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How to Hit 2M Subs in 2 Years Building an AI Newsletter | The Rundown AI, Rowan Cheung

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  1. Intro

  2. 00:00When we first started, everyone was
  3. 00:01afraid of AI replacing everyone. There
  4. 00:04was a famous quote, "AI won't replace
  5. 00:06you, but people who use AI will." I
  6. 00:08realized my audience really wanted the
  7. 00:10latest AI news. The biggest problem they
  8. 00:13face see something that goes viral and
  9. 00:15they say, "I want to try that." And they
  10. 00:16try it and they're like, "Cool, I tried
  11. 00:18it." But they didn't find anything any
  12. 00:20use of it. So, they don't have any
  13. 00:21stickiness and there's there's no use
  14. 00:23for them to use that tool. There's no
  15. 00:24use for them to actually be subscribed
  16. 00:25to it. It was a really big problem at
  17. 00:27the time because the space was moving so
  18. 00:29fast and there's so much noise. So, I
  19. 00:31kind of became the go-to person for no
  20. 00:33noise AI news and quick takes on why it
  21. 00:36actually [music] matters for the average
  22. 00:38everyday tech worker. Like any other
  23. 00:40business, content is the same. And
  24. 00:42everyone talks about verticalized AI
  25. 00:44SAS, right? Like AI for law, AI for
  26. 00:47[music] accounting. These are huge
  27. 00:49startups getting all this funny, but no
  28. 00:50one talks about verticalized content
  29. 00:52creators. So, if you are a content
  30. 00:54creator right now or you're just
  31. 00:55starting content, I would highly advise
  32. 00:57you to My name is Rowan. I'm the founder
  33. 00:59of The Rundown. [music] So, it's the
  34. 01:01largest daily annuals in the world and
  35. 01:02we also do daily AI education. We have
  36. 01:05nearly 50% open rate across all of our
  37. 01:08newsletters [music] at over 2 million
  38. 01:10subscribers. So, many people were
  39. 01:11confused like, who is this complete like
  40. 01:13zero subscriber [music] guy who got Mark
  41. 01:15Zuckerberg for Llama 3.1? How does this
  42. 01:17guy get all the good guests? The reason
  43. 01:19why I got that interview is because I'm
  44. 01:20the newsletter guy.

  45. Why Your Content Isn't Going Viral

  46. 01:35Who am I to be talking to Margaret
  47. 01:37Zuckerberger or Sam Alman? I'm not a
  48. 01:39journalist. I never went to journalism
  49. 01:42school. Like 3 years ago, I was just a
  50. 01:45college dropout when I was still in
  51. 01:47college. [music] I was sitting a
  52. 01:48psychology lecture. My friend turned to
  53. 01:50me and asked a question about the
  54. 01:52lecture we just heard. And I vividly
  55. 01:53remember just looking at him and asking,
  56. 01:55"You [music] actually remember that?"
  57. 01:57He's like, "Yeah, I remember that. This
  58. 01:58is this is a lecture." That's when I
  59. 01:59realized I don't learn from [music] like
  60. 02:02these settings of someone just teaching
  61. 02:04me and I have to remember it, digest it,
  62. 02:06and do an [music] exam. Like I just
  63. 02:08don't learn well in that school setting.
  64. 02:10So on the side, I was starting to self
  65. 02:12teach myself things. [music] I was
  66. 02:13learning how to code by actually
  67. 02:15building websites. I learned to design
  68. 02:17by actually creating [music] graphics
  69. 02:19anytime I learned and selftaught my
  70. 02:21myself through YouTube University expand
  71. 02:24my learnings on Twitter and that's the
  72. 02:26way I was also learning content [music]
  73. 02:28u by just posting and then the chat
  74. 02:31moment happened my first thread after
  75. 02:33that I remember I think it was a day or
  76. 02:34two after [music] chatb actually
  77. 02:36officially launched to the public I
  78. 02:38wrote a thread I'm like hey here's some
  79. 02:40cool things that I'm exploring in chatbt
  80. 02:41[music] and it went super viral for
  81. 02:43there I decided let's go all on this,
  82. 02:45see what happens. I'm really curious
  83. 02:47about the space. I've been in the space
  84. 02:48for a few months already. I decided to
  85. 02:50drop out [music] and go all in on just
  86. 02:52like posting a thread every single day.
  87. 02:54And I just I thought the virality would
  88. 02:56die down, but it actually increased. And
  89. 03:00then when Twitter started going super
  90. 03:01viral, I said, "Hey, how am I going to
  91. 03:04grow a business [music] or brand off
  92. 03:05this?" And the easiest thing I thought
  93. 03:07about was just starting an email list.
  94. 03:09We had so many AI newsletter competitors
  95. 03:11when we first started and so many of

