Speaker 0 00:00:00 Hey everyone. You are listening to Creative Architects by Casto, and I'm your host, Angela Hollowell. And this is a podcast about the future of the creator economy. Today I am joined by Jay Klaus, who is the founder of Creator Science.
Speaker 2 00:00:19 If you hired a replacement c e o for your business to replace you tomorrow, what would they do? You know, what were the, what are the first things they would do to change your business? And it's such a clarifying question.
Speaker 0 00:00:40 This podcast is brought to you by Cast os. One of the best ways to learn something is to go directly to the top people in that field. At Cast os, we do just that. Each episode of creative architects features creators who have taken their work to the next level. We hope that by watching and listening, it will inspire more creativity in your work along the way. CAOs wants to be a part of your creative journey. From our suite of tools, feature rich hosting platform, and even our production services, we are here to help connect directly with us by emailing
[email protected] or by clinking on the link in the show notes. Thanks for tuning in. It means a lot. Enjoy the show.
Speaker 0 00:01:29 So, for people who may not be familiar with you, I don't know if you're under a rock, you know, but if you are for some reason, and you don't know who Jay Klaus is, he is, uh, an incredible podcaster, incredible writer, and has some design shops to boot. Um, but the way I came to know Jay was through his community building efforts on Twitter, and that came from some experience with him running community for Pat Flynn. Can you talk to us a little bit about how your experience running community for Pat Flynn kind of led you to experimenting with Tweet 100 and now circle your community on circle?
Speaker 2 00:02:04 Yeah. Well, if we go back to when I started my business in 2017, the first paid product that I offered was a basically a group coaching program. And for that program I used Zoom, which I, back in 2017, I had to teach people how to download and use Zoom, by the way. And, uh, slack for the community. Slack is not a very good community tool, but there were no community tools then. And it, it was like the best I could do to, to do the experience that I wanted. I ran that program for about three years, a little more than three years. And through that I met a man named Matt Gartland because he was working on a side project and he went through the program when he was building his business. After Matt had gone through my group coaching program, his main business, which is not what he was working on in the program, but his main business was actually acquired by Pat and they merged to become s p I Media, the, the full team there.
Speaker 2 00:03:04 So fast forward to 2020 and the world is like collapsing and shutting down, and Matt and Pat decided that they wanted to fast track some of their plans, which were building an online membership community. And they asked themselves, who do we know that can do that? Well, Matt thought of me, Matt brought me in in the middle of 2020 as a consultant to help them think about, uh, the launch of this program, which is called S P I pro. So I helped them for a few months plan this, get it ready for launch. We launched it in, I believe, June of 2020. And it was super successful out of the gate. It went really, really well. And Matt asked, you know, will you come and lead the team? And at first, I, I was hesitant and I said, I, I've got too much going on.
Speaker 2 00:03:54 I've got my mastermind program, I've got this content business I'm trying to grow. And he said, well, what if we acquire your community and your, your coaching program and bring them into S P I pro? And that was a pretty attractive offer. So, you know, fast forward a few months and, and negotiations and whatnot, and I joined the team and my community became part of the S P I Pro community. And for a year at S P I I helped them build their community team and, uh, the, the community business within S P I, towards the end of 2021, which is the year that I was working there, my content business had begun to take off. And it was just not possible for me to do what the team at S P I needed me to do and what my business needed me to do.
Speaker 2 00:04:38 I had to pick one or the other, and I'm always gonna bet on myself. So by the end of 2021, I was already transitioning out of S P I, I worked there from January through December, and in January of 2022, I was back out fully on my own again. So at that point, um, I had learned even more about community. I'd also been introduced to a new community tool called Circle. Really enjoyed it and started thinking like, okay, well what does this look like in my life? Now I'm not running the community team, but I'm really good at community. I like having community in my life. Maybe I should build my own. And I already put some thought into it. But in March of 2022, I launched my community, the lab also on circle, uh, with some pretty major differences in, in the format and function of the community. But that has been, uh, the biggest revenue driver in my business now as a creator for the last year plus.
Speaker 0 00:05:29 Yeah. Um, so there was some skip steps in the story, which is understandable. You can't tell your whole life story in five seconds from 2017 to now. Totally cool. Um, but another big way that I found you and was, I guess like learning about your content business as it was growing was your educational content, right? You had a lot of stuff on Teachable about how to start a podcast, podcasts like the pros, um, and stuff that you've continued to update and add to as the years have gone on, um, to include some masterminds, to include some workshops, um, and things of that nature that have now all been encompass in a circle. So talk to me about when you knew it was right for you to transition from creator or transition in part from creator to educator.
