How I Run My 1.5M+ Follower Content Business With Codex | Riley Brown

I will just scrape a hundred thumbnails that performed really well and I'll put my face on it. I took this and then I converted it into one for me, and here are my thumbnails. Turn this [music] into a skill. The more skills you use, the more you'll realize that you can mix and match. That's where everyone's brain goes at first,

is to like batch and create more. What I want is better, because I think the moat is quality over a long period of time versus batching. Batching will make it soulless over time.

Hey everyone, my guest today is the one and only Riley Brown. Riley makes AI education content for over 1.5 million followers. So super excited to get him to show us how he uses Codex and other AI tools to run his entire creative business and more. So welcome, sir. Thanks for having me.

This is this is going to be a lot of fun. Yeah, you know, I feel like you're pretty much on all the platforms, YouTube, X, Instagram, and so on so forth, like can you talk about your business at a high level and how do you use AI tools at a high level to kind of like create all this content?

Yeah, so at the center of everything that I do personally, uh, I like to educate people on AI, and I've been doing this for the past three years. That's how I've gained almost, uh, I'm almost at like 1.7 million followers across all the different platforms. And obviously, like, we've, uh, released a couple products, um, including Vibecode and now Chorus. Um, and then

we're also doing, uh, a lot of like consulting, uh, helping companies implement agents in their business. And it's just been so fun over the past three months talking to people, seeing how,

business. And it's just been so fun over the past three months talking to people, seeing how, um, people are using AI agents in their business. And you know me, I'm a content creator, that's like my profession, and I use it for almost every part of, uh, of my content business,

except for, like, video editing. I hire a lot of video editors, and video editing isn't there yet. But like for all of the ideation, planning, coming up with good hooks, um, YouTube thumbnails,

yet. But like for all of the ideation, planning, coming up with good hooks, um, YouTube thumbnails, um, doing all of my research, it's all grounded in YouTube. So I have like a YouTube researcher skill that my agent will use whenever I ask it to do research. Um, and so like I have a list of a ton of skills that just make creating content at scale a lot easier using agents.

Got it. So so YouTube's kind of like the hub of your content, and then like all the other platforms you kind of make clips and share social posts and so on and so forth. Um,

I make dedicated content on Instagram and TikTok. That's actually how I got my start. I just prefer longer form content, and I think Twitter is a great place to post long form content as well. My long form content does as well on Twitter as it does on YouTube. Um, and so yeah,

as well. My long form content does as well on Twitter as it does on YouTube. Um, and so yeah, I like making content native to all the different platforms. Uh, clipping is actually one thing I'm just now getting into, especially with AI, but we can talk about that a little bit later.

Okay. So so can you actually show us how you do this end to end? Uh, you don't have to make the content, but like I would love to see the skills and workflows that you have. Absolutely. And I

guess what I'll start with here is kind of how I think about Codex in general, and platforms like Codex. So right here we have Codex open. Normally when you come to Codex, it looks like this,

Codex. So right here we have Codex open. Normally when you come to Codex, it looks like this, right? It looks like ChatGPT. Um, but when you go to ChatGPT, everything that you upload to it,

right? It looks like ChatGPT. Um, but when you go to ChatGPT, everything that you upload to it, if you were to upload an image, many people have done that, uploaded images or PDFs, etc, all of that's stored in the cloud. When you use Codex, all of it's stored locally. And so Codex, just like Claude Code, can fully control your computer, and in fact it has a computer use skill built

into the platform. It can actually control your computer for you, which is really cool. And one

really useful thing that I do for my videos, if you watch my videos, you'll see at the beginning there has like really high quality animations. And the way I do all of my planning for this is I use this Remotion plugin. And so this Remotion plugin, I actually have it open right here. This was one of my best performing videos on Codex. This was the opening frame. It was me saying, like, "Today

we're talking about Codex and all of the different things that it can do." This graphic right here, um, can you see it? Yeah, yeah. So this graphic right here is a graphic that I just generated, and you can very easily export this graphic, and then I just placed it on top of my video

when editing it. And all you need to do to do this, you can, this isn't my skill, this is a built-in plugin into Codex. And whenever I want to use it, I can just type in @remotion. Um, I also have a Remotion best practices skill, which, uh, it has like my creator brand kind of infused into

it. So whatever it generates will be in my own like style, if that makes sense. But yeah, colors,

it. So whatever it generates will be in my own like style, if that makes sense. But yeah, colors, the colors and stuff. And so that's basically how I use it for creating these little graphics.

