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This is how I’d rank content channels for info operators in 2026 after running 50+ accounts and generating 250M+ impressions. Quick caveat before the chart. This ranking is for secondary silo accounts, not your main personal account. Different rules apply when you're building a personal brand on the main. A few things worth knowing: YouTube longform is S-tier because the content pays dividends for years. The caveat is it's a long-term play, so if you're starting from scratch, you might see faster early wins on short-form. You should definitely do longform at the start too, just be prepared for it to take a bit longer to compound. Among the short-form channels, the ranking goes IG Reels > Tiktok > YouTube Shorts in raw audience quality. WhatsApp & Telegram groups sit in A-tier because the users are on those platforms daily, you get direct communication to them for all your messages/announcements, and it’s also a nice way to segment leads who are interested in specific offers. Pitching leads in a closed doors environment helps with conversion rates. LinkedIn is B-tier for info operators specifically. It's a great channel, just not the strongest one in your acquisition stack at $250-500K.

@natecurtiss_yt AI

I made a free Claude course for YouTube Creators Here is how to pick a niche using AI Reply with "AI" and I will DM you the full video

Alex Cooper's "Call Her Daddy" does 13 million downloads a month. The media company she built around it is collapsing. Unwell Network lost 20+ employees in the past year. I hear that three shows cancelled by SiriusXM. Most of her network's podcasts can't crack 100k downloads a month. Pizdets, comrade. One of the biggest podcasts on the planet… and the company built around it cannot ship. She is not alone. Beast Industries just got sued for harassment. MrBeast himself told TIME that "studying YouTube videos" did not prepare him to run 750 people. Yes yes blyat'. Everybody is telling this story wrong. People say "creators cannot run businesses." Wrong lesson, comrade. The right lesson: building a media company AROUND ONE PERSON does not work. That is an architecture problem. If your company sinks or swims on ONE personality, every flu or breakup puts the whole revenue stream at risk. That is not a media company. That is a TV show with a 50-person payroll attached. I run a marketing firm that grows YouTube channels. 45 million views, 3.6 million watch time hours in under 19 months. The founders who will win are the ones who escape the one-person trap early. The answer is a multi-creator media company. Cast of characters. Each one carries a channel. Each channel feeds the same brand. Each brand feeds the same products. Dave Ramsey figured this out 30 years ago. His "Ramsey Personalities" roster pulls 78 MILLION views per WEEK on YouTube. Every creator feeds Ramsey Solutions. The man does $500M a year, blyat'. Hormozi is doing it now. Leila stepped down as Acquisition CEO to go full-time on media. Brought in Sharran Srivatsaa as new CEO. Four videos in, 1.1 million on the fourth. Issa Rae's studio Ensemble put it best: "You are building a content brand, not a personal brand." If you are a founder thinking about content, remember three things, comrade: 1 - Pick the brand, not the personality. You can be the first face. But the BRAND must be the protagonist. 2 - Build a roster. People with FIRE in their eyes who fit your world. Each one owns a channel. They all feed the same store. Dave figured this out 30 years ago. 3 - Hire the operators before you scale. None of this is sexy. None gets you on TIME covers. But it is the difference between a media company that compounds and one that flames out in three years. Now I am biased. We sell media for a living. But every founder we talk to is not asking "should I be on YouTube." But "how do I build a network of creators feeding my brand?" That is the question of the next five years. This is the future of marketing. Godspeed.

Most creators think their video has to find an audience. Wrong way round. YouTube is hunting for videos to feed an audience that's already there. Your job isn't to push. It's to be the thing they're already searching for.

