I finally hit 100 subscribers on my YouTube channel today. I thought I’d self-congratulate ahem* document this milestone and the things learned along the way. Hopefully one of many to come.

First – I know 100 is a laughable number. But maybe some of these reflections are useful for people sitting on the fence who’ve always wanted to give YouTube a go.

Why YouTube?

I’ve often heard that YouTube is great for agency owners and freelancers. The quality of the leads that come from there is pretty good since they come in a bit warmer than other channels from seeing your face and voice.

So around 2025, I started pushing the channel. I called it Ben @ Hungry Bear inspired by Brett @ Designjoy¹ but still kept the handle @hungrybeardigital in case I ever want to sell the agency somehow. I made it this way following my previous conclusion to make products the focus of your personal brand, not your following.

At the beginning, learning YouTube has been more about the process of video creation than the algorithms itself.

I found it really tough to begin honestly.

Not because YouTube itself is a difficult platform (it’s actually amazing you can just post and get views for doing no promotion) but because of the process.

At first I was using Canva as a video editor, which as you might expect is just a pain in the neck. I’d have issues with the audio going out of sync, it wouldn’t save properly, all that kind of crap. Editing one video was taking me 3 to 4 hours!

On top of that I spent another hour or two just agonising over thumbnails. AI-generated ones felt over-processed. Traditional ones felt wrong for me. The whole thumbnail thing was creating so much friction that I’d just… not make the video. I probably raged message dumped 2 youtuber friends on at least 2 separate occasions about this.

But over time, I’ve ended up going plain as day. And that was the unlock.

Getting over being on camera

For the first 5 or 6 videos, I felt pretty self-conscious.

But I noticed after awhile, it just kind of stopped being a big deal. barely think about it now for shorts or sitting at my laptop doing Loom style videos. The Loom style format helped a lot, too. Since your face is small and in the corner, it is mentally lot easier to process.

Funnily enough I noticed the same pattern back when I started podcasting. The first 3 to 5 episodes I was pretty nervous having people listen to my voice that closely. After those first few, it was totally fine.

Cleaning up cringe videos

I also made some genuinely bad videos early on. I had a bunch about Twitter ads because I thought was going to be a new frontier. It wasn’t.

In total I’ve delisted 14 embarrassingly bad videos over time and my views barely moved.

So if you’re worried about looking back on your work later and cringing, this may be the solution.

Fixing thumbnails

I came across a video by Jimmy Marshall that mentioned that a mismatch between thumbnail quality and video quality can hurt watch² time.

So based on that, I just gave up and I don’t even bother trying to make one.

My thumbnails are basically the automated screenshots of the video itself, so at least they’re consistent. CTR is okay:

Editing with Descript instead of Canva

Ultimately the biggest unlock was changing away from Canva editing, too. My mate Jake suggested I use Descript and that cut my editing time down to about 30 minutes now.

Overall the process of writing the script is 30 to 60 minutes, recording is probably 30, editing 30 minutes to an hour. So all up maybe one and a half to two hours per video.

Content strategy

My original strategy was pretty basic. Just make Q&A style videos based on stuff clients were asking me. I thought I’d send them to prospects, answer their questions, and build a bit of authority. Truthfully I almost never actually sent a single video to a client.

Then I was talking to Zohair Khan and he put me onto a YouTube teacher on YouTube strategy called Ayman Arab, who has a video where he explains his methodology for YouTube content – specifically for agencies.

He basically breaks it up into three types:

1. General Q&A
2. Your unique perspective on things, trying to change people’s minds on certain topics
3. Case studies and testimonials

So I switched all my content to that format. What was cool was it made it really easy to know what to make. I was able to fill that middle layer, the unique perspectives with Loom style videos pretty easily.

I also started doing shorts.

My plan was a bit of a build-in-public angle alongside the Q&A to scratch that public personal itch. I didn’t follow through and kept doing Q&A, though.

For shorts, I don’t think any of them got proper engagement in terms of comments, likes, etc and I’ve done about 9 so far.

But they’re quick to edit. So I’ve found I can batch 2 or 3 in one sitting. My gut says there’s probably an opportunity here I’m not properly using yet.

As an side, one of my simpler how-to videos, literally 60 seconds on how to download leads from Facebook, got 22,000 views because people were searching for it. Hasn’t lead to a single inbound inquiry.

Business results

Overall, my 32 videos over 18 months have resulted in:

• 10~ content signups (First on Gumroad, then on GHL)
• 2-3 inbound email enquiries
• 1 podcast invitation (published here)
• 2 booked calls, 1 showed up
• 1 client
• New friends

A big stuff up I made was not properly fleshing out the funnel for my content offers. First it was on Gumroad while I tried running things completely on social platforms, which isn’t great for nurturing into booked calls, and then later on GoHighlevel but I haven’t yet fully setup the thank you page to convert properly.

