I Exceeded My Creator Goals by 2x This Year: Here's What Worked and What Didn't
Honest reflections on my creator journey three years in
Dear subscribers,
Today, I want to share some personal lessons about my creator journey.
This year I exceeded my creator goals by 2x, but it wasn’t all wins.
So let’s talk about what worked, what didn’t, and what’s next:
How I use AI for creator work
The newsletter posts that resonated the most
Growing from 5K to 40K YouTube subscribers
Staying true on sponsorships and community
Reflections on being a PM and a creator
How I use AI for creator work
I basically have AI open at all times to:
Newsletter: Voice dictate first drafts, edit newsletter posts, and make infographics.
Podcast: Research guests, turn raw transcripts into show notes, generate YouTube thumbnail copy, and write social posts.
I use just a small handful of AI tools to do all this:
For AI models, Claude is my daily driver for getting work done and Gemini is great for infographics and illustrations. I'm canceling my paid ChatGPT subscription (for now) since it doesn't stand out for me in any area.
For other AI tools, I use Wispr Flow and Superwhisper for voice dictation, Granola for meetings, Notion for templates, Google AI Studio for prototyping, and Replit, Cursor, and Claude Code for building websites and apps.
In 2026, I want to give my paid subscribers (upgrade here) more value with:
Free access to my favorite AI tools in addition to the existing 3 months free benefit for Wispr Flow and Granola.
A dedicated app for paid subs with my personal AI workflows for PRDs, prototyping, and more.
The newsletter posts that resonated the most
There are a lot of newsletters that share daily AI news and industry analysis. But I think what busy people really want are just:
Practical AI tutorials that walk step-by-step through building infographics, websites, apps, and AI products.
Personal takes on what’ll happen to product management, what is real vs. AI hype, and how to future proof your tech career.
In 2026, I plan to write more about these topics. Here are some upcoming posts:
Tutorial: Prototype-first product development with Google AI Studio
Personal take: What I really believe in to build great products (will be 🌶️)
I also want to showcase other AI builders. If you have a practical AI workflow that you’d like to write a guest post for, reply and let me know!
Growing from 5K to 40K YouTube subscribers
YouTube has been a hard channel to grow, but I’m still proud of hitting 40K subscribers. Here are my most popular videos:
My biggest learning from publishing 40+ episodes:
The guest’s credentials (e.g., CPO, VP) don’t matter. What performs is practical AI workflows that you can apply right away.
One type of content that I wish performed better is leaders sharing lessons on building AI products. I think my interviews with Ami Vora (now Head of Product for Anthropic), Josh Woodward (Gemini), and Chris Pedregal (Granola) are still criminally underwatched.
I plan to keep doing these interviews even if the views are lower. If I keep interviewing people who I genuinely want to learn from, I think the rest will follow.
In 2026, I’ll publish more videos featuring practical AI tutorials from guests and myself. Here are some upcoming episodes:
Google AI Studio deep dive with Logan Kilpatrick (Gemini product lead)
Prototyping and design deep dive with Dylan Field (Figma CEO)
My goal is to hit 100K subs in 2026 so subscribe to my YouTube if you want to support me :)
Staying true on sponsorships and community
Sponsorships
Sponsorships make up the majority of my creator earnings and I’ve learned how important is to have a high quality bar. It feels bad to promote a product to my audience that I don’t personally use and love.
In 2026, I want to pursue long-term sponsorships from a short list of companies and products that I genuinely love.
Community
At work, talking to my customer community has been critical to building good products. But I haven’t been great at building a community around my creator work.
This year, I’m proud of building two:
A WhatsApp group with product leaders and creators like Hilary, Nickey, Ben, Sachin, Tal, Chantal, Marc, and Adam. Being able to shoot the shit with them has been amazing.
My AI product community with Colin Matthews. We now have 700+ builders in there sharing AI workflows and product lessons. Subscribe to get access.
In 2026, I want to take my AI product community to the next level with more practical tips, funny memes, and real talk.
For community, size matters far less than how many people actually engage. A great community should feel like a lively DM thread, so that’s what I’ll aim for.
Reflections on being a PM and a creator
Ok this next section is quite personal, so I’m going to share it with my paid subscribers only. 🙂
People always ask me if being both a PM and creator is stressful. It's a lot of work, but I actually find it less stressful than if I was only a PM.
Here’s some real talk about balancing both roles: