How I Make $4 Million Per Year - The CBM Framework

2022-08-09 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali, Ali Abdaal (channel) · recording, 19:28 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Business and entrepreneurship (also: YouTube, writing online and creators) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: His own numbers, His own products discussed, Lesson from a book

In the second Creatorpreneur Club episode, Ali says his business made over $4 million last year and lays out three models for a creator business: the bridge model (free content, paid products and an email list between them), the three levels (get going, get good, get smart), and the Creatorpreneur business model of workflow, cashflow and outflow.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Intro: the business made over $4 million last year; Creatorpreneur Club

★★★ Ali says his business made over $4 million last year (2021). — 00:00:00
★★ Ali's video on the Creatorpreneur business model is an episode of Creatorpreneur Club, his ongoing series on the tools, strategies and principles for starting or levelling up creative entrepreneurial work. — 00:00:00

00:00:29 — Model one: the bridge model, the 99-1-1 rule and Ali's free and paid content

★★★ In Ali's bridge model of a creator business, a pillar of free content and a pillar of paid products are joined by a bridge that takes people from the free content to the paid, ideally creating a flywheel. — 00:00:58
★★★ Ali's 99-1-1 rule, which he thinks applies to his and most creative businesses: 99% of the content is free for 99% of the audience, and 1% is paid, for the 1% who can afford it and want to buy it. — 00:01:27
★★ Ali's free content includes his YouTube channel, his second YouTube channel, his podcast, his newsletter, his website and his social media. — 00:01:27
★★ Ali sells three main courses as his paid content: the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, running as a live cohort, the Part-Time Creatorpreneur course, and a course on camera confidence. — 00:01:56 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
★★ The bridge between Ali's free content and his paid courses is his email list: he does not plug the courses hard on YouTube or in the free content, but mentions them in his emails. — 00:02:26

00:02:55 — Model two: the three levels of being a creator; hobby or business

★★ Ali's second model is the three levels of being a creator: level one, get going; level two, get good; level three, get smart. — 00:02:55
★★★ At level one, get going, Ali says people are often held back by worrying about their niche or target audience, but you just need to make videos about anything so you can get going. — 00:03:24
★★ At level two, get good, a creator gets good at making videos and starts working on titles, thumbnails, hooks and storytelling. — 00:03:24
★★★ Between levels two and three Ali asks whether you are a creator as a hobby, which can stop there, or as a business to make money, at which point it stops being about you and becomes about serving other people. — 00:04:32
★★ Creators who succeed while ignoring the business side are an unusual case, Ali says: most creators he knows who built sustainable, profitable businesses from their creative work did it quite intentionally. — 00:05:22

00:05:46 — Model three, the Creatorpreneur business model: workflow (strategy and systems)

★★★ Ali's third model, the Creatorpreneur business model for treating a creative business more like a business, has three parts: workflow, cashflow and outflow. — 00:05:46
★★ In the strategy part of workflow, Ali says to think of a creator business as a business: figure out your niche, your target market (the people you are trying to speak to) and your value proposition. — 00:06:16
★ Ali is trying to get more people to use the term creatorpreneur, a portmanteau of creator and entrepreneur. — 00:06:16
★★★ To find a niche, Ali uses Jim Collins's hedgehog concept from Good to Great: the intersection of what you could be the best in the world at, what the market will reward and what you are passionate about is a truly profitable niche. — 00:07:28
★★ For a target market Ali says to identify the demographics, geographics and above all the psychographics of the people you want watching; the mistake creators make is trying to make content that appeals to everyone. — 00:07:57
★★ To stand out in a market, Ali says creators can do what a business does: a competitor analysis and a market map of who else is in the space, as someone opening an Italian restaurant would check the other restaurants on that corner. — 00:08:26
★★ Ali knows exactly who his competitors are and has tracked their growth for five years, but does not think of them as competitors since most are his friends; he is trying to be different from them, not better. — 00:08:56
★★ Ali plans Creatorpreneur Club as a very long-term series, has many ideas for it, and asks viewers to comment on what they would like to know about running a creative business. — 00:09:25
★★ The systems part of workflow is about leveraging your own time: leverage, Ali says, means creating the most output with minimal input of your own. — 00:09:54
★★ For all of its videos Ali's team uses exactly the same editing assets and similar video scripting, with a system in Notion for how its content gets produced. — 00:10:23 · Notion
★★ To build systems, Ali says to map the process you use to create your content, then tweak it: work out where to put in more effort, where less, and where to use a template. — 00:10:23
★★ Much of what Ali teaches in Creatorpreneur Club he learned from a business coach who charged about £500, or $800, an hour, with whom he had dozens of hours of coaching. (hedged) — 00:10:53

