In this episode, we're going to talk about the frameworks and methods Jay uses to grow his audience, how he landed the opportunity to work with Noah Kagan, and how he balances content creation with a job and school, and ways he thinks about creating really successful frameworks for creating content that helps you grow. So, Jay, I guess without any further ado, I'll let you kick us off. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this whole world of content in the first place.

Yeah, well, first off, thanks for having me on, Blaine. It's always a pleasure talking with you, but, yeah, it's been quite a journey. I know I may only be 18, but I don't know, it feels like I've lived a decade in the past three years. It's kind of funny. Before this, I was just listening to a podcast I did about a year ago, and a lot of the frameworks and systems that I used back then, I completely forgot about or completely revamped. And so it's been quite a journey. But it started in the summer of 2020 when Covid hit and I was stuck at home. And at the time, I was playing video games for like 5 hours a day, basically rotting away in my room.

And I remember looking at myself one day. I looked in the mirror and I was like, what am I doing with my life? I could probably be doing something more productive. So that's when I literally googled how to make money online. And one of the things was to start a YouTube channel and I started a music promotion YouTube channel where I'd promote underground artists songs to help them get exposure. And while that channel ended up not going anywhere, it did teach me the power of digital leverage and content. And that little old me from my room could actually make a, a serious impact on others. And so that's kind of how I fell into the world of content.

Amazing. And that's very cool. The fact that you were 14, saying, what, what can I do with my life? I know I was probably, I guess I wasn't really playing video games, but that, that moment maybe didn't hit me until a little bit later, but. So, yeah, what? Talk to me about how you actually then got started. You started reading about it, you started figuring out what you wanted to do, you started working on some of this YouTube stuff. When did you start creating content for yourself? And what were some of those first relationships working with creators? Like, what were your responsibilities? What were you doing? What did you learn?

Yeah, to take a step back while I started my music promotion YouTube channel, at the same time, I also fell into the rabbit hole of self improvement. Right? The whole take cold showers journal workout, wake up early, read self help books, the whole shebang. And what I realized was self improvement is the gateway drug to online business, because when you change your habits, you realize you can change everything else. And it really gave me a sense of agency over my life. I was like, if I can start waking up early, start doing push ups, then why can't I take control of my finances? In my career, I started a portfolio of businesses and I call it my portfolio of failures. You know the YouTube channel. I started Instagram theme pages. I even try to start a clothing brand.

And I think something powerful about that is having a scientist mindset, right? Just like a scientist will have an hypothesis experiment and keep trying. Each business taught me a valuable lesson. I did that for about twelve, about twelve months or a year, and none of it was going anywhere. And so I realized I was missing something. So I was talking with my mom and she's like, why don't you work for your favorite company? Maybe you can pick up a thing or two that you can apply to your own businesses. So I decided to work for my favorite company, which at the time was beehive, the newsletter publishing company. But I didn't have any experiences to offer. I was this 17 year old kidde, created a few pieces of content, was growing a little bit on social media, but not really anything tangible.

So the way I reached out to behive, which is the same method I use for Noah Kagan, is what I call the tag method, and that's target, audit and gift. So, basically, what you want to do with target is pick someone that you want to work for, whether that's an entrepreneur or a company. Ideally, it's someone who can teach you or fill in the gaps of the skills that you're missing. Step two is to do an audit. And so do your homework. Do your research on ways you can help the company. What are their strengths? What are their weaknesses? What upcoming projects do they have? What skills can you help them? What gaps can you fill for them? And then last step is gift. So, what I did for beehive is I put together a Google Slide presentation of all the ways I could help them, all the projects that I could help them over the summer, and I pitched it to them for free.

I said, if you like it, you know, I'll help. You know, I'll help for free. If not, like, no worries, you know, no hard feelings. And luckily, they took a chance on me.