Speaker 2 00:06:14 Well, I don't think that they are separate. I look at the spectrum of creators, and I think it goes from one end of pure entertainment to another end of pure education. And I think there's a real sweet spot in the exact middle. You know, people that are really entertaining but also educating you. And I typically fall somewhere between the middle and the, the side of education. So I'm still creating content, I'm creating as much content as an entertainment creator does, but my content is geared at transformation and education and helping people better themselves, learn skills, improve their, their status in life. And it's really always been that way, but it's gotten more and more practical and specific and in depth as time has gone on. And I've gotten better at creating content. So a lot of that is like the free stuff that I make every week.
Speaker 2 00:07:04 I send one to two newsletters, email newsletters. I've been doing that since 2017. Every week I produce a new podcast episode. Sometimes those podcast episodes have a video equivalent, and that's the ongoing content creation that doesn't include social media, which is also there. And, um, you know, to make the whole thing work, there also have to be paid products and, and paid resources. So you mentioned podcasts, like the Pros. That was my first paid course. Uh, recently I launched a course on building membership communities called Build a Beloved Membership. That's been my most successful course to date and the best thing that I've made for sure. And when I launched the lab, the membership community, all of those paid resources got bundled up and included as part of that offering as well. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 0 00:07:49 <affirmative>, uh, yeah, that's my understanding. And that is, again, maybe unique to you and just true to who you are in terms of combining that educational component with the community component. So can you talk to me a little bit about how, because to my understanding, when you first started the community on Circle, you had some educational tools that were available to members, but then after a while you said, screw it, if you buy for a year, you get everything. You know what I mean? So you get the full gamut. Um, so talk to me about why and how you made that transition to just saying education community all in one. We're doing the thing.
Speaker 2 00:08:25 Well, I just, I, I got to the point where I'm like, you know, I, I don't really have interest in making an even higher priced or more involved product in my, my suite of offerings here. Like, basically if you join the lab, I wanna just pour the love on you and say, this is the best thing you could do. This is where I want everyone to aspire to land and end up. And if you're here, you just get everything. You know, I, I don't, I don't want to feel like if you're paying to be a part of my membership that I'm also still trying to sell you on something. Like, I would rather just pour the love on you, help as much as I can, and everything that I can give you and arm you with to help you be successful, I'm going to do that.
Speaker 2 00:09:02 So I did. And, you know, even, even the paid programs that I offer each of my courses, if you were to pay the, the $500 to join, build a Beloved membership, there's actually a, a lesson inside the course to say if you want to join the lab's, uh, starter membership or full full membership, you can upgrade to that offering by just paying the difference. You know, you'll put the price of the course towards that. And I really like having that dynamic with my audience where it's like, once you get here, there's nothing else that I'm going to sell you. Like, I'm just gonna do everything in my power to support you and, and, and help you be successful.
Speaker 0 00:09:39 So now I wanna transition a little bit into, um, kind of the nitty gritty of how you, again, have structured the community, and then also how you structured your creative business. So when people think of subscription-based communities, whether that's monthly subscriptions on annual subscription, you know, a lot of times I think what's attractive about that business model is it resembles kind of a SaaS company. You know, and that's what everybody wants. They wanna be able to measure their, you know, monthly recurring revenue, annual recurring revenue. I don't know why, but I mean, bills as long as bills are paid. But so when we're thinking about like reaching this proverbial number that exists, whatever number you have in your mind that you wanna reach monthly or annually, you know, we're thinking about how can we get as many people as possible, you know, signed in or buying into, you know, the subscription based model, but your community is the opposite. It is capped at a certain number because you're like, okay, like, yeah, I could help 500 people, I could help a thousand people. I could help 10,000 people. I could help whatever this arbitrary number of people is, but could I do it well? And so that is something that you have made a distinction of your community. Can you talk with people through your process of like knowing and understanding your capacity as an educator and as a creator?
Speaker 2 00:10:57 When I launched the membership, what I didn't want it to be was my whole business. Like, I, I didn't wanna think of my business as a membership business. I wanted the membership to be one aspect of the business. And for that to be true, then I still need to be doing everything else outside of that. I need to be building whatever the full version of the business is. And for me, that was creating a lot of content, a lot of free content. It was creating other revenue streams that are strong, maybe even stronger than the membership, uh, including digital products like courses. And so if I just went on the path of let me monetize the community to the highest degree that I can, based on the way that I show up in the membership and in communities generally, there's a limit to what I can sustain in terms of supporting people, because I'm very, very involved.