What is cool though is that 2 leads booked. 1 showed up. They’d watched my content before getting on the call and liked that I didn’t dress things up or have a lot of pizzazz, that my content was to the point and the ideas made sense. They were pretty ready to go by the time we spoke.

One data point to support the YouTube leads come in much warmer, not enough of sample to draw conclusions from, but it’s something.

What’s next?

From here, growing the channel seems to come down to general character bandwidth at this point: how disciplined I am with my time. It’s pretty clear what to do and how.

Some action points to update on:

• Finish building the funnels properly. The thank you page should offer to help people implement the lead magnet advice instead of just remind them the content came by email.
• Actually invest in getting testimonial videos done. That’s the third pillar of the Ayman Arab framework and I haven’t properly executed it.
• Get more consistent. Maybe bed down a 1x a week recording rhythm.
• Work out what to do with shorts. Keep doing them? Change purpose/strategy?

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I hope the summary was interesting.

If you’re sitting on the fence about starting a YouTube channel because you’re uncomfortable on camera, my #1 recommendation is to just focus on pushing through the first 5 videos.

Then it pretty much doesn’t bother you anymore.

1. Brett’s a solopreneur design agency owner but still leads with his personal name over the brand ↩︎
2. I can’t find the video, will add the link later. ↩︎

Something I’ve noticed in myself and some friends: sometimes we have these clear goals and objectives, but we don’t always follow them through. And it’s not necessarily because of a bad strategy, it’s because we keep changing the plan.

For example, I’ve often overengineered my approach to learning the Thai language with learning the writing system first, special tutoring setups and other ‘hacks’ as a way to try better at the language faster and with less effort.

But when I look back later, I realise it almost always probably would’ve been better if I’d just done things the usual, simple way. With a textbook.

My mate Jordan and I call this “doing the dum dum” – where you do the bird-brain common approach first, without overcomplicating it. And for 80–90% of the time, it seems more effective than trying to do anything clever or tricky.

And I see it everywhere.

My mate Chad got fluent enough in massively difficult languages like Arabic and Korean to interpret professionally, purely on the usual classes and textbooks – zero innovations. My mate Ollie keeps telling me to just buy the S&P 500 and chill. Another mate Jordan is growing his agency quickly with the standard agency playbook I avoided for years.

A boring approach often beats a clever one.

But for a long time I didn’t fully register that I was stuck in this overengineering habit loop until I read the book Smart but Scattered.

You can narrow the whole thing down to the idea that a lot of people have underdeveloped executive skills that quietly hold them back from achieving the things they actually want.

They list 12 executive skills in the book, including:

• Task initiation
• Organisation
• Sustained focus
• Goal persistence
• Emotional control
• Flexibility
• Time management
• etc

There’s a free diagnostic in the book (available here too), which highlighted that I have a fair few of these that are underdeveloped myself.

This is new for me because typically when I feel resistance on a project, my instinct has often been to reconsider the how.

And it made me realise that this is where I need to be spending my time for most projects.If the plan is initially sound – e.g. well established as effective then most of the effort should actually go into improving the follow-through. And follow-through comes down to improving and developing these executive skills.

So TLDR: change the plan, or change the planner? Most of the time, it’s the planner that needs work.

Where I’m trying this

One executive skill I’m looking to get better at is sustained attention. The suggested fixes are pretty well understood. Break the tasks down, make them as simple and easy as possible, take frequent breaks, etc. All the stuff we already know to do.

The other one I need to work on is goal persistence. The fix there is simple: write down and keep conscious of the projects I’m actually working on.

But the main takeaway for me has been the same. Check the gut instinct to redo the plan, and consider whether it’s an executive skill bottleneck rather than a strategic one.

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Does this perspective resonate with anyone else?

Since December 2020 I’ve been learning the Thai language. While I’m no where near proficient yet, I’m at the point where I can have some conversations beyond ordering food at restaurants with people who don’t speak English.

If we assume Thai is similarly difficult to English, then this Preply diagram based on the EU language levels suggests perhaps I’m at A2, though I manage to stretch the limited vocab I have to around B1:

Anyway, I’m writing this before I get too deep in my journey and let another 5 years pass without reflection. I want to do a quick recap of my journey so far in case anyone wanted some ideas on how to go about learning Thai themselves.

