole different marketing sort of mix than getting brand partnerships um you know from that standpoint I I'm sure you've you've sort of like had to learn a lot of stuff I'm sure a lot more marketing than you ever expected that goes into that and a lot more like avenues into terms of like keeping that thing moving, right? Like it feels

Play from 0:54:36 8:88:88 0:54:36 feels like a whole another beast. Well, I I'll put it into perspective for you. We spend roughly around 40,000 a month on ads on Meta right now for our uh education platform alone. And we are not growing in members. We're actually going backwards in members. So that's what we have to pay in order to just like sustain a similar level of members. Um, so I just want to prove that like this is a very tough game like the the monthly subscription model because the churn rate is extremely high. Um, and you know a lot of people um join and and want to to have a Ferrari in the first 5 minutes of joining and I and I get that.

Play from 0:55:20 8:88:88 0:55:20 Me too. I would also want that return on my investment, you know, within 5 minutes. But the reality is and and we say this is it's not a get-richquick scheme. We will teach you all the foundations about actually the tools is like the least important part of this. The most important part that everyone seems to overlook is actually like how the f do you make money with this? How do you actually like deal with clients? How do you build a portfolio? How do you get found? How do you, you know, um, you know, what contract do I write? Like all of this stuff. We provide you with templates for literally everything so that you can go from being a nobody to somebody who makes their first dollar with AI. Um, and that's what we focus on. I don't just want to teach you tools cuz that's easy. Everyone can do that. I care about like, you know, what can I do

Play from 0:56:06 8:88:88 0:56:06 that's going to make you more employable and get you that like pay rise or that jump at your company or get you into a new company that you that you really want to work at.

0:56:10Why $40K a month in Meta ads is not enough

Play from 0:56:16 8:88:88 0:56:16 See, it's it's the underlying factors that they'll really get. You know, this is and again this is also something that as a freelance creative like I wish I had just to like to know that like yeah I can make the creative I don't necessarily need to be taught that to know how to get clients like that was you know how do I market to get myself clients to then charge the right thing to then also you know how do I upsell how do I do this other stuff to like continuously grow a business and then it's tough that that's what people don't teach cuz it's

Play from 0:56:46 8:88:88 0:56:46 these are good things to learn too maybe while you also already have another job. So that the ramp when you do go out on your own [clears throat] is a little bit less steep. You know, I experienced that firsthand. I I went out and then I knew nothing about the business. I had never done my own thing, right? So then you got to think about, okay, who's going to process payments? How do I do invoices? How do I create a proposal? How do I create an MSA agreement? How do, you know, like how do I deal with legal complications? you know, like and then you know, these are all the things that go beyond just you doing

0:57:12The business skills AI creatives overlook

Play from 0:57:19 8:88:88 0:57:19 Mhm. it's the starting to find business all the way through closing business to then execution and then getting new business and all the things in between the admin stuff. It's it's sometimes the non-sexy stuff, right? So, I think that's really cool. I also really like the fact that you're thinking so much about the value that people get out of this, right? Some people say that and then you can tell that that's not in it's not embedded in what they have. But having gone through this of like putting some sort of product out there, I it was almost like a little bit of like imposttor syndrome in the sense that like I want somebody to genuinely love this otherwise I hate this, right? because I want them to feel

Play from 0:58:05 8:88:88 0:58:05 like they spent their money on the right thing, you know, and then that this gave them, you know, actual things. And so I I can really appreciate that and I'm glad that you said that. And I would also imagine when you hear that

Play from 0:58:19 8:88:88 0:58:19 reinforced that also gives you this this ongoing energy and push to keep going because when you hear people sort of echo that back to you like, "Hey dude, this like changed, you know, the trajectory for me or this did this or this did that." I mean, those are it's kind of what you do it for also, right? I mean, it's amazing

Play from 0:58:37 8:88:88 0:58:37 big time. There's like there's one, you know, uh there's a couple of stories that really stand out. Um but, you know, I I since we've started the program, you know, we we've generated nearly $2 million in revenue now for creatives who've joined. And that's in documented revenue that people are comfortable sharing, not in stuff which I think I'm hoping people, you know, we've made more for undocumented than documented. Um, and I really, you know, I I just want to, you know, really state that like getting people hired and and you know, you hear about all these massive job cuts in AI, that scares the crap out of me. I really want to like try and solve that problem. Um, and that's my mission.