So to make this graphic, you just, hey @remotion, make the flowchart Codex logo, and then do you have to provide the assets, or it just goes off and finds the stuff? So this is another thing that, um, I've set up. So I have a skill, I actually, I think it's called, um, image pull

um, internet image puller. There it is. So this internet image puller is one where it'll go off, it'll actually use something called the SerpAPI. Um, and so it uses Google Images within the SerpAPI, and it will actually find the relevant logos related to whatever video it is. So if I say, "Hey, I need some B-roll for this," it'll automatically look at my transcript

it is. So if I say, "Hey, I need some B-roll for this," it'll automatically look at my transcript of the video that it's creating B-roll for, and it will find the logos and it will just pull them. And you can use multiple skills for a prompt. So I would probably say something like,

pull them. And you can use multiple skills for a prompt. So I would probably say something like, uh, please pull the relevant logos and then make a graphic for this, and then I would just use the Remotion skill, um, which I call Remotion best practices, and it will just generate it and pull

the relevant logos. Um, but you can manually just drop them in as well. Okay, so you're basically chaining multiple skills together, right? Is that kind of, yes, I guess you could say that.

This episode is brought to you by Google AI Studio, the easiest and fastest way to build and share your idea with real users. For example, I use AI Studio to create three different landing pages for this bakery using images generated by Google's built-in Nano Banana model. One highlights fresh bread, another highlights awesome cakes, and the last highlights

Banana model. One highlights fresh bread, another highlights awesome cakes, and the last highlights the bakery story. I can publish the website easily and get a custom URL. In this case, Corgi Confections dot AI Studio, to share all three variations with potential customers for feedback in one tap. When I was a product manager, Google AI Studio was my go-to tool for building

prototypes like this. And it really is an easy and free way to share ideas with your team, customers, and everyone else. Check it out at aistudio.google.com. Now back to our episode.

Let's go to the beginning, actually, like, we actually still brainstorm ideas for the video that you can make next. Do you do like a competitive analysis, or like some sort of, what are people talking about, skill? Yeah, so one thing that I like to do, so my favorite skill is this YouTube researcher skill, if you want to set this up. Um, and I also, like, have a link to a lot of

the skills that I've created on my website, if you guys want to check that out. It's free, I don't charge for that. Um, great. But it uses this thing called Supadata, which is one of my favorite APIs.

It allows you to pull the full transcript from your videos, from any YouTube video, like in one second. So I can scrape an entire channel if I wanted to. I could just say, like, "YouTube researcher, create a Peter Yang bot," um, and or skill, and it can scrape all of your videos and it can act like you or something like that. Um, and so this is my YouTube researcher

skill. And oftentimes when I use it, for me, when I create content, the intro is the most

skill. And oftentimes when I use it, for me, when I create content, the intro is the most important part, and then the rest of the video is kind of free flowing. I'm naturally good at kind of explaining how to do things once the video, once I'm into the video, but the intro is really important. So another prompt that I have is called a hook outline. So hook outline will create a very

important. So another prompt that I have is called a hook outline. So hook outline will create a very specific type of document for me. And so I'm going to say, like, um, please, uh, look at the latest Alex Hormozi video and write a hook outline for it. And, like, whenever I find a good YouTube

video, you can condense it down to a hook outline. What is the intro, and then, what, and then just outline the rest of the video. And what it'll do is it'll allow you to, like, you can take that exact format and apply it to a different video. And so that's what I do a lot, is I'll create a hook outline based on someone else's really well-performing video, and then I'll tell AI to

take all of my ideas for a new video and convert it into that structure, if that makes sense.