The Old Skool YouTube Method Nobody Recommends When I started YouTube, I had nothing. No clue. No mentor. No roadmap. I'd spent months watching successful creators, trying to reverse-engineer what they were doing. Nothing clicked. So I made a decision most people would call insane. I made 90 videos in 90 days. The Theory Behind the Madness My logic was simple: if I didn't know what worked, I'd learn by doing as many reps as possible. Pure volume would force the skills. Make enough videos and I'd have to stumble onto something. I drew up a massive chart on my wall. Ninety boxes. One for each day. One for each video. The rule: I wasn't allowed to sleep until I'd published. Some nights I was uploading at 11:58 PM, half dead, barely coherent. But I kept the promise. The brutal truth? Out of those 90 videos, 88 were complete rubbish. I thought they were brilliant at the time. I'd spend hours crafting what I believed was great content, hit publish, and get... crickets. Total silence. Because I didn't understand the fundamentals: Video ideas people actually wanted to watch Titles that made people want to click Thumbnails that stood out in the feed Structure that kept viewers watching I was making videos for myself, not for an audience. And YouTube punished me for it with no views jail. Day 52: When Everything Changed Around day 52, something shifted. I'd done enough reps by then. Made enough mistakes. Started noticing patterns in what wasn't working. And one of my videos — how to enable custom thumbnails — started getting traction. Not viral. Nothing close. Day 1: 7 views Day 2: 18 views Day 3: 22 views I was ecstatic. Thought I'd cracked the algorithm. Solved the puzzle. Figured out the secret. Spoiler: I hadn't. But I'd learned something more valuable. I'd learned how to serve a viewer. That video worked because it answered a specific question someone was actually asking. It solved a real problem for a real person. It wasn't about me or what I wanted to say. It was about what they needed to hear. By the end of the challenge (which I extended to 100 days, because momentum is addictive), my channel got monetized. The trickle became a stream: 50 views a day became 100. 100 became 250. 250 became 500. Today? Over 1,000 views every single day. Consistently. Not because I'm special or talented. Because I finally understood who I was making videos for. The One Lesson That Unlocked Everything Your YouTube videos are not for you. Read that again. Your YouTube videos are not for you. Most new YouTubers make the same mistake I did. They create content they find interesting, then wonder why nobody watches. But YouTube isn't about what you want to say. It's about what your viewer needs to hear. Four questions to sit with: What problems are they facing right now? Not theoretical problems. Actual, urgent stuff keeping them stuck. What's keeping them up at night? What fear or frustration is driving the search? What are they typing into the search bar? The exact words. Where are they in the journey? Total beginner or experienced and stuck on something specific? Answer those, and you can create videos that meet them exactly where they are. And this isn't just about growth. Most of you want YouTube to be a business. You want revenue, not just views. Here's the leverage point: position your videos close to the purchasing decision your viewer is about to make. The closer your content sits to a buying decision, the more revenue potential it has. That's where YouTube becomes a real business, not just a hobby. What This Means for Your Channel You don't need to publish 90 videos in 90 days. That was my path because I had no guidance. You don't have to learn everything the hard way like I did. But here's what's true: volume teaches you things theory never will. You can watch every course, read every guide, study every successful creator. Until you actually publish and see what happens, you won't truly learn. Start publishing. Start learning. Start serving your viewer. The mistakes I made don't have to be yours. The six months I spent getting zero views don't have to be your six months. You can follow a proven roadmap from someone who's already made every mistake there is. That's exactly why I created the YouTube Mastermind community on Skool. To kickstart your momentum. To help you identify what's holding you back, cut the noise, and start growing. And it's all free. No guesswork. No wasted time. Just a clear path forward. Because YouTube isn't about luck or talent or being in the right place at the right time. It's about understanding your viewer and serving them better than anyone else. Do that consistently, and growth becomes inevitable.

"Your lack of urgency is wasting your potential."

The content game has gotten so much easier tbh. Now that everyone uses AI to ship high volume slop, it's actually much easier to stand out. This is the opposite of how I thought AI content would play out. Skills get dull when you outsource the thinking. Tons of people had been sharpening their skills for months/years and just completely reverted back to average trying to shortcut the creative process. Not to say some AI-driven content workflows aren't working, but the majority of people trying this are slop factories masquerading as "productivity warriors" Generational time for those at the top of this game.

Don’t accept your life — lead your life!

We’ve agreed to a partnership with @SpaceX that will substantially increase our compute capacity. This, along with our other recent compute deals, means that we’ve been able to increase our usage limits for Claude Code and the Claude API.

I don't remember where I found this, but its spot on.

The main benefit of your product should be explainable in one sentence or phrase. How is it different and why should I buy it? ONE sentence or phrase, folks. Apple did an excellent job of this with the iPod. Instead of using the usual industry jargon with GB, bandwidth, and so forth, they simply said, “1,000 songs in your pocket.” Done deal. Keep it simple and do not move ahead with a product until you can do this without confusing people.

“A man is what he thinks about all day.”—Emerson

How To Handle Criticism

Two words separate people who build things from people who just think about it. What if. "What if" keeps people stuck. "Why not" builds empires. Lew Wolff found that shift unlocked everything for him. Why not try something? Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.

You want to think clearly tomorrow? You want to handle the small things right? You want to have the energy to hustle? Go to sleep.

The people saying followers don’t matter do not understand psychology. Followers absolutely still matter. Every person that stumbles across your content will immediately look at your following to outsource trust validation. If your following is below the “minimum credibility line” they will not keep watching. If above, they will trust more quickly. This is base psychology. It’s true that followers are no longer a prerequisite to get reach, but a bigger following almost always helps you more than a smaller one does.

The seat at the table is yours if you want it. Do the hard work. Build the skills no one can ignore. Adjust your mindset to match where you want to go. Then pull up a chair and sit down.

Voice Cloning is now live via the xAI API! Create a custom voice in less than 2 minutes or select from our library of 80+ voices across 28 languages to personalize your voice agents, audiobooks, video game characters, and more. x.ai/news/grok-cust…

I cofounded an AI-first company, @Lemonade_Inc. By the end of the decade, I think “AI-first” will seem quaint, the horseless carriage of artificial intelligence. If you want to unleash 1,000 horsepower, stop designing around the horse. My thesis on why after "AI-first" comes "AI-only": open.substack.com/pub/dschreiber…

I’ll die on this hill. The algorithm rewards consistency (per channel) across topic, messaging, format. All the people preaching “be yourself” and posting 5 different topics are missing the point. The new personal brand can cover 5 buckets, but if you want superior reach, it’s gotta be across 5 channels.