Content and formats

A repeatable format beats a one-off story because the audience can guess what comes next. Pick a format, repeat it every day until it becomes a show, and spend 80% of the output on formats that work and 20% testing new ones. Judge a format over weeks.

From FAQ

A post past three times the median views of the last 30. The outlier is the brief: find the one that broke out, in your niche or one next door, and rebuild its format or angle around your own message.

From FAQ

Video ideas are dead. Build a format the audience can predict, then rinse and repeat it until it becomes a show.

From Formats over ideas

Name the format before the topic: the set, the structure and the length. Run two formats that are never up for testing, every day. Spend 80% of the output on formats that work and 20% testing new ones.

From Formats over ideas

I think video ideas are dead. What works now is formats, because people want to guess what your next video looks like.

From Formats over ideas

Pick six to eight things and say them over and over, from a hundred angles, until people know what you stand for.

From The same eight things

Write six to eight sentences the person would happily say every day for a year. Take each one from their own posts, calls and story, so it already sounds like them. Tag every idea in the bank with the message it carries. No message, no video.

From The same eight things

Sam says the same six to eight things over and over, and that's exactly why people know what he stands for. So let's write yours: eight sentences you'd happily say every day for a year.

From The same eight things

The outlier is the brief. Find the post that broke out, here or in an adjacent niche, and rebuild it around your own message.

From The outlier is the brief

Work out the median views of the last 30 posts. That is the baseline. Mark anything past three times the median as an outlier. Look past the niche: track outliers in two or three adjacent ones too.

From The outlier is the brief

The outlier is the brief. Where most people go wrong is only looking in their exact niche.

From The outlier is the brief

Phone, front camera, whatever is in your head that day: strategy, a read on the industry, an event, a piece of news or a topic you are properly annoyed about.

From Selfie and yap videos

Say what the viewer gets in the first four seconds. One argument per video. Land on a hard line. No intro.

From Selfie and yap videos

It needs no studio, no editor availability and no second person. When a week falls apart this is the format still standing.

From Selfie and yap videos

A screenshot or a video plays behind, and you are in the corner talking over it: work you have actually done, something you agree with, or something you think is wrong.

From Reaction and story time

It shares the daily slot with the selfie video, and the selfie video is easier to make. Two a week is the honest number for a format that needs a background asset found and cleared.

From Reaction and story time

Fourteen answers filmed in one studio day, which banks two weeks at seven a week.

From Podcast clips, the fake pods

It is the only format where the quality signal does the work. A well lit two camera set makes an ordinary answer read as authority, and seven a week means the studio day pays for itself across the whole week.

From Podcast clips, the fake pods

A creator sends a voice note with a question and Tom answers it properly, lit and filmed on proper cameras, because the format's whole claim is that this is a real service.

From Creator hotline

The first questions are written by Tom and recorded as voice notes by friends, so the format is proven before it is opened up to real callers.

From Creator hotline

Answer the question that was asked. Give one thing they can do this week. Name the tradeoff.

From Creator hotline

When it beats the trailing 30 day median. Nothing gets made from an untested script.

From Carousels

Instagram and LinkedIn, two a week.

From Carousels

They are the only format that works properly on LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is where the buyers are. This is the format that turns audience into pipeline.

From Carousels

A real creator brings a real problem and it gets taken apart properly. Closer to a diagnosis than a chat show: what is actually broken, why, and what the fix is.

From Creator therapy

The problem in their words. The diagnosis. The thing they are actually optimising for by accident. The format fix. What to do on Monday.

From Creator therapy

Every other format is Tom asserting. This one is Tom being right in front of a witness, which is a different kind of proof. It is also the only format a brand buyer will watch to the end.

From Creator therapy

The week's argument, written down, plus what actually performed and what that says.

From The newsletter

It is the only audience Tom owns outright, and it is the list every paid tier launches to.

From The newsletter

On the website. The site's job is to push people into it, so the signup is the main event on the page.

From The newsletter