Creator Science with Jay Clouse

Josh is the founder of Upright Media, an operating partner for content creators handling operations, consulting, recruiting, and post-production. His clients include some of YouTube's biggest channels — Erak, Smosh, Emma Chamberlain, Dude Perfect, Matthew Beam, and Chris Williamson. He runs 11 full-time staff and about 40 contractors worldwide. He describes himself as a creator without a channel. This conversation also took a turn into what YouTube actually rewards right now, why "companionship content" is quietly eating the internet, and the concept of the "shitty flow state" — that experience where you put down your phone 35 minutes after opening Instagram and can't name a single thing you saw.

Upright Media

Brad Stulberg — The Way of Excellence

Monday.com (project management tool Josh uses)

Topper Guild (YouTube channel)

Speeed (James Pumphrey + Jesse Wood)

Full transcript and show notes

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Josh's opening: don't lose sight of the big goals that motivate your team

(00:26) Who Josh Mattingly is and what Upright Media does

(08:16) Excitement vs. panic — how much of working 80 hours a week is actually anxiety

(12:49) Why most creators hire from panic — and how Josh reframes it around a goal

(22:35) Build the team around what you're doing well, not where you think you're going

(24:36) The positioning exercise: what is your channel, actually — and why it drives every hire

(20:36) Speeed channel case study: lean team, clear mission, "GQ for this generation"

(27:02) What YouTube is biased toward right now: real connection over spectacle

(30:02) The content spectrum: entertainment → education → companionship content

(40:01) The "shitty flow state" — why most of what we consume doesn't satisfy

(55:52) Hiring mistake: moving too fast — interview 10 more after you find "the one"

(56:56) Building a hiring committee as a solopreneur using peers and friends

***

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#175: Angus Parker – Ali Abdaal’s right-hand man shares a YouTuber’s guide to hiring.

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Every month inside the Lab, I do a full retrospective: wins, concerns, experiments, with all the numbers on the table. I've never felt comfortable putting the whole thing out publicly, but I do think the practice itself is worth sharing. So this episode is my lightweight version: three big wins from April, three things I'm genuinely worried about heading into May, and three experiments I'm kicking off. I'm also testing a new name for this format: the Big Three.

April was, by most measures, a really good month. A baby boy on the way, the biggest partnership deal I've ever signed, and a speaking slot at Press Publish LA. But sitting alongside all of that is a real anxiety: I'm watching my audience pull back, sales slowing, people tightening up. And I'm rebuilding a lot of the business simultaneously, too. This episode is me thinking out loud about all of it.


The Lab — Creator Science membership community


Circle — community platform powering the Lab


Press Publish LA — Colin & Samir's creator event, late May


Build a Beloved Membership — Jay's membership course (cohort coming July)

Full transcript and show notes

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:14) Introducing the lightweight retro format ("the Big Three")

(01:38) Win #1: Baby boy on the way — and what it means for the next six months

(04:28) Win #2: Biggest partnership deal ever — Circle for the rest of the year

(06:03) Win #3: Speaking at Press Publish LA

(07:24) Concern #1: The oxygen mask moment — slowing sales and audience withdrawal

(09:47) "Give where it hurts" — the counter-intuitive move in uncertain times

(13:41) Concern #2: Rebuilding the business from the ground up

(18:56) Concern #3: Are we trying to do too much?

(19:25) Experiment #1: Building out the team (Ana, Ritzy, and Tubey in Slack)

(27:46) Experiment #2: The Membership Summit (June 23–26) + cohort in July

(30:41) Experiment #3: A new AI-forward product model, piloting inside the Lab first

***

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#291: 48 Hours With Clawdbot: How I’m Using It and Initial Reactions

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I’ve been a full-time creator for 8 years now and have earned $2,192,000 since 2022. I’ve spent a LOT of time and money experimenting with different ways to make money on the internet, so I’m going to rank them. The best and the worst.

I show you 15 different revenue streams and rate them from S to F based on their potential versus the effort required. By the very end of the video, you’ll know which ones are right for you. And at any point, if you agree or disagree, let me know in the comments.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Full transcript and show notes⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:32) AdSense

(01:36) Sponsorship & Brand Deals

(03:30) Content Memberships

(04:30) Done-For-You Services

(05:27) Royalties

(06:28) 1-to-1 Coaching & Consulting

(07:38) Affiliates

(09:36) User Generated Content (UGC)

(10:17) Group Programs

(11:25) Digital Products

(12:56) Speaking

(14:27) Live Events

(15:53) Community Memberships

***

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Sam Vander Wielen is an attorney turned entrepreneur who built the go-to legal template shop for online businesses. Her flagship product, the Ultimate Bundle, a package of fill-in-the-blank contracts and video trainings, has generated over $8 million in lifetime revenue and now earns close to $2 million per year with essentially one full-time employee. She published her first book with Hachette in April 2025, and she runs everything through a single evergreen webinar funnel that quietly generates six figures a month between launches.

I met Sam at Craft and Commerce last year, and when I saw her post about 10,000+ webinar registrants and a $500,000 launch, I knew I had to talk to her. What blew me away wasn't the numbers; it was the simplicity. One product. One funnel. Two launches a year. Relentless customer research. She's the clearest example I've seen of someone who found the main thing and refused to let anything pull her off it.

Sam Vander Wielen

Sam's Sidebar Newsletter

The Ultimate Bundle

Book: When I Start My Business, I'll Be Happy (Hachette, 2025)

On Your Terms Podcast

Sam on Barrett Brooks' podcast (referenced in intro)

VideoAsk

Growth in Reverse (Chenell Basilio) — referenced interview

Full transcript and show notes

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Jay introduces Sam and her $8M+ legal template business

(02:27) What the Ultimate Bundle actually is — and why it hasn't changed much since 2017

(03:47) The Olive Garden effect: how Sam thinks about community and lifetime customer support

(10:00) The $500K launch breakdown — what went right and why it wasn't an accident

(13:28) Sam's full launch strategy: the teaser period, invite period, and treating registration like concert tickets

(18:03) The on-webinar bonus that drove 128 purchases live — and why a book beat a $100 discount

(22:56) How Sam uses VideoAsk to boost show-up rates and make 11,000 registrants feel personally seen

(28:39) Voice of customer research: quarterly customer calls, AI transcript synthesis, and why Sam still reads the raw transcripts herself

(33:14) Why working less keeps making the business better — and what the 'entrepreneurial gap year' actually means

(36:04) What motivates Sam (honest answer: fear) — and what Jay relates to in that

(42:00) Why AI isn't a threat to Sam's business — and how she reframed the 'doubt language' from Google to Claude

***

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

#292: Chenell Basilio — The state of email in 2026, growing your list without social media, and new predictions.

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Riley Brown posted the first TikTok video about ChatGPT the day it launched. It got 20 million views and took him from zero to 200K followers in less than two weeks. Since then, he's built an audience of 1.5 million across platforms, raised $9 million to co-found a vibe-coding startup in San Francisco, and developed a content system so systematic that a single viral video gets reposted across seven accounts every week for the rest of the year.

In this episode, Riley shares his philosophy for staying on the edge of any niche, why playing beats structure when it comes to content, how he runs a content operation with two overseas editing agencies and a separate thumbnail designer, and the Twitter strategy — posting viral videos across seven accounts — that tripled his company's revenue in two months. He also makes a strong case for educational screen-share YouTube videos as the single biggest content opportunity right now, and explains why using AI to write your scripts is, in his words, "suicide."

Riley Brown on X/Twitter

Vibecoding


Tella — screen recording tool Riley recommends


Typefully — Twitter scheduling tool Riley uses

Full transcript and show notes

***

TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) How Riley's first ChatGPT TikTok got 20 million views

(04:56) First mover advantage:

(07:50) How Riley films his videos

(11:24) Why structure made his content worse

(13:06) Jay's honest moment

(21:33) The case for educational screen-share YouTube videos

(26:45) His content strategy

(30:43) The seven-account Twitter strategy that tripled revenue

(37:37) Gimmicks that actually boost retention

(41:00) Why AI writing your scripts is suicide in the long run

(42:37) The content farm future and how to survive it

(50:14) Platform rankings: where to start today

***

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#183: Thomas Frank – How to build a successful tutorial channel.

#288: He gained 190K Instagram followers in 508 days…but wouldn’t do it again | Yoni Smolyar

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WHEN YOU'RE READY

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