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What Am I Doing With My Life?

2022-05-12 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 42:38 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Business and entrepreneurship (also: YouTube, writing online and creators, Relationships and personal life) · mode: Reflection and life update · tags: His own products discussed, His own numbers, His medical past, Lesson from a book

In a rambling life update Ali sets out his business's 2022 goals (£5 million revenue, 25 people), its 19-person org chart, the Part-Time YouTuber Academy as its biggest earner, the scrapped Part-Time Creator Academy channel replaced by the Creatorpreneur brand, his uncertain vision for his own brand, the book's timeline, the studio move, and his health, wealth, love and happiness.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Business goals and numbers for 2022, mission and ten-year goal

  • ★★★ Ali's business goals for 2022 are £5 million in revenue, £3 million pre-tax profit, about 25 people by year end and 4 million followers across all platforms. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Ali's first business goal for 2022 is three successful Part-Time YouTuber Academy cohorts: cohort five has run, and cohorts six and seven come later in the year. — 00:00:29 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali's business aims to release four of its own courses by the end of 2022, hoping they will make £100,000 a month combined. (hedged) — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Another 2022 goal is for Ali's book to be written; he spends about three and a half hours a day on it. — 00:00:58
  • ★ Ali's business also aims in 2022 to have all its core team processes documented and followed by everyone. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ The core mission of Ali's business is to help people live their best life, for now through inspiring, educational content on health, wealth, love, happiness and impact. — 00:01:27
  • ★★★ Ali's ten-year goal is a profitable business that helps people while having fun, without worrying too much about the numbers. — 00:01:56 · lifestyle business
  • ★★ Of the £5 million target, Ali's business hopes about £3 million will come from the Part-Time YouTuber Academy. (hedged) — 00:01:56 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali's business hopes about £1 million of 2022 revenue will come from the YouTube channel and another £1 million from other courses, such as Skillshare and its own. (hedged) — 00:02:26 · Skillshare
  • ★★ Of the channel's hoped £1 million, Ali expects about half from brand deals and sponsorships and half from YouTube AdSense. (hedged) — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Ali is not wedded to the numbers, but having them as goals helps him and his team stay on the same page and go in the same direction. — 00:02:55

00:03:24 — The team: org chart, leadership team, open jobs and summer interns

  • ★★★ Ali's team has about 19 people, and since people always ask what they all do, the business has been restructuring and redoing its organisational chart. (hedged) — 00:03:24
  • ★★ Ali's business uses the terms of Gino Wickman's book Traction, which Ali read last year (2021) and calls completely game-changing and absolutely fantastic. — 00:03:24
  • ★★ In Traction's terms Ali is the visionary of his business and Angus the integrator, the general manager. — 00:03:53 · Angus
  • ★★ The leadership team of Ali's business is seven people: Ali, Angus, Gordon (production), Tommy (Part-Time YouTuber Academy), Becky (Ali Abdaal brand), Gareth (Creatorpreneur) and Dan (people, finance, admin). — 00:04:22 · Angus, Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali's business is hiring another video editor and a graphic designer in London. — 00:04:52 · London
  • ★★ Ali's business is hiring three summer interns: a video production intern with Gordon, a writing intern with Gwilym and an intern for the Part-Time YouTuber Academy. — 00:06:22 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

00:06:51 — The Part-Time YouTuber Academy: growth, revenue and where it fits

  • ★★ Ali's team expected 10 people to sign up for the first cohort of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, started around October 2020, but 360 signed up. — 00:06:51 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★★ After five cohorts, over 2,000 students have gone through the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, which has fairly accidentally become the biggest revenue driver of Ali's business. — 00:07:33 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ After five years of YouTube, Ali has made more money teaching people how to do YouTube than by doing YouTube, which he says is apparently common in education. — 00:07:33
  • ★★ The Part-Time YouTuber Academy holds an in-person event in London the next week, with 50 or possibly 100 people coming for workshops. (hedged) — 00:08:02 · London, Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ While working as a doctor, Ali was a physiology supervisor for Girton College, Cambridge, which was super fun because he got to teach people in real life. — 00:08:31 · Girton College, University of Cambridge
  • ★★ Ali is excited about taking the Part-Time YouTuber Academy towards in-person workshops on cameras, editing and the creator's skills, as well as online. — 00:08:31 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ Ali's challenge is working out where the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, which happened by accident, fits in the business and how involved he wants to stay. — 00:09:30 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★ About five of the roughly 20 people on Ali's team work full-time supporting the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, a business within his business. — 00:09:30 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
  • ★★★ The fifth cohort of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, just finished, made over a million dollars in revenue, with really great student satisfaction ratings. (hedged) — 00:09:30 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

