Creator Science

Creator Science

Creating content has never been easier—but breaking through the noise has gotten harder. The only reliable way to grow as a creator is through systematic observation, experimentation, and iteration. This podcast is your weekly guide to evidence-backed strategies you can test in your own business. Each episode features candid conversations with creators like James Clear, Ali Abdaal, Tim Urban, and Codie Sanchez. We explore what's actually working for them: the experiments they're running, the data they're tracking, and the frameworks they use to grow their audience, build trust, and increase income. We dig into why it worked, how you can adapt it, and what constraints or anti-goals helped them stay focused and avoid burnout. Hosted by Signal Award-winner Jay Clouse, this is a show about the business of content—from a place of curiosity, transparency, and a commitment to sustainable growth. It's growth for creators, down to a science.

Episodes

#298: 9 Things I'm Doing Differently in My Business

March 26, 2026 • 50 mins
Nearing the end of Q1, I've been doing a lot of reflection on where the creator economy is heading, and where I want to take Creator Science. There's something interesting happening on the ground: the same energy that used to funnel beginners into content creation has largely shifted to AI and vibe coding. And honestly? I think that's a good thing. The people still showing up for this work seem to have their heads and hearts in the...
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#297: Joy Sullivan — How She Built A Living As A Writer On Instagram and Substack

March 17, 2026 • 52 mins
Joy Sullivan is a Portland-based poet who quit her corporate job mid-pandemic and built a thriving creative business through writing carousels on Instagram (115K followers), her Substack "Necessary Salt" (23K subscribers), and a 250-member paid writing community called Sustenance on Circle. She's a former Lab member, and in 2024, she published her first book, Instructions for Traveling West, with Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin R...
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#296: Meet The Man Who Solved YouTube (With Data)—Richard from 1of10

March 10, 2026 • 51 mins
Richard is the co-founder of 1of10, a research platform built by YouTube strategists, and his team has quietly been behind the scenes for some of the biggest channels on the platform—helping creators accumulate over 2 billion views through a repeatable, data-backed system. In this episode, Richard walks through his complete four-phase ideation system—audience identification, outlier research (using five distinct methods), idea rem...
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#295: Community Building Trends for 2026 with Becky Pierson Davidson

March 3, 2026 • 56 mins
I brought back Becky Pierson Davidson to compare notes on where community is headed — and we found a few areas of disagreement. Becky works with 6, 7, and 8-figure businesses helping them build memberships and courses through design thinking and customer research, and she's seeing a major shift right now: course businesses are slowing down, and the smart ones are pivoting to membership models. The difference? Shared learning experi...
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#294: Rob Walling — SaaS godfather turned creator talks team building and vibe coding

February 24, 2026 • 48 mins
Rob Walling is a godfather of the bootstrapped SaaS movement — he's started 6 companies (5 bootstrapped), built and sold Drip for 8 figures, and created the infrastructure behind MicroConf, TinySeed (which has raised nearly $60 million and invested in over 210 SaaS companies), and Startups for the Rest of Us (820+ episodes over 15 years). But here's what surprised me: Rob told me he's more of a creator these days than a software fo...
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#236: Mike Michalowicz – How the author of Profit First stays lean by licensing his ideas [Greatest Hits]

February 17, 2026 • 54 mins
Mike Michalowicz is the author of ⁠Profit First⁠, which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies across the globe to drive profit – Creator Science is one of those companies. Profit First has helped me develop sound financials for my business. He’s also the author of Clockwork, a powerful method to make any business run on automatic, and seven other books as well. With more than 500,000 book sales, all of Mike’s books have t...
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#293: 12 Ways To Stand Out In 2026

February 10, 2026 • 36 mins
The world is changing faster than ever, and sometimes it feels like the old playbooks just aren't working anymore. In this solo episode, I share 12 opportunities I see for creators in 2026—ideas that range from the practical to the philosophical, from the obvious to the genuinely weird. These aren't predictions. They're possibilities. And you don't need to pursue all of them. But keeping a running list of where opportunity exists c...
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#292: Chenell Basilio — The state of email in 2026, growing your list without social media, and new predictions.

February 3, 2026 • 53 mins
This week I'm joined by my good friend Chenell Basilio, creator of Growth in Reverse and one of the most thorough newsletter analysts in the space. We spent over an hour diving deep into what's really working in email right now — from the death of newsletter hype to the opportunity hiding in recommendation networks. Chenell shared her framework of "insanely valuable content" (the one thing that matters more than any growth hack), a...
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#291: 48 Hours With Clawdbot: How I’m Using It and Initial Reactions

January 27, 2026 • 47 mins
Over the last 48-72 hours, I completely fell down the rabbit hole with a new AI tool called Clawdbot (rebranded TODAY to Moltbot). Instead of my planned episode about what's on my mind in January 2026, I decided to share my raw, unfiltered experience setting up this AI assistant that runs 24/7 and integrates with all my tools. This isn't your typical AI chat interface—it's an always-on assistant I can text through Telegram that pro...
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#290: Behind The Scenes: My End of Year Retro