Here’s my learning journey recap:

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1. Motivations

Everyone has their reasons. These are mine:

• Survival. Accidents and fights happen (verbal). I’d like to know enough Thai to be able to handle myself when things go wrong, without someone needing someone to speak on my behalf. Also helps that you can’t get tricked so easily if you know what people are talking about.
• Making friends. Learning Thai would help with making Thai friends.
• Competition. An odd one but motivating. In 2017 when I got to Korea, many of my close friends started learning with me around the same level. 4 of them, out of the group of 5 including me, reached TOPIK6 level in Korean, the highest. 2 of them even ended up on TV. Somehow, I didn’t want this to happen to me again in Thailand with the Thai language.
• The anti-goal of not becoming a frustrated, angry old farang. I’ve always had this in my mind to NOT become some kind of creepy uncle that scares kids at weddings, stuck in an unintegrated, low-achievement farang bubble. Withering away in a Pattaya go-go bar…

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2. Timeline

Here’s a recap timeline of how my learning journey went.

2020

• Started learning the language from knowing nothing about it.
• Bought a starter pack from Tutoroo (link). The learning was super inefficient and ineffective but let’s count it anyway. I paid 750 THB per 1.5 hours lesson, 2 lessons upfront. Renewed maybe 2-3 times? So I guess that’s 9 hours.

2021-2022

• Basically gave up on Thai for the most of 2021.
• But in December 2021 I enrolled with Rapid Learn Thai online (link), buying 2 rounds of 10k THB at 500 THB a lesson. 40 hours.

2023

• Felt a renewed focus on learning Thai.

• Did 200 days of daily study, before breakfast while exercising. Probably the minimum effort on Memrise which I think is 15 minutes. 200 x 15 minutes / 60 = 50 hours.
• At some point, I was reviewing vocab on the train on the way to work. I’m guessing I did this for about 3 months, each workday. 20 work days a month x 3 months x 10 minutes = 10 hours.

2024

• Made a routine to study about 30 mins every morning with breakfast, each work day. I assume I missed about 1 day per week by being sloppy. 12 weeks x 4 days x 0.5 hours = 24 hours.
• Spent 6,745 THB for 20 lessons, 1 hr each. 20 hours.
  • I assume I spent at least 30 minutes study per hour with the tutor. Yes I’m a lazy student. 10 hours.
• ⭐ This is when my Thai really improved. I changed my technique to just speaking with my tutor for 1 hour about anything, using English only for words or expressions I didn’t know. Any words I didn’t know were written down for study later.

2025

• Bought a book, Complete Thai Beginner to Intermediate Course (link). Bought to see if it can fill in the gaps of my learning to date. But unsure if this will work yet.
• 4 dedicated study sessions in Jan/Feb (ugh, too few). Approx 30 minutes study time. 2 hours.
• Not yet in the habit of studying vocab on the way to work again, but probably done this 2x at 10 minutes each. 20 minutes.

Total stud time: approximately 165.3 hours.*

*Obviously doesn’t include passive time spent listing to Thai being spoken around me while being in Thailand.

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3. Learnings

In the early stages, a structured introduction class would have been a more efficient way to learn the base layer of the language.

From the start I knew I couldn’t commit to a class based on my experiences learning Mandarin and Korean. My location and schedule often changes and unfortunately I tend to get sick often and easily. So studying only with tutors was my way to make learning flexible.

Sadly, this turned out to be one of the major things that made my learning time less efficient. Many tutors lacked a robust beginner learning process which would have been super helpful to get started. We’d cover a few key phrases but it didn’t feel like it went smoothly or properly built upon each other. It was more like going through a Lonely Planet guide of key phrases.

While I got through the total beginners stage eventually, it could have been faster. I still couldn’t have done it via a class, but maybe you can.

Learning reading early is a strong learning multiplier. But it’s just a multiplier, not a replacement for learning vocabulary and grammar.

In my early lessons with my tutor, I really felt like I wanted to learn more reading and writing as went.

I was worried I’d make the same mistake as I did with Mandarin, where I was guided to learn speaking and listening first – and would eventually come around to reading and writing later. That was a big mistake because while I could speak and understand (to approximately HSK 1.5 level), it was less useful because I couldn’t read basic signs in the Subway, restaurants or other places in daily life. Which sucked.

Having known that, I saw Rapid Learn Thai recommended in some Facebook group as a way to learn reading and writing first so I enrolled.

Gary Orman, the creator of the Rapid Method, makes several good arguments for learning reading first, too:

1. You can understand tones, so you speak more properly
2. You can read common words and naturally acquire more vocabulary

Looking back, I’ve found these 3 points (include mine above about reading in daily life) to be true in real life. Learning to read does make your pronunciation better because you’re reading the tones correctly. And reading helps you pick up words you see around the place, like หยุด! (Stop!).

One key problem I noticed though was that even though I was studying reading and speaking with the tones, I didn’t really know… anything? I couldn’t make sentences and I didn’t know common words. This actually got me into trouble once (ask me privately if you want to know how).

That’s when I realized that learning to read and pronounce Thai was just a speed multiplier for other learning. A nuance that I didn’t think of before I started.

