Creator Science

Eric Zimmer launched The One You Feed podcast in 2014 with no audience, no name recognition, and a podcast name that took explaining. Twelve years, 850+ episodes, and 500 million downloads later, he released his first book — How a Little Becomes a Lot — a title that is, in every way, the story of his life. In this conversation, we talk about how incremental progress actually works, why you can't see it happening in real time, and why that's actually fine.

We also go deep on the business reality of podcasting in 2026 — the early mover advantage is gone, ad CPMs are harder to sustain, and Eric is actively pivoting from reaching many people loosely to serving fewer people more deeply. Then we spend a lot of time in the weeds of the book publishing process: the six-month proposal, the 18 months of writing in half-day increments, the uncomfortable dance between your vision and what an agent and publisher think will sell, and the emotional work of promotion — watching who shows up and who doesn't, and applying his own frameworks to keep from spiraling. This one got personal. I'm in month 11 of my own book proposal, and Eric helped me see the other side of a process that has genuinely been shaking my confidence.

The One You Feed podcast

How a Little Becomes a Lot by Eric Zimmer

Full transcript and show notes

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TIMESTAMPS

(02:54) The One You Feed parable: two wolves, and which one wins

(05:18) How to remember to make the right choice daily (Still Point method)

(07:37) Building a podcast to 850 episodes: the only way is one at a time

(10:14) The hair growth metaphor for creator progress

(11:36) How Eric renews his commitment to the show after 12 years

(13:47) What it means to enter your "happy place" as a podcast host

(17:23) State of podcasting in 2026: early mover advantage is gone

(19:11) Pivoting from ad revenue to deeper relationships with fewer people

(22:38) Why Eric is (mostly) skipping video — and why that's okay

(24:58) The three-person team behind 500 million downloads

(27:45) How Eric knew it was finally time to write a book

(30:24) The writing process: three half-days a week across 18 months

(31:09) The proposal took six months — and ended up looking nothing like Eric's vision

(34:21) Jay opens up: 11 months into his own book proposal

(39:12) Non-negotiables: how to protect the heart of your book

(40:35) Expectations vs. reality of book launch week

(43:01) The emotional work of asking everyone you know for support

(44:47) Why the marketing marathon is harder than the writing

(50:55) How to ask for blurbs — and who says yes (Susan Cain, Charles Duhigg, Young Pueblo)

(55:51) What Eric would do differently for book two

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RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

→ ⁠#163: David Moldawer — Diving deep into book publishing with an industry insider

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Nearing the end of Q1, I've been doing a lot of reflection on where the creator economy is heading, and where I want to take Creator Science. There's something interesting happening on the ground: the same energy that used to funnel beginners into content creation has largely shifted to AI and vibe coding. And honestly? I think that's a good thing. The people still showing up for this work seem to have their heads and hearts in the right place.

In this episode, I walk you through 9 priorities on my mind right now — some tactical, some strategic, some still just ideas. From returning to the 1,000 True Fans model and posting more educational content about trust, to building internal AI tools for Creator Science, redesigning member onboarding, and taking November and December completely off. If you're a creator thinking about where to focus your energy in the back half of 2026, I think there's something here for you.

Join The Lab

1,000 True Fans by Kevin Kelly

Subscribe to the Creator Science Newsletter

→ Full transcript and show notes

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) The shifting energy in the creator space

(05:01) Overview of 9 priorities for 2026

(05:38) Priority 1: Return to 1,000 True Fans

(12:44) Priority 2: Being more outspoken

(14:53) Priority 3: Increasing the rate of experiments in business and The Lab

(17:45) Priority 4: Updating member and subscriber onboarding

(23:52) Priority 5: In-person events and experiences for the broader audience

(27:57) Priority 6: Getting more time back — taking November and December off

(31:58) Priority 7: Building internal tools for Creator Science

(42:59) Priority 8: Fewer, longer-term sponsorship partnerships

(44:33) Priority 9: Making contact without expectation

(46:52) Full recap of all 9 priorities

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RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

