Creator Science
Jay Clouse
Creating content has never been easier—but breaking through the noise has gotten harder.
The only reliable way to grow as a creator is through systematic observation, experimentation, and iteration. This podcast is your weekly guide to evidence-backed strategies you can test in your own business.
Each episode features candid conversations with creators like James Clear, Ali Abdaal, Tim Urban, and Codie Sanchez. We explore what's actually working for them: the experiments they're running, the data they're tracking, and the frameworks they use to grow their audience, build trust, and increase income.
We dig into why it worked, how you can adapt it, and what constraints or anti-goals helped them stay focused and avoid burnout.
Hosted by Signal Award-winner Jay Clouse, this is a show about the business of content—from a place of curiosity, transparency, and a commitment to sustainable growth.
It's growth for creators, down to a science.
The only reliable way to grow as a creator is through systematic observation, experimentation, and iteration. This podcast is your weekly guide to evidence-backed strategies you can test in your own business.
Each episode features candid conversations with creators like James Clear, Ali Abdaal, Tim Urban, and Codie Sanchez. We explore what's actually working for them: the experiments they're running, the data they're tracking, and the frameworks they use to grow their audience, build trust, and increase income.
We dig into why it worked, how you can adapt it, and what constraints or anti-goals helped them stay focused and avoid burnout.
Hosted by Signal Award-winner Jay Clouse, this is a show about the business of content—from a place of curiosity, transparency, and a commitment to sustainable growth.
It's growth for creators, down to a science.
Episodes
Mentioned books
73 snips
Apr 7, 2026 • 49min
#300: I Spent Three Days With A Dozen New York Times Bestselling Authors
A three-day mastermind with a dozen bestselling authors led to conversations about event structure and how to lower attendees' guard. They trade tactics like newsletter tours, AI proofreading with values-based filters, and tiny $67 offers as lead filters. Strategies for shareable book visuals, street-team launches, personalized pre-order outreach, and hiring with EOS and Culture Index also come up.
36 snips
Mar 31, 2026 • 1h 2min
#299: What Nobody Tells You About Publishing a Book—with Award-Winning Podcaster Eric Zimmer
Eric Zimmer, award-winning podcaster and author of How a Little Becomes a Lot, shares how tiny daily choices add up and why progress is invisible in real time. He talks podcasting realities in 2026, pivoting from broad reach to deeper relationships, and the messy, long haul of writing and publishing a book.
99 snips
Mar 26, 2026 • 51min
#298: 9 Things I'm Doing Differently in My Business
Reflection on the creator economy's shifting energy and a return to the 1,000 True Fans model. A call to prioritize teaching, trust, and higher-quality content over attention-mining. Plans to experiment more, redesign onboarding, build internal AI tools, and create in-person experiences. A commitment to fewer long-term partnerships and taking November–December fully off.
59 snips
Mar 17, 2026 • 53min
#297: Joy Sullivan — How She Built A Living As A Writer On Instagram and Substack
Joy Sullivan, a Portland poet who built a large following on Instagram and Substack and founded the Sustenance writing community. She talks about growing an audience with written carousels, balancing craft with platform pressure, her two mantras about vulnerability and poetry, choosing slow growth over virality, and the workflow she uses to turn newsletters into Instagram posts.
144 snips
Mar 10, 2026 • 52min
#296: Meet The Man Who Solved YouTube (With Data)—Richard from 1of10
A data-driven breakdown of a four-phase ideation system for YouTube: finding the right audience, five research methods to spot repeatable formats, remixing ideas, and validation tactics. Covers title and thumbnail tactics, ideal video lengths by niche, and why viral growth can attract the wrong viewers. Includes demos and real examples of rewrites that dramatically changed performance.
209 snips
Mar 3, 2026 • 56min
#295: Community Building Trends for 2026 with Becky Pierson Davidson
Becky Pierson Davidson, community-driven product strategist and founder of Affinity Collective, helps high-revenue businesses design memberships and courses. She discusses why course businesses are shifting to memberships. They debate transformation versus community of practice. Topics include avoiding bait-and-switch expectations, forum design, the mastermind paradox, in-person retention levers, and why content drops are fading in 2026.
35 snips
Feb 24, 2026 • 48min
#294: Rob Walling — SaaS godfather turned creator talks team building and vibe coding
Rob Walling, serial entrepreneur and bootstrapped SaaS veteran behind Drip, MicroConf and TinySeed, now focuses on content and advising founders. He maps his business ecosystem and explains how a team of 11 and strong producers keep publishing on schedule. He argues why building SaaS is far harder than content and why vibe coding often misses the real challenges of subscription products.
41 snips
Feb 17, 2026 • 55min
#236: Mike Michalowicz – How the author of Profit First stays lean by licensing his ideas [Greatest Hits]
Mike Michalowicz, author and entrepreneur behind Profit First and Clockwork, licenses his frameworks to third-party implementers to stay lean. He explains creating, codifying, and licensing systems, how he structures a small author team, and the trade-offs of licensing versus running services. He also shares how he picks, sequences, and writes books quickly.
222 snips
Feb 10, 2026 • 36min
#293: 12 Ways To Stand Out In 2026
Twelve creative opportunities for 2026 are explored in short, punchy ideas. Topics include a long-form writing comeback, show-don’t-tell demonstrations, and the value of verifiable human experiences. Community building, live learning, local media, niche AI tools, effortful art, unscalable gestures, and leaning into weirdness also get attention.
143 snips
Feb 3, 2026 • 53min
#292: Chenell Basilio — The state of email in 2026, growing your list without social media, and new predictions.
Chenell Basilio, creator of Growth in Reverse who reverse-engineers newsletter growth, joins to unpack the future of email in 2026. She explains why newsletter hype is fading and why “insanely valuable content” matters most. They explore turning recommendation subscribers into real fans, growing lists without social media, YouTube-to-email moves, and using AI to repurpose long-form work.