Don’t forget energy management. Learning when I was tired probably reduced my efficiency 85%.

This was a big one. Because I could schedule tutors whenever I wanted, I often took lessons between things at work or after it. The problem was, I was usually completely toasted by the time I took the lesson.

It felt like nothing stuck and I couldn’t wait for the lessons to be over. I liked all my tutors, so it wasn’t their fault, I was just a crap, demotivated student.

It would have been better to schedule lessons only when I was feeling fresh at the beginning of the day. Sadly that hasn’t been practical for me, but it may be for you!

My number 1 study tip is to develop and refine a study habit.

Wrapping this up, my final lesson would be that the most important thing I did to improve my Thai was to develop refine a study habit.

First I thought of all the moments of the day where I could tack on some Thai study. Then I tested different methods to see what I could stick to. Over time, I’d try adapt my routine so that I did that every day, work or no work. This was how I got in two massive chunks of consistent study of 40 and 24 hours respectively.

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Interesting resources:

• Language Lords on YouTube (Link). This dude is a machine at learning languages and has some really interesting, and motivating, techniques. Check him out.
• Journey: The Language Learner’s Ultimate Guide to Maintaining Motivation by Erin N. O’Reilly (Link). I talked to Erin once for a strategic language learning consultation and she really, really knows her stuff.
• Finally Learn Thai.com (link) my friend Oliver Eidel made this app for learning Thai. Give it a go.

A lot of people are jumping on the personal brand bandwagon (including me). But something that always felt a bit hollow to me was its most common approach:

Building an audience first, before having a product.

Admittedly I’ve been taken into this idea for quite a while too. I built a little Twitter following, ran a top ranked podcast, made another one that hit #9 for indie marketing podcasts, and I’ve been writing this newsletter for a while now, too.

But honest ROI across all of it: almost zip in terms of actual clients or inbound.

And the whole time it felt a bit like tapdancing for approval. The realm of performative posting, annoying platitudes, follow for follow, and other distasteful behaviour on social media.

(Jakob Greenfield point this out as part of the Bullshit Creative Industrial Complex 🤣)

I enjoy the writing, I don’t mind the work. But I don’t really like the feeling of putting yourself forward as special, or positioning yourself as a thought leader before you’ve really done much thinking worth leading on. Maybe that’s just me.

Then I came across an essay on Ryan Reynolds’s business model that described how he built a massive profile, and then pointed it like a death star at his various projects and something kind of clicked.

Ryan didn’t build a personal content brand, smashing out hit tweets or post-maxxing on Linkedin.

He made movies people liked, showed up in them, and got followed because of the work. Then appeared as himself in Aviation Gin, Mint Mobile, Maximum Effort. People followed him because they liked what he made, not because he was posting about his morning routine, and he directed that affinity to the other businesses he was working on.

A few things stand out from how he did it, and I think they’re worth noting:

• He kept his name out of the brand name. Had he called it Reynolds Gin, it’d be much harder to sell. Instead he just appeared in it. Severable asset, personal visibility. Both at once.
• The project came first, the following came second. People didn’t follow Ryan and then get interested in his projects. They found the projects and then got interested in him. His movies are part of the funnel.
• He actually showed up in the content. Seems obvious but think about it. Big name CEOs instantly get loads of followers when they join social platforms. You need to be seen in it.
• He used his profile for commentary, not as the main event. His social channels point to his work, they don’t replace it. The work lives elsewhere. Admittedly his stuff is a little dry but can’t deny it most likely words.

You see this with others too.

Rand Fishkin got known through Whiteboard Friday at Moz. Gary Vaynerchuk built his following through Wine Library TV. Peter Askew went semi-viral with “I Sell Onions on the Internet” after building Onions.com. None of them led with a personal brand, yet they made one because of their work.

What I’m doing instead

Now I’m doubling down on Hungry Bear, my social ads micro-agency, rather than anything follower focused. It has a YouTube channel, newsletter, client work. I’ll be sure to write and present as myself – a marketer who does the work – but keep the business brand rather than my name, so it’s severable if needed. A bit like Ryan’s model.

And I think it doesn’t necessarily make come across as corporate. Gil Gildner runs Discosloth and still comes across completely human. I think the person and the brand fit together pretty naturally. So if you’re worried, using a business name doesn’t put a wall between you and the reader, or at least it doesn’t have to.

The other thing I didn’t expect: it mostly removes the content overwhelm problem entirely.

I’m not managing personal “content buckets” or figuring out what niche to post in. I just make videos for the specific people I want to work with, and that’s pretty much the whole plan.

There’s something almost stupid-simple about it that I think is probably correct.

