Hannah Wilson: A Million Followers Won't Pay Your Salary. This Will!
A 64-minute Creator Unplugged interview on reverse engineering attention, going premium on brand deals, and why creators should start asking for equity instead of just cash.
Posted
yesterday
Duration
Format
Interview
sincere
Views
1.9K
24 likes
57 · 43
Big Idea
The argument in one line.
Followers are not a business: creators earn lasting income by working backward from a concrete objective, positioning as premium, and selling how they think, not just their reach.
Who This Is For
Read if. Skip if.
READ IF YOU ARE…
A creator posting five to seven times a week who feels stuck on a hamster wheel of one content format that grew the account but no longer fits.
A mid-size creator still taking every $2,000 brand deal who wants a path to long-term partnerships, speaking fees, or advisory equity.
A beginner with a day job who wants a simple weekly content plan instead of chasing follower counts and view totals.
A brand marketer or founder deciding whether to put the founder on camera or hand the budget to one well-chosen creator ambassador.
A creator with some savings who is curious about angel investing and wants a practical starting rule for how much to risk.
SKIP IF…
You want a tactical platform walkthrough with hooks, editing settings, or posting schedules; this is mindset and business positioning, not a how-to.
You want hard numbers on the business; beyond one $70K speaking year and a few deal sizes, revenue details stay vague.
TL;DR
The full version, fast.
Attention only matters once it is pointed at a business objective, and the guest argues creators should stop chasing follower counts and run themselves like brands. Her system starts by picking a concrete goal (growth, sales, awareness), studying what already works for the best in the niche, and reverse engineering its parts. Each week she splits output into algorithm-optimized posts, nurture content for the core audience, and one experimental piece made for herself. She evolves her audience slowly by testing a new angle every two weeks, raised her positioning by refusing cheap deals, and now sells strategy, speaking, and advisory equity. The closing advice covers angel investing: risk a tenth of what you could happily lose.
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Highlight teaser, ManyChat pre-roll, subscribe ask, and the welcome.
03:01 – 05:09
02 · Change before you feel ready
Change comes when things suck enough; leap when comfortable, learn to swim once pushed off the boat.
05:09 – 07:56
03 · Exposure therapy for an extraordinary life
Do uncomfortable things on purpose, from ultramarathons to sending video birthday messages.
07:56 – 09:10
04 · 300 followers and a job to go viral
Three months of persistence lands the in-house creator job at Insta360 in Shenzhen.
09:10 – 10:53
05 · Reverse engineering virality
Know the why, pick the objective, study the best in the niche, and decode what made their videos work.
10:53 – 12:03
06 · Sponsor: ManyChat
Mid-roll on DM automation for turning comments into conversations.
12:03 – 15:35
07 · The three kinds of content she makes weekly
Algorithm content, nurture content, and one piece made purely for creative fulfillment.
15:35 – 19:53
08 · Evolving without losing your audience
From iPhone filming tutorials to personality-led content by peppering in new angles and testing.
19:53 – 21:32
09 · The wrong KPIs beginners chase
A lean phone-and-suitcase workflow and a three-bucket weekly plan built around zero-to-one actions.
21:32 – 23:54
10 · A content creator vs. someone creating content
Missions, visions, diversification, and financial structure separate a creator business from posting for vibes.
23:54 – 29:31
11 · Tired of being seen
The emotional cost of building in public and why a few days off rarely hurts the business.
29:31 – 31:31
12 · Her mother as her inspiration
A single mother working ER shifts in Glasgow and the 'you're a Wilson, you're a winner' upbringing.
31:31 – 36:11
13 · Near-death stories and meeting at Cannes
A car accident at 12, a tangled-parachute skydive for Insta360, and the boat interview at Cannes Lions.
36:11 – 39:46
14 · From one keynote to $70K in speaking
Saying yes to a CNN mobile journalism keynote, then turning it into a $70K speaking year.
39:46 – 42:33
15 · The paid community she refunded in a month
Going premium on brand deals, then a misaligned Discord community, then focusing on her zone of genius.
42:33 – 49:06
16 · Brands need to act like creators
Creators need operational support; brands need story over features, shown through a camera example.
49:06 – 55:44
17 · Why creators should be paid in equity
Creators as strategic intelligence units, and how to position for advisory roles with authority content.
55:44 – 1:00:05
18 · Angel investing without the fantasy
Expect to lose it all, size checks at a tenth of your loss tolerance, and a three-part investing thesis.
1:00:05 – 1:02:49
19 · How she splits her money
A comfortable cash baseline, yearly index fund targets as a pension, business reinvestment, and fun money for angel bets.
1:02:49 – 1:04:25
20 · The woman that can do it all
Her magazine-cover headline, sign-off, and ManyChat outro.
Atomic Insights
Lines worth screenshotting.
Change usually comes when your current situation sucks enough, so waiting to feel ready means waiting too long.
Exposure therapy is a daily practice: send a one-minute video message instead of a birthday text to get used to being on camera.
If a viral video delivered its value in 30 seconds, making a 60-second version delivers the same value at half the density.
Pick a concrete objective first (follower growth, sales, brand awareness, controversy) and reverse engineer every post from it.
Make at least one piece of content a week purely because it makes you feel something, and accept that it may flop.
You cannot condition an audience on cheese and then hand them chocolate; introduce new angles every two weeks and expand only what resonates.
Beginners chase the wrong KPIs by comparing themselves to million-follower accounts instead of asking what the zero-to-one step is today.
Taking every $2,000 app deal positions you like a discount store; refusing them is how you start charging like a luxury brand.
A paid community that made others money got refunded within a month because the creator was not obsessed with running it.
Not posting for three or four days costs a creator almost nothing, so a break is often better for the business than forcing output.
Brands that cannot compete on story end up competing on price, which is a race to the bottom against manufacturers.
A camera-shy founder should not do founder content; one well-funded creator ambassador who captures the feeling works better.
One Instagram story can get a company consumer research in 24 hours that a research firm charges five or six figures and months to deliver.
Companies hand employees equity freely but treat creators as a shop window, which is why creators should push for equity in strategic roles.
Written posts on LinkedIn and Substack build authority with senior decision makers who never watch your short-form videos.
For angel investing, take the maximum you could lose without flinching and divide it by ten; that is your starting check size.
Takeaway
Run your attention like a business, not a scoreboard.
WHAT TO LEARN
Followers only pay when you aim them at a clear objective, protect premium positioning, and sell your thinking and judgment alongside your reach.
02Change before you feel ready
Waiting to feel ready is a trap; change tends to start when the current situation becomes uncomfortable enough to force a leap.
Comfort is the signal to move on, the way the guest left a dream camera-company job once it stopped stretching her.
03Exposure therapy for an extraordinary life
Build tolerance for discomfort with small daily reps, such as sending a one-minute video message instead of a birthday text.
Treat bold goals like experiments on yourself; going from no outdoor running to 100 km races proved most limits were assumptions.
04300 followers and a job to go viral
Persistence can substitute for credentials: three months of showing up turned 300 followers into a paid go-viral job.
When you have nothing else, your story and determination are the assets; the market and the objective tell you how to use them.
05Reverse engineering virality
Name the objective first (growth, sales, awareness) because every content decision downstream depends on what you are optimizing for.
Decode proven content element by element, including length, visuals, and on-screen text, instead of copying it loosely.
07The three kinds of content she makes weekly
Split weekly output into reach-focused posts, nurture posts for loyal followers, and at least one piece made purely for yourself.
A post made for creative fulfillment can flop without hurting you, because its purpose was never the numbers.
08Evolving without losing your audience
Audiences conditioned on one format need gradual change; test a new angle every two weeks and scale only what resonates.