Oh, that's interesting, yeah, I'm following it, yeah. So I've been using yt-dlp, but you're saying that this other thing can just pull the transcript in one second? Yeah, I mean it's just like a quick API call, like yt-dlp, if I'm not mistaken, it'll download the full video and then

pull the transcript, that is super data-intensive. And, yeah, Supadata will just, you know, you can say spin up sub-agents, that's one thing you can do with Codex, and they have a really cool UI.

You can just ask it to use sub-agents, and it'll split off into like six agents, and it will scrape it all in like 30 seconds. You can scrape an entire channel in like 30 seconds. [laughter] Got

it. Not, I'm not promoting that you do this, but it is really good for research. So yeah,

I mean it is a fact that the first 30 seconds, if it's boring, people will check out, right?

So basically you don't do a full voiceover guide when you make a video, you just have the intro scripted out and then you have like an outline for the rest, is that right? Yes, exactly.

Yeah, I mean, I think with AI the fully scripted videos are going to go down in value. I think what will go up in value over time with AI is you have to hook the viewer, you have to play the game to some degree, but you also just want to get good at talking about the thing that you're super passionate about. And so that's what I like to do, I like to show the

human side, and then having guests on is like a really good way to do it, like your podcast, you have a structured intro and then you just talk to someone for the rest of the time, and that's, I think, why people are here. And so you can see here, this is a very specific, um, format. Um, yeah, and one thing that's really annoying about Codex, and one of the reasons why

um, format. Um, yeah, and one thing that's really annoying about Codex, and one of the reasons why I've been moving off of it, is because the GPT models won't pull the transcript. You can see here that it summarized his intro, and the reason it did that is because of copyright infringement. Um,

it didn't want to, because it doesn't, yeah, it doesn't. But Claude's models will do it without thinking. So that's why I've been using Claude for this use case. Yeah, interesting,

without thinking. So that's why I've been using Claude for this use case. Yeah, interesting,

um, that's funny that Claude is actually more open than GPT, it's the other way around. So,

it's task dependent. Um, the open models don't care either, like GLM 5.2 will do it any time.

So let's talk about hooks a little bit. I actually watched a couple other Codex videos, and I actually like how they're more educational. Even the hook is like, here's what I'm going to cover in this video, as opposed to, you know, Codex is like the most freaking amazing, like super hype stuff. So is that like a choice, or, yeah, I kind of feel like you have more substance. Yeah,

hype stuff. So is that like a choice, or, yeah, I kind of feel like you have more substance. Yeah,

I mean, I try, when I make videos I try to make it about the topic rather than any specific tool, right. I always like to make it clear that even if someone uses Claude Code, they're going to get

right. I always like to make it clear that even if someone uses Claude Code, they're going to get value out of the video. And so the best video that I did on Codex, which got 300,000 views, which I think is the one you're referring to, um, that was like the nine ways to use Codex.

But I made it clear in the beginning, by the way, you can do all of this in Claude Desktop as well, most of the things you can do in Claude Cowork as well. And I like to focus on the specific outcomes that they'll get from the video, um, which I think is really useful to establish in an intro.

So okay, so if you have some tips for, you know, for like newbie YouTubers like me, talk about the outcomes first and then get into the content, right, is that kind of, yeah, talk about the outcome. In fact, I would, I don't know, did we film the intro already, or do you do a separate intro? Are you going to film a separate intro? I usually cut a separate

intro from the best parts of our conversation. Yeah, okay, that's what I do. Yeah, yeah, okay, that makes sense. And then do you do like another little intro where you say, like, today you're going to learn this, this, and this, or do you just kind of go straight into the video? When I was introducing you, like, that was kind of my intro, like,

the video? When I was introducing you, like, that was kind of my intro, like, talk about how you're going to use it to run your creator business and so on.