Now my actual goal right now isn’t to build an audience. It’s to build Hungry Bear into something good enough that the right people find it and care about it. If people read this, great. If they subscribe, even better. But I’m not really optimising for that.

This is technically my third attempt.

When I was a kid, I used to mess around with custom servers in Graal Online. Learned just enough scripting to spawn tanks or special weapons. Somewhere along the way, “if” and “then” logic kind of stuck in my brain. But sadly I never learned ‘to code.’

So as an adult I started basic. I watched about 4–6 videos from Network Chuck on Python. Pretty easy intro but it didn’t really stick.

2nd attempt, I downloaded a bunch of Ruby books on Kindle and I thought I’d absorb it that way because I’m more of a reader. Laughable in hindsight. That didn’t really work either. Turns out working through data types and functions completely without context is a pretty dry way to learn anything.

So what was different this time?

Well I’d had of let the whole thing go all over again – until a video popped up on YouTube called Animation vs Coding.

It showed a stick figure visually demonstrating Python code. I thought to myself, “What would I feel if I just copied everything line by line?”

So I did. And it took me like 2 hours.

Suddenly, I could just feel things… work? And it got me on a roll.

With that tiny bit of motivation I started trying to AI-code my way with and early version of Replit. Until I showed a developer friend at the office (thanks Jesse) who pointed out that because I’d leaned so hard on AI, I’d rammed everything into a single .py file 🤣. This made me realize I probably should learn more foundations before vibe coding my way into trouble.

Around that time, I got Ryan Kulp’s Ruby Foundations course on discount and started sneaking away in the mornings to learn or adding a few minutes of study time in the evenings.

At the same time, I began cementing my learning by planning hypothetical apps in ChatGPT and asking if I’m understanding how MVC and file/function and data processes work together.

Eventually, I pushed through 70% of Ryan’s course and created my first working app. Growl Copywriter!

Even if it’s a crappy product, I almost can’t believe it. I never considered myself to be the coding type – I prefer not to get into deep tedious details.

Things I noticed along the way

Overall, I noticed learning really is messy. It doesn’t happen linearly where you follow one resource from level 0 to 1. I bounced around a lot, which help kept me engaged. It felt similar to learning a language. Sometimes you just gotta throw everything at a general direction and pile up trash to build a mountain.

Apart from that – here’s some fun reading for actual programmers, I learned along the way too:

• Pseudo code is a real thing. When approaching problems, I instinctively wrote out what I wanted each piece of code to do in English, then tried to translate it into working Ruby. Apparently that’s normal.

• Coding is way more tactile than I expected. Physically typing out everything being demonstrated makes a huge difference versus just watching.

• You can’t really code without the internet. I somehow had this idea of coders writing things mostly from memory. The internet went out once while I was mid-build and I was pretty useless. My mate David said that’s normal.

• Libraries and shortcuts are cool – and apparently encouraged. I had no idea using pre-built solutions for things like authentication was so normal and even respected in dev circles. I thought programmers just wrote everything from memory. Lol.

• Test constantly in terminal, not just at the end. If you save testing for when you think you’ve finished a feature, the whole thing can be stuffed up and you won’t know where.

• Plan your file and folder architecture ahead of time. A few times I got halfway through writing something and realized I should have structured it differently. Painful to redo.

• And be careful about security flaws SQL injections, XSS attacks, authentication gaps. My mate Alex walked me through some of this. Apparently it’s a common blind spot for newbies and people leaning heavily on AI to write code.

Where to from here?

I have some hardware projects I’d like to do using MicroPy, so I’m planning to use the next build as a chance to try Python and see how it compares to Ruby.

Still promoting Growl in the meantime. Let’s see if it becomes its own thing.

What kind of marketing tactic costs nothing to do, scales and spreads itself bringing you inbound enquiries over time?

Well, that sounds like content marketing.

This was the answer to a question I asked myself, “What would be the best marketing skill of all to develop?” as a marketing freelancer (now focused on Meta Lead Advertising) looking to bring in work over time.

I had hoped this could become a new service offering that I could master for myself and my clients.

And content marketing seems relatively simple, reading the advice of high performers like Justin Welsh and Nicolas Cole (I’m a fan of both, btw). Just pump out a high volume of work, see what works, refine and repeat.

Taking Action

Following this, I made 40+ podcast episodes and 68 long-form articles over 18 months, which were promoted across Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Indiehackers, Reddit, Medium, etc.

My little podcast was listened to thousands of times and articles the same.

Sitting back, I assumed it would eventually pay off with even a trickle of emails, replies, comments etc.

The Results

But an audience didn’t materialize.

People read and listened but they didn’t respond with likes or comments.

Despite spending hours planning, writing, recording and editing pieces, they weren’t often shared beyond a few hit podcast episodes.

I think for the 1.5 years of my podcasting efforts there was single inbound enquiry.