Play from 0:59:17 8:88:88 0:59:17 So, like I'm just on that northstar of trying to create 100,000 jobs for creatives and and you know that is also uh a really great piece of business advice that I would love to give is um by setting yourself a north star like that like for me in the early days it was post every day for a year and that was my northstar and now like I've got this northstar that's kind of intangible but like you can measure it but it's almost a little bit intangible of just like create a 100,000 jobs for creatives and then it helps you align your decision-m as a business owner. Am I going to does this fall inside that? If yes, like go and do it. If not, it's a very easy sense cut. You know, is me going and doing consulting for 15 grand for an hour of my time actually going to

Play from 1:00:03 8:88:88 1:00:03 help me put people into jobs? No, I'm just exchanging my time for money to a business. That's not me creating jobs for for creatives out there in the wild. So I I cut all like opportunities like that and just focus on the ones that will like inspire, educate and entertain.

Play from 1:00:21 8:88:88 1:00:21 Love that. Go ahead. I was just going to say not not glazing over here just appreciating that I have been to a GenHQ event in New York. Ror wasn't even there yet. I met a few people. They were actually they were actually doing things and they were actually making money and they were very positive about their experience with you and being like, "Yeah, the platform." And then I met people that helped me out that we have like little teams now. So like and then I've then they asked me to join their little their little Instagram DM chat which you are not in and they they're talking about their stuff all the time. So it's like the community aspect works there and it is helping. So it's just like you know I know you don't get to see all of it all the time like people will tell you what they tell you but like in the background you know I got some good info that that GenHQ is is uh is helping people out by doing that.

1:00:51The 100,000-jobs North Star

Play from 1:01:07 8:88:88 1:01:07 It's not just outbound marketing, right? Like there's tangible stuff there. So you can again kudos on that stuff because I think it's awesome. Drew didn't mean to cut you off. I just wanted to like

Play from 1:01:17 8:88:88 1:01:17 inject that to say that all good, man. I I was just going to get I was going to go further into the business side too because I you know this is something that some of the listeners are wanting us to go deeper into. We're kind of touching on it, but I would love like you know anything that you can share that maybe feels more like actionable advice. somebody that is just going out on their own, thinking about it, uh maybe like 6 months in, like are there are there any, you know, tips or tricks or things that you've learned that you would, you know, you would have done differently had you done it a second time or anything like that that maybe comes to mind?

Play from 1:01:52 8:88:88 1:01:52 Yeah, definitely. Um there's a couple of things. First of all is like my general advice for a lot of people is like especially if you're a beginner in AI or maybe you've been in AI for a while. A lot of people believe that they have to learn the tools and get really comfortable in the tools to be able to service a client. Whereas I'm much more in favor of doing the hard part first. Find the bloody client first. Get the paycheck like a contract signed then figure out how the hell to do it. Right?

Play from 1:02:19 8:88:88 1:02:19 Figure it out later. Right? you. But like there's no point you wasting your time learning all these skills than hoping to get paid, you know? Do the hard part. And the hard part comes from like putting yourself out there. I'm a huge advocate for for for putting yourself out there on socials. And whether that's LinkedIn, I think LinkedIn is one of the most untapped best places in the world where you can find generative AI work, whether that's freelance or for a business. Um, I'd say like invest heavily in there. I have like a strategy that I uh give to our students that works super super well which is if you have a 9 to5 this is my playbook for you to find your first paying AI client and this is super tangible okay if you work 9 to5 you have roughly let's say you have no kids or maybe you do have kids but you've got

Play from 1:03:05 8:88:88 1:03:05 let's say 3 hours of your day that you could put towards trying to do something what I would say is is that um try to make uh two commercials a Let's say you want to get like uh AI work for doing commercials. Create two commercials a week. Um so that's like every six hours maybe you turn around a commercial. You're doing like Sea Dance Generations or whatever it may be. Um you edit it together. You post it out there publicly and you do this. You commit yourself to doing this for 3 months. Okay. What does that mean? Every week that's four weeks in a month. That's eight videos in a month that you're making. across 3 months, that's 24 videos that you're making. Those reps are super super important and you try and improve upon each video. Worst case scenario here,

1:03:29How to land your first paying AI client

Play from 1:03:51 8:88:88 1:03:51 you've made 24 ads and you've gotten better by the end of it. Right? Other thing that you should also be doing is contacting and after each of these spec work, you go and you put a company brand name at the end or at the start of the spec work or a logo, a watermark, something at the bottom right corner, right? you know, made on Invido, made on uh Magnific, made on Higsfield, right? And then you try after your three months to get in the creative partner program with that brand so that you can get a subsidized price for your credits and you have a lower barrier to entry so that moving forward you get credits uh in return, you know, for for the work that you make. um big one uh is that um and also um each time you post a commercial, you make a post on LinkedIn