Yeah, I mean, for me, if I were you, I would be doing testing. Like obviously you want to get really good guests that are really knowledgeable on certain things, and that's something that you can, and probably already are, trying to improve, but I would just test different intro types until

you find the winning format. You will find that, um, you know, there's actually a really good acronym, it's called BRENS, which is big, relatable, easy, let me see, zoom in here, easy,

uh, new, and safe. The more of these you can include in your intro, the better, right. Big,

like, there's a brand new model that just came out, it's the best in the world, make it big. Um,

relatable is you find some theme, so, like you say, like there's this new model, it's absolutely insane, it just came out and it's going to affect everyone, or it's going to go into every business, right, that's relatable. Uh, easy is, like, by the way, I have a six step method that you can follow that will guarantee that you will be successful, right,

like when you introduce some sort of methodology, here are these nine tips that you can follow that will guarantee, easy. Uh, new, obviously people like things that are new, so like this brand new model is also big and new. And then safe is the one that's really important. Um, safe, is, good,

is important, this is only really important for videos like over 30 minutes, it's like you want to make sure the user feels safe watching, that they're not going to waste their time watching the video. And the way that you do that is you say, like, "By the way, this guy's an expert,

the video. And the way that you do that is you say, like, "By the way, this guy's an expert, he's going to talk about these things, and I promise you by the end of the video you will get value out of it." And you want to make sure that they feel like their time is, yes, got it.

And how do you think about, so do you start with the hook, or how do you think about the title and the thumbnail? Right, because some, I don't think about any of that, I think about that after. So,

the thumbnail? Right, because some, I don't think about any of that, I think about that after. So,

like, I think about the thing that I want to talk about in the video, which is like Codex tips, right. This is something that I would want, like I don't do a lot of research on what I should talk

right. This is something that I would want, like I don't do a lot of research on what I should talk about, I feel it in my heart, like my gut tells me what I should talk about, and for 90% of the video it's just me, like I'll outline it, but it's just me getting into the weeds and talking

about how I actually use this tool on a day-to-day basis. But then the last 10% is like, okay, how do we get people to watch it, and that's where the science goes in. And so, um, I start with a list of everything that I'm going to talk about in the video, and I just outline that, and then I film the whole video, and then oftentimes I'll film the hook after. Um, like a completely separate video,

because sometimes I'll go off on a tangent in one of my videos, like some of my best videos I end up on like a 30-minute tangent, [laughter], but I want to make sure that my intro talks about that thing that I do. So that's why I just do my intros at the end, and I use AI to analyze everything I talk about, and then that informs my transcript, and then I'll have the YouTube researcher say,

like, "Here's the transcript for my video, I need a good intro, scrape YouTube until you find a good format, and then copy it and make it about what I'm talking about," if that makes sense.

Oh, that's super interesting, dude, 'cause like I know a bunch of other YouTubers who make the thumbnail first, and if the thumbnail is not good, then they would not even make the video.

But I guess, um, yeah, well, I mean, maybe, you know, like for me the most sustainable strategy for content is just to keep doing things that I like. And if I let packaging and how many views it'll get dictate what content I make, then it just becomes a soulless game to me. Like I would

much rather make what I want and then package it after the fact, than to just be, you know, only about viral ideas. Then I would end up, you know, it's like, why not, then I'll end up making dance videos on TikTok, which is something I don't [laughter] want to do, you know. Yeah,

yeah, so yeah, yeah, yeah, you got to think about what gives you energy, right, and follow your own curiosity. If you can make content following your own curiosity, that's the best, you know? 100%.

curiosity. If you can make content following your own curiosity, that's the best, you know? 100%.

Yeah, yeah, and then, um, to kind of continue talking about Codex, you know, like I have a lot of skills in here, um, one thing that's really fun to do is I use Excalidraw in my videos a lot.