Content Promotion

Naturally, beyond improving the content, I tried to fix this by pushing harder with promotion. I pumped my LinkedIn, Twitter feeds, Slack posts, groups, etc with shared links.

But it didn’t make a difference.

While the actual content journey itself was fun, embarrassingly, in reality very few people wanted to be part of my ‘audience’.

Thankfully but sadly, it’s not just been my experience it seems. Content overally is a tough game:

• A 2022 survey by the Content Marketing Institute itself found that “72% of marketing professionals today describe their content marketing campaigns as falling between flat-out ineffective and only mildly effective.” (Source)
• In fact, per eMarketer/Goldman Sachs in 2023, only 4% of content creators make more than 100k in revenue (Source). But to be fair, that’s a pretty high bar… 🤔

Going Beyond Transactional Content

Then my friend shared with me a point of view that taught me where I went wrong:

It is better to have 500 people who know (and like you) than 50,000 people who follow you for memes.

That was it. Content production by itself is just motion.

To be effective, content has to go beyond an information transaction and instead build that know, like and trust factor.

Content marketing in this instance is not about volume of articles or reach. It’s a digitsed networking engine.

This frame change means focusing less on output and more on creating pieces that are relevant to a target reader but also help build a strong connection to myself.

That means including myself into the work, not just pumping out anything I think could be useful.

For example:

• I created a lot of marketing interview podcast episodes with the hope that guests would share the work, too (News: They usually didn’t). I should have made solo episodes on my topic of expertise.
• I needed to focus on topics that naturally feature yours truly and my topics of expertise. Rather than publish so broadly, I.e. general marketing content.
• Lean more into connection-building formats like video over text. (Note: This is one reason I made a YouTube channel).

• Included more photo or visual representations of myself. In action 😏, potentially to connect the reader with the writer.
• Be honest with myself about when I’m publishing as a hobby (like this article) and when there is a commercial purpose to avoid wasting time.

Thinking aloud, this is probably why:

• We remember more personable, emotive writers — even if we don’t remember what we learned from them.
• Nobody honestly remembers the last PDF lead magnet they downloaded.
• I can’t name a single HubSpot blog author 😂 despite them successfully dominating half the web…

Especially now, there is so much AI-generated content that even recognizing an author can be hard.

And reading around after the fact, I find the view is well understood for podcasts, as explained by Jason Cercone.

I think content is still a powerful marketing tactic but I’ve learned that it has to be done in the right way:

Focused on connecting oneself with the reader through relevant topics with a clear personal connection.

In September 2023 I made the logo for my paid ads micro-agency Hungry Bear using AI. While I don’t really seek work as an agency and instead rely on my freelancer profile, I thought it’d be great to give my corporate brand a professional look.

Here’s how it went:

Originally, I tried to zero-shot the process with Midjourney. I found a tutorial for logos at AiTuts (link) that showed me the prompt can be as basic as using “flat vector logo” + {object} + {style}.

Here’s the prompt I ended up using:

The results were decent, but not a finished design. So I prompted and re-prompted probably 20+ times but it wasn’t usable yet.

Eventually this was the best version:

I liked the 1st one (top left) so I sent it to my designer Peter, asking him for feedback (he liked it) and to refine it.

We kept it black and white to avoid getting distracted with the colour and font choices. He cleaned it up into something like this:

Finally, we experimented with colours and fonts and got this. I’m pretty happy with it. So I rolled it out across my site and other socials.

What do you think?

Networking online doesn’t have to feel awkward or blatantly transactional.

Over the years as a freelancer I’ve used a simple 5-step process to attract client referrals, build genuine relationships and develop allies who support my goals (and vice versa).

Many are surprised to hear that as much as 50% of my client work comes from my existing network. I’m the kind of introvert who limits calls per day and leaves events an hour or so after starting. But with the right approach, I find networking can feel easy and natural.

So here’s how you can do it too.

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1. Focus on friendships, not transactions

Imagine you’re only on a mission to make more professional friends.

I think most people imagine networking means things like going to speed networking events and getting business cards from boring people with bad breath and who talk too much.

It’s not like that.

To me, it’s a game where you’re trying to connect with smart, helpful, friendly people you’d enjoy having a coffee with now and then and catch up.

That’s the target.

I’m not saying shut yourself off to age groups or people with political affiliations you don’t tend to get along with (that would be too limiting). But keeping friendships as the focus will help you enjoy it, and make the whole process natural.

Start with this.

‘Dream 100’

“Just make and maintain 2,500 contacts.”

A mentor of mine in university once taught me this as being core strategy of being a successful real estate agent for luxury and waterfront properties.

He calculated ~3% of people will move in a year and if these 2,500 people know, like and trust you, maybe 30-50% of those will ask you to sell their home. In Australia, assuming the commission to the real estate agent was $20,000 AUD, that’s $750,000 per year.