Play from 1:04:37 8:88:88 1:04:37 talking about how you made the commercial. Then by the end of it, you've got 24 commercials, you got 24 video like other things, whether it's a post or a video. In 3 months, that's 48 pieces of content that you've made right there about, you know, you progressing and and tracking your work over a two-month period like or 3 month period, sorry. Um, so I think a lot of the worst case scenarios is like you put yourself like you put yourself out there, maybe it doesn't work, but best case scenarios is you might get picked up into a creative partner program. You also improve your skills and by the end of it, I'm hoping by posting 24 videos, someone will reach out to you and say, "Hey, please can you do this for my business?" And that's what how like you will get your start in Genai.

Play from 1:05:23 8:88:88 1:05:23 That pretty solid strategy, I'd say. I'd say that's a good one. That's that sounds like you know sound advice. Anyone who's not doing that and you are trying to get work I

Play from 1:05:34 8:88:88 1:05:34 you're going to get something from that whether it's the brand the a you know even from an agency that might see that that's looking for people to help or someone like you who's looking for help on your crazy. there's nothing you can't really go wrong unless you don't want to get like you know trashed by people online which comes with the job description like it's going to happen right and I think you the other thing is that like again people are shooting for these these larger brands right is like a living testament to you know working with a lot of these bigger brands I'm curious what you know now that you've gotten there and that you've you've worked with a lot of your north stars or you're sort of like you put these brands on a pedestal what's the so what do you what do you finding when you're in there.

Play from 1:06:15 8:88:88 1:06:15 A lot of them, like all of these companies, they don't even know how their own AI works. Like it's so crazy. [laughter] You speak with them and they're like, they're like, "Make a video about this thing." And you're like, "What? What?" Like, "Do you not know like what you want me to make a video about?" And they're like, "No, just make a video about like Gemini." And I'm like, "What?" And I'm like, "About what though?" Like, and they're like, "Just figure it out, you know, like Gemini." And I'm like, "Okay." So these guys have no idea what they're actually like the brief is they're presenting. They just want something that's going to resonate with audiences.

Play from 1:06:45 8:88:88 1:06:45 So in order to learn that, you got to get your stuff out there, get that feedback, and then just keep doing that loop. So that's one thing that I've learned from from a lot of these brands. The other thing is they've always got more money than they let out. They always say that they haven't got budget. They always have [ __ ] budget. They've always got money. They've always got like spend to to put behind it. Um, and we got loads of negotiation strategies that we could share about like upping your rates as a as a creative. Um, but uh, yeah, you know, they've always got more money.

Play from 1:07:14 8:88:88 1:07:14 It it's it's really interesting of like you see a lot of these out, you know, a lot of these companies that are outwardly saying like we have this whole AI policy and we're optimized internally and then you get in there and you're like, [snorts]

Play from 1:07:27 8:88:88 1:07:27 uh, what are you [laughter] are like, uh, what's going on here? We're not we're not even close to that. Like this is and like you talk to people and they're like, "Yeah, we don't use any of that stuff."

Play from 1:07:38 8:88:88 1:07:38 Okay. And it feels like it's it's sort of like I'm not not trying to be hot take Rory here, but it feels like a lot of, you know, sort of corporate posturing from, you know, an upper level where it's like, yes, we're doing this cuz it feels like 6 months ago it was very like we don't touch anything AI. Now it's like we're fully optimized with AI. Everyone's using it. Our whole company is optimized. We're doing, you know, we're on the right path. But it just feels like that's just what you when CEOs get together or seues get together, they have to sort of like one up each other and make sure that you know they're doing better than the other. And it feels like that sort of just like then trickles down. Um I don't even know what I'm trying to say cuz I'm I'm sleep deprived. But

1:07:51What major AI brands actually want

Play from 1:08:16 8:88:88 1:08:16 well, you know, the brands thing though was interesting. I I mean like cuz cuz you're right. I'm like over here laughing because it's true. Like some of these brands don't really have you you would think maybe when you go in there they've really got this this really tailored strategy by now they've probably run a thousand reps. They know exactly what they're going to direct you with. And then sometimes it's just like hey like we brought you in I think we're going to let you kind of figure that out and they they're not even maybe masters of their own domain and the technology within that. And then I've also seen the flip side of that where it's like you might have like I've talked to somebody in one of these I can't name names but it's like they're o they're only just surrounded by their particular product.