00:10:35 — The scrapped Part-Time Creator Academy channel, the Creatorpreneur brand and brands not tied to Ali

  • ★★ Ali's team had started a YouTube channel, the Part-Time Creator Academy, meant as a free MasterClass for creators, and released a few videos on it a few months in. — 00:11:04
  • ★★ Thinking about scrapping the Part-Time Creator Academy channel, a very heavy lift, Ali felt an enormous weight lift off his shoulders. — 00:12:03
  • ★★ Citing the law of line extension from The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing, Ali warns that being good at one thing does not make a business good at the next, and it risks spreading itself too thin. — 00:12:03
  • ★★★ Ali's team decided to scrap the Part-Time Creator Academy channel completely, and the part-time brand was replaced with the Creatorpreneur brand. — 00:12:32
  • ★★★ Ali's team has filmed a whole course, The Part-Time Creatorpreneur, now being edited, on how creators can think more like businesses. — 00:12:32
  • ★★ Ali calls starting a YouTube channel a heavy lift, building a media company from scratch, while a Twitter account, newsletter or podcast are much lower lifts that need him less on camera. — 00:13:01 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Ali's team plans to launch the Creatorpreneur brand over the next few weeks, with the course, a Twitter account, a newsletter and a podcast. (hedged) — 00:13:31 · Twitter
  • ★★★ Ali wants his business to build things that do not rely on him, since its foundation is his channel: if it collapses or he is hit by a bus or cancelled, the business crumbles. — 00:13:31
  • ★★ Ali's freedom as a creator comes with golden handcuffs: he feels he needs to film YouTube videos and the podcast every week, like running on a hamster wheel. — 00:15:25
  • ★★ Ali says audiences churn: his subscriber count keeps rising but his views do not necessarily, because new subscribers are needed to make up for those who leave. — 00:15:55
  • ★★★ In case Ali stops wanting to make weekly videos, he wants to make his business more anti-fragile by building brands that are not intrinsically tied to him. — 00:16:24
  • ★★ Essentiali, the product line of Ali's business, has made stationery and is considering a mechanical keyboard and a bag, and working on an hourglass set. — 00:16:24
  • ★★ Ali's friend James Hoffmann, the most famous coffee YouTuber as far as Ali knows, also owns a coffee shop, a roasting business and a merch company not tied to him. — 00:16:53

00:17:49 — The Ali Abdaal brand: vision, role models, team doing the data, podcast, daily vlog and social media

  • ★★ Ali thinks one mistake creators make is not thinking of themselves enough as a business, and too much as individuals or creatives. — 00:17:49
  • ★★ Ali's business has recently promoted Becky to head of the Ali Abdaal brand, in charge of moving the brand forward. — 00:18:47
  • ★★★ After five years on YouTube, from medical school to productivity, tech and life advice, Ali is not really sure where his brand goes from here. (unsure) — 00:19:17
  • ★★ For his own unusual career, Ali would aim at a combination of Tim Ferriss, Naval Ravikant, Ryan Holiday, Cal Newport and Derek Sivers. — 00:19:46 · Tim Ferriss, Naval Ravikant, Ryan Holiday, Cal Newport, Derek Sivers

  • ★★★ Overall Ali wants to spend his time reading, writing and teaching, with the freedom to learn and teach on his own terms. — 00:20:15

    “spend my time reading, writing, and teaching.”