  96. The Secret Behind the #1 AI Newsletter

  97. 03:13them used AI to write their content
  98. 03:15which makes sense like AI newsletter
  99. 03:17written by AI but we completely steered
  100. 03:20away from it and we actually did the
  101. 03:22opposite. We started putting our faces
  102. 03:23behind the newsletter and we said hey
  103. 03:24this is human generated and we made sure
  104. 03:26that our takes were like very clearly
  105. 03:29human takes. We use AI for the
  106. 03:31structuring for some parts of research
  107. 03:33but we never do it for the human part.
  108. 03:36And there's a reason for that. AI
  109. 03:37generated content just kind of has no
  110. 03:39soul and [music]
  111. 03:41people are smart. They will know when
  112. 03:44it's AI generated. The only way I see
  113. 03:46this workflow changing is if like we
  114. 03:48have chips in our brain which I don't
  115. 03:50think is going to come [music] in many
  116. 03:53many years to come. So the human loop
  117. 03:56for creativity will always be there. I
  118. 03:58think content as a whole is going to
  119. 04:00[music] have two sides. The Walmart and
  120. 04:02the Whole Foods. The Walmart will be a
  121. 04:05generated content, easily accessible.
  122. 04:07It's going to be all over social media.
  123. 04:08It's going to be funny. It's going to be
  124. 04:09personalized. It's going to be really
  125. 04:10addictive. It's not bad content. It's
  126. 04:11still good [music] content. On the other
  127. 04:13hand, some people are still going to
  128. 04:15want Whole Foods. They're still going to
  129. 04:16want to know know the human behind
  130. 04:18things. They're still going to want to
  131. 04:19know the personal takes, the person
  132. 04:21behind it. The 1% that really have the
  133. 04:23humanity are going to have even more
  134. 04:25influence. They're going to have more
  135. 04:26trust, and you're going to be build
  136. 04:28bigger brands, and you're going to be
  137. 04:29able to distribute your message even
  138. 04:30further. It's going to be so much harder
  139. 04:32to be that 1%. [music] But I think
  140. 04:34everything else in the middle dies. So
  141. 04:36if you are a content creator right now
  142. 04:37or you're just starting content, I would
  143. 04:39highly advise you to be as human as
  144. 04:41possible.