Play from 1:09:02 8:88:88 1:09:02 So they have no idea what this product and this product does because like it kind of goes back to that inhouse blind spot that you have because it's like you you're so tied up in meetings responsibilities this that and the other. you don't have time to go into the broader space and play around with, you know, different ideas, different perspective, different tools, right? And so like the tools aren't the advantage, but there is an advantage of kind of knowing what tool is great at this or how certain one ones work, but the tools are going to come and go. So, it's like the underlying ideas behind them at the same time. But the brand stuff is interesting because I I think that's a major that's a major point. And then you you also brought up this idea of like putting in the reps like if you were to

Play from 1:09:48 8:88:88 1:09:48 post and create things that you actually want to do, do those things, right? So you brought up the film like the commercial thing. If it's like building out a brand image library for a brand, like do that because when people see that, that's what they're going to associate you with. So, just think about like that end result first, even if it feels a little bit weird and you're not qualified because to your point, you'd rather go ahead and secure the client and then figure out some parts later. There have been plenty of instances for me personally, Rory, maybe for you too, where I've taken roles and I'm like, I know how to do this part of it, but I have not done this part before. And this is something totally new. But that's also kind of great where AI comes in because AI is great for

Play from 1:10:34 8:88:88 1:10:34 troubleshooting. It's great for being a thought partner, right? So you're like, if you've got a enough context around the problem that you're trying to work on, it can kind of pingpong enough ideas where, oh, okay, like of course, like I'm going to do it this way. This is how I'm going to proceed. And you figure those things out.

Play from 1:10:49 8:88:88 1:10:49 One thing I wanted to dovetail on on the commercial thing. Now, also, Ror, this is a from a great strategy standpoint, right? Cuz I saw you do this and it was very similar to something I did. is like if anyone is really trying to get work and you want work and you don't necessarily I don't want to say you don't necessarily care about who you work with but like if you're doing something like Nike or you're doing something like you know

Play from 1:11:12 8:88:88 1:11:12 these bigger brands everyone's doing it like I saw you do uh like a product explosion for Dyson like that's perfect like no one was doing vacuums right think about all the consumer tech think about all these other products that are out there that all it takes is one person seeing it from that company and being like oh finally someone's doing with us. That's who I'm looking for, right? Cuz Nike

Play from 1:11:33 8:88:88 1:11:33 a billion, right? There's a billion of them. Like, everyone's doing certain products. They're not doing a blender,

Play from 1:11:39 8:88:88 1:11:39 right? Like no one's doing content about a blender, right? Like that's that's how I think. Or remember you were doing the fishing stuff. You remember that? Like the fishing stuff.

Play from 1:11:46 8:88:88 1:11:46 Did the fishing stuff, got clients out of that. Did robot vacuum one time, got good clients out of that. Like it's all just like in the different industries that maybe don't just get like fashion is you can do fashion if you like fashion. There's you know there's a million people doing fashion, right? It's like how do I market path water? No, I don't see anyone doing bottled water advertisements, right? And and that's probably if you're thinking about one of the most

Play from 1:12:13 8:88:88 1:12:13 intense examples of marketing, it's bottled water. Everyone sells the exact same thing. It's just like how do you make it cooler or better or positioned for someone? Like it the best example of what marketing is, right?

Play from 1:12:26 8:88:88 1:12:26 Yeah. I think like Gary Vee, uh for those of you who know like Gary Vaynerchuk, he um he has this model called Jab Jab Hook or something along those lines, which is basically the the principle is is that you you post a video about Smart Water or whatever the product is. You post about it. You jab, jab, you post about it at least like two or three times and then you post about it on the fourth time, right? And you you make a spec piece of work for this brand four times. On the fourth time, you reach out only on the fourth time, not after the first time or the second or the third, the fourth. Um, and you reach out and you say, "Hey, I'm like obsessed with your brand. I love everything about it. Like I've made these pieces of work, you know, and you find someone on LinkedIn who works at that company either in marketing or a decision maker and you send it over to

1:12:30Why boring products can win spec-work clients

Play from 1:13:12 8:88:88 1:13:12 them. start a conversation internally and maybe you can you know uh you know start some kind of conversation with the brand. Um and the other thing that I wanted to touch on is um you know Drew when you were talking it's like the idea of truly nobody even at the highest level in this space nobody knows what they're doing. The moral of the story is is that no one knows what they're doing and the only way you can fail the only way you can fail is by not trying. That is the only way in this industry you can fail because anything is now possible thanks to AI and it opens the doors to so many opportunities. The only thing the only way you can fail is by not giving it a go.

