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How I'd Create Content in 2026 (If I Had To Start Over)

2026-03-26 · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 15:55 · watch on YouTube

Topic: YouTube, writing online and creators · mode: List of tips or lessons · tags: AI, Sponsor segment present

Filming over lunch in a Hong Kong restaurant, Ali gives five tips for taking content seriously in 2026: study what works for competitors and imitate about 80/20, enjoy the process enough to keep going for years, do not let AI write your content as a beginner, get used to cringe, and lean into your unfair advantages and quirks.

What is said

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

00:00:00 — Who Ali is and why he gives advice on content

00:00:29 — Tip one: competitor analysis is unreasonably effective; imitation versus innovation

  • ★★ Ali says content done as a hobby can be made up as you go, but if you want to make money from it or drive leads to a business, your approach must be more strategic. — 00:00:29
  • ★★★ Ali says competitor analysis is unreasonably effective for growing content platforms: every big creator has a team that spends much of its time looking at what other big creators are doing. — 00:00:58
  • ★★ Ali's video "How to Change Your Life" did really well, and a bunch of other channels then made videos with the same title because their teams saw it doing well. — 00:01:27
  • ★★ Ali tells complete beginners who already struggle to post consistently not to let optimising against competitors hold them back from posting. — 00:01:56
  • ★★ Ali rarely watches videos from his niche so as not to plagiarise them by accident, but looks at titles that did well, such as Nischa's outlier "17 tiny habits that made me rich", and makes his own take. — 00:02:26
  • ★★ Ali is not a fan of lists of what is working on Instagram right now, since they go out of date; find out what works on Instagram, LinkedIn or YouTube by looking at what works there. — 00:02:26 · Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube
  • ★★ From an outlier post you can imitate the hook and the format: on LinkedIn the first one or two lines, on an Instagram or TikTok reel the first five seconds; Ali reuses a hook line but writes his own advice after it. — 00:03:11 · LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, Alex Hormozi
  • ★★ Ali says experimental content advances the meta: most of it fails, but an experiment that works becomes an outlier, others copy it, and it becomes part of the meta. — 00:03:57

  • ★★★ Ali recommends aiming for about 80% imitation and 20% innovation while building a content engine. — 00:03:57

    “80 20 is a good level of imitation versus innovation to strive for”

  • ★ Ali films this experimental video over lunch in a restaurant in Hong Kong, without a fancy camera or much structure. — 00:03:57 · Hong Kong

00:04:45 — ManyChat sponsor read

  • ★★★ Ali says content is a compounding asset that builds trust, and the single most important metric to optimise for is enjoying the process enough to keep going with it. — 00:05:44
  • ★★ Ali says content, especially a YouTube channel, will not work within the first weeks or months: doing it for three months, three years or ten years gives drastically different results. — 00:05:44 · YouTube

00:05:50 — Content is a compounding asset; doing it for the views or for the vibes; enjoyment comes after the first posts

  • ★★ Ali recently filmed one video at a local kebab shop and another walking around his office: a more relaxed, experimental format keeps the work enjoyable for him, and he accepts slightly fewer views in the short term for it. — 00:06:28

  • ★★ Many of Ali's big YouTuber friends feel their enjoyment diverge from what gets views, a balancing act between doing it for the views and doing it for the vibes; this video is for the vibes. — 00:07:20

    “doing it for the views and doing it for the vibes”

  • ★★ Ali adds that if your content is not working, for example not bringing leads to your business, you will stop enjoying it. — 00:07:43

  • ★ Diagnosing Lifestyle Business Academy students' content takes many follow-up questions, Ali says, because advice that suits one person can be the opposite of what works for another. — 00:07:43 · Lifestyle Business Academy
  • ★★★ Beginners should not think too hard about enjoying content, Ali says: as in tennis, it becomes fun once you are good enough, so focus on your first 30 to 50 posts or three to six months of consistency. — 00:08:20

00:09:18 — Overusing AI; content as relationships at scale and the trust battery

  • ★★★ Ali says content is relationships at scale: it raises strangers' trust in you without meeting them, as networking and a professional reputation, now called a personal brand, once did. — 00:09:47 · personal brand

    “content is basically relationships at scale”

  • ★★ Ali says you have a trust battery with every person who engages with your content: it takes a long time to build up and is very easy to lose. — 00:10:17

  • ★★★ A mistake Ali sees beginners in his Lifestyle Business Academy make is having ChatGPT generate their content before they have the skill or taste; at the start, doing it manually builds the skill. — 00:10:46 · ChatGPT, Lifestyle Business Academy
  • ★★ Ali says people increasingly spot AI-written text and no one wants to follow such channels; using AI to write content is no longer a flex, and creators should be the voice of humanity and authenticity. — 00:10:46
  • ★★★ Ali says that over time content creators inoculate themselves against feeling cringe: at the start everyone cringes at what they post because we all fear social disapproval. — 00:10:46

00:10:59 — Inoculating yourself against cringe; Simon Squibb

  • ★★ After nine years of making content, Ali says he still cringes at himself when he vlogs in public with the camera out. — 00:11:30
  • ★★ Ali's friend Simon Squibb approaches strangers on the street to ask "what's your dream?"; Ali would cringe at doing it, but thinks it is amazing and wishes he had the confidence. — 00:11:30
  • ★★ Ali says Simon Squibb, in his fifties, does not cringe at approaching strangers, and his willingness to do what makes others cringe is why he has a huge following on social media. (overstated) — 00:12:00
  • ★★ Ali suggests asking whether you are afraid because something is really wrong or because your brain evolved to crave the tribe's approval; people who can do more cringe things stand out, and standing out is how you grow on social media. — 00:12:27

  • ★★★ Ali's final tip is to lean into your unfair advantages, anything slightly different, unique or novel about you, rather than being vanilla ice cream on social media. — 00:12:27 · unfair advantage

    “You don't want to be vanilla ice cream on social media.”

00:12:40 — Lean into your unfair advantages, quirks and sharp edges

  • ★★ Everyone has a unique combination of advantages, Ali says; when you study competitors, ask which advantages they lean into, since big accounts usually have something quirky about them. — 00:13:13 · unfair advantage
  • ★★ Ali says you cannot be a big social media account without offending some people. — 00:13:13
  • ★★ Ali calls his content fairly vanilla, though haters call him toxic productivity; he thinks he would do better leaning into sharper edges but fears what people think and dislikes negative comments. — 00:13:42
  • ★★ Leaning into your quirks and character flaws makes you a more interesting character, Ali says, as Sherlock Holmes's drug addiction and rudeness make him magnetic; you need not be an asshole. — 00:13:42
  • ★★ To find your quirks, Ali suggests asking what your friends like about you that differs from others, and what you strongly believe that is a little controversial. — 00:14:28
  • ★★ Ali believes in using productivity systems in personal life, made Instagram reels on dating productively, and found people thought them controversial, a data point for leaning into his quirks. — 00:14:28 · Instagram
  • ★★ Once you find your views that go against the grain, which happens as you make more content, Ali advises leaning into them and moulding your personal brand around those sharp edges, which make you stand out. — 00:14:58 · personal brand

00:15:42 — Pointer to his YouTube growth video and sign-off

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: unfair advantage

Also: People: Alex Hormozi · Becky · Nischa · Simon Squibb

Projects: Lifestyle Business Academy

Organizations: Instagram · LinkedIn

Concepts: imitate then innovate · personal brand

Places: Hong Kong

Characters: Sherlock Holmes

Products: ChatGPT

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