→ 48 Hours with Clawdbot (Episode 291)

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ASK CREATOR SCIENCE

→ Submit your question here

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WHEN YOU'RE READY

📬 Creator Science Newsletter

🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system)

🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community)

🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer

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CONNECT

🐦 Connect on Twitter

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💼 Connect on LinkedIn

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***

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Joy Sullivan is a Portland-based poet who quit her corporate job mid-pandemic and built a thriving creative business through writing carousels on Instagram (115K followers), her Substack "Necessary Salt" (23K subscribers), and a 250-member paid writing community called Sustenance on Circle. She's a former Lab member, and in 2024, she published her first book, Instructions for Traveling West, with Dial Press, an imprint of Penguin Random House. What makes her path genuinely unusual: she grew her Instagram predominantly through writing, not video, and she's proof that you can build a real creative business around poetry, which almost nobody does.

In this conversation, we get into the tension between craft and platform—her two mantras ("be a poet, not a preacher" and "my vulnerability is not social currency"), her exact Instagram carousel workflow using Canva and ManyChat, why she deliberately walked away from $60K/year in Substack revenue to protect her second book, her controversial take on growing slowly, and what she'd do differently with her first published collection. Plus my own honest reflection on the creative reset I've been living through since my daughter was born.

Joy Sullivan Poet

Necessary Salt on Substack

Sustenance Writing Community

Instructions for Traveling West

Full transcript and show notes

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TIMESTAMPS

(00:00) Opening quote: “There is no amount of followers worth the sacrifice”

(02:08) How Jay describes Joy’s unique approach to building a creative business

(02:49) The landscape for writers today — platform pressure meets craft demands

(05:19) Why Instagram, not X or LinkedIn, is actually the friendliest platform for writers

(08:21) Joy’s two mantras: “Be a poet, not a preacher” + “My vulnerability is not social currency”

(11:38) Memorable vs. marketable — and why slow growth protects your art

(12:25) Is creating art divorced from performance a privilege or a strategy for newcomers?

(14:06) Jay’s biological hard reset after having a daughter — and cosplaying an old self

(17:10) The Medusa metaphor: artists weren’t built to withstand this level of visibility

(20:30) Reconciling “be a poet” with running a teaching business

(22:53) Why certainty is a red flag in 2026

(24:52) Defining “poet” — a container to hold the unsayable

(26:00) Instagram vs. Substack: which one she’d keep if forced to choose

(27:22) The $60K Substack year — and why she deliberately walked away from it

(29:34) How full-time writers actually pay their bills (hint: not book sales)

(32:00) Why you should NOT turn on paid Substack subscriptions immediately

(34:56) The Instagram carousel workflow: Substack → test → pull excerpts → Canva → ManyChat

(39:48) The cat synchronicity moment — and the “scars not scabs” philosophy

(44:50) What she’d do differently about her first book

(47:31) What she’d change about Substack if she could

(48:32) Final advice: fall in love with your craft before chasing an audience
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Richard is the co-founder of 1of10, a research platform built by YouTube strategists, and his team has quietly been behind the scenes for some of the biggest channels on the platform—helping creators accumulate over 2 billion views through a repeatable, data-backed system.

In this episode, Richard walks through his complete four-phase ideation system—audience identification, outlier research (using five distinct methods), idea remixing, and validation—and backs every step with real examples. We talk about what happens when the wrong audience floods your channel, why creators should double and triple down on formats that work, and how a single title change took one creator's video from 10,000 views to 150,000. He also shares data from 300,000+ YouTube outliers on the ideal title length (hint: shorter than you think) and where the sweet spots are for video duration across different niches.

Save 20% on 1of10 using code JAY20

Schedule a 1of10 Strategy Call

Full transcript and show notes

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TIMESTAMPS

(01:12) Where 80-85% of YouTube success comes from

(01:50) Phase 1: Audience

(03:19) When should you start a fresh channel instead of pivoting?