Play from 1:13:52 8:88:88 1:13:52 The perfect I mean a perfect way to put it because there is no playbook. None of it's been written. There's no template for most of this stuff like especially anything that's new,

Play from 1:14:01 8:88:88 1:14:01 right? It's like so the first time it's existed in history and we're just trying to navigate it and so is everybody else, right? So,

Play from 1:14:08 8:88:88 1:14:08 it's a one one little other thing. If you're going to do that too with a brand, go and connect with the employees of that brand on LinkedIn before you start creating the videos.

1:14:09The four-post strategy for winning brands

Play from 1:14:18 8:88:88 1:14:18 Yes. Yes. Yes. Chances are maybe one of them sees it, then it gets passed around in a Slack channel like so that way like you're also maybe applying for the side of maybe it's discovered before I even have to reach out too, right?

Play from 1:14:32 8:88:88 1:14:32 Yeah. It's intentional. That's good. Go search the job listings too if anyone's hiring gen, you know, generative AI creators, things like that. Like there's brands up there on LinkedIn that have it. It's very explicit what they're looking for and then you can go demonstrate it and there's content and it's like I've done this already

Play from 1:14:48 8:88:88 1:14:48 instead of just a resume, right? Like there there's a lot of ways to go about it. I mean, we used to do that stuff for email market, you know, email marketing clients. We go look who is hiring email marketing like uh you know teams or people for their team. I just go in there and be like all right let's send a call to reach out. They're obviously looking for one. So we used to use the mind job posting man.

Play from 1:15:10 8:88:88 1:15:10 I mean there's a lot of ways to get to get there. Uh it it's sort of like the drive. But there is a post I wanted to ask you about cuz I think this is a very unique take was the you you talked about how again this dovetales onto that creative strategy like brands embracing people using their stuff or or just embracing like using fan art essentially because I think it's unique as brands try to protect their IP so much but this is as big of a free marketing and I think this probably polarizing to some people.

Play from 1:15:39 8:88:88 1:15:39 Yes. Um, so yeah, this is a really huge topic and this is like for people who've made it to the end of the podcast, I think this is actually like an absolute golden nugget that I would love for people to run with because I don't have the time to do this business idea, but I think this is genuinely a huge huge business opportunity and I can guarantee that this is where content will go. Can guarantee it. Um, so look at what happened with the World Cup, right? The World Cup this year was so big and AI played a massive role of that on social media. Billions and billions of views that were generated through fanmade content, you know, not made by the organization, fan-made content, total free marketing, billions of views, unprecedented. Okay. Now, picture this

Play from 1:16:26 8:88:88 1:16:26 spread across different events. you know, you've got the release of major movies, you know, all the major movies that you can think of that have come out this year more recently. You know, think of what AI could do to build fandom for those things. You know, you've seen AI be used in things like Game of Thrones and other big uh TV series like on social media where people are doing parodies and things like that. It is the most powerful tool for fandom in the world. And I actually pitched this idea to to Vans a while ago um a couple of years ago about having your own audience like your own fans of the brand and the product be the ones designing the product in the same way that you can design custom Vans by going on their website clicking the color and the laces you want and the shape of the shoe, all

Play from 1:17:12 8:88:88 1:17:12 these things. Let let your audience use generative AI to design a product so they feel like they're a part of it. then give them royalties in said product to then scale your brand. You then are no longer doing the marketing yourself. You've got people doing the work for you and they get a cut of the commission. So this is a way that you can bring and build an audience around your product that doesn't require you to constantly be there. And then also for the World Cup or any like major event, sporting event, marketing event, whatever it may be, the MetGala, Oscars, whatever it is, like if we get to a point where maybe there's like a group of clippers, like we talk about the clipping community on so on on social media through, you know, clipping podcasts or clipping live streaming moments. Um, this is a huge

1:17:47AI fan content as a new growth engine

Play from 1:17:58 8:88:88 1:17:58 industry already and the the live streaming culture is typically like the scape culture of fashion. They're ahead of of of the rest of the industry, right? Um, and so look at what what's going on there. You've got kids clipping videos from live streamers, posting them on social media, and these creators are paying these kids thousands of dollars to clip their content and distribute it publicly on socials because it drives eyeballs. It brings eyeballs onto their personal brand, their like uh whatever it is that they're building. and then it drives traffic to their um their products, their audience, their it builds their profile online. And when Sora 2 released, this was already happening. Jake Paul was one of the obviously an investor in OpenAI was one of the first faces to be publicly

