Creator Leverage: Master AI. Build Systems. Grow Your Business

The average content creator can knock out 300-400 words per hour... if they stick their head down and don't get distracted. They could knock out a little more if they've super sharp keyboarding skills or dictate with an app like Otter. But how much faster can you create content with the help of AI? I wanted to find out. I custom-built a calculator that compares the process of creating content manually versus using AI. According to the calculator, I could write ad copy seven times faster using...

How good are you at writing prompts for AI? Anyone can bang in a request to ChatGPT or Claude and get a reasonably valuable output. I do that when I’m in a rush, and it’s kind of like using AI to drive a screw into a wall. Advanced prompting transforms AI into a precision Swiss Army knife. A well-crafted prompt is like selecting the right tool. I get much better outputs when I spend five or ten minutes writing an effective prompt. Essentially, I assign AI a specific role and clearly define...

A few months ago, I hired a developer on UpWork. I wanted him to fix a technical bug on my website. I won't name and shame, but he cost me $500. And my project went nowhere. I'm reasonably good at hiring and outsourcing... but I've always had a bad experience contracting work to developers. It's usually expensive and time-consuming. This week, I found a sweet workaround... without lifting a finger. I'm building a news aggregator covering developments in the AI space. It's called the AI Flash...

I've abandoned the platform that built my business. I’ve spent the past few months working on a fun coding project with a great vibe. I’m building a network of news aggregators by prompt engineering. If the news aggregators are successful, I’ll monetize them with display ads or use them to build a newsletter. That’s a few months off, though. Right now, I’m focused on building and launching my series of aggregators. I usually build my content websites on WordPress. WordPress helped me write a...

A few days ago, I stumbled across a powerful, introspective prompt for ChatGPT. Think of it as a way of turning AI into a psychologist/business coach. I plugged this prompt into ChatGPT for kicks. It identified some unsettling insights about my behaviors and my business. The rather unsettling answer was something I'd expect to pay a psychologist a couple of $100 for. The final output was several hundred words longer, but it’s too personal to share here (yikes!). ChatGPT is great at...

I raced the Tour de France of Triathlon last weekend. I spent four days in Roth in Germany. It’s a small town half an hour outside of Nuremberg. Roth is surrounded by a forest, a canal (great for swim) and long flat open roads (great for cycling). The Challenge Roth race organizers erected a large banner above the entrance to the town saying “Welcome home triathletes!” I’ve never seen so many pros and age-groupers (like me) whizzing around on triathlon bikes in one place. Triathlon is a niche...

I love planning. Business planning. Personal planning. Planning for big races But plans don't always work out. Last weekend, I completed a full-distance triathlon in Roth, Germany. A 3.8km swim. A 180km bike ride. Followed by a 42 km marathon. I trained for 9 months with one BIG RACE PLAN in mind. I was aiming for a sub-12-hour race in Roth. But plans sometimes crumble in the face of reality. We were supposed to swim 3.8km in the canal wearing wetsuits. However, the water was too hot, so we'd...