(04:09) The danger of going viral with the wrong audience

(05:40) Phase 2: Research

(07:37) Format vs. Interest Topic

(08:00) Method 1: Inside your own channel

(10:52) Tripling and quadrupling down

(12:33) Method 2: Inside your niche

(13:45) Method 3: Adjacent niches

(16:00) Method 4: Outside your niche

(17:37) The "Japanese Rule" format

(20:56) Method 5: External inspiration

(22:07) Phase 3: Remixing

(23:00) Escalation, inversion, and interest topic replacement

(24:10) Viral vectors: concepts that work across all niches

(25:28) Phase 4: Validation

(27:00) Optimal video duration by niche

(30:45) Why long videos are making a comeback

(31:39) Total Addressable Viewership

(34:36) Titles: Fear, Curiosity, and Desire as the three core drivers

(37:17) Data: Title Length

(37:51) Three methods for generating title angles

(42:11) Thumbnails: Composition and Elements

(45:11) It's never too late: title/thumbnail changes

(46:10) Live demo: 1of10 thumbnail generator

(48:10) The full 1of10 workflow

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RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

→ #282: David Altizer — How to Make Great Thumbnails (For Non-Designers)

***

ASK CREATOR SCIENCE


Submit your question here

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WHEN YOU'RE READY

📬 Creator Science Newsletter

🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system)

🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community)

🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer

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I brought back Becky Pierson Davidson to compare notes on where community is headed — and we found a few areas of disagreement. Becky works with 6, 7, and 8-figure businesses helping them build memberships and courses through design thinking and customer research, and she's seeing a major shift right now: course businesses are slowing down, and the smart ones are pivoting to membership models. The difference? Shared learning experiences are replacing self-paced education. Community is what people stay for.

We dig into the real mechanics: how to set expectations that don't feel like a bait-and-switch, why meaningful engagement isn't what most people think it is, the mastermind paradox (increases retention, decreases forum activity), and why in-person events might be the most important retention lever you're not using. Becky's hot take for 2026: content drops are dying. People don't need more stuff — they need connection and programming that moves them forward.

Affinity Collective

Build with Becky podcast

Episode 197: Building Raving Fans (with Becky & Chanel)

Circle (community platform)

TightKnit (Slack archive plugin)

Dreamers and Doers

Full transcript and show notes

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TIMESTAMPS

(02:35) Defining community as a product, not a growth engine

(04:09) Why community is rising as a business model in 2026

(06:02) The reality of transitioning from courses to memberships

(08:01) Finding the right community design for your appetite

(10:02) How to avoid the bait-and-switch with member expectations

(13:06) Value perception vs. value experience

(13:57) The smallest viable promise for your sales page

(16:44) Where we disagree: transformation vs. community of practice

(21:14) Forum design: why fewer spaces wins

(23:17) Solving the engagement problem (what meaningful engagement actually is)

(25:50) How the best members actually use your community

(29:46) The mastermind paradox: retention up, forum participation down

(32:09) In-person experiences and the graduation weekend model

(36:39) The economics of offline events

(39:35) 2026 Hot Take: Content drops are dying

(43:07) Retention rethink: Did I get my money's worth vs. Will I next year?

(46:04) Why connection drives retention more than results

(48:23) Tool stack: Circle 9 times out of 10

(51:14) The future: personalization in community software

***

RECOMMENDED NEXT EPISODE

→ Episode 197: Building Raving Fans

***

ASK CREATOR SCIENCE

→ Submit your question here

***

WHEN YOU'RE READY

📬 Creator Science Newsletter

🚀 Get CreatorHQ (creator operating system)

🧪 Join The Lab (private membership community)

🧞‍♂️ Get a Personalized Offer

***

CONNECT

🐦 Connect on Twitter

📸 Connect on Instagram

💼 Connect on LinkedIn

📹 Subscribe on YouTube

***

SPONSORS

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