A lot of people watch my videos, like, I diagram things out a lot of the time. So there's a skill called Excalidraw diagrams that you can use, and you can literally just tell Codex, "Hey, I need an Excalidraw diagram skill," or "make an Excalidraw diagram," and it'll just make it, and then the link, you can just paste it into Excalidraw. Um, it'll actually open it in the

browser, and it makes really good diagrams of different ideas. That's one that's really useful.

I also have a YouTube thumbnail skill. This one will get me into trouble a little bit, because literally my YouTube ideation strategy, when I have to come up with a YouTube thumbnail, is I will just scrape a hundred thumbnails that performed really well and put my face on it, and then I'll ask AI to just, like, replace those, with my face, and then I'll have AI edit

the color. Um, which, some people would get mad at me for that, but that's been a really useful

the color. Um, which, some people would get mad at me for that, but that's been a really useful skill. Um, and yeah, I just have a ton of things that I've ended up using over and over again.

skill. Um, and yeah, I just have a ton of things that I've ended up using over and over again.

Um, also there's a Typefully skill. So if I get an idea for content, um, this can control my Typefully, which is connected to my Twitter. So it can, like, really quickly draft up my tweet ideas. Like if I'm working on something, or come across something, I'll be like, "Hey,

tweet ideas. Like if I'm working on something, or come across something, I'll be like, "Hey, draft a tweet on this." And then every Monday I check my Typefully and fire off those tweets. Oh,

interesting. And so what I'm trying to get at is, like, all of these skills did not come from me sitting down and thinking, "Okay, what skills do I need to create?" I just use AI to do stuff, and then everything that's useful that I do over and over again, I just tell Codex, "Turn this into a skill," and then over time I get in the habit of using certain skills,

and sometimes I'll stop using skills. But that's kind of the thing, and the reason why I love Codex so much is they have so many built-in plugins, and their in-app browser is really cool. Um,

in fact, right before we were filming this video, I was working on a short form script, and the way that I write all my short form scripts is I just start a new Notion page, um, in Codex. And so I have this video database, this is where I keep track of everything, right,

this is my long form videos, here are my short form videos that I keep track of. Because it's

in-app browser is becoming a full in-app browser, I can use it directly inside Codex.

And so what I want to show you really quickly, right, I could say, "Hey, I want to make a short form video on the latest, uh, Meta Ray-Bans.

Please add a new short form in progress to Notion and give me the link." Right, I'll often do this, I'll usually say more stuff, like more ideas. I'm just trying to illustrate the point that, like, right now the agent is going to go into my Notion, it's going to add it into the database correctly, and then it's going to give me a link, and I'll be able to open that up directly in the app, I won't

have to leave Codex, it'll just open directly inside Codex, which is such a fun workflow. Like,

I love not having to leave the app, I get lost when I switch from tab to tab. You see here it gave me a Notion link, I can just click open in browser, and look at that, it added this. So it

added the notes in here, which is fine, but it did create the Notion database. And I can say, like, um, "Please make the outline in the body, and please make it with a good hook." I would

normally use, um, say that this will be a huge opportunity if they take off, for creating apps on these glasses, I don't know. And yeah, you just control the Notion, which is really fun.

And this is how I use Google Docs and Notion, and my calendar as well, like I'll just say, give me a link to the calendar event, and I'll open it in the in-app browser so I can just see it right there. And it can also write all of my emails, which I have it do all the time.

Yeah, I have it write my emails too. Yeah, okay, so so basically then, one day you can just wake up and, like, you have a bunch of scripts already, and you can just batch process, you can just record them in batches, right, or something. Yeah, yeah, I think that's where everyone's brain goes at first, is to like batch and create more. What I want is better, I like whenever I create content,

I'm always thinking about how to create stuff that's better. And what I want is, like, I want multiple tabs to open up, you know, in the background, of relevant things that might be useful. Like Codex would be like, "Hey, by the way, I opened up this link, you may want to,

be useful. Like Codex would be like, "Hey, by the way, I opened up this link, you may want to, in this one specific line, you should do this." And so I will actually use it to just get AI to fact-check everything that I'm talking about in this video, or I'll just send it off and say, like, "Hey, can you go and check this creator's videos, he has really good pacing in his videos,

can you please figure out a way that we can implement that into this video?" It'll go off for 10 minutes and come back. And that's kind of how I see this, is, like, you can do research so much faster, so it allows you to put more total research into one video. Um, because

I think the moat is quality over a long period of time versus batching. Batching will make it soulless over time. So that's kind of how I think about it, and I would encourage others to do so.