January 20, 2026 • 36 mins
Every month inside The Lab, I do what I call a monthly retro. It's short for retrospective. The idea is that, on a regular basis, you look back at what you have just done to learn from it, course-correct, and move forward. So in my monthly retros, I look at the good things that happened, how I performed against my goals, the concerns I currently have, the changes I'm going to make moving forward, and my goals for next month. → J...
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#289: Paul Millerd — The Truth About Traditional Publishing (And The Deal He Would’ve Taken)

January 13, 2026 • 60 mins
Paul Millerd is the author of The Pathless Path, which has earned Paul $325,000 in royalties to date. In the process, Paul turned down a publishing offer from Penguin, one of the major publishers in the industry. Then, in December, Paul decided to double down and produce a new version of The Pathless Path, an ultra-premium hardcover book that is just beautiful. So in this episode, we talk about that decision, the dark side of tra...
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#288: He gained 190K Instagram followers in 508 days…but wouldn’t do it again | Yoni Smolyar

January 6, 2026 • 45 mins
A few weeks ago, I came across a post on X from a user named Yoni Smolyar. It said, "Posting a video on Instagram every day for 508 days in a row taught me that I never want to do that again." I realized that I had seen and followed Yoni on Instagram, where he has over 190,000 followers. In the process, Yoni built an iPhone app called Brainrot, which had a $10,000 launch that he credits to his social media presence that he built d...
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#287: Reflecting on a year of parenting (and how that’s impacted me as a creator)

December 30, 2025 • 68 mins
Today I am sharing an episode between Josh hall and myself. Josh hall is a good friend of mine, a business owner, and a creator here in Columbus, Ohio. His business is all about web design and he has a podcast called Web Design Business with Josh Hall, and I was a recent guest. So this is a conversation with Josh as friends, talking about what I've learned over the last year. Plus as a new father, how that has impacted my work a...
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#286: How To LEGALLY Pay Less In Taxes (And Invest It Instead) — Ankur Nagpal

December 19, 2025 • 49 mins
In 2020, Ankur Nagpal sold his course platform, Teachable, for around $250 million. But he knew that the sale would come with a giant tax bill. So Ankur became obsessed with the tax code, and he wanted to make it easier for everyone to legally operate within it. That led him to discover Solo 401(k)s. So he built a new company called Carry that helps you legally keep more of what you earn and invest it the way you want. This podcas...
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#285: Personal branding, building trust, and why most creators fail | Influence Anyone

December 9, 2025 • 63 mins
Before I went on my current podcast guesting hiatus, I sat down with Howie Chan. I met Howie in person earlier this year at Matt McGarry’s Newsletter Marketing Summit. I thought he was fun, friendly, and thoughtful — just like he is in his podcast, Influence Anyone. This podcast is all about applied influence psychology. Each episode, Howie sit downs with experts and practitioners to uncover the hidden psychology that helps you in...
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#284: I helped a YouTuber design his membership

November 30, 2025 • 43 mins
Meet Tommy. Tommy has a YouTube channel dedicated to helping Americans retire in France. Tommy’s done an incredible job attracting nearly 30,000 subscribers and 2 million views on his channel, but he needed help dialing in his product offer. Tommy is a member of The Lab, my invitation-only membership community for 6-and-7-figure creators. He scheduled a coaching call with me to work out how he can take his growing audience and de...
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#283: I’m launching my new offer TODAY!

November 25, 2025 • 18 mins
Today, I’m launching my first-ever Signature Product Bootcamp: A four-week, live course for developing YOUR signature product (that you can sell with confidence for years). Program Dates: December 4, 2025 — December 29, 2025 Registration closes Dec. 1 at 11:59pm PT. → Enroll Now in the Signature Product Bootcamp → Learn More about the Signature Product Bootcamp → Join The Lab ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Full transcript and show notes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠...
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#282: David Altizer — How to Make Great Thumbnails (For Non-Designers)

November 18, 2025 • 51 mins
David Altizer is the co-creator of Thumbnail Academy and has quickly become one of the most sought-after thumbnail designers around. David’s clients include Kurtis Connor, Jolly, Max Fosh, Hayden Hillier Smith, and now me. David’s thumbnails have earned nearly 350 million views—and in this video, he’ll show you why creating thumbnails is actually easier than you think. ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Full transcript and show notes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ Hire David ...
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#281: A question about the future of this podcast... [Voice Memo]

November 11, 2025 • 4 mins
If you enjoy this episode, please leave a comment on Spotify or a review on Apple Podcasts! → Subscribe to the newsletter → Join The Lab Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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#263: How To Succeed on YouTube Today feat. Colin & Samir [Greatest Hits]

November 4, 2025 • 58 mins
I interviewed YouTube legends, Colin and Samir. They are the most influential duo in the creator economy. Today, they talk about how to build a channel that stands the test of time. In this episode, you’ll learn the importance of formats in building a strong brand, how to set your channel up for financial success, and we vent about miscellaneous gripes we all have. ⁠⁠⁠⁠Full transcript and show notes⁠⁠⁠⁠ Colin and Samir's ⁠⁠⁠⁠Web...
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