How To Have Better Ideas

Today, I answer your question about improving your creative process…with a tip from Zach King (22M+ subscribers). To see the full newsletter and more cartoons, subscribe at created.news

Q: I’m going for 100K subscribers by end of the year but I’ve hit a wall with my growth stalling after 11K subs. Any tips?

- Daniel Bersa

A: Prioritize improving your process — then subscribers will come. Here’s a trick Zach King shared during our interview that helps.

For 14 years, he uploaded 3,000+ videos with 20 billion views. His secret???

• Every Monday, while in college, King gathered his roommates and had them pitch video ideas.?
• Here’s the kicker: King awarded $100 to the best ideas he made into videos.?
• Years later, now with a staff of 20+ employees, King does a similar process.

“Everybody comes to the table with a concept. Somebody from finance is there, an assistant is in there," King explained. "Anyone can have a great idea.”

As part of this process, King and his team use T-Sheets like this to pitch ideas (this was for a video they did for Amazon Alexa):

So…what’s a T-Sheet? Ah yes, glad you asked. Grab some paper. Draw a big T.

• On top, write your video’s headline.
• On left, describe the concept.
• On right, sketch thumbnail or intro scene.

Every Monday, King and his team prep T-Sheets, pitch each other, and vote on best ones to turn into videos.

I also interviewed Jay Alto who consulted Ryan Trahan and MrBeast who have a similar “idea think tank” process which you can hear about here.

Bottom Line: Focus on improving process by involving others. Use T-Sheets to visualize ideas.

- Jon

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