Got it. At this point in your creative journey, like, how many short forms are you publishing every week, one or two that are high quality? Yeah, I mean, I would like to create a video once a day, honestly, like five days a week I would love to create a high quality short form video. Um, yeah, as of late I'm trying to get my long form to like four videos a week first,

video. Um, yeah, as of late I'm trying to get my long form to like four videos a week first, and I think four long form, five short form is my goal for sure, I think that would be good. And it won't be too hard. I make one or two videos a week and I'm already exhausted, so [laughter], I have to use Codex more. Yeah,

I use Codex more. Yeah, I don't know, I like it, it's fun to make content, I don't know.

Yeah, dude, I have to ask you, okay, so let me ask a few more questions about the skills that you kind of showed. So the Excalidraw skill, do you use that after you have the script, or before you have the script, like, you make the diagrams? Yeah, I mean, I think I will just blabber, so, 99%, I'm not, I know I'm typing now because this is a podcast, and

I don't want to use Wispr Flow, I use Wispr Flow for everything. And so what I will do sometimes, um, I got these AirPods Max because they have a better mic, I'll just turn on Wispr Flow and I'll just walk around for 10 minutes, just speaking all of my ideas, like, "Oh, I'm gonna make a video on Codex, the things that I've been thinking about this week are this,

this, and this, and this. I want you to create an Excalidraw diagram of this, this, and this." I have, you know, um, and then I'll literally tell it, I want nine slides,

and this." I have, you know, um, and then I'll literally tell it, I want nine slides, and my Excalidraw diagram skill does it in a very specific style, which has just sections to them.

And yeah, I'll just blabber for 10 minutes, and then I'll be done, and I'll just run it, and then I'll come back, and it will have like 80% of the diagrams that I'll actually use in my videos, and I'll edit them. I'll take 20, 30 minutes to edit them, but it's like a really good starting point. Um, it just organizes my ideas, and yeah, huge fan of Wispr Flow for that reason.

starting point. Um, it just organizes my ideas, and yeah, huge fan of Wispr Flow for that reason.

Okay, so so okay, so the slides actually kind of frame the rest of the video, right, because you want to cover like eight slides, and do some demos and stuff. Yes,

yes, got it. So then I have to ask you about the thumbnail skill, because I have a lot of trouble using AI to make thumbnails for some reason. So, sure. So what I found is that it's actually really bad at changing your face, or maybe I don't know how to prompt it, if I give it like a picture of me smiling and tell it to change to a frown or like a surprise,

it totally distorts my face, dude, so, like, do you mostly apply your face afterwards?

So, um, one of my most popular tools that I talk about that I use with Codex is a tool called Paper. Paper is an AI-native Figma, and when I say AI-native I mean that it is an application built

Paper. Paper is an AI-native Figma, and when I say AI-native I mean that it is an application built for AI first, this, they basically took a lot of the good stuff about Figma and made it really easy to connect to any tool. And so when I'm using my thumbnail skill, I will say, "Hey, I need you to

scrape," this is a short form video that I'm releasing in a couple days, uh, where I ask AI to scrape Alex Hormozi and Dan Martell's YouTube thumbnails and place them on the Paper board.

Codex will go off for 10 minutes finding his most popular videos for each one, and then it will place them on this board. Now all I have to do is I can come here, and since I have images of me, right, this is a thumbnail of me, I can duplicate it, and then I will just come here and do a lot

of it manually. So, like, I'll grab this one of Alex Hormozi, I'll drag this over here, and then, um, Paper has AI image generation built in. And so, watch this, I can just go like this, select this, uh, "Please replace the guy with a beard with the guy that doesn't have a beard,

just replace the guy, except make his shirt white, and make him wearing a chain."