00:11:22 — Cashflow: the pentagram model from stranger to customer

★★★ For cashflow, building the pillar of paid content, Ali uses the pentagram model: taking someone from stranger to fan, to friend, to prospect, to customer. — 00:11:22
★★ Daniel Priestley's 7-11-4 rule, from Oversubscribed, says an audience needs seven hours of interaction with you across 11 touch points and four platforms before it is ready to buy from you. — 00:11:51
★★ Ali calls Daniel Priestley's Oversubscribed sick, one of the books he has highlighted most; his team drew a lot of inspiration from it for their course. — 00:11:51
★★ A fan watches you on a platform like YouTube, Ali says, while a friend gives you their contact details and subscribes to your email list, generally the way to bridge free and paid content. — 00:12:20
★★★ Citing Seth Godin's permission marketing, Ali says not to oversell products to your audience, which is a bit scammy; once people opt in by email, telling them what you have on offer is a service. — 00:12:20 · Seth Godin
★★ To turn a fan into a friend Ali suggests a lead magnet; his team's is a free five-day email course on how to be a creatorpreneur, set up for one of its courses. — 00:13:03
★ Turning a friend into a prospect, someone who might buy, is done with email opt-ins, in platforms such as ConvertKit, which Ali calls a really powerful email marketing platform. — 00:14:01
★★ The last step of the pentagram model, turning a prospect into a customer, means knowing their problems and working out how to solve them with a product they may want to pay for. — 00:14:01
★★ Ali still really struggles with selling and was super scared when he first charged money, for the Part-Time YouTuber Academy about two years earlier; mentors and creators told him everyone struggles at first, but he runs a business and offers a money-back guarantee. — 00:14:31 · Part-Time YouTuber Academy
★★ When Peter McKinnon released his line of backpacks, Ali was delighted to pay $600 for one of his camera bags, used it about twice in two or three years, but felt a need to pay him after five years of value from his content. — 00:15:00 · Peter McKinnon
★★ Ali calls this the law of reciprocity: give people enough free value and some of them, not everyone, will feel they want to give something back. — 00:15:00
★★★ If Ali won the lottery he would make no more courses and put them all on YouTube for free: the only point of his paid products is to sustain the business that makes the free content, which he would make anyway. — 00:16:27
★★ Ali promises more Creatorpreneur Club videos on how to figure out what products to create for your audience, how his team did it for its courses, how to offer guarantees and deliver a fantastic customer experience. — 00:16:27

00:17:26 — Outflow: hiring and outsourcing editing

★★★ In outflow, once you make money, Ali says to leverage yourself by hiring, not necessarily full-time staff: for YouTubers, outsourcing editing frees up a lot of time, unless the channel relies on fancy editing, as James Jani's does. — 00:17:26 · Matt D'Avella
★★ Ali outsourced his editing about three years ago and wishes he had done it sooner: after two years of doing all of it, his editor Christian now frees his time for writing content and his book, fun, family and friends. — 00:17:52 · Christian
★★ Ali says he, like most creators, lacked experience of hiring, management and leadership and is still pretty bad at them, but has learned a lot in recent years from books, tens of thousands of dollars of business coaching and many mistakes. — 00:18:21
★★ Ali asks viewers to comment with questions on how to hire and train people and promises to make a video about it. — 00:18:21

