In this conversation Matt Ragland and Speaker A explore how creators can use inexpensive, digital experiments to discover content formats, platforms, and audiences without risking large financial outlays. They discuss trying new topics (e.g., parenting, gaming) and adopting platform‑specific aesthetics—especially the “janky” style favored on TikTok—while keeping the effort low (one short video per day, 10‑minute production limit). The dialogue highlights how algorithmic signals (e.g., Wall Street‑themed videos getting five‑times more views) can tempt creators to chase metrics, but both participants caution against letting views dictate identity. They note the “death of the follower” era where virality is possible without a large follower base, and they examine cross‑platform funnels (TikTok → Instagram → YouTube). Finally, they address the strategic tension between creative experimentation and clear monetization goals, outlining various revenue lanes (coaching, courses, sponsorships, books, templates) and how a creator’s top‑of‑funnel approach must align with the intended product tier.
Chapters
I think that this is where it's so beautiful for creators because the experiments usually are just very low cost because they're digital. You know, there's the time, but there's not a high financial cost, right? If I, if I'm Mark Zuckerberg and I'm, and I say I want to experiment in the metaverse, there's a gigantic financial cost.
Right.
If I'm Kei He and I want to experiment with parenting content and I've never done a parenting video, the worst thing that happens is I wasted the time it takes to make the parenting video and maybe I repel some of, some of my audience. And so I think the experiments can, can be as simple as whatever medium you're in, right? Whatever domain you're in, just trying something different, right? Right? So like if you make YouTube videos about productivity, just throw in a video on parenting, see how you feel making it, right? Because sometimes we fantasize things like, oh, it'd be so cool to be a parenting YouTuber or a gaming YouTuber, but then you realize you don't actually want to make the videos about that topic. You just like that topic, right? So just take a— take an at-bat. I'll give you a very simple example of the way I'm approaching it, Matt, is TikTok. I have no followers on TikTok. I'm old as fuck to be on that platform. My bio is youngest managing director at BlackRock, oldest person on TikTok. That's my bio. Good one.
That's a good one.
And so, and I'm not sure, you know, I sell very, very high-end coaching to basically executives. I'm pretty sure they're not on TikTok, but I think it's kind of cool. And TikTok's being banned in a year. I think it's gonna be banned, but let's not talk about that. So—
Probably.
Experiment. I wanna try to make one TikTok video a day and I wanna do it the TikTok way, which, you know, it's like the camera's all janky, the audio sucks. Yeah. You know, the editing cuts are rough. I wanna make that style video 'cause by the way, those are the styles of video I like watching. Actually, when I see something polished in my TikTok feed, I don't watch it.
You and producer Tim, producer co-host Tim have a very, like, are very aligned on that take for TikTok.
I will not watch a product. I'll watch it on YouTube Short. It's so weird. Like the medium is the message. And so, so I decide to start making these videos and I have a time limit is I'm not going to let myself— the whole thing's going to take 10 minutes.
Okay. I like that.
And, and I'm going to try to do it every day. But if I'm tired or if my kid's sick, I give myself permission. You know, James Clear's like, don't miss twice. Right. I kind of give myself permission. Don't miss like 3 days in a row. No, no calendar, no nothing. Just whatever you feel like doing.
Mm-hmm.
And I've done maybe 35 of these in the past, maybe 40, 40-odd days. And what I've quickly learned is A, it's actually really fun. So I'm, it's passing the aliveness test. Yep. B, there's a good business use case cuz even if TikTok goes away, I think to me TikTok is much more like Twitter. It's just faster. It's much rougher, high volume. Yeah. That style of communicating is not going away.
Way. Right.
Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
The number of reps that you are putting in.
Exactly. The reps on that will translate to some other medium. By the way, they're actually really translating well on like making paid ads. So it's a very similar— you notice a lot of paid ads are actually very janky looking. Yep. For the same reason, people feel more connected to the janky ad than the polished ad.
Well, it's like that, you know, for another rapper reference, it was the Kanye commercial during the Super Bowl.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And what I found is what TikTok, the algorithm, the fans, however you wanna describe it, they wanna hear the inside baseball of Wall Street. Those videos get 5 times more views than productivity, family, parenting. So now I have a decision. Do I wanna lean into that? Do I just keep the experiment going? Do I shut down the experiment? And I'll probably just continue to do what I wanna do and maybe bias a little bit to more, well, I don't wanna be a Wall Street TikToker 'cause it's not, Like, that's not why I'm here. But that's a very contained experiment. It took about 30 days. I didn't, there was very little self-loathing. And by the way, in that 30 days, I almost crossed the threshold, which gets me a link in bio, which is 1,000 subs. So that might open up some new doors. I don't know. And so I think, Matt, that shows, I hope that communicates very low risk experiment, low risk. But also I didn't want that mental burden, like I have to do it every day.
Right.