I think that's so big because a lot of, you know, kids maybe in your same age group might just say, oh, mom, I applied to all these internships. I didn't hear back. Like, I guess we'll figure out something else for the summer. But I think that's, like, in my seat, right? Like, I work with a bunch of people, and there's a bunch of people who'll be, like, sending me stuff. But I. It's really about standing out. And sometimes what's interesting is it actually doesn't take that much more to stand out versus what everyone else is doing. But by you going through and doing that, um, you're really able to stand out.

Uh, which is awesome at 17, being able to land an internship with beehive. Um, you know, we run our newsletters through beehive. It's a great company. It's grown a lot. Um, what was the. What were your responsibilities once you came up with all those ideas, like, you know, walk us through what that looked like and what some of your responsibilities and what you learned at Beehive.

Yeah. So, for Beehive, I was in charge of creating the Beehive Academy, more specifically, the Beehive 101 course, which taught our users how to better understand, unlock, and maximize the beehive platform. One thing I admire about Beehive is that they're constantly shipping features. It seems like every new week, there's a new feature, and with so much innovation, they wanted to have their users be able to not just use a platform, but maximize it. And so I was in charge of creating the course that taught them how to use that platform. I think the biggest thing about what I've learned from Beehive is just how to structure different projects. And so beehive worked in two week sprints, and so that's what I started to model my projects and structure my projects into. And that really helped with productivity, because before that, I would outline my entire project and then get overwhelmed.

And so being able to break that down into little two week sprints to actually make progress was really important. And then, secondly, from Tyler Dank specifically, was just the power of understanding what your customers want. And I think the greatest skill you can learn as a marketer, a creator, an entrepreneur, even just as a person, is empathy and being able to place yourself in someone else's shoes. And so when we launched beehive 101 course, the subject line of the email was, please don't tell my boss. Right? And the whole idea of the email was, I hacked into my boss's computer, and I'm launching this little course to help you guys. I hope my boss doesn't get mad if enough people click on it and like it. Maybe he won't fire me, right? And it was this total satire, but that generated a lot of attention, and people on social media were talking about it, and that was only possible because Tyler knew his audience and could put himself in their shoes.

That's really cool. I actually remember that campaign. So good job making it a memorable email campaign. That's not every day that that happens. And then one sidebar that I'm sure a bunch of people are curious about, and I am definitely. It's like when you were working on all these, like, we said you were in high school, right? Like, what were other kids doing thinking, like, were you, is this, like, really weird for the types of stuff that you were using to do your time? Was it, were you, like, totally different than what everyone else in school was doing, or were they, like, interested? Were they in the same world as you? How just how did it, like, stack up just from an experience point of view with your contemporaries?

Honestly, I try to keep most of the stuff I did online in the dark for most of my high school career. At the time, I also was, like, a basketball player. I played on my varsity basketball team in high school and ran across country. So it was weird being in multiple worlds at the same time. And I tried to keep them separate. Part of me is probably worried that they'd make fun of me or think I was weird for doing this online stuff. But when people did discover it, all I got was positive feedback. So I'm very grateful for my friends.

Yeah, really cool. All right, so now, moving forward, you said you worked at Beehive. You learned a lot there, and you applied some of those learnings to and the same strategy that you used to reach out to Noah. So I'd love to understand when you reached out to Noah. Right. Where was Noah at as a creator? I know he's, you know, he's. He's on multi platforms. He already had a podcast.

He already had the YouTube. He already had a bunch of stuff set up. So you looking outside in, what did you identify as, like, the gaps that he'd be able to improve on, and how did you, you know, provide value? And what did you offer him to get things going?

Yeah. So I reached out to Noah with similar to beehive, but a much more in depth, 19 page slide deck of all the things that I could help him with. And so what you mentioned was Noah was on all these platforms, right? He has a podcast. He's got a YouTube channel. He's on all these social media platforms. He was everywhere, but he wasn't everywhere. Well, and I think that's kind of where I stepped in. I was like, you're doing all these platforms, but you could be doing them a little bit better.