And then, you want to wear a chain? Yeah, just because, you know, this podcast is important, it's important that I'm wearing a chain in this thumbnail. Yes, it's quite important.

But it looks like it's generating multiple thumbnails. Oh yeah, I just spam-pressed enter, so it's creating uh, seven versions of it. And then I'll just kind of select the right one.

And you can see kind of my natural progression, right, you can see that this says "game changer," I took this and then I converted it into one for me, um, and here are my thumbnails.

And it's kind of fun to see the progression of the thumbnails that I've created, over the, you know, I created this one right here, which was based on this one. This is Andrei Jikh, he has great thumbnails. And so that's kind of how my thumbnail process, I don't like to think about thumbnails for that long, I despise making thumbnails manually, so this is great for me.

Oh dude, this is amazing, so okay, so it basically just replaced it, it kept his hand, it looks like, yeah, it kept his hand, I could have specified to change it. But then at any time, you know, like what I like to do, I'll zoom in on this one, right, you know, this is not bad. I can come in,

oops, and come in again and make it small, I like to make it smaller. And then I'll just make more variations, like, "Hey, please smooth out the face without changing what the character looks like." And then also add, like, an outline glow that is kind of whitish orange around him to

looks like." And then also add, like, an outline glow that is kind of whitish orange around him to separate him from the background, and make the green line brighter. And then I'll just kind of iterate on it. Um, and this gives you this kind of starting point. But the useful part about

Codex is Codex has full control over Paper. Um, and so it can just add useful thumbnails to it, because again, you know, going back to what you were saying about, uh, what did you call it, chain prompting or something. Um, yeah, it can go off, do a thing, and then it can use a different skill and place it on the board, because it has that access. And yeah, and do you

have some sort of, uh, okay, so right now you're just prompting in Paper, right, with Wispr Flow, yeah. Do you have some sort of like a style guide, or, you know, your text is always white

yeah. Do you have some sort of like a style guide, or, you know, your text is always white or something? You don't need that. Like, so, I actually have a YouTube thumbnail designer too,

or something? You don't need that. Like, so, I actually have a YouTube thumbnail designer too, and he uses AI all the time, and he helps me with this, and I'll actually send him these.

I could use these and it would do pretty well. I love having someone who is constantly doing the A/B testing and everything. Like, I do a lot of A/B testing because, like, why not, it's worth paying for, because, yeah, like if your video does twice as good, that's a big deal.

See, it kind of made the outline here. Um, but in terms of style guide, if I want it to look like something, I'll just use it as a reference. So here I have, somewhere I have all my thumbnails, um, I don't know where I put it, but, like, let's say I wanted it to look like this, I would just

copy this thumbnail, bring it up here, and then I would say, and you can very easily copy multiple, so I can literally copy, select this one, and then I can select this one, and I could say, like, "Please make the guy look more like this, and make the text match the one that says Miss Mythos and Fable," and that's how you do style references, you know,

and you don't need to do any prompting, you just, um, you know a lot of these image models are called Nano Banana. And so you can just think of prompting, you can prompt in visuals, you can say, "Look, make it look like this, make the text look like this." And so that's, that's why I like the board, it's like I can just be like, "Oh yeah, I want it to look like

this." And then I'll just use AI to make it look more like that, if that makes sense.

this." And then I'll just use AI to make it look more like that, if that makes sense.

Dude, this is like super educational for me, okay, I think I'm going to become a Paper customer now too. Yeah, you should 100% do this. Yeah, you should 100% do this, and get all of your top 10

too. Yeah, you should 100% do this. Yeah, you should 100% do this, and get all of your top 10 performing thumbnails and toss them on the board, right, you don't need to use Codex, if you had my YouTube thumbnail skill, you could just say Codex, do that, and it would be done. All right,

dude, well, you definitely blew my mind with this thumbnail thing, this helps a lot. Yeah,

I don't even know what other question to ask you, that's something, so mind-blowing, you know?