00:18:40 — Course plug and sign-off

In the description and comments

★★ Asked for a video on how he edits his videos, Ali points to the 33-video online course he made on it, with free access through Skillshare. — creator comment · Skillshare classes
★ Ali Abdaal (channel): To a viewer who says Ali's content is not really free because YouTube pays for it, the channel answers that it is free for the viewer. — creator comment

Threads in this video

came true · Ali hopes his business will make around $3 million in revenue in 2021 (2021) — Ali says his business made over $4 million last year (2021). (00:00:00)
milestone · Ali's team launches Creatorpreneur, a brand with a course, Twitter account, newsletter and podcast on how creators can think more like businesses (2022) — Ali's video on the Creatorpreneur business model is an episode of Creatorpreneur Club, his ongoing series on the tools, strategies and principles for starting or levelling up creative entrepreneurial work. (00:00:00)
refine · How do creators make money from YouTube? — In Ali's bridge model of a creator business, a pillar of free content and a pillar of paid products are joined by a bridge that takes people from the free content to the paid, ideally creating a flywheel. (00:00:58)
restate · How do you sell without feeling sleazy? — Ali's 99-1-1 rule, which he thinks applies to his and most creative businesses: 99% of the content is free for 99% of the audience, and 1% is paid, for the 1% who can afford it and want to buy it. (00:01:27)
milestone · On a Zoom call Ali and Angus plan the final details of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, a four-week live interactive course Ali runs for the first time from next week (week of 16 November 2020). — The Part-Time YouTuber Academy is running a live cohort, one of the three main courses Ali sells. (00:01:56)
restate · How do creators make money from YouTube? — The bridge between Ali's free content and his paid courses is his email list: he does not plug the courses hard on YouTube or in the free content, but mentions them in his emails. (00:02:26)
restate · How do you start a YouTube channel? — At level one, get going, Ali says people are often held back by worrying about their niche or target audience, but you just need to make videos about anything so you can get going. (00:03:24)
restate · How do you grow a YouTube channel? — At level two, get good, a creator gets good at making videos and starts working on titles, thumbnails, hooks and storytelling. (00:03:24)
refine · Should you pick a niche for your channel? — To find a niche, Ali uses Jim Collins's hedgehog concept from Good to Great: the intersection of what you could be the best in the world at, what the market will reward and what you are passionate about is a truly profitable niche. (00:07:28)
restate · Should you pick a niche for your channel? — For a target market Ali says to identify the demographics, geographics and above all the psychographics of the people you want watching; the mistake creators make is trying to make content that appeals to everyone. (00:07:57)
restate · Should you see the people you work alongside as competitors? — Ali knows exactly who his competitors are and has tracked their growth for five years, but does not think of them as competitors since most are his friends; he is trying to be different from them, not better. (00:08:56)
progress update · Ali promises more videos on his channel about systemising a creative business (2022) — Ali plans Creatorpreneur Club as a very long-term series, has many ideas for it, and asks viewers to comment on what they would like to know about running a creative business. (00:09:25)
restate · Should you pay for courses and coaching? — Much of what Ali teaches in Creatorpreneur Club he learned from a business coach who charged about £500, or $800, an hour, with whom he had dozens of hours of coaching. (00:10:53)
restate · How do you learn how to start and run a business? — Ali calls Daniel Priestley's Oversubscribed sick, one of the books he has highlighted most; his team drew a lot of inspiration from it for their course. (00:11:51)
refine · How do you sell without feeling sleazy? — Citing Seth Godin's permission marketing, Ali says not to oversell products to your audience, which is a bit scammy; once people opt in by email, telling them what you have on offer is a service. (00:12:20)
restate · Should you build a business on online courses? — If Ali won the lottery he would make no more courses and put them all on YouTube for free: the only point of his paid products is to sustain the business that makes the free content, which he would make anyway. (00:16:27)
restate · What keeps you motivated once money is no longer the goal? — If Ali won the lottery he would make no more courses and put them all on YouTube for free: the only point of his paid products is to sustain the business that makes the free content, which he would make anyway. (00:16:27)
promised · Ali promises more Creatorpreneur Club videos on how to figure out what products to create for your audience (2022) — Ali promises more Creatorpreneur Club videos on how to figure out what products to create for your audience, how his team did it for its courses, how to offer guarantees and deliver a fantastic customer experience. (00:16:27)
refine · When should you hire people for your business? — In outflow, once you make money, Ali says to leverage yourself by hiring, not necessarily full-time staff: for YouTubers, outsourcing editing frees up a lot of time, unless the channel relies on fancy editing, as James Jani's does. (00:17:26)
restate · When should you hire people for your business? — Ali outsourced his editing about three years ago and wishes he had done it sooner: after two years of doing all of it, his editor Christian now frees his time for writing content and his book, fun, family and friends. (00:17:52)
looked back · Ali builds a team for his online business — Ali outsourced his editing about three years ago and wishes he had done it sooner: after two years of doing all of it, his editor Christian now frees his time for writing content and his book, fun, family and friends. (00:17:52)
promised · Ali promises a video on how to hire and train people if viewers ask in the comments (2022) — Ali asks viewers to comment with questions on how to hire and train people and promises to make a video about it. (00:18:21)
progress update · Ali promises a 20-hour course on treating YouTube as a business, to be filmed the following week (2022) — Ali sells three main courses as his paid content: the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, running as a live cohort, the Part-Time Creatorpreneur course, and a course on camera confidence. (00:01:56)