And so what I would do is I would contrast what he was doing versus what he could be doing in the context of growing his newsletter. So something that I discovered was that he had a book coming out. And what I knew from listening to different podcasts before was that one of the best ways to promote your book is growing your email list. So that way you have a surefire way to connect with your audience. So I said, not only are you not doing social media optimally, but you can be doing it better in the context of growing your newsletter. And then I compared them against some other business creators. And then at the end of my pitch deck, I sent him nine pieces of content, all pre made. All he had to do was hit publish.

And I was like, if you like these pieces of content, if they perform well, then maybe we can work together. If not, no hard feelings. I think that strategy of where most people ask, how can I help you? Or what can I do to work for you for free? The problem with that approach is that by asking, without showing, you're actually making the other person do more work to figure out who you are and if you're any good and what you can actually help with. And for someone like Noah, who's busy managing actual company, multiple channels, a whole team, he's not going to do the research to figure out who you are. And so the question that I ask myself, and I encourage people listening to this to ask is, how can I make this a no brainer for the other person? And that kind of ties back into that empathy, right? Putting yourself in the other person's perspective. And so, yeah, to work with your favorite entrepreneur or company, basically, you need to show two things that, number one, you want the job, and number two, that you can do the job. And the best way that I believe you can do that is to do the work upfront, to use the tag method, to do what I like to call pre work. And I think the coolest thing about this approach is you don't have to have any experience or, you know, credibility or a degree, right.

I truly believe you can outwork your inexperience with hustle and preparation 100%.

I think that's so on point. Especially what you said about empathy, right. And understanding that, like, if you just come up to someone and say, hey, how can I help? Right? That person's gonna have to figure out how you can help. And I know that sounds a little bit crazy, but, like, even for me, I have, like, you know, people want to, like, intern with us, for example, and they'll be like, oh, well, you know, what areas can I help? And I'm like, oh, my God. That means I have to, like, manage someone else. I have to create projects. I have to, like, think about them. Whereas if they came up to me and basically what you did approaching Noah, you were like, hey, I think you can be better in XYZ area.

Here's how I would do it. Here's an example of that work. Like, what do you think? Like, go, like, let me know if you like it. If not, like, no worries. And that just creates a. It just makes it so much easier for. For anyone involved in that decision process. It makes it this entire thought process from having to think, figure out, scope out a project, and create a project and manage a project to be like, oh, wait a minute.

This guy's good. I see how he could fit within our team. Like, let's go. Um, so, you know, I know a lot of the people listening and people who use or don't use cast magic, I think a lot of times they'll work with clients, they'll work with entrepreneurs. They are themselves entrepreneurs. And just having that idea of empathy, I think, is always a good thing. But now I kind of want to pivot the conversation towards content. Right.

Like you said, you have run content for Noah, so I'd love to understand once you kind of got that role and responsibility. Now, what is your. What does your responsibility look like as it pertains to collaborating and working with Noah? And what. What are some of the. The learnings along the way? Right. Like you said, hey, I want you to be better at all of these platforms instead of just being present on all these platforms. So walk me through what that process looks like of, you know, starting to actually work with Noah and what. What it looked like to improve his presence on all the platforms you were going after with the notion of building out the newsletter.

Yeah. First thing we did was take a step back and think about, how do we want our workflow to go? No only has so much time to allocate the content. So how can we make this the most efficient way possible to get content to all these platforms? When I joined the team, what I noticed immediately was there was a lack of cohesiveness. Each platform seemed to be doing their own thing. There was a TikTok page and Instagram and Twitter. They all were in separate, different realms. What we did at the start was, let's go from top down. How can we create one piece of content, then break it up and repurpose into all these different platforms? Not a new concept, but just changing the workflow to be more efficient.