I know you’re likely not selling real estate, and don’t need that much business, but I think this strategy applies broadly.

Say you’re in a niche like as Meta ads management, too. It is true that a single digit % of people will need ads help themselves each year. And another % will know someone who does. This is the quantum of referral opportunity.

If I had to pick a number to aim for then 100 sounds like a good starting target.

2. Start with people you already know

Work with the connections you’ve already got.

It’s obviously easier to network with existing connections on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook etc even if you’ve never talked to them. You’ve probably had something in common at some point.

Yeah, that includes old school mates or former work colleagues.

You can literally open up your LinkedIn and scroll to the bottom of your contacts and start messaging or emailing people from there. Work your way up the list.

If you’re connected and actually don’t like that person just skip them.

What to message

So remember that part about making friends? How would you message someone you’re an old but not super close friend with after a long break?

This is the tone to aim for.

I usually share that I’m curious how they’re doing these days and would love to hear what they’re up to.

Depending on the warmness of their reply, you can suggest you guys catch up for a quick 15-30 minute coffee via Zoom chat to catch up properly.

Find a time, send a calendar invite, done.

What to say if you’ve never talked before

If you haven’t talked before, you’d change the message.

Give a genuine comment on something they look like they’re doing and suggest a 15 minute virtual coffee chat so that you can learn more about what they do, and potentially compare notes (if you have work in common to share intel on).

Why 15 minutes?

It’s a safe bet.

15 minutes is long enough that if you dislike each other, you don’t have to make an excuse to leave and it will be over soon. If it’s great then you’ll both leave feeling positively and that you’d like to talk again.

The first meetings are usually a little rough anyway. You’re just starting your connection.

3. Don’t waste the conversation

To open a call is easy.

Share again why you’re reaching out, which is probably that you noticed you two have something in common, or they’re up to something interesting, and that you wanted to catch up or learn more about what they’re up to now.

Most people will continue the conversation from there.

First, ask about them

Find out what they’re doing. How does that work? What do they like and not like? What projects are they dreaming of?

Firstly, this gives you an opportunity to help them if appropriate. Which in itself is good networking.

It also leads them naturally to ask your side of the story. Most socially aware people will ask about your work, goals, and challenges.

Now you can explain what you’re doing and what you’re working on.

• If they’re interested in a product or service you provide (prospective clients) they’ll ask more about it.
• If they think you can help someone (referral opportunity) they’ll ask more or ask if you can help their colleague.
• If you have a problem that they’d like to help you with, they’ll offer it.

No pitches and no begging required.

And if they don’t care about your product or service then they probably won’t ask about it at all. Don’t force the topic.

Avoid making big asks to new people

I think it goes without saying, but if you don’t really know someone yet – avoid making any big asks on the call. You haven’t developed any connection capital yet. That comes later if the business relationship develops more.

But you can still ask for very small, gentle lifts. E.g. information about something or for any introductions to people they think appropriate.

Don’t rush to help them either

Of course, you want to help the people you’re chatting with.

But if you push too hard it can come across as very forced on a new networking call. People will get that feeling you have an urge to ‘scratch their back’ just so that you can get something in return.

Be cool.

Ask first if they’re interested in your opinion about a problem or if they’re open to an introduction to someone you know before offering.

Ending a call is easy

Most calls end around the time allocated.

If they aren’t wrapping up the call by themselves, an easy conversation winding-down topic is asking them their plans for the year/quarter. You can also gently add in the conversation a reminder that you value their time, know that they have other things to do, and suggest that you two might need to let them go.

(At least, that’s what I do 😬).

Thank them for making the time and suggest you two keep in touch.

At this point, if you two get along super well then you can also suggest to catch up in say 3-6 months to hear more about {something that came up in the conversation}. That will naturally set your next conversation to deepen the relationship.

Take some notes

These can be on paper, email trial, Notion or other tools.

You need to remember what you last talked about somehow. It’s embarrassing not to know somebody has just had a kid or is suffering an unfortunate life event when you reach out time and end up looking like a total arse.

I sometimes use Notion to do a quick recap, date we caught up, when we should probably next catch up.

4. How to keep in touch without overdoing it

Most of the benefits of your network come drip by drip over time as you support and make stronger connections over time.

So you’ll need to keep in touch.

But that doesn’t always mean having another call.

Sure, if you vibe with someone, you can keep catching up on calls with them as much as you like. If they’re an older generation, you can even *gasp* call them. Unannounced! Though I suggest reaching out at least once a year to keep the connection alive.

For others, you can keep in touch in other, really low-touch ways.