  • ★★ Ali wants to teach personal development and evidence-based ways to improve life in the spirit of "let's all figure this out together". — 00:20:44

  • ★ Ali admires Tim Ferriss for following his interests rather than staying tied to being the four-hour guy or the productivity guy. — 00:21:13 · Tim Ferriss
  • ★★ Ryan Holiday works four hours a day, 9am to 1pm, and lives on a farm near Austin, Texas, Ali says. (hedged) — 00:21:13 · Ryan Holiday
  • ★★ Ryan Holiday's books profoundly affected Ali by teaching him about Stoicism, a school of ancient philosophy he might not otherwise have come across. — 00:21:49 · Ryan Holiday, stoicism
  • ★★★ Ali sees himself as a documentarian and guinea pig: he tries new things in personal development and shares them in videos, writing and teaching. — 00:22:47
  • ★★ Ali loves reading, writing and making videos, but not the logistics and data, such as titles, thumbnails and analytics. — 00:22:47
  • ★★ Ali finds that the more he dissociates himself from the numbers, the better: he does not look at a video's views, which is his producer Jamie's job. — 00:24:01
  • ★★ After two years as a solo creator doing everything himself, Ali can now lean on team members who are better at things like data and cameras, and focus on content and teaching. — 00:24:31
  • ★★ The Deep Dive podcast, started a few months earlier, already has about 75,000 subscribers on its YouTube channel and several tens of thousands of downloads per episode. (hedged) — 00:25:00 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ Ali found starting a podcast a faff until Angus suggested the team take care of everything so Ali only had to turn up and have a conversation. — 00:25:58 · Angus, Deep Dive
  • ★★ The Deep Dive podcast has finished two seasons and starts season three in the next few weeks. — 00:26:20 · Deep Dive
  • ★★ Ali's vlog channel, first Ali's Appendix and then Ali Abdaal Behind the Scenes, is now Ali Abdaal Vlogs, a name he is still not sold on. — 00:27:01
  • ★★ Ali wishes Tim Ferriss, Cal Newport, Ryan Holiday, Derek Sivers and Naval had vlogs showing what they do day to day, and wants to document his own life. — 00:27:31 · Tim Ferriss, Cal Newport, Ryan Holiday, Derek Sivers, Naval Ravikant
  • ★★★ Ali has started a daily vlog on his vlog channel, Ali Abdaal Vlogs: three days in, he plans 30 days as an experiment and will continue if it goes well. — 00:28:00
  • ★ Many viewers tell Ali they prefer his vlogs to the main channel because they are more raw, relatable and honest. — 00:28:00
  • ★★ Rather than chopping clips out of a YouTube video, Ali wants each social platform treated as its own thing: a 20-minute video of ten tips becomes ten native TikToks. — 00:28:58 · TikTok

  • ★★ Ali is moving from seeing himself as a YouTuber who repurposes to seeing himself as a teacher of a message. — 00:29:28

    “I'm trying to be a teacher.”

  • ★★★ Ali now thinks message first and platform second: the team's platform experts work out the best way to deliver each message on each platform. — 00:29:57 · TikTok, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn

00:30:26 — The book's progress and timeline, and the Friend Zone Discord

  • ★★ Ali's book team now includes a new editor, Rachel, alongside his two editors at Penguin and Macmillan, Rowan and Ryan. — 00:30:26 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★★ Ali writes his book every day from 9am to 12.30pm; the concept is nailed, he thinks they have a title, and they are working on chapter outlines. (hedged) — 00:30:55 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★★ Ali tentatively hopes to have the first draft of his book by the end of July 2022. (hedged) — 00:30:55 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ The final deadline for Ali's book is the end of 2022, around December. — 00:31:24 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★★ Ali hopes his book will come out in January 2024, since traditional publishing takes ages. (hedged) — 00:31:24 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ For his book Ali read a paper on procrastination by Piers Steel, a procrastination researcher at the University of Calgary; it feels like being back at university. — 00:31:24
  • ★★ The research question of Ali's book is how to be sustainably productive in a nice way, drawing on psychology, neuroscience and behavioural economics. — 00:31:54 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ Ali can definitely see himself wanting to write more books after his first. — 00:31:54
  • ★★ Ali wants to bring back the live Zoom co-working sessions he ran during lockdown, through the Friend Zone Discord, for when he writes his book. — 00:32:40 · Zoom
  • ★★ The free Friend Zone Discord is fairly active: people form their own community there and talk about tech, studying, productivity and desk setups. — 00:32:40

00:33:09 — Challenges: experimentation versus stability, travel, hybrid team and the studio lease