For Noah, what we did is we would start with the big idea. We would start with the newsletter, and I would pitch Noah ideas. He would rank them on how excited he is. So from one to ten, one being not excited, ten being super excited. I would rank them based on how excited I am to write about it. And then we would have an audience rank based on how well we think it would perform for the context of his audience. So it would be three rankings. We total it up, and we rank the ideas based on the total.

Then I would ask him questions. He would fill it out as he would answer the questions. That recording became the podcast. And I think what's special about Noah is he has so much experience talking and being in front of the camera. He's just naturally able to take questions and turn it into a valuable piece of content, which might be more difficult for other people. But then I take that podcast recording, turn it into a newsletter. That newsletter would be repurposed into a Twitter thread that we post on Saturday, and then that Twitter thread would be broken up into different tweets that would be put on Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram threads. And that way it was more of a content machine versus separate platforms, separate people doing different things.

Really cool. And what did you start to. So I like how you approached it from a workflow perspective and even, number one, like an ideas perspective. Right. So you're capturing content. Once you've got the meat of that content, then you're figuring out what the ideas are and how that fits into all the different platforms that you will be distributing on. But then walk me through, how do you guys start to look or think about the data? How'd you keep things fresh? Did things immediately work? Did it require some tinkering before you were able to really get things to work? What did that whole thing look like?

Yeah, before working with Noah, I was what I like to call a qualitative marketer, which is just a fancy way of saying I threw stuff at the wall and hoped for the best. Working with NOAA really taught me the power of being a quantitative marketer, just someone who tracks the metrics. So what we did at the beginning was we tested all types of different content. We tested punchy one liners, we tested listicles, tested how tos, Twitter threads, Twitter threads featuring other people, different call to actions, different structures of the call to action. And what we found was the three pieces of content that did really, really well was meaty threads, which was threads that basically only Noah could write. And a framework that we like to use is called the name test, which was, if someone covers your name and your profile picture, would they be able to tell it's your writing? And so, if your hook can be copy and pasted by an 18 year old kid with no life experience, then you got to adjust the hook so that only you can write that content. So that was the first thing. Is Noah's experience working with Mark Zuckerberg? Noah's experience growing appsumo to 100 million per year in revenue.

Nova's experience growing mint to a million users in six months. These are things that can't be copied by other people. So that was number one. Number two was featuring cool solopreneurs. And so we would showcase people like Mark Louveon, people like Justin Welsh, people who were doing cool things, leveraging the Internet, and leveraging AI. And then the third piece of content was what we call pre CTA's, which is like pre call to actions. So the weekly newsletter would come out on Thursday, and so every Wednesday, the day before, we would kind of preview and tease the newsletter. So if the newsletter was about Marc Louvion, we'd be like, Marc Louvion is XYZ.

He's done this, that, and that. I talked to him yesterday and tomorrow I'm sharing the lessons. Something along the lines of that. And that would actually drive a lot of sign ups to the newsletter. It wouldn't go viral or get a lot of likes, but it would drive signups to the email list, which is what our North Star metric was.

That's sweet. I think it's so what you mentioned about understanding all the different content types, I think that's really cool because you want to know what frameworks you're kind of working on and then what works. The other thing that you mentioned was creating hooks using the name test, which I think is really cool because that's something I think a lot about where you want to establish social credibility or social proof early on. So it's something that can only come from you, right. If you go to chat GPT and you ask it to write you a thread about XYZ topic, it'll do it. But like you're saying anyone else could create that thread, it's not unique to you. Whereas you start and you make sure that in that opening hook, there's something that's very unique that only you're going to come up with. Whether it's the social proof, what you've done, or just something about something making that unique to you, it's going to stand out a lot more than something that can be, you know, a hook that's just kind of, that doesn't have that same punch and could be attributed to, to anyone.

Um, the next thing I'd like to talk about in, in regards to that is were there any, you know, were there any moments at which you, you thought that, like, you needed to like, shift strategies or like, what were some of the challenges that started to come up? Or was it all just like, you know, everything works? Like, we're just optimizing everything and all these channels are starting to work? Or were there any moments where through, through your content process and figuring out what was working, you were hitting roadblocks or hitting, you know, a bunch of content things that weren't really working? Like you maybe thought they were hypothesized they were going to work. What did that look like in terms of explore, exploring and figuring out that content machine?