A format that pulls huge views can still trap you if it hides your personality, expertise, and story from the audience.
09The wrong KPIs beginners chase
Beginners should measure zero-to-one actions, like researching what performs in their niche today, not million-follower benchmarks.
Decide how much public discomfort you will accept each week regardless of numbers, then judge yourself on that.
10A content creator vs. someone creating content
A creator business has a mission, diversification, and a financial structure that lets it experiment and stay profitable.
Reverse engineer monetization from your mission: identify brands that fit it, study their past creator work, and pitch a specific angle.
11Tired of being seen
Burnout from constant visibility is normal, and stepping away for three or four days rarely damages a creator business.
Schedule deliberate space for boredom and offline time so new direction has room to surface.
12Her mother as her inspiration
Gratitude and a sense of privilege can fuel sustained energy; treating everyday moments as remarkable keeps work from feeling like a grind.
14From one keynote to $70K in speaking
Saying yes to a first opportunity and learning on the job can turn a single small booking into a new income line.
One $3,000 to $4,000 keynote became roughly $70K in speaking revenue within a year once she treated it as a category.
15The paid community she refunded in a month
Cheap deals set your price ceiling; refusing them and working only with premium brands raises how buyers value you.
A proven model like a paid community can still fail you if you are not obsessed with running it; refunding early protects the brand.
Find the part of your business where you are paid for how you think, not only for distribution and views.
16Brands need to act like creators
Top creators need real operational support like an assistant and a fluent accountant, the same way companies do.
Brands that list features and fight on price end up in a race to the bottom; selling story and feeling to a specific customer escapes it.
A founder uncomfortable on camera gets more from funding one creator ambassador to capture the brand's feeling than from forced founder content.
Showing durability through extreme stunts (zip lines, fire, ice) can beat competitors who own the athlete niche.
17Why creators should be paid in equity
Creators can deliver consumer research in 24 hours through a single story that research firms take months and five figures to produce.
If companies grant employees equity for strategic value, creators who provide research and trend insight should negotiate for equity too.
Claim some content real estate for authority, using your real experience and a distinct point of view, not just b-roll with text.
Write regularly on LinkedIn and Substack and meet senior people in person so your positioning matches who you want to advise.
18Angel investing without the fantasy
Expect to lose your entire angel investment and wait up to ten years for any return; treat it as tuition, not wealth building.
Size first checks at one tenth of the maximum amount you could lose without distress.
Back products with a real scientific or strategic edge, founders who attract opportunity, and categories you personally understand.
19How she splits her money
Keep a cash buffer large enough to feel calm, even if advisors call it inefficient, because mental steadiness affects your work.
With irregular income, set a yearly index fund target as your pension, then reinvest the remainder into the business.
Small high-risk bets help detach emotion from money, which makes you a better player of the game over time.
20The woman that can do it all
A single clear headline for who you want to be helps filter which opportunities, companies, and equity deals to pursue.
Glossary
Terms worth knowing.
ICP
Ideal customer profile. A specific description of the exact person a product or piece of content is meant for, used to shape messaging so it speaks directly to that buyer.
Sweat equity
An ownership stake in a company earned through work or advice rather than cash investment, often granted to advisors who bring expertise or reach.
Angel investing
Putting personal money into very early-stage startups in exchange for equity. Most such bets fail completely, and successful ones may take a decade to return anything.
Nurture content
Posts made mainly for an existing core audience to deepen the relationship, rather than to reach new viewers through the algorithm.
Keynote
The headline talk at a conference, usually paid, which sets the theme for the event and often opens or closes it.
Cannes Lions
An annual international advertising and creative industry festival held in Cannes, France, where brands, agencies, and creators meet and present.
41:34productCultish (brand strategy agency she co-founded)
34:01linkCannes Lions
36:40linkCNN mobile journalism conference, Dublin
Quotables
Lines you could clip.
03:01
“It's always before you feel ready. But I usually think with all of the greatest things in life, something needs to suck enough for you to change.”
clean standalone answer to a universal question→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
09:50
“I look at the best in the industry because if it's worked for someone, it's sure as hell is going to work for me because I'll find a better way to do it.”
confident one-liner, already used in the cold open→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
16:30
“You can't say, come, come, come, I'm giving you cheese and then suddenly give it chocolate.”
vivid metaphor for audience conditioning→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
21:32
“There's the difference between a content creator and someone who's creating content.”
crisp distinction that opens a debate→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
25:43
“If you don't post for three to four days, no one cares. It's absolutely fine.”
permission-giving line for burned-out creators→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
38:07
“You're never going to become an Hermes if you're acting like a Trader Joe's.”
“As soon as there is a price on something, they just want to sell the product instead of selling the story and the feeling.”
sharp critique of brand marketing→ newsletter pull-quote↗ Tweet quote
51:20
“Why do we give junior employees or even senior employees equity as if it's going out of style? But creators, we see them as a shop window to just shift product.”
the episode's core argument in one breath→ IG reel cold open↗ Tweet quote
56:09
“Think about the absolute maximum that you would be absolutely willing to lose and feel totally okay and then divide that by 10.”
concrete rule with a number→ TikTok hook↗ Tweet quote
Topic Map
Where the conversation goes.
03:01 – 07:56steadyMindset: readiness and exposure therapy
07:56 – 23:54denseEngineering attention and content strategy
42:33 – 55:44denseBrands, storytelling, and creator equity
55:44 – 1:02:49steadyInvesting and personal finance
The Script
Word for word.
Read-along
Don't just watch it. Burn it in.
See every word as it's spoken — crank it to 2× and still catch all of it. The same dual-channel trick behind Amazon's Kindle + Audible.
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metaphoranalogystory
I had 300 followers on Instagram. I walked into their office and I said, look, no one will do this better. than me.
So then with no experience, no social media clout whatsoever, my job was to go viral. Hannah Wilson built a multi -six figure business from just her phone in more countries than most of us can count. Today, we break down how she engineers attention, why creators need to act like businesses, and why she believes creators should be paid in equity, not just cash.
Well, I think there's the difference between a content creator and someone who's creating content. As soon as there is a price on something, they just want to sell the product instead of selling the story and the feeling.
What are you focusing on more specifically for your personal brand? I look at the best in the industry because if it's worked for someone, it's sure as hell is going to work for me because I'll find a better way to do it. In a year from now, Hannah, if your face was on a magazine cover, what would that headline sentence read?
So I think... If someone in your life calls content creation not a real job, I got something for you. Because it's not a real job.
It is the dream job. And if you want to turn content into an actual business, there is a system behind the scenes that works for all the top creators. And it is called ManyChat.
I'll tell you more about it later in this episode. Try ManyChat Pro for free at get .manychat .com forward slash real dash job with code creator. I really don't want you to miss any of our future episodes.
I'm going to ask of you to subscribe and make sure you turn the notification bell on. This will only help us do more podcasts like this, bring on even better guests so that you can learn more from it.
I love all of you guys and let's get back into it.
I feel like you're the most impressive, most, you know, when we were getting ready for the interview with you, I was like, I cannot wait. I just need like a shot of like Hannah's energy all the time. You got like the most magnetic feel about you.
So again, I appreciate you coming on. My pleasure. As soon as I seen your name, I was like, drop everything.
That's what I'm talking about. Well, first and foremost, Hannah, I want to welcome you to the show properly. Welcome to Creator Unplugged.
Thank you very much. Love the name. Unfiltered Unplugged.
We love it all. I feel like we're going to have a great conversation around business, all things content, everything in between, because you definitely live what you preach. Now, there's so much that we can talk about.
I mean, you've been creating since 2019. You've built a multi six figure business on your phone and you've done it in more countries than I can count. And I can't keep up with you in that regard.