  • ★★ With a team of 20, Ali says, a business must balance experimentation and stability: his changing mind is easy as a solo creator but annoying for a team that needs stability. — 00:33:09
  • ★★ Ali's business is considering a roadmap for the next year or two in which the next three months are set in stone and six to twelve months out stay fuzzier. — 00:34:08
  • ★★ Ali has long toyed with travelling the world: he wanted to in 2020, but lockdown came just after he quit his job as a doctor. — 00:34:37
  • ★★★ The lease on Ali's London studio expires in October 2022 and he does not think the business will renew it, as the place is stupidly expensive. (hedged) — 00:35:35 · London
  • ★★ Ali's business is thinking of renting a three- or four-bedroom flat with a YouTube studio, a podcast studio, maybe a second set and a guest room for visiting team members. (hedged) — 00:35:35 · London
  • ★ Ali asks estate agents or property managers watching to get in touch: the business would love to rent a three- or four-bedroom place in central London. — 00:36:05 · London
  • ★★ Ali and Gordon, his videographer and gym buddy, have a regular workout regimen of three sessions a week. — 00:36:34

00:36:51 — Personal life: health, wealth, love and happiness, and thanks to viewers

  • ★★ Ali's investments in shares, real estate and crypto are going reasonably well, and he now works with a wealth and financial adviser. — 00:37:32
  • ★★★ Ali has had a girlfriend for about eight months and will share more details at some point. — 00:38:01
  • ★★ Ali thinks he still does a bad job of keeping in touch with friends and wants to make hosting dinner parties more of a priority. — 00:38:01
  • ★★ Clayton Christensen (quoted): In his 2010 Harvard Business Review article How Will You Measure Your Life, Clayton Christensen asks what you default to when you have a spare hour in your day. — 00:38:41
  • ★★ With a spare hour Ali organised a brunch for lots of friends in half an hour, which would not have happened had he spent it on the book. — 00:39:10 · Feel-Good Productivity (book)
  • ★★ People on their deathbed all basically say they wish they had not worked so hard, Ali says, so why should work be his default? — 00:39:10
  • ★★★ Ali's spare hour defaults to work; he is now trying to make his default use of time health or relationships, which add to overall life satisfaction. — 00:39:40
  • ★★ For Ali and people like him, work takes care of itself, so the risk is letting health, relationships and happiness take a back seat. — 00:39:40
  • ★★ Ali says he is very lucky not to have mental health issues, believes in Stoicism and is generally zen and happy, though he admits he has lived a privileged life. — 00:40:09 · Mental health, stoicism
  • ★★★ Ali often asks how the life he would want if he won the lottery differs from his life now; his answer is that it would be broadly the same. — 00:40:38
  • ★★ If he did not need to make money, Ali would still make videos and podcasts but would probably make his paid courses free. (hedged) — 00:40:38
  • ★★ Ali checks his calendar for anything he has not enjoyed and finds a way to delegate or eliminate it, which he says entrepreneurs can do. — 00:41:19
  • ★★ As a doctor, with his schedule controlled by a rota coordinator, much of Ali's life was outside his control. — 00:41:19
  • ★★ Ali thanks viewers: because of them and his channel, his life has completely transformed over the last five years. — 00:41:48

In the description and comments

  • ★★ Asked to discuss the accounting side of his business, Ali replies that he will. — creator comment
  • ★★ Told he could save money by outsourcing accounting and video editing to remote workers in Pakistan, Ali replies that he prefers working with people in person. — creator comment
  • ★★ Asked about his charity and philanthropy, Ali replies that the effective altruism movement is his jam. — creator comment

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: Creatorpreneur · Feel-Good Productivity (book) · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Also: People: Amber · Angus · Becky · Cal Newport · Christian · Clayton Christensen · Dan (staff, mentioned from 2021) · Derek Sivers · Elizabeth · Gareth · Gary Vaynerchuk · George · Gino Wickman · Gordon · James Hoffmann · Jamie · Naval Ravikant · Piers Steel · Ryan Holiday · Steven Bartlett · Tim Ferriss · Tommy

Projects: Appendix · Deep Dive · Essentiali

Works: How Will You Measure Your Life · The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing · Traction

Organizations: Girton College · Harvard Business Review · Instagram · LinkedIn · Macmillan Publishers · MasterClass · Penguin UK · Skillshare · TikTok · Twitter · University of Cambridge

Concepts: Mental health · stoicism

Places: London · Scotland

Products: Discord · Zoom

Only in the description or credits: effective altruism

Also centred on Creatorpreneur: How I Make $4 Million Per Year - The CBM Framework

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