Yeah, it's similar to the scientist method. We tried a lot of stuff similar to what I said before is like, we tried all types of different content. We tried visuals, one liners, listicles, how tos, all that. The one thing that helped us transition from the experimentation phase to the doubling down phase and doing more of what works is simply taking note of what's working. And it sounds so simple, but Noah constantly asks, like, how can we do more of what's working? How can we do more of what's working? It's such a simple idea, but a lot of people just keep tweeting into the void without actually looking at what's actually working. Some of the roadblocks we faced was content getting stale. So the first month before the book launch, we had a daily visual that we post. It'd be the difference between a wandrepreneur versus an entrepreneur.

Persistence is key. A lot of Noah's core ideas, but after the book launch, the visuals started to get stale. We had a whole month of a daily visual, and so people started to get tired of that, so we had to pivot away from the visuals and, okay, now, how can we say the same thing but in a different way? And so that's a lot of what I think content is, is a lot of people treat content like an art, right? I have to write these fancy words, and it's kind of got to be touchy feely. Like, I think content is more of a science. There's some plug and play templates and systems that you can use. And if people start treating content more as a science than an art, I believe people can really double down and get better results.

Yeah, because, like, what you're saying, it really is a machine that you're creating. And any machine to really run, it needs to not just do something once, it needs to be scalable. Right. And it sounds like what you were able to do with Noah is from a quantity, from using numbers, is first be able to figure out what are the types of content pieces that are working for us, what's not working for us. Let's take those ones that are working and scale and make sure that from a workflow perspective, we've got the consistency built in, so we're constantly going to be able to do it. It's not like we're creating extra work, but at the same time, it's not falling on deaf ears. So I think we're thinking about, like, that is really cool. I'd love to, um, you know, also talk about your own content, right? Because now you've got these experiences.

You've worked at Beehive you work with Noah? Tell us a little bit about yourself and now how you currently approach your own content. Do you apply the same, you know, styles and thoughts and tests that you've just discussed as working with Noah? What's your publishing cadence? What. What platforms? Where's your pillar content? What are your platforms? Just talk to us a little bit about how you approach content for yourself and if it's the same as what you do with Noah or if it's totally different.

Yeah. For the longest time, I've suffered from an imposter syndrome because of my age. Like, who am I to share content out into the world? And so I thought, I have to get more experiences, hit this revenue milestone, or get to this certain number of followers before I'm qualified to share advice. But I was talking with my cousin the other day, and he's a ta, so he's only a few years older than the students he teaches. I was asking him, how do you teach these classes? What gives you the confidence to turn around right behind you and talk to the people who are just where you were only a few years ago? What he said was, I only have to be one chapter ahead of the textbook of life. Like, you don't have to be the guru preaching at the top of the mountain. You just have to be one or two steps ahead of the people behind you and the people you're sharing content to. So that's kind of what I'm realizing is, as I grow my brand, I'm not trying to be the professor at the front of the class.

The way I like to view myself is as that kid in the back sharing his notes with the rest of his classmates. As I build this content agency and my brand, I just want to document and share the things I'm learning. So I write on Twitter and Instagram, and I also have a weekly newsletter. And really, what I do is if I learn something, I'll share it. If I make a mistake, I'll share it. And I think that the difference between the content I produce for Noah and the content I produce for myself is Noah's content is much more of a top down approach, whereas mine is more of a bottom up approach, where Noah's already kind of climbed the mountain. He has the wealth of stories and experiences and credibility and accomplishments to share, which makes my job easy. But for myself, it's not trying to be someone I'm not.

I'm still on the path of learning. I'm still making new discoveries every day and just being there for my audience just growing and learning with them.

So I think you may have just dropped one of, like, the most important nuggets for, like, any creator to listen to. And that's that idea of just being one chapter ahead as opposed to having it all figured out. Right. Um, I think that's something that every creator can relate to. And a lot of times, you know, you hear people talking about authenticity, like, oh, just be authentic, and, like, it's an easy thing to do. A lot of people, that's not so easy for, because they're trying to figure out what to say. They're battling imposter syndrome. But if you just think about it, it's like, hey, even though I may not have everything figured out, like, I probably know something that, you know me, like, a week ago or a month ago or a year ago, I didn't know that, right? So, like, if I'm sharing something, I'm putting something out as I'm learning it.

Maybe it's been said before, but, like, there's going to be people who see your content that haven't heard that perspective, and now they hear from you with your specific knowledge, it resonates with them. So I just think that's something that's so, it seems so simple, but, like, if you as a creator, can internalize that and say, I don't have to create content, like, I'm the professor and I've done, you know, had a whole career doing this, but I've learned something. There's going to be someone who's going to, who maybe doesn't know it, and they're going to like that I share it. So you share it. So I think that's really, really sweet, Jay. As we wrap up here, I know you kind of already shouted out your socials. You write the newsletter, you're on Twitter. Why don't you talk to us a little bit more about other exciting projects you're working on yourself? I know you mentioned an agency product that you're building.

What else are you thinking about on top of Noah's content, your own content, and all your classes?

Yeah, I know it sounds like a lot. So right now, one of the projects that I'm most excited about is creating social content templates. And so what I've done before working with Noah, while working with Noah, and to this day is a lot of people will scroll social media as a means of escape, as a means of entertainment. But the way I look at it is I'm not consuming content, I'm studying content. And so as I scroll my timeline any tweet or hook that captures my attention, I immediately save it to a folder and then I try and dissect why it actually captured my attention. Once I understand the structure or the reason why, I'll templatize it. And so I have over hundreds of templates, of tweets and hooks and story tweets and personality tweets and advice tweets, just hundreds of templates. That way, when I write content for both myself or my clients, it makes it a lot easier.

I think what a lot of people will say to the templates is, oh, but templates, templates ruin your creativity, right? Templates make you put into a box. And my answer to that would be, how did you learn how to ride a bike? With training wheels. And so for beginner writers, people who are just starting out, templates are amazing way to learn how to write. Because what is a template? There's a reason why a template works. It's because it has the same structure of something that's worked before. And so there's tons of templates that I'm currently putting into a product that I'm gonna launch in a few weeks, super low ticket, super accessible to the beginner writers, because I know this is the product that I wish I had when I was just starting out.

That's awesome. I love that because I know we were chatting about it before, but like, that's the exact way I think about content. And the reason I love templates is because, like you said, it's a framework and it makes it easy for someone else to understand and adjust that content. So you may have all these crazy ideas, but if you don't have the right framework to deliver those ideas, then, you know, like you said, someone's going to just swipe right past it on Twitter or LinkedIn. No one's going to even read it. They're not even going to understand what you're trying to convey. But if you at least get it in the right template that's based on something that's worked, you're going to have a higher likelihood of being able to catch that attention because it's in a format that actually resonates. And then once you've got that down, like you're saying, you're going to know.

So I'm sure when you open up Twitter and you want to put out a post, yeah, you might pull from a template or you might just like, go off the cuff and like, write something and maybe make a couple edits and know what's going to work. But you've had the experience doing that. But for people who are trying to get started, start with a template. It's the same reason why templates on canva are so popular, right? It's like people don't have to start from the beginning every time. They can start from 90% there, put on their own touch, customize the little things they need, and boom, they've got a beautiful asset. So I'm really excited for that. Jay, let's definitely keep in touch. Excited to share more as you launch that product.

And, yeah, man, just want to thank you for coming on uploading, and good luck with the rest of the semester.

I appreciate you for having me on. Blaine, this is awesome.