But I think what's most impressive about you is that you've been able to constantly evolve. And most creators actually get stuck doing one thing and they're terrified of change. You even said.
that if someone saw the 2024, 2025 version of Hannah, that it would be a completely different person. And so I want to ask you and start here by saying, when do you know it is the right time to step into that next version of yourself? It's always before you feel ready.
But I usually think with all of the greatest things in life, something needs to suck enough for you to change. Okay. So I think if we apply this to beginners before myself, if you come back to the beginners, I think your life or your disdain with your current job needs to get so bad that you're like, I need to get over cringe mountain and start creating content.
And then you will go through all of these variations of this in your life and career. And I really, something you said is that I practice what I preach. And if you look at my career story, you'd be like.
oh wow, she quits it when it doesn't make any sense because we always need to be ahead of the curve, right? I mean, I had my dream job working at a multinational camera company in my 20s, skydiving with Red Bull athletes, making VR documentaries in Tokyo. And then I said, okay, you know what?
We've done that. Next thing, we need to risk. We need to always be expanding a landscape.
So when you feel like you're comfortable, this is the time when you need to leap. About not ever feeling ready, I always compare it to once you're pushed off the boat, you need to learn how to swim. And only the entrepreneurial focused with the spirit and grit that it takes to be successful in this life and the media landscape are the ones that will always learn how to swim because you need to give your permission, give yourself the permission to have that grit.
When I had first met you, by the way, you're exactly the same person off camera as you are on camera. You're like the most contagious energy. And so for you, it feels like a spiritual, intuitive experience.
And for me, I had to learn that where I had seen some of the cracks, right? And I think to have longevity point blank period, you need an evolution one way or another. But some people out there are not necessarily as intuitive as you are, or maybe don't feel as aligned to the concept.
They don't even know that it's time for them to make it. change. Is there some practice that they can run through mentally to be like, yeah, you know what, like I am getting too comfortable.
This isn't going to serve me for the future. Is there a set of questions that you ask yourself that people can take on for themselves? Two words, exposure therapy.
And only by becoming a pro in exposure therapy do you realize that anything that you build up in your head is never that. Scary. I mean, I'm not sure about where you grew up, but I grew up in a very rough area outside of Glasgow.
And you certainly don't see people frolicking around filming themselves and moving to countries where they don't speak the language. It just doesn't happen. But I told myself, I have this vision for my life and you can't have an extraordinary life by doing the same things that everyone else does and the same things that you've always done.
So you must. from today, if you're not used to doing it, start doing stuff that makes you uncomfortable. And that doesn't need to be just in a professional capacity because of course you can blitz in like you know everything because this is just not how the world works.
But even, I like the example of ultra marathons. So until 2022, I had never ran outside. I could barely bust out a three kilometer on a treadmill.
But then I learned about the phenomena of ultra marathons and I said, okay. I will do that. Everyone says it's impossible.
Everyone says it's terrible for you. But I will always test this thesis by doing it on myself. And then there we go.
I'm doing 100 kilometer marathons, not running, not stopping for 20 hours. I teach myself constantly by doing things and gathering data that everything is possible. So I think on a, let's bring it down to an even really simple level and we'll relate it to content because that's the space that we're in, right?
Instead of writing a text, to your boyfriend or your mom or your friend on their birthday send them a video message instead of texting and writing get yourself in front of the camera and tell that person why you appreciate them and why you love them and do it in a one minute video this is uncomfortable for a lot of people but this is like a micro example of how you can use exposure therapy in your daily life to just get comfortable doing uncomfortable things and then it's just a ripple effect I love that because with exposure therapy, when you actually practice the thing, you get better at the thing.
And we oftentimes think that we have to be perfect before we get started. But that wasn't the case for me. I mean, my first videos absolutely sucked.
And I'm so glad that I stuck with it long enough to see the other side of it. Because I do think it's a real skill, right? A lot of people think creativity is something that like intuitively comes to certain people.
But that definitely wasn't the case for me. And I had to build a skill around engineering attention. Now, you are someone, again, practices what you preach.
So can you break down that skill? What does it mean to you when someone says, let's engineer attention? What is actually involved in that?
So the interesting thing, that exact premise is how I started my career. And it wasn't as an independent content creator. Actually dates back to around 2018, 2019, where I just moved to the Silicon Valley of China.
I know, very random, very rogue. I just moved to the Silicon Valley of China in Shenzhen. And I seen that Insta360, which is now overtaking GoPro in its market share.
I was looking for an in -house content creator and I always laugh because I had 300 followers on Instagram and I didn't know what a shutter button was on a camera. But I walked into their office. And I said, look, no one will do this better than me.
And I will always figure it out. I won't eat and I won't sleep until I figure it out. So after three months of persistence, they were like, this girl's a complete psychopath.
Okay, we'll give it to her. So then with no experience, no social media clout whatsoever, my job was to go viral. Nowadays, in current climate, this is what social media teams get told all the time.
But back then, it was like this little fresh duckling in a country. I didn't speak the language and that was literally my job. So what I did when you're first starting is the only thing that you have is your story, your determination and your motivation.
But you need to understand what is the market that I'm operating in. What is the objective? And we reverse engineer from there.
The why you're doing something is always the most important, not in the find your purpose way, but it's the only thing that's actually going to keep you going. Because if you don't understand why you're doing something, you will lose motivation. No matter how much discipline you have, if you don't understand the purpose, then you're already cooked.
And second of all, you need to understand the objective. So engineering backwards from a concrete objective. Is it follower growth?
Is it viral? is it sales is it brand awareness is it controversy what are we reverse engineering from then I look at the best in the industry because if it's worked for someone it's sure as hell is going to work for me because I'll find a better way to do it and even getting as granular if we bring it down to the video layer okay this video that went super viral was 30 seconds long so if i make a video that's 60 seconds long i'm delivering the same amount of value in double the amount of time so this is not how it works in the landscape what is it about that video that made people watch it is it because the person's beautiful is it because the text was very explanatory and understanding the elements in dna of what this supposed virality is and then working it back from there And you can do this not just for videos, but also for career paths.
Whenever my friends are lost in their careers, I'll always say, if you could be anyone and have their career story, who would it be? Richard Branson, Gary Vee, the Queen. I don't care.
They've already lived it. So we have something to trace from. If you've ever commented on one of my Instagram posts and you got a DM from me, it is not me staying up till midnight to get back, but instead it is actually an automated system by ManyChat.
It's been the system that I've used on my backend for the last two years, and it allows me to take the attention that I'm already generating, but actually do something with it. So connecting with the right people, sending them to the right place, and ultimately being able to track that data so that I know what to double down on and I know what to correct.
So instead of them seeing a post and then swiping away and forgetting it, about it, I can use that post to spark the conversation, to know how to serve my audience better. Then this becomes the perfect opportunity for me to show the different resources that Creative College offers.
So it's the perfect integration to every business. Attention is only half the battle. It's what you do with it that really makes it count.
As you know, I'm always trying to help you in any capacity to build your dream job with content so that you can have more freedom, more ownership, and more opportunities. ManyChat will help you do that. So try ManyChat free for a month at get .minichat .com forward slash real dash job with Code Creator.
Okay, back to the episode. Anytime that I talk to you, I get just... enamored by how intentional you are with your content and with your work in general, whether it be your business, whether it be brand deals or the content strategy in and of itself.
I've heard you talk about how you balance content where, yes, it is favorable algorithmically, meaning that it has the best shot for it to grow. Then other contents that are going to build your story and then other contents that are going to fulfill you creatively, right? I think that's a big one that a lot of people miss out on.