You can:

• Like or share their posts on social platforms.
• Comment on their articles and videos.
• Share them awesome articles you know they’ll love (it has to be great stuff, and don’t do it more than once every now and then).
• Send an email, at least once a year. Birthdays, New Years, etc are easy occasions.
• Buy their products and send them what you think, or leave reviews.

I even ask people if they’re OK for me to add them to my email newsletter as an easy way to keep in touch and for me to share what’s going on. They’ve only said yes.

5. Expand by focusing on where you want to go

At some point, you may finish these lists and start looking for new people.

My suggestion here is to be targeted.

I’ve found it effective to network with people that I can still probably be friends with but who have a stronger, natural cross over with my work. E.g. freelancers, personal brands, agency owners, etc. People who I might want to collaborate with, or likely be able to refer business between each other.

Obviously you can also network with anyone you think you’ll get along with.

But based on this – will networking be a thing you try in 2025? Why or why not?

Hey folks.

In January 2024 to February 2024 I did 31+ days going cold-turkey on caffeine to better control my energy and improve my health, ‘no-caf.’ It was a pretty rough experiment (you’ll see why soon) so I wanted to write my notes on the experience here so the agony didn’t go to waste.

Why go no-caf?

A lot of people are interested in no-caf and I got into the idea based on watching a video by Alex Becker (link).

I thought about it and decided to try it. For the record, here’s a recap of why I wanted to go no-caf:

• Stress. It’s apparently linked to physiological and psychological stress.1 So, would you purposely drink something that makes you feel stressed?
• Uneven energy. I’d get energy crashes and shakes after drinking coffee. I wanted to have a more even distribution of energy.
• Poor sleep. It’s pretty clear that caffeine and disrupt your sleep, which is a top 3 health lever of the sleep, diet, exercise trifecta.
• Addictive.2 I like the idea of limiting myself from things that are addictive in general. Which is partly why I don’t drink alcohol. I’m obviously failing that with sugar, though.
• Dopamine adjustment. I was trying to reduce artificial highs caused by things like coffee, so that the dopamine released from doing productive things like work, which are naturally relatively lower, is instead relatively higher.
• Essentialism. A bit of a moral appeal, but my grandpapy didn’t need no coffee everyday just to do a honest day’s work. Why should I?

Quite a few reasons. Actually.

📅 Timeline

• Day 1-3. Started strong. But it was pretty clear that I was heavily addicted and came down with typical withdrawl symptoms after a single day with frequent, long headaches and dizziness. I also had the overwhelming urge to smugly bring up how I’m doing no-caf to friends…

But I also noticed some key benefits happening:

• Less shaky when hungry.
• My sleep score improved from ~82 to ~87, the highest ever according to my Fitbit.

I also talked to a mate who was quitting it too for mutual support. He sent me a Reddit thread where someone explains it took them a year to get back to normal (link). Nice.

• Day 4-30. A blur of worsening than gradually reducing headaches ❌. Working each day feels very sluggish to get into, but once I’ve started it’s easier to maintain into the early afternoon.
• Day 31+. I question whether it was really worth it. I noticed feeling like a daily injection of happiness is missing. I’m getting frustrated that my work is too slow to engage in every morning.

✅ But on the positive side:

• Headaches are gone at this point.
• Sleep improved marginally 5% on average, and stayed that way.
• Still less hunger “shakiness” come lunch time.
• Avoiding caffeine got me drinking healthier stuff instead, like a daily ginger tea.
• I felt consistent energy from the morning to early evening.
• Surprisingly, my “digestion” had totally changed, too. To 2-3x per day (is this normal?!).

For the downsides, I have been told by professionals this is temporary as I get back to homeostasis. Encouraging, almost.

Would you make the trade?

Quitting no-caf

There was a point after the 31st day I just gave up.

I needed to power through the day and my natural energy wasn’t up to the task. The first cup back was glorious, as you might expect. A higher-high than usual.

Thinking at the time – my sleep had not drastically improved to be that noticeable and the other benefits did not outweigh the benefits of that daily boost of both happiness and energy. So I swung back to caffeine again.

Reasons for caffeine

Now, I’m happy to continue with caffeine. These are the reasons:

• Motivation control. Having sustainable motivation is not as useful as having control over your motivation. Sometimes you really need to push yourself and if I rely on natural willpower alone it’s just way harder than it needs to be.
• Energy control. Similar to motivation, sometimes you feel “the mind is willing but the body is weak.” Using caffeine gives me more control over not just my willpower but my physical ability to amp up to the tasks I need done.
• Enjoyment. I think most people who drink coffee can attest to that daily spike of happiness than comes from the world’s most popular drug.

There does seem to be a lingering drawback though. I can say I still feel an elevated sense of stress and nerviness that I didn’t while off caffeine.

So that was my journey.

Has anybody else tried this?