  145. Tip #1 for 10x Viral Content

  146. 04:52If you're a complete beginner and you
  147. 04:54wanted to start content creation, I
  148. 04:56would start with asking yourself, do I
  149. 04:59enjoy talking or do I enjoy writing? I
  150. 05:03ended up being the writing archetype.
  151. 05:04So, I [music] decided to start with
  152. 05:06Twitter. I think Twitter's a good spot
  153. 05:08if you are into AI. There are research
  154. 05:11breakthroughs, there are demo videos,
  155. 05:13[music] there are papers that come out
  156. 05:15and they only get published on Twitter.
  157. 05:17They don't get published anywhere else.
  158. 05:19So, you [music] have to be very active
  159. 05:21on Twitter to be able to keep up with if
  160. 05:23you really want to get deep in the weeds
  161. 05:25and what's happening. So, there's a
  162. 05:26little hack you can do if you're not a
  163. 05:29writer and your best ideas come from
  164. 05:33talking. Because I talk to people all
  165. 05:35the time and they're like, "Hey, I just
  166. 05:36suck at writing and I don't know how to
  167. 05:38write on Twitter. I don't write on
  168. 05:39LinkedIn. So, there's a little workflow
  169. 05:40hack that I tell them they can use to
  170. 05:42start. [music] And basically, you're
  171. 05:44going to use a tool called Whisper Flow
  172. 05:46or some kind of AI transcription tool.
  173. 05:49They're really, really good. And you
  174. 05:50download your phone and [music] you can
  175. 05:52go on a walk, 2hour walk, and you just
  176. 05:56ramble ideas into these notes, [music]
  177. 05:58and it you can say uh you can say um you
  178. 06:01can do whatever you want in [music] and
  179. 06:03you can say whatever you want in this
  180. 06:04talk. And then what you're going to do
  181. 06:05is you're going to go back home, you're
  182. 06:06going to have all your notes. So it's
  183. 06:08going to transcribe these notes for you
  184. 06:09and these are raw thoughts, right? So
  185. 06:11these are your ideas. These are not AI
  186. 06:12generated ideas. So it all stems from
  187. 06:15your human experience, your human takes,
  188. 06:17your human insights. Then what you can
  189. 06:18do is you can go to a cloud project.
  190. 06:20I've trained a cloud project on my best
  191. 06:22tweets, for example. So I exported my
  192. 06:24Twitter data. I found those best tweets
  193. 06:26that performed the best. I shoved it in
  194. 06:28there and I trained it on like [music]
  195. 06:29over 20 of my best performing posts. So
  196. 06:32this cloud project is trained on my
  197. 06:34writing style. And I'll take those raw
  198. 06:36thoughts and sometimes they're really
  199. 06:37long and I'll just put it into a cloud
  200. 06:39project or that cloud project and I'll
  201. 06:41spit out a draft [music] that's like 90%
  202. 06:43ready. And again, this is AI assisted
  203. 06:46writing but is all stemmed from
  204. 06:48humanity. [music]
  205. 06:49It stems from my ideas and it knows
  206. 06:51exactly how I write. This is a really
  207. 06:52good way for average people to go from
  208. 06:55literal thought and rambling to 90%
  209. 06:59ready post.

  210. Partner Highlights

  211. 07:04We know a lot of you are thinking about
  212. 07:06launching a business, maybe even an AI
  213. 07:08startup, but you're stuck. Not because
  214. 07:11you lack drive, but because everything
  215. 07:13out there feels like a copy of a copy.
  216. 07:15That's why we recommend you to check out
  217. 07:17this free resource from HubSpot for
  218. 07:19Startups. Over 100 creative AI use
  219. 07:22cases. This isn't just a trend tracing
  220. 07:24playbook. It's a database of over 100
  221. 07:26unconventional [music] real world AI use
  222. 07:28cases across over 30 industries showing
  223. 07:30you how to unlock competitive advantages
  224. 07:32in places most founders overlook. It
  225. 07:35even includes a few ideas from a clay
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  228. 07:41case includes a clear description of the
  229. 07:43opportunity, step-by-step guidance on
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  231. 07:47business outcome and impact, and a
  232. 07:49difficulty rating from beginner to
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  238. 08:01the community. Now, back to the video.