They think that they should only be creating for their audience, but we have to recognize that we're human beings and we need to be fed this creative spirit. as well. And so other people that are listening into that, could you dive deeper into those missions of yours or the purpose behind those posts and how does it change when the actual output of the content is posted?
So much like Nike with a pair of shoes gives you permission to be an athlete, I think the platforms and the social media allows you to be an artist. And an artist is in the performance arena, but an artist does it because of the... art right and this relates back to the overarching why we do things so i think if you look at putting out five to seven pieces of content in a week there is even whether you like it or not you need to optimize for the virality you need to optimize for the algorithms because if you want a healthy business or healthy exposure you do need to expose to more markets right i'm not saying everyone needs to do this but this is just in a macro perspective then you need to think What is the nurture content?
What am I making for people that are close to me? Not everyone's going to like it, but my core audience is going to enjoy it. And I always endeavor to any creator of any size, make something in a week, even if it flops.
Even if you have a million followers and it only gets 10k views, make something because it makes you feel something. And sit past those dwindling numbers and be absolutely okay. with the discomfort of something not performing.
And this always comes back to the why. Because if you're doing this to feed your creativity and your soul, you understand why you did it. So it doesn't matter if it doesn't perform.
And I think that is how you get off of that hamster wheel of feeling like you need to perform and you have that clarity and dignity for yourself. The idea of a why is something that I talk to you about. to my team, to anyone that I work directly with, because without that purpose, it's so easy, as you call it, the hamster wheel of content, right?
It's so easy to get lost in that experience. And the honest truth is that I have certainly gotten lost in it, right? I'll be lying to you if I said that I was perfect all the way through where there are many moments of high seasons, right?
It's like, oh, we feel so good about it because the numbers are growing. And then you tend to lose yourself in it, right? Especially when you start building out a team and there's people that rely on you.
And then I do believe that it's not a creator's ability to just say, I'm going to be so good all the time, perfect all the time, but their ability to bounce back and be resilient in those experiences and say, yes, I did lose a little bit of my purpose, but let me go back into it and connect back with it so I can ensure the work actually fulfills me.
Is there some kind of practice that you go through that allows you to regain that clarity to ensure that, again, that you are not going off course? Well, I think it's very interesting. And I think my story is definitely...
one that has data to back this up, right? I went in 2024 from being a TV presenter of a travel show in China and a social media presence with the strategy of a one -eyed goldfish. I mean, it meant nothing for anyone or anything.
It was just like throwing stuff at the wall. And then in 2024, what grew my audience was... How to film yourself in 15 seconds.
It was tutorials about filming yourself with your iPhone, just trending audio, quite oftentimes the same audio over and over and over again, because that's what grew my account. And then at the beginning of 2025, people were like, oh, it's really interesting. I didn't even know where you were from.
You've had all these cool jobs. I didn't know anything about you. And one of my friends actually said, Hannah, you're actually so much smarter than you look online.
You have so much more value to give. But I thought, okay, this does crazy numbers and this is getting me tens, hundreds of millions of views. So that's what I need to do.
So then what I did for 2025 was like, okay, I have conditioned this audience to follow me for this very specific type of tutorial. How can I innovate this tutorial which integrates my personality? Because you can't say to your audience, it's like a mouse with a bit of cheese.
You can't say, come, come, come, I'm giving you cheese and then suddenly give it chocolate. It's like, it's very random. You need to, when you're in it for the long game, understand how to nurture our audience.
So start to pepper in these evolution pieces of content. Let's say you're only known for tech reviews, right? Why don't we, once every two weeks, put in a storytelling angle and see if people resonate with it.
If your story sucks, it doesn't matter because, you know, we all think that we're super important, but maybe there's something in there that we need to show. And this is like we are just collecting data. It's all about data points and it's exposure therapy to the core audience.
And then we find something that works. Then we test and iterate. And then instead of twice, once every two weeks, it becomes once a week.
And then we start to build out this much more interesting DNA system of our content, as opposed to feeling like I'm a tech reviewer. I only make tech reviews because I think. In my opinion, that's how you end up.
Very unfulfilled, pigeonholed and on a hamster wheel of something that just doesn't fill your cup. And I'm always filling my cup. I want a very full life of diversified interest.
The idea of us getting granular here is going to be so important because a lot of people are stuck exactly in what you're talking about. They've niched down to a particular topic or industry. They've been calling themselves a particular title.
Maybe it's the brand deals that they've been doing. They're like, yes, I have to keep feeding this hamster wheel. But you're right that none of this is linear, right?
Everything is so dynamic. We as human beings are dynamic. And just like in real life, you would introduce different interests to a friend.
It's the same idea with your content. You can spark it, let's say, within some carousels or some story posts. See how it performs.
forums and start to integrate it more and more. I love how hands -on you are with your content workflow. And I think that's why we get along so well, because we get it.
Like we're in it. We're the ones ideating and filming it. We want to edit it.
We want to lead that creative direction. And a lot of people that I speak to overcomplicate it, right? They think, well, June, don't I need like a five -person media team to get started?
I'm like, no, no, no, no. Like Hannah's living proof that you can just do it with your phone. So I want you to give me the simplest description of your full content workflow.
that other people can use as inspiration for themselves. So if I take myself back to just packed up my apartment in China, I mean... I did that early 2024 and I've been living out one suitcase ever since.
So I really know how to run a lean work setup. So I took a one -way flight and I was like, okay, I'm going to figure it out. So not only do I not have a home, I have all of my belongings in a suitcase and all I have is my iPhone and I don't have any revenue.
So I can't hire a team. So what I would do is like, okay. we again i think i never want to oversimplify things because i always always say the same thing until i'm blue in the face creators need to act like businesses and it's the only way to scale and you need to operate such but i think the best thing to do even juggling it with your full -time job is understanding this is why i'm doing it and this is the amount of public humiliation ritual i'm willing to take in a week regardless of the numbers okay and i think we always attach the wrong kpis when we're starting off in content because you see everyone with a million followers you see hundreds of thousands of views but actually this is level zero to 100 you need to think what is actionable zero to one today and it's researching what is performing well in my niche right now this would be feed into the algorithm what part of my story so burning that if people don't know this about me i'll never feel live a fulfilled life i got a shout out from the rooftops get this in here and then there needs to be the bucket of saying okay i've got saturday free and i want to try something a little bit more experimental
And then I think this allows you to build up this ecosystem, no matter if you're in a full -time job or you're doing this full -time, to understand this kind of value graph of ways that you're creating. And again, it's all about gathering data and you take away all of the fancy words and all the metrics and what are you left at the end?
It's the relationship between you and your audience. And you can't serve your audience if you're not serving yourself. And you can't serve the audience well if you're not listening to them.
So I just think of it like a multi -layered delicious cake. I love it. I love the kick.
Something you had just said that I couldn't agree more with is this idea that creators need to embody an entrepreneurial mindset. I've heard you actually say this many times over, and it's so important, especially in today's climate. I want you to differentiate for me someone that might be only thinking of it from the artist's way versus a creator that is really thinking of it while embodying the entrepreneurial mindset.
What is the difference between those two people? Well I think there's the difference between a content creator and someone who's creating content and I see so much rhetoric now they're like post a million times and you're gonna get good of everything if you post every single day for a year you'll never work a day in your life this is creating content you could necessarily post every single day and use beautiful butter yellow text and do all the trends under the sun and do everything and tell your story and all the things Or you understand a mission.
This is how brands are built. They have missions. They have visions.
They have diversification. And they also have a financial structure which allows them to experiment and be profitable over time. So this would be a content creator business.
And then someone who is creating content is someone who's been out there for vibes. But the interesting thing with business is you can always reverse engineer this. We use reverse engineer so many times here, but if we bring it down even into the monetization piece, if we're understanding why we're doing something, understanding that why.
then is able to source the kind of companies that would support that mission you either create content that they would insert themselves into or you pitch yourself into them and then you can also see who's worked with them before you speak to them you understand creative briefs you understand your unique advertising angle for that company and then we start to understand the strategy and the business behind this creating content thing as opposed to just posting videos and hoping that we go viral you know When you have that intention and clarity, I also think it gives you a lot of excitement, right?
It gives you a lot of... Because when you are a creator and you're trying out so many different things, you don't really have an understanding of why you're doing what you're doing. You're just ebbing and flowing with your motivation and inspiration state, right?
So when you're feeling really good, you have really great contents. And maybe when it's the opposing side of it, you're not feeling so great. But then having that level of clarity where it's like, you know what?
I can't get too lost in my emotions. It's important that I'm aligned to it. I understand it.
But I still have a mission in mind. And that's very much something that... that I had to embody more recently.
And I think that has allowed me to sustain longevity the way that you speak about a lot as well. There's a quote that you had in a recent Substack article that I've read literally like 19 times to my team in the past 48 hours. And I want to read it to you right now.
Okay. I have made a career out of being seen. And I am at this exact moment more tired of being seen than I've ever been in my adult life.
Hannah, what does that quote mean to you? It's very interesting and also shows the rollercoaster emotions of being a content creator. It's not for the faint hearted.
So this happened about two weeks ago where it still even happens to us that appear that we're at the top of our game. I was like, nothing is sticking and I put lots of effort into this thing and then it's like not happening. And then I was consuming so much.
content I was exposure therapy to all of the elements besides my own creative practice that I was just like I need a minute like this is so intense I feel like I spoke to a lot of my creator friends who are so extremely talented all across different niches who all had the same sentiment and it just made me understand the importance of Really listening to when that's happening and when you are in the habit and discipline of creating like seven videos a week, understanding that sometimes it's better for your business to just be like, hold on a minute.
Give me a couple of days. I don't have the fact if you don't post for three to four days, no one cares. It's absolutely fine.
So I think it's really just about. knowing when to take a step a step back because I mean I think I'm probably a slightly more extreme case I am working all the time my screen time is absolutely ludicrous I'm also always around different time zones and I'm on stages speaking and then I'm working with clients and then I'm doing my social media stuff it can all really get a lot so I think to me it's just about realizing that your business isn't gonna fall off a shelf if you take like three four days off of a social media app and then the interesting thing is like i contrast that to this week which is like back -to -back industry -leading podcasts speaking on stage i was at the empire state building last night with linkedin i'm going to a spacex event tonight speaking on panels amazing brand deals coming in and i think it really just shows the emotional journey of constantly being in public.
And I think it's, we're such a, I mean, everyone wants to be a content creator. Everyone is doing some kind of version of building in public. But I think sometimes we don't give ourself enough grace that we show up with our faces constantly with everything that we're building, even our relationships every single day.
for years and years and years on end and it's intense you know i love intensity but i think that was just a moment of um of really expressing that i think a lot of people see me as this person that has infinite endless amounts of energy which i do but like we all have little wobbles and i think if we do everything in public we also need to show those moments as well The reason why I kept reading it over to my team is like, ah, that is such a good way of describing how I felt for the first few months of this year.
Cause it is such an, and I applaud you for sharing it too. Cause I think a lot of creatives, especially at your caliber are not necessarily going to share those vulnerabilities, but. The honest truth is exactly what you've stated.
There is a psyche involved here, right? As in when you are showing up and you're doing your very best, almost every single time you do so, it's like you're naked, you're showing yourself to the public and people like it, they don't like it. You have to like, oh, how do I balance that?
And then you're thinking about the business, you think about your clients, and there's so much to juggle. And sometimes we just have to give ourselves that grace to say, it's okay to not be okay. This isn't a sign that I'm doing something wrong.
It's a sign that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be. And when I saw... And then also saw that you're bouncing back immediately.
It's like, that is the honest truth. It's like, you go ahead. And it's not about not feeling those emotions, but it's about processing them and ensuring that you're not afraid of feeling those things too.
And for me, when I was in that rough creative, just funk, I was like, what do I do? And I did something similar to that article of yours where I was away from all media. And I was trying to give my space mentally for some boredom, right?
Allowing myself to not... be constantly on and talking to different people, but can I physically think, and can I be like, all right, maybe this direction isn't the right way. Maybe there's something else for me to try as well.
And when I work with creators, especially like big creators, mainly, this is something that I force themselves to embed. It's like, you have to, within your calendar, you have to make space for yourself. You have to ensure that you're getting a chance, whether it's journaling or you love training outside, or if you love traveling, you got to give yourself those moments in time.
Curious to ask you, because you are on literally 24 -7. When I was with you, by the way, fun little story. I was with her at a ManyChat event and she had literally like changed on the street to go to then a Forbes event.
Does the whole thing, makes content about the thing, then comes around the next day, like all jolly and stuff like that. And so something that I wanted to directly ask you is like, where does this energy come from? Like you are somebody when I speak to, it's like.
You have this great passion, this alignment. I almost call you like a very spiritual person. It's like when I talk to you, there's this great energy about you.
Does that stem from something in your background? Is that something that you're constantly nurturing? You know...
I always want to give a super high level answer when people ask about who's your mentors and your inspiration. But it comes back to my single mom who used to have to work 60 hours a week in the ER department of Glasgow, which is one of the roughest probably in the entirety of the UK. But that woman could sleep two hours.
She always looks. fantastic to me she's the most beautiful woman on planet earth my friends are always like i've never seen your mom unhappy she always got a smile on her face she makes people feel so good and she's incredible at what she does and she also did that whilst raising me and my brother and also going through terrible financial hardship because of you know other family members not to go into it but i watched my mom do that and she would always say to me and my brother when we were growing up listen, you're a Wilson, which means that you're a winner.
So either you're not doing it or you're going to win. So for me, I don't do team sports because I suck at team sports. So I'm not going to be going down playing pickleball for fun.
I'm going to do 100km marathons because I'm locking in. So I think a lot of it comes from... just feeling so so so grateful it also on an added layer this is quite funny a lot of people wouldn't know this I've had quite a few near -death experiences in my life so I kind of know what it's like to almost touch death so for me and everyone laughs at me for this every moment of my day feels like a movie even to go and have a coffee and speak to the barista I think is so wildly fantastic I'm so grateful for everything and I think to do what we're doing now as a job I can go anywhere that I want I can exit any relationship that I don't think suits me if I have an idea I can execute on it I have belief in myself I have a body that works how can I not be buzzing off the walls what a privilege you know really I was so glad that you just said the near -death experience because when we were talking at Cannes, you had mentioned these near -death experiences.
I'm like, I cannot believe I'm hearing like a real person story. Just for the sake of the entertainment purposes, Hannah, give me a near -death experience. Okay, so I mean, my origin with Touching Death started when I was 12.
I got hit by a car just outside my school the week before Christmas. And this says a lot about me that I've not really changed since I was a child. I got hit by a car, I fractured my skull, burst my eardrum, tore a ligament in my leg.
And then the week after, I performed in a professional pantomime for Christmas. Because I said, I said, the show must go on. But actually, the best one, which relates to content, and it's why I'm on the wall of the Instagram.
60 offices in Shenzhen still today. I was shooting a skydiving YouTube episode back in 2020 with Jeff Provenzano from Red Bull. And I was feeling a little bit nervous.
I had never been skydiving before. I was like, oh, you know, this is a big YouTube episode. He's like from Red Bull.
This is insane. And he told me, Hannah, it's me. Like nothing bad could happen.
So we're in the desert of Arizona. All the cameras are on. We're ready to shoot.
And I'm strapped on to Mr. Red Bull. So we jump out of the plane.
I just remember having this very distinct pain in my ears. But I was very aware that we were filming, so I'm still like smiling. But I'm in so much pain, akin to a dagger being shoved into the side of my head.
And I was thinking like, this is, this sucks. Like, why would anyone skydive? And then I land and my whole body and everything is vibrating and shaking.
I turned to Mr. Red Bull. He is completely chopped white.
A woman runs to me crying and is asking if I'm okay. And I'm like, I... what happened and then the guy who was supposed to be filming behind the scenes showed me a video he was like yeah that's you guys we looked like that so basically what happened was we jumped out at 15 000 feet out the plane and the parachute didn't come out so you basically free fall until 3500 feet where the emergency comes out which should be a good thing however The emergency parachute came out and then the main ones came out at the same time and then they started to twist.
So my Red Bull buddy had to physically, with his bare hands, break off one of the parachutes. It floats off into the desert. We land and then they say, yeah, sorry, we can't use that footage.
Can you go again in 15 minutes?
And then I was like, you know what? My boss has sent me all the way to the land of the free and the home of the brave. We need to come back with the goods.
So then I jumped again and it was amazing.
And this is, by the way, how Hannah is in real person too. So when I had met you, you're like living a life that just seems so adventurous. And you had like eight of these stories to tell me back to back to back to back.
I'm like, how are you still here? And maybe this is where the passion all comes from. So I'm glad that you were sharing it.
I want to tell the story of when we first met. Again, it's just so that everyone has context when I say Cannes and what we were doing there. We were at this marketing festival, Cannes Lion, and we were there both on behalf of many channels.
and then Chad had this really cool experience where they put together all of the creators on a boat where we got a chance to actually talk to one another, actually get to connect. And you interviewed me on that boat. Do you remember that?
I did indeed. I was, I am just a non -gatekeeper and I feel like with social media, everyone's always like, how do you guys get like any money? Who pays you to do these things?
How much money do you actually make? So we were making a video about how much creators actually make and how they do that. So just to give you some context, we were like, Hannah, by the way, is just a boss girl.
She like, we got on the boat, she got a tripod out. She's like, all right, I need a clap here. I need a clap here.
I need a clap here. And I got next to her, and the first question, she's like, how big was your most successful launch? And I was like, this is great.
I'm so glad that you're so open for it. And then when I knew that we were getting you on for our podcast, I'm like, this is going to be a great time for me to flip that question and give it back to you. So Hannah, I'm going to ask you now, in the spirit of us at CanLion, what was your most successful launch?
Would you be willing to share it with the audience here?
It's quite interesting. I think in terms of launch, I would bring it back into brand deals and launching myself as a keynote speaker. Again, guys, you will see this is a very consistent theme where I gaslight myself and gaslight industry professionals into trusting me with things.
And it always pays off for the better. So about the early stage of... 2025 last year, I got invited to be the opening keynote of a CNN mobile journalism conference in Dublin.
And he was like, have you done keynotes before? And I was like, yeah, I love doing keynotes. And I didn't know how this worked.
And then I did it. It was for like. you know maybe three or four thousand dollars and i'm like okay i've done it now now i'm a keynote speaker and then i actually managed to close um by the end of the year let me work that out about 70k and uh oh my god gaslight Going from I've never done it before to 70K is absolutely ridiculous.
The reason why I'm so excited to talk to you and when we talk about content, we think about the business side too. And for you, you even said a million followers can't pay your salary. I couldn't agree more.
I think a lot of us, we get lost in follower growth, that we forget that there's a real business that we have to tend to behind it. But that can also be quite overwhelming because you're thinking, do I work with brands or do I sell my own offer? What do I launch from that point?
And so I want to hear your experience. I know you're talking about keynotes. I know you've been talking about brand deals.
When you first started, what did you elect with and why did you make that decision? And then up to this point, has that split? evolved in terms of selling your own offer and working with brands oh I mean the the beautiful thing is I really think the way that you should live your life is that you look at the previous year before and you don't recognize yourself whatsoever I I mean if I look at the you know even 2025 Hannah to this year I'm like girl wow well done but in 2024 I I feel like every creator um I feel like there was a very small percentage that don't have this, but this is really how I started, you know, so people can see the evolution.
Quit my job. I was actually in South Africa after doing an ultra marathon and I was like, I need money. So I was taking anything that came, which I definitely would advise against.
$2 ,000 deals from like mobile editing apps, doing whatever. And then I said, okay, you know what, Hannah? You're never going to become an Hermes if you're acting like a Trader Joe's.
You know, we need to think about the premium positioning. So then I said, I will only work with the most premium brands. So then I focused all specifically on brand deals.
in 2024 like with Meta and Xiaomi and all of the big tech companies because that was the kind of caliber that I could get during that time and then in 2025 I went against what my current number one piece of business advice is right if you ever do business with me the one thing I always say especially when I'm advising brands I'm like if everyone is doing this you need to do something different.
There has to be a better way to be a cult status and to be the top 1%. You can't be doing the same thing that everyone else does. However, I listened to the gurus.
I ended up going into partnership to launch like a paid community because I was told that this would be like, and I mean, for example, this works extremely well for you, but you're the most maniacally obsessed community builder I've ever seen on planet earth. So this is an incredible business for you. But I like launched this paid community.
There was a Discord and I knew a lot of people were making a lot of money from this, but it just really didn't feel aligned at all. I refunded everyone in a month because I just, I feel like everything that I do in my life, I need to be obsessed with. And again, if you want to be the Hermes of your industry, you need to stick to that quality across all single points of your identity and your business.
Then towards this year, I realized my zone of genius is my personal brand, my presence, and the leverage that I own that can complement other areas of my business. So what does that look like today? It's brand deals with the best tech finance products in the world, your open AIs, your meta, etc.
It's angel investing. So I know because of my public profile and my experience, I can get better deals for equity with portfolio of companies, which means that my advisory can work behind the scenes and it doesn't require my face. I also founded a brand strategy agency called Cultish, where my co -founder, she's one of the best sellers over on Substack with branding.
We realized that You know, we always end up kind of consulting brands for free because they're always trying to pick our brains. And then I had the light bulb moment where I realized I want a part of my business, which I'm paid for the way that I think, not just the distribution of my audience and my videos.
And then. I love a high stakes environment, as you can see. So getting up on stages all over the world in keynotes and panels.
And you know what the beauty is? We're in the final quarter of 2026. So 2027, Hannah, who knows?
That's going to be crazy.
The fact that you've sat on both ends of the table is one of the most unique perspectives. For you to be able to have the business background, even in marketing, if we go all the way back to your time with Insta360, to then also being on the creative talent side, you have an understanding of both. And I want to first ask you, what do you think business owners get wrong about building an audience that more of the talent or the creative sides more intuitively know?
What are they getting wrong as their unlocks when you're advising them? companies you're like actually don't build an audience this way you should actually build it like this well the interesting thing i believe we're at this beautiful hatching of the creative industry is where brands need to start acting like creators and creators need to start acting like brands what do i mean by that i think the top one percent creators need to act like brands in terms of what operation and support do you need?
Like I have a full -time assistant because I actually need someone. I know you can build all the AI agents in the world, which I do have, but I need someone that I can call physically when I miss my flight to New Delhi and I suddenly need to do something else. This makes me a much more productive person.
I need someone on tax and accounting that is fluent. And that financial structuring that is going to help benefit me as a business. Then when I look at brands, I think what I typically find is as soon as there is a price on something, they just want to sell the product instead of selling the story and the feeling.