Where the stories that moved here went next

Ali hopes his business will make around $3 million in revenue in 2021 (2021) — came true
Ali promises more Creatorpreneur Club videos on how to figure out what products to create for your audience (2022) — open (no report in 2022–2023); last: promised, 2022-08-09
Ali promises a video on how to hire and train people if viewers ask in the comments (2022) — open (no report in 2022–2023); last: promised, 2022-08-09
Ali promises more videos on his channel about systemising a creative business (2022) — kept; last: progress update, 2022-08-09
Ali promises a 20-hour course on treating YouTube as a business, to be filmed the following week (2022) — open (updates through 2023, not reported done); last: progress update, 2023-01-05 (said on 2022-12-15, implied)
On a Zoom call Ali and Angus plan the final details of the Part-Time YouTuber Academy, a four-week live interactive course Ali runs for the first time from next week (week of 16 November 2020). — running; last: looked back, 2023-12-08
Ali's team launches Creatorpreneur, a brand with a course, Twitter account, newsletter and podcast on how creators can think more like businesses (2022) — running; last: milestone, 2023-01-05 (said on 2022-12-15, implied)

Mentioned

Central: 99-1-1 rule · bridge model · Creatorpreneur · get going, get good, get smart · pentagram model · workflow, cashflow, outflow

Also: People: Christian · Daniel Priestley · James Jani · Jim Collins · Matt D'Avella · Peter McKinnon · Seth Godin

Projects: Camera Confidence · Part-Time YouTuber Academy

Works: Good to Great · Oversubscribed

Concepts: 7-11-4 rule · educational email course · flywheel · Hedgehog Concept · law of reciprocity · lead magnet · leverage · permission marketing · unfair advantage

Products: ConvertKit · Notion

Only in the description or credits: Skillshare classes

Also centred on 99-1-1 rule: My Goals for 2023 - Life Update

Also centred on Creatorpreneur: What Am I Doing With My Life?

Also centred on get going, get good, get smart: How to Grow on YouTube - Live Stream with Ali Abdaal · How To Start a YouTube Channel - Beginner’s Guide to YouTube · If I Started a YouTube Channel in 2026, I'd Do This

Also centred on workflow, cashflow, outflow: How To Start a YouTube Channel - Beginner’s Guide to YouTube

← Previous: How to Figure Out What to Do With Your Life #shorts · Next → Why You're Not Happy and What To Do About It