Yeah, I mean, and then, I think what it all comes down to, if I were to summarize, is just find useful workflows and turn them into skills, and the more skills you use, the more you'll realize that you can mix and match. Like this here is a mix between my YouTube researcher skill, I just had an idea one day, I'm like, "Hey, can you pull all these images?" And then it gave it to me in

this list, and then I had to go into my downloads and see it, and I couldn't visualize it. I was

like, "Oh wait, you can add it to Paper." And, because I'd been using the Paper skill to create designs, right, this is, Paper's not made for images really, it's made to, like, you can ask it to create full designs, and it'll do that. And then I was like, "Wait, can you add this to Paper?" And then it unlocked this whole new workflow for me. And you'll, the biggest unlocks

to Paper?" And then it unlocked this whole new workflow for me. And you'll, the biggest unlocks you'll find when using AI will come from this experimentation process, that's just really fun.

Do you look at the skill files manually, no, you just look at the output, right? No,

I've never looked at a skill file once, like, it's test-based, it's like, ask AI to do a thing, use a skill, if it does properly, great. If it doesn't, you tell the AI, "Hey, you didn't do a good job," and then, uh, "please change the skill so that you don't do that again." Then you want to go to a new

chat, so the context is cleared, so you can test it again. Test the agent in a new chat, see if it does it successfully. If it does it successfully, great, right, and once it does it incorrectly, you update the skill, right. That is the way better way to do it than to manually edit the skill. And

there's a lot of people saying, like, "Oh, you need to write your skill like this, or else it's not going to perform well." It's like, first of all, that's only true with that model, and it's only true with that model today, right, as soon as there's model updates. So I think you just want to be outcome-based, right, hold your AI to a certain standard, and then you can turn it into a skill

and improve it by measuring their outcomes. That's basically how I do it for most creative workflows.

Yeah, and I feel like a lot of these skills are just super personalized for you, or for me, that's kind of the power, right? I feel like that's why skills is kind of taking over a lot of the SaaS stuff, because, you know, you can't make a SaaS product as personalized as this. Yes,

and actually, I will caveat that with, this is for my creative workflows, right, they're very low risk. You know, if we were doing some mission-critical thing, which we actually do, like when we're dealing with clients, or when it has to do with anything that has to do with payments or sensitive documents, yes, we'll go in and analyze the skills, and there's kind of like a process,

we'll get someone else to analyze the skill if it's super high impact. But for my creative workflows, just realize that there's no risk, just let your AI cook and tell it to do a better job.

Um, and then, yeah, the next thing for me is figuring out how to make this for my team. And that's what I think Codex and Claude, or Anthropic and OpenAI, they're trying to figure out, it's like, how do you enable this process with teams? And that's

going to be a really interesting situation. And it feels like Anthropic's going after Slack. Um, and

so that's kind of the next wave, maybe, I'm not fully sold on Slack as the interface, but there's something really interesting going on there that, um, yeah, I find it to be really interesting.

Yeah, I think you're right, I think, like, as good as the Codex app is, it's like a single player experience, right, other than, like, putting PRs up and stuff, it's pretty much a single player experience. It is single player, and it's really hard to create these creative workflows in a multiplayer way, which is something I think about a lot. So yeah. Do you have, like,

a bunch of automation setups that kind of do work for you? Like, yes, I have a lot of automation set up. I don't use Codex for my automations, simply because I don't want my computer to have to be on

up. I don't use Codex for my automations, simply because I don't want my computer to have to be on to run those. Um, and so I have Claude agents. Yeah, and so, like, I have a lot of Claude agents.

In fact, I created a Peter Yang bot right before this episode. I didn't, I was going to show you, but, like, I created it in like five minutes. So, like, I have my chief marketing officer agent that I have in Slack, he sends me, um, this guy, he sends me updates. And then I have

another guy named Content Man, who analyzes a bunch of other people's content