So I think what brands oftentimes get wrong is just like this product is really good and it's got all the compounds and it's a really good price and you should buy that because of that when really you need to speak. to a very specific ICP. And I think that's what creators do very well.
They just know who they're speaking to and they do it in a way that feels authentic to them. Whereas brands try to sell, because of course, if you don't sell, you have a business. But we're in this interesting media landscape now where we're in a zigzag economy, where every touch point that a consumer interacts with needs to feel like it's...
all part of one cinematic universe so about really investing into all of the ways that people interact so that's not just online with an audience it's what your irl looks like it's not just your typography but it's about how you fit into the habits and rituals and messaging and how that community looks like and where your community hangs out and understanding that you're not creating a brand but you're creating a world and you need to create a world by which people want to exist in That's so well said.
You had mentioned this, and I talk about this all the time, where a lot of business owners want to sell the product. So they'll list out the features and they're so good at highlighting their USP. They're like, I know exactly why someone would buy this thing.
It's so good. It's because X, Y, and Z. But you're right that creators more intuitively know that there's storytelling involved and you have to understand who that story is going to, to ensure that they feel like they're part of this world with you.
Is it okay if we break down an example? So if I gave you a scenario, would you be able to give me, let's say, a bad way of doing it and a good way of doing it? You're like, sell me this pen.
Well, not a pen. We'll do something. Let's say we will talk about a camera, for example, something that we're both accustomed to.
You can choose whatever you want to do. But let's say someone is saying, I'm going to sell this camera. I'm going to do it based on features.
What does their content look like versus someone that actually understands storytelling? So I think someone that doesn't understand storytelling, which there's a lot of great brands that do this, but they will focus on the dimensions of the camera, how much it weighs, what the focal length does, the price compared to other brands and what I can do.
It'll break down all the features and it will constantly compete on the price. Because when you can't compete on the brand, you either need to go on a product advantage or simply on price. And when we're battling on price, based on my experience in China, because they are able to do this so well because they're manufacturing powerhouses, but we are on a race to the bottom floor.
Then let's look at it on someone that understands the storytelling. OK, the founder of the camera brand is a geeky. nerd okay they should not be doing founder content because they don't feel comfortable in front of the camera and they only have a hundred hours in their week to be focusing on building the company so doing personal branding content and get in front of the camera is not going to serve them very well what i would do is find the one message whether it be about adventure or capturing the little moments of life or the one conversation of a very specific person that encapsulates the feeling of why this camera is used and i would find one single brand ambassador who encapsulates this very well i would give them all the budget in the world to experiment and tell them capture the feeling of this company and roll it out collaborate constantly capture in a way that no one else is doing it and actually this is very similar to what i did back in the days at insta360 where i
was competing with the athletes of GoPro who could all do wakeboarding and snowboarding. I certainly didn't have that. But I said, okay, this camera is extremely durable.
So what did I do? I created a zip line where I put the camera from the 70th floor of a skyscraper down to the bottom. I put it on a rocket.
I set it on fire. I put it in ice because it was showing people that this camera is built for action. And I will push it to the extremes.
So no matter what you do with this camera, it's going to be okay because I've pushed it more extreme. More of the industry is headed this way. And I've noticed this quite intimately where these brands recognize powerful associations with the right ambassadors.
And for example, when I was first starting, I would be lucky to get a one -off brand deal where I was like, I'm being compensated fairly. Nowadays, it's long -term brand deals. It is people that really want to ensure that you are representing them well and that there's a significant association across your content for a long period of time.
Even that includes public speaking. So if they're going to be hosting events, they'll invite you out for that. Or if that is an equity share, or if that is angel investing, there are these people now that recognize content and distribution is important.
But you're right. Some folks are like, it's not my thing, but I ain't going to partner up with the right creatives to do so. And that means that the creator economy is just booming in ways that it's really difficult to even describe.
Like in every corner, there are people that want to get into this space. So if you know how to create content, you're... building an asset that other people want a share of.
And so when I talk about this creator economy, it's like such a big word because a lot of people are like, oh, it means this or it means that. To you, when you're thinking about the creator economy in these future years, what are you paying attention to? And what are you focusing on more specifically for your personal brand?
So I think the future of the creator economy is... where we are at right now and it's this beautiful metamorphosis where I feel I always describe this as the creators have always had this little magpie syndrome where everyone else even the people who are paying them for the brand deals but even externally to create your economy are like oh they're these cool fancy people they get paid too much money to do not much very work but the way that I see them is the most underutilized resource for huge shareholder value of massive companies and the example i think we basically need to start seeing creators as key strategic intelligence units of companies and being compensated not just in cash but also in equity where that makes sense so the example that i gave i was actually speaking at a panel with forbes and can and they were talking about oh like um because content is just really good for getting in front of eyeballs and conversions and I was like well how about we think about this in a different way because I've actually personally done this also on our brand agency side you if you want company meaning you if you company want to understand
some consumer research. You have some burning questions and you want to speak to your consumers. You will hire a research company, multi -five, sometimes six figures, who then need to incentivize people who they've deemed your target consumer, give them some target vouchers, beg them to show up for an interview, do a bunch of them, 50 % no -show rate, and then maybe after three or four months, you're going to get your findings.
But the speed of the internet moves much faster of that. So I deem it relatively obsolete. However, Creators can throw up one Instagram story.
with the exact ICP and the exact industry that you're operating on. And people are knocking down the door just to speak to them. And they do this at zero cost in 24 hours and they can get you all the insights that they need.
These people also understand the corners of the internet. They live and breathe the algorithms, the updates, the creativity and the trends before they even happen. So why do we give junior employees or even senior employees equity as if it's going out of style?
But creators, we see them as a shop window to just shift product. I think we're finally seeing the bigger synergy going to be happening between large companies and creators to increase the collaboration beyond just brand deals. And that's what I'm very excited for.
I'm very excited for it too. And I think that is where the industry is headed. And I always tell creators that it is coming.
As in businesses are talking about this behind closed doors. You need to position yourself effectively so that you're ready for that opportunity. Because it's not as if these business owners are going to go ahead and just...
recruit any talent. They want the best talent, especially the most premium brands. So how can a creator, Hannah, then position themselves effectively from, let's say, a content standpoint, distribution standpoint, a marketing standpoint?
What are they doing within their content or maybe just in the way that they're pitching themselves to ensure that they're the right fit for these bigger roles? Well, I think, first of all, coming down to something that you can do very easily is observing some kind of real estate in your content which positions you as an authority so if we're just doing b -roll with text over it probably not positioning you as an expert in your field but what you do own is your actual experience and your story so maybe you didn't go to university that's fine maybe you worked in corporate that we can somehow link that corporate experience and to what you're creating content about now or maybe you have such a unique pov either through what you observe, what you consume, or how you think about a particular industry and be very loud about that and diversify the way that you're communicating.
Go heavy on written on LinkedIn and Substack because you never know who's watching that audience. Talk about it once a week. So then we start to see there's a little bit of this authority jacking and professional positioning in your content ecosystem.
And then... Most importantly, where you want to be, try to meet for coffee or have a clear ask or interview people who are in those senior positions. Find a way to social max your way into those networks and make yourself memorable.
Because not only will they see these touch points in your content, but if they meet you in person and they've maybe seen that content before and you exude the same authority and you speak about these things in person, You start to become this person that people recall about conversations and industries and topics. And this is the way that it doesn't happen overnight.
You can't suddenly become an authority in a topic. You need to be committed to the bit. Who do you want to be?
And I think a way to do this is I always tell my friends that are feeling a bit directionless. If you were to be on the cover of a newspaper in five years, what do we want that to say? Is an industry in there?