Speaker 2 00:11:46 Everyone who joins the community, I do a 30 minute onboarding call with as soon as they get in there, like the first thing they do is schedule a 30 minute one-on-one call with me. So I put a lot of time into each individual member in the community as a whole. We're doing several events, live sessions that I'm leading every week inside the community. And so if I were scaling the number of members, I just wouldn't have time to, to be a content creator and to make other assets, you know, to, to benefit the business or improve the business. And I knew that was a risk because of some of the work I did with Pat and where I could see, like, if I literally doubled or tripled the size of this membership, like what would that look like in my life? And it would, it would change my relationship to the thing.
Speaker 2 00:12:28 It would also change the member experience because I wouldn't be able to do some of the things that I do now to give more attention to the individual. So I, I just did a lot of spreadsheet math and figured out, okay, at what, at what levels and at what prices, you know, how many people and at what price can this thing sustain and generate an income that also basically funds the, the creation of other things in the business? And this became kind of a sweet spot for me. I was at about 50 members when I asked myself like, okay, so how big do I really want this to be? I remember floating it out to some of the members and saying, I think I'm gonna cap this at 200. And some of them pushed back, they're like, I think it could be bigger and we'd be fine. Like, I think you could probably go up to 300. And I thought, ah, I don't know, <laugh>, and I'm, I'm pretty happy here at this 200 number. We, we hit our, our capacity, that 200 member limit in February of this year, 2023, which was the 11th month, uh, I guess it was the 12th month of the first year. So we did hit our, our cap within the first year, but barely <laugh>
Speaker 0 00:13:30 <laugh>, hey, reaching the goals is all that matters. You know what I'm saying? So again, when I met, when I came into contact with j klau, the creator, right? Your business was called, or part of your business was called Creative Companion, right? Because you were like, I wanna be along with you along your creative journey. And now everything is under the Creator Science umbrella. Um, you also mentioned, you know, you had started a community originally kind of through Zoom and Slack. Now you're all on circle. You had started educating, you know, strictly through Teachable. Now you have it kind of all embedded into this community should people choose to, to join that. So what I'm hearing and what I'm seeing and what I'm observing is that you have done things a second time and improved upon them with that second time. Right? And I think a lot of people are afraid to say that, you know, yeah, try this one thing, it went okay.
Speaker 0 00:14:26 Um, it wasn't terrible, right? But I know it could be bigger. And I think sometimes some, the fear of going through that hardness of the first iteration of something makes you harder to get to the second iteration of something that could be better than the first, right? If you were to put everything that you learned from the first experience into the second. So talk to me about, you know, and at least that's the way it's been for me. This is my second podcast that I've, I've hosted and I think it's gonna be marginally better than the first because of all the experience that I'm bringing to it. Right? So talk to me about, you know, your experience with just like, not necessarily starting over, but building upon all the work that you've done over the years.
Speaker 2 00:15:04 Well, in the best case scenario, it's, it's kind of a natural evolution, because if you are doing this over time, it's almost harder to not improve than, than it's to improve. You know? Like, you just get better if you, if you stick at it long enough and put enough reps in. I realized several times in my journey that I made like structural or strategic errors and to, to, to change that was not just like, okay, the thing I made is better now it's like, hmm, I have to like, pretty fundamentally change the thing, rename it, relaunch it. Or in some cases, you know, you mentioned Tweet 100 earlier, I've, I've basically shut that down, or Twitter has kind of shut it down on my behalf based on their a p i rules. So there the, you know, things need to change. And there was, there was a member of my community, her name is Kat Molehill.
Speaker 2 00:15:57 She's great. She helps you present better on camera. And Katt shared a question in the lab that I think about all the time now, which was, if you hired a replacement c e o for your business to replace you tomorrow, what would they do? You know, what were the, what are the first things they would do to change your business? And it's such a clarifying question where like, pretty quickly you realize, ah, yeah, these are the things that I probably should be doing. I've been putting it off. And usually you put it off because it's scary or it's hard, or it's annoying, it's tedious. You know, a great example here is the podcast used to be called Creative Elements. And the, the newsletter was called Creative Companion. As you said, those are very similar names, but they're not the same. So I got a lot of people saying Creator elements.
Speaker 2 00:16:46 I got a lot of just, just mixing things up, not knowing what to call things. When I found the brand name Creator Science. And I really liked that. I started with the newsletter named that Creator Science First, and I had Creator Science and Creative Elements. And again, it was still like creator elements, uh, creative Science <laugh>. And it was just so frustrating. And I realized like, creator science is a better name for the podcast too, and it would make everything way more simple and streamlined, and I should just be the founder of Creator Science. And that's what I do. And we have a newsletter, we have a podcast, we have YouTube channel, that's what it is. But rebranding the newsletter was painful enough. Rebranding the podcast is even gonna be more painful and more annoying, especially because I had partners involved. Like, I had a podcast network that I had to work with to get the name changed.
Speaker 2 00:17:30 And for a long time I put it off because it seemed hard and challenging. But this year, my mantra has been when I realized there's a difficult thing that needs to happen or would be long-term beneficial, but I'm short-term avoiding it. I need to get over it and, and do the thing. And I've gotten faster at making those changes over time. I'm hoping that I'm in a place now where I don't need to make as many, like, structural difficult changes, and now it's like small iterations and improvement of the work, but it's, it's something that I wish I would've taken more seriously sooner, which is ripping off the bandaid of these things that I know should be done, but I just can't seem to get myself to do.
Speaker 0 00:18:11 That is some profound deep self-reflection. And I think there's nothing like being a creative entrepreneur that challenges you to look inward so often. Right. And tackle the things that you have, you can easily avoid if you're, you know, working for someone else, because ultimately it's someone else's decision, right? You know, you can avoid certain decisions, but when it's just you in a room thinking about what could I be doing better? And if I know what I can be doing better, why am I not doing it? Yep.
Speaker 2 00:18:40 Why am I not doing it <laugh>? Why am I not doing it that, you know, it's, it's gotten to a point where it's like, I just will no longer accept inaction on my part for things that I know need to be done. And sometimes it's hard, you know, like it might be realizing, Hmm, somebody that I've partnered with or hired, they're, they're not doing what I need them to do. I need to let them go. Like, that's a really hard thing to do. And you, you gotta trust your gut. You gotta listen to yourself, you gotta do, you gotta make the, the hard choices.
Speaker 0 00:19:14 Yeah. And I think that is a great note to end on, which is, you know, as you transition from you being figurative, you, like you j class, you, the person watching you, the person listening, et cetera, as you transition from being a solopreneur to a business owner, someone who has employees or subcontractors that you work with on a fairly regular basis, you know, you talked about when you were working with Pat, how you kind of built that community team there. And now that you transition into doing your own thing full-time again, you are building up your own team of subcontractors that you work with regularly or that you consult with on a decently regular basis. You know, what was that transition like for you, and what tips would you have for the people who are thinking about, okay, I've reached my capacity as a person, I've reached my capacity with automation, you know, I need to hire for my weakness at this point. Like, what would you recommend for them?
Speaker 2 00:20:09 This is a hard lesson to share because it makes hiring harder and even less accessible. But in my experience, it's worth spending more time looking for the a player who's really gonna do the things that you really need to do and fits with you than getting somebody who feels like, ah, they're, they're probably gonna get the job done. It's probably good enough. It's, it's hard to build an organization around people who early on when the organization are small, isn't the best version of what you could be doing. So it, you, you really gotta take it seriously, and you gotta find great, great people, because great people also want to work with great people. So if you want to build a team of great people, it starts with the first individual and the second individual, and then the third individual. So hiring is hard. It's no joke. It's, it's, you gotta spend some time working with people, and it's probably good to start with like a test project to get a sense for their style and, and your communication with them, and if it feels good and if the work product is good. But it's, it's much harder than people realize. And, you know, there's the advice of hire slow fire fast, and I believe it. I, I buy into that. I subscribe to it because a bad hire can be really detrimental and painful.
Speaker 0 00:21:28 Hmm. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that story. I mean, and the few times that I've hired, I can also attest that it is probably the hardest part of growing a business, right? Because now you're not just knowing and thinking about your own capacity, you're also having to assess someone else's and not just whether or not you like a person, because there's a lot of people that you like that aren't necessarily the best for what you need. So that can be really rough. Yeah. But thank you so much for sharing your, your journey and your expertise with us here today, Jay. I really, really appreciate it. Awesome.
Speaker 2 00:21:58 Thanks, Angela. It's been great chatting.
Speaker 0 00:22:00 Absolutely. That's all for this episode. If you enjoyed it, please give us a five star review on your listening app, like this video if you're tuning in on YouTube, and subscribe for more episodes in the next episode of Creative Architects by Casto. I'll be talking with 10 Gia Estrada of bipo podcast creators, and you won't wanna miss it. I'll catch you in the next episode.