Play from 1:18:44 8:88:88 1:18:44 licensed on Sora when you signed up to the platform. He said that he got 2 billion views in a week of his face out there publicly. Then he went and did a boxing fight, drove more sales to his boxing fight. Think about how you can use AI with your audiences to leverage more engagement. Build like fandom, build like let them run with it. Don't be like, "Hey, they're using my face and my idea." Encourage it. Encourage them to use AI to build your IP and your likeness and your brand. Like, that should be welcomed and encouraged because it's only bringing in more audiences. In the same way that people clip Mr. Beast videos and post it online, Mr. the beast is like, I don't care if people do that. I don't care about the revenue that they're making from from doing that. All they're doing

Play from 1:19:31 8:88:88 1:19:31 is putting more eyeballs on my face and building my brand even bigger. The same should be applied to marketing and business. So, I think that there is a huge connection to be made there um by like either having a company that does like makes fandom for specific events or something along those lines. There's got to be something there. God, has any brand embraced that yet that you know of? I I just I haven't I can't name There's I've seen like halfass attempts and I haven't seen like anything like really

Play from 1:19:59 8:88:88 1:19:59 jeez. I mean, yeah, I agree though. That's like that that feels like a natural evolution and I'm just surprised that that's not really no one's leveraged that yet on the on the brand side.

Play from 1:20:12 8:88:88 1:20:12 I think it's I think it's just a boomer like a older generation that's used to like brand is risk legal teams. I think the smaller you get, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if someone like Liquid Death does this, right? It's like those type of brands that will embrace and do something. They already did an AI spot, right? Like it's the brands that don't really have to worry about their legal team like just like we'll put stuff out there, see if it works, comes back. Like that's that's marketing, you know? Again, it gets into the conversation of marketing verse brand, which again or performance verse brand.

Play from 1:20:45 8:88:88 1:20:45 We always go that, you know, there's a lot of different rabbit holes to go down with that. I think the younger this gets as soon as like the younger the brand gets the younger the you know the CEOs or the seauite or the decision makers start to be the more risk you know tolerable will get I just think everyone's sort of I think there's also this I haven't talked about this a lot I think there's this sort of like ride the wave mentality or or like ride out into the sunset for a lot of you know executive teams right now that I've kind of gotten like this vibe from where it's just like I only have a couple years left like I kind of don't want to be like this is what I don't want to be remembered for. This is like I don't want to be at the forefront of this. So

Play from 1:21:24 8:88:88 1:21:24 there's a lot of factors that are going on, but I think it's a that's a very nuanced take, dude. Like if I really I really appreciate that level.

Play from 1:21:30 8:88:88 1:21:30 And if you waited till the end of the podcast for that, you definitely got a nice little nugget there. We we always bring it on the second half of the podcast. If you know, you [laughter] know. I mean, you already But um yeah, let's wrap this up. We know Ror's got to go. Rory, you got a quick shout out for anybody today to like subscribe? I mean, we we kind of alienated part of the part of the opportunity there earlier.

Play from 1:21:50 8:88:88 1:21:50 You're the the your buy your buying agent, not your real estate agent. Maybe your buying agent, maybe your listing agent, maybe anyone who's trying to sell a home. That's who you got to talk.

Play from 1:21:58 8:88:88 1:21:58 I was going to say camp counselors. Camp counselor is a good one. Yes. You know, very relevant for Roric here. So, I I don't know. Yeah, camp counselors, you know, we can go.

Play from 1:22:08 8:88:88 1:22:08 Camp counselor is good. Yeah. If anyone's not familiar again, all you've listened, you made it through an hour and a half. You just got to do one thing. Like, maybe subscribe, maybe tell somebody, but tell somebody. It has to be has to be a camp counselor. That's the way this goes. [laughter]

Play from 1:22:21 8:88:88 1:22:21 Do it. Bye. Let's do it. You know, work. Awesome episode, man. Yeah, man. Thank you. Thanks for having me, guys. Thanks for coming on.

Play from 1:22:27 8:88:88 1:22:27 We should do it again. We will. When we have more time, we'll get into some more nitty-gritty stuff, but appreciate it, dude. Appreciate it, guys. Thank you so much. All right, guys. See you guys in the next one.

Play from 1:22:37 8:88:88 1:22:37 See you.