Is it about family? What does that headline piece look like? And then we start to understand, okay, what kind of companies or what do I want to be advising or hold equity in that's going to help me get there?
The idea of one, by the way, the creative positioning and you already being aware of that, by the way. All accounts makes you a really great investor. So let me explain from how I see it.
When I am getting these DMs or emails from people saying, hey, I have this new product line or I want this or I want that. Hey, Jim, would you be willing to invest? It is everything that you're saying because we have physically had to go out and do it ourselves that we know what problems that they're experiencing.
And creators have to recognize how many hats that they're physically wearing as you've so eloquently put. And then it's the idea now from an investment standpoint that I have to like put that hat on of like, wait, I can't invest in people just because I like them. I have to really see what business opportunities available for me and to not get lost in the weeds there.
And I know that you're very into angel investing and this is a new space, but a lot of creators that I am friends with are in it. Like they're in the midst of, I'm pouring X amount, even it's like in their own personal investment portfolios are like, I'm going to split 20%, 20. It's like a huge thing that we're trying to get into.
And I'm curious for you, what is your decision matrix? when you're saying, yeah, this company I am definitely going to invest into, and maybe I'm not going to invest into this or that company as well. Well, on a practical level, I think angel investing, just the word angel makes us sound like this illustrious opportunity.
Be prepared that you will, number one, lose all of your capital. You need to be totally okay with that. And number two, you might see a marginal return potentially in 10 years.
So if the aim of the game is wealth creation, that can be a subcontext, but the mission is to be creative for that, for angel investing to actually make part of your portfolio. Some practical advice. as someone said think about the absolute maximum that you would be absolutely willing to lose and feel totally okay and then divide that by 10 that's where you should actually that's where you should actually start and in terms of my thesis is actually very simple Number one, I look for products or solutions with an objective, scientific or strategic edge.
Does it have better science that can genuinely disrupt a category? Or is there someone with a proven track record in that industry, which means anything they touch is going to turn to gold? Number two is a founder story that I think everyone's like, well, you've got to believe in a founder.
But for example, I hold Sweat Equity, which is basically you don't put cash, but It's like more like advisory equity behind an amazing. beauty veteran founder it's called casa noon she with zero capital has managed to get some of the most insane advisors to back her ex -heads of sephora estee lauder huge vcs knocking her down a huge angel investment svp from creators who have less than 20 000 followers 250k she managed to raise it's just like these are people that attract opportunity this is easy to back and then third of all my overarching thesis, which is very at girl of creator economy, is I live an absolutely psychotic life.
I live a life of extremes and I wouldn't have it any other way. I don't want to decrease my screen time. I don't want to decrease my coffee.
I don't want to stop doing very extreme exercise. I want to party all night. I want to sleep three hours.
I want to be up the next morning. I want to speak on a panel, go to brunch, go on a date. I want to do it all.
So I want to invest in products which allow me to do that. Sexy shortcuts for a psychotic life.
And there's not so many players that do that. And I'm not talking about wellness. I'm talking about, can you make me sleep better?
Can you make me run faster? I'm not saying peptides exactly, but innovative solutions that allow me to live my life. I'm happy to part with cash for that.
The idea of investing, although new, something that you are open to speaking to that I am certainly open to as well is how we're managing our money as long -term creatives in mind, right? So we want to have longevity in this space, which means that we have to reinvest into our work, which is our businesses, our content workflows.
Then we have the more traditional investments, and my accountants love those. And then you have the others of the more riskier options where, you know, we do have experience in this creative space. So I get very excited.
working with, for example, I invested into Nutanix. And when I knew that Chris Williams and James Smith were running that, I was like, oh my gosh, how much? I want it.
Yeah, I want it. And so I was lucky not to be one of the earlier investors for that. But for me, I have to be very intentional now around how do I split that?
Because I want long -term wealth in mind. So how are you splitting those investments up where, of course, you're making use of the investments back to your business, the traditional routes, and then also some of these more fun, riskier options too? You know, I, first of all, I'm not a nepo baby by any means.
I mean, we had situations growing up where we literally had a couple of hundred dollars every single month. I worked three jobs all the way through uni. So when people are like, yeah, it must be good for you.
I'm like. No, I understand what it's like to have almost nothing. And I also know what it's like to have relatively a lot.
And to be honest, my lifestyle doesn't change very much. So first of all, I'd like to preface this by saying money is a game. And the beautiful thing, even though we're in hard economic times, is telling yourself that there is a lot of money in the world because I see it.
Now that I'm on the other side of many things, I also have friends who have, you know, built companies, the hundreds of millions of dollars every year. There's a lot. of money moving around so first of all we don't need to be scared money can always be made so actually something that I do which I think a traditional financial advisor would say is stupid but it's something that allows me to operate at the capacity that I like I have a baseline level that I need in my current account to feel okay and actually people would be like that's way too much to have in a current account it should all be invested but that's money that allows me to feel mentally sane just in case you know just in case someone needs help or someone asks for something or i need to take five flights in five days that's my money that sits there and then i also It changes because, of course, in this industry, we have a feast or famine.
Sometimes we have big months. Sometimes we can have zero. I look at over the course of a year, what is the amount that I want to have invested in ETFs and index funds?
Because we don't have a pension or anything like that. That's my pension. I'll look at the graph where we're going in terms of revenue for the year.
And I'll say, OK. And it comes from nowhere. It's from an instinct.
Sometimes I'll put even more. But it's like, OK. That's the investment.
And then that then allows you to have this big chunk of change to be like, what are we investing into my business? Do I need to invest in visual branding? Do I actually need to hire an editor?
Like, am I spending too much time on this? Do I need to hire an assistant? Am I going to start doing physical spaces?
And then the angel investing is for fun. Actually, it's more for fun and also to get yourself used to losing money. Because when you detach the emotional barrier and clutching on to money, you understand that this is a game.
And in game, there's rules to this game. And there's different ways that we can play it. And sometimes it goes well and sometimes it doesn't.
But we can't get better at playing the game if we don't play it in different ways, right? So I think it's about just having your safe, having your pension, and also... Living a good life.
I would never buy a Prada handbag, but will you see me in a first class flights from time to time? Absolutely. You know, do what works for you.
I love it. I love it. I love it.
You had brought up a question that you ask your friends if they're feeling directionless. I know that you ask yourself the same question, which is if my face was on a magazine cover, what would that headline sentence read? I have been stuck with that question.
I've been asking myself that too. And in the spirit of what we're speaking about today, I got one final question for you. As you and I both evolve and we care to, right?
You're talking about angel investing. You're talking about embodying more of this entrepreneurial mindset. You practice what you preach.
Let's say not five years down the line, because who knows what that's going to look like. But in a year from now, Hannah, if your face was on a magazine cover, what would that headline sentence read? Actually, it would be the same next year as it would be in five years.
And it would literally say the women that can do it all. And that speaks to my intensity of my pursuits in my business and in my personal life. Imagine if Gary Vee and Paris Hilton had a baby.
I am at the front of the line. I want to have the most fun. I want to run more ultra marathons.
I want to invest in more companies. I want to make millions of dollars in brand deals. All that I can ask, I want to be a mother one day.
I want to be an amazing wife. I want to be infinitely generous. This is the theme that on my deathbed, not just next year and five years, on my deathbed, I want people to say.
She managed to all, and she always did it with a smile on her face. That's what's important to me. A woman who can do it all.
This was Hannah Wilson at Creator Unplugged. Thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much, Jun.
Thank you. If something in this episode lit you up, don't just leave it there. Go and do something about it.
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Try ManyChat Pro free for a month. month at get .minichat .com forward slash real dash job with code creator.
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