  239. Tip #2 for 10x Viral Content

  240. 08:08About a year ago, all of my audience was
  241. 08:11telling me I have to do video. I agree
  242. 08:13with them. I have to do video, but I
  243. 08:14work 80 hours a week. I'm a founder,
  244. 08:17content creator, and I have a million
  245. 08:20other things going on. So, I said, "Hey,
  246. 08:21how can we turn my writing into short
  247. 08:24form video without me being there?" We
  248. 08:26decided to clone my face and voice with
  249. 08:29AI. We still use my real writing and
  250. 08:32real takes to use it as a script, and we
  251. 08:34still edit a lot. So there's a little
  252. 08:37storytelling. There's a lot of research
  253. 08:38that goes into these stories that we
  254. 08:40want to cover, but basically we take my
  255. 08:43natural writing, we put into AI avatar
  256. 08:45and AI voice, and then we add B-roll, we
  257. 08:47edit it together, and we create a
  258. 08:49compelling story for reals, shorts. The
  259. 08:52Instagram account has grown to under
  260. 08:53over 160,000 followers in the year. And
  261. 08:56this is just from this a avatar workflow
  262. 08:59that we did. But there are definitely
  263. 09:03algorithm or the hook specifically is
  264. 09:06different across platforms. Your hook
  265. 09:08for LinkedIn for example is two lines
  266. 09:11and your hook for Twitter is actually
  267. 09:13three lines or your hook for Instagram
  268. 09:16is one line. Sometimes [music] we'll
  269. 09:18take our ad copies, our best performing
  270. 09:20ad copies and we'll basically run it
  271. 09:22through Claude. We'll train a cloud
  272. 09:24project on our ad copies and then when
  273. 09:27we have new ad copies we have to create
  274. 09:29for some of our partners, we'll run it
  275. 09:31through there and we'll say, "Hey, what
  276. 09:32can create the best ad copy?" It'll give
  277. 09:34us a good draft and [music] then we'll
  278. 09:35still fully revise off that. Um, and
  279. 09:38really there's no creator school. The
  280. 09:40best way to learn is just through your
  281. 09:41own practice, but you can also look at
  282. 09:43people who are are way ahead of you that
  283. 09:45inspire you and see exactly what they're
  284. 09:47doing or possibly even asking them if
  285. 09:49you're at the level where you can and DM
  286. 09:51them. But that's what that's what I
  287. 09:53would do.

  288. Tip #3 for 10x Viral Content

  289. 09:58We believe AI is taught through habits.
  290. 10:00There's three ways that we teach you can
  291. 10:03learn. If you do one of these, you're
  292. 10:05going to be well off. Like you're going
  293. 10:07to be major early adopter in the space.
  294. 10:10So it [music] starts with number one,
  295. 10:11which is ask yourself every day when
  296. 10:14you're doing something [music] at work,
  297. 10:15could AI do this? If you don't know, you
  298. 10:17can literally ask chat, could AI do this
  299. 10:20X [music] task? That's the prompt.
  300. 10:21Simple prompt. And like a a pro tip
  301. 10:23would be just put it writing on a sticky
  302. 10:25note and putting it on your laptop
  303. 10:27screen, but just constantly asking
  304. 10:29yourself when you're doing tedious
  305. 10:30things, could AI do this? You're going
  306. 10:32to build this mindset of like, oh, AI
  307. 10:34can do this, AI can't do this, and it
  308. 10:37evolves over time because AI
  309. 10:38capabilities, we're living in the middle
  310. 10:40of it. So, this is really the question
  311. 10:42you should ask yourself. The second step
  312. 10:43of it is [music] when you do find
  313. 10:45something that oh AI can do this, figure
  314. 10:48out the tool that's best for that
  315. 10:50specific [music] problem you want to
  316. 10:51solve and then spend a couple hours. It
  317. 10:53could be for me I do it on Sundays every
  318. 10:55single Sunday. I love testing tools.
  319. 10:56[music] You might fail. You might
  320. 10:58automate it which will be amazing.
  321. 11:00You're going to have way more time to do
  322. 11:02higher level things. [music] You might
  323. 11:03fail and that's okay if you fail because
  324. 11:05you're going to learn where AI can't do
  325. 11:07things yet. And that's what AI intuition
  326. 11:09is. knowing when and when when not to
  327. 11:11use the [music] tool when it's better
  328. 11:12than you and when it's not better than
  329. 11:13you. And then the third is just sharing
  330. 11:15your learnings. I find the best way to
  331. 11:18learn is by sharing things. That's
  332. 11:20obviously how I grew a business off of
  333. 11:22the back of that. But you don't have to
  334. 11:23post on social media. You can also share
  335. 11:25it with your team on Slack. You could
  336. 11:27share it with your mom or your dad or
  337. 11:29your friends. Just sharing what you're
  338. 11:32learning with others is going to be good
  339. 11:35not only for your own sake but also kind
  340. 11:37of become the go-to AI guy around the
  341. 11:40[music] office. And that's going to help
  342. 11:42you with career, that's going to help
  343. 11:43you with your friendships, that's going
  344. 11:44to help you uh with a lot of things in
  345. 11:46life. So, uh that's the third tip.