Because that really stresses me out and it starts to suck the fun out of it. But the reality is that I really enjoy doing it. So I think I only missed 2 days in 45 days. And so contained and we'll see, we'll see where it takes us. I had my first crossover kind of TikTok to Instagram, like, come, can I come ask you a question? It wasn't a client, but I was like, oh, this is, because that's the thinking too. I think there's a TikTok to YouTube funnel. Channel that I haven't fully understood, but I think it's there. It's like if you like someone's content there, you basically have one link, you know, go see their Instagram or their YouTube, right? So that's kind of what I'm playing with where my YouTube's growing at a pretty healthy clip.
You said something else that I thought was interesting of where the views pointing, because when you said like, oh, the Wall Street, the Inside Baseball of Wall Street gets 5x the views traditionally, and maybe if maybe just because of where you are as a creator and that you've already had success, you've had a million-dollar business that you have like moved on from, moved forward with, is like if you were a new, newer creator and you were telling me these things like I made 35 videos in 30 days, you know, around that, and this one type of video did 5x the views of the others, be like, you know what, you are now, you're a Wall Street TikToker. That's what you are. Or like for me, I looked at it in 2018, 2019 is like, oh, my bullet journal videos got 5 times the views of like my marketing videos. Guess what I am now for the next 3 years? A bullet journal YouTuber. Those things are like, it's such, it's such a temptation. I think like having the distinction if you're listening between like, is this the first thing that I'm going in on? Because I do think like being able to identify a trend, something that like most likely you will be interested in. In some ways it might have been a little different for you having come from Wall Street. Maybe that's not the thing that you would have wanted to make your first foray into versus like— and this is another way that I can, I can tie it in. Like my most popular tweets and posts of all time are about parenting, are about being a dad. And that happened last summer. I've had multiple go viral, go over a million views. And if this was Matt 5 years ago, I'd be like, guess I'm a parenting influencer now. I guess I'm a dad influencer. And I'm like, oh no, like I would— I can like do the things that I know to do well. Like, well, you know, just have a simple newsletter landing page. We'll stand up a community so that dads can talk together. That's more of a recent progression, but that's not the thing. I'm like, I'm not burning it all down and thinking like, we're going— we're going in the direction of the views, everybody. And so like just being able to understand maybe you don't always need to follow the views or the likes or the subscribers if that's not what you know, this is the thing that I want to be doing.
And I think that's a, that's a great point because I don't— I've been a creator for 9 years and I think I'm a solid creator. I'm not kind of in the group of elite creators. But thank you, Matt. But I think one thing I realized, you know, when I started 9 years ago, I always tell people this, Instagram Stories didn't exist. So we were just straight up like a time-based Instagram feed of your friends. That's the world we were living in, right? And Jack Conte has this beautiful presentation from South by Southwest that we can link to that it's like the death of the follower.
Yeah.
And so we're kind of in the—
I haven't watched that yet. I need to.
Death of the follower moment where followers don't— TikTok followers doesn't matter. You can go viral with no TikTok followers. All right. And you could never have done that back in the day, in the old days. And so it's this challenge. So what I'm trying to say is if you're starting as a creator today, it is so competitive. You know, you probably need video. You don't have to, but you probably need something with video because that's how people want to consume.
It's definitely ideal.
Yeah. And I think there's this real tension because you can't, in the early days, you can't just be like, in the old days you're like, this is what I ate for lunch. And here's a picture of my kid. Here's a parenting tip. And like, oh, I'm productive. Here's my bullet journal. Like in the old days, there was just so much less competition that you could actually do that and build that connection with people. And then, you know, it's like kind of build an audience and then build a business around it. I don't, I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, but I don't think that you can do that anymore in the early days because just this concept, this nebulous concept of building an audience, A, it's so much more difficult. And so it's this strange tension where like you do have to find that maybe I'll lean in with the Wall Street inside baseball. Okay, you have to know like what's your goal, right? Are you trying to monetize? Are you trying to get a mass awareness to have a book deal in 5 years? Are you trying to go the public speaking route? Are you trying to go the Notion templates route? Like, these are like such different vectors. Like if you're trying to go the Notion template route or you're trying to get high-end coaching clients, your kind of top of funnel strategy is completely different, like completely. And I think that's why, but there's a chicken and an egg because if you're just starting, you actually don't know what your product is. And so I would, and I would love to hear your thoughts on this, but I would kind of encourage people to at least have an eye on how am I gonna monetize? If your goal is to make money, let's put that. Creating as an art to a side. If your goal is to make money, you have to have a view on like, okay, I'm going to— there's lanes, right? Coaching courses, info products, sponsorships, books, public speaking, high-end consulting, what have you, templates. Know kind of what your monetization likelihoods are. Like, I'm never going to sell templates. I'm always going to sell higher, more expensive products, which just changes my top of funnel strategy because I'm not— by definition, I'm not playing a volume game, right?