  346. Creators Are the Next Billionaires

  347. 11:54I'm not into a lot of politics
  348. 11:57personally and so I'm not in the space
  349. 11:59to be able to say who is right or wrong.
  350. 12:01But you could look at someone like Joe
  351. 12:02Rogan boys, they arguably influenced the
  352. 12:06election and they're content creators.
  353. 12:08That's pretty insane. If he told a
  354. 12:10farmer 50 years ago that'll do this job
  355. 12:13called a content creator, they would
  356. 12:15grow a following online and they would
  357. 12:18be able to influence an election. That's
  358. 12:20[music] insane. I think that's only
  359. 12:22going to get crazier. It's going to be
  360. 12:23harder to get to that level of influence
  361. 12:26and to grow a brand, a personal brand to
  362. 12:28that level. So much harder with the rise
  363. 12:30of a gener content. I think those
  364. 12:33creators will be the next billionaires.
  365. 12:34Those creators will run the [music]
  366. 12:36world almost. Content creator is kind of
  367. 12:38in the best position where they have
  368. 12:42distribution, [music]
  369. 12:43they have data as in they know what the
  370. 12:45audience wants. they can survey their
  371. 12:47audience and figure out what they want
  372. 12:48and then they can create anything. And
  373. 12:51everyone talks about verticalized AI
  374. 12:53SAS, right? Like AI for law, AI for uh
  375. 12:57accounting. These are huge startups
  376. 12:59getting all this money, but no one talks
  377. 13:00about verticalized content creators. And
  378. 13:03again, that's coming from someone who is
  379. 13:04a very broad content creator, but I can
  380. 13:06tell you verticalized content is blue
  381. 13:09ocean. Nobody's [music] doing AI for law
  382. 13:11content. And someone needs to be the
  383. 13:13guy. you're gonna find lucky breaks. And
  384. 13:16when you do find them, it's your job as
  385. 13:18a content creator to just go all in on
  386. 13:20it. That means you might have to spend
  387. 13:24more than 40 hours a week. That means
  388. 13:26you might have to do [music] things that
  389. 13:28others regular jobs you wouldn't have to
  390. 13:31do. But the momentum [music] is
  391. 13:33everything. And once you find that lucky
  392. 13:34break, it's like you got to just go all
  393. 13:36in on the momentum. I think it's harder,
  394. 13:38but it's still very blue ocean because
  395. 13:40there's so many problems that need to be
  396. 13:41solved in content. So yeah,
  397. 13:46Simom is really interesting. It was a
  398. 13:47great interview. He gave really good
  399. 13:49answers to a lot of these like further
  400. 13:51out there questions. One that was
  401. 13:54particularly interesting was his zero
  402. 13:57person company Betting Pool CEO can also
  403. 14:00be replaced by an agent. So I don't
  404. 14:01know, it just brings me to like this
  405. 14:03cool. We're living in this really cool
  406. 14:05spot or period in time where it's kind
  407. 14:08of the age of the idea man. like if you
  408. 14:11have an interesting idea just go build
  409. 14:13it. Uh because things are get growing
  410. 14:15really fast, capabilities are growing
  411. 14:16fast and yeah just most amazing time to
  412. 14:19be an entrepreneur. So that would
  413. 14:20probably be my biggest takeaway. [music]
How to Hit 2M Subs in 2 Years Building an AI Newsletter | The Rundown AI, Rowan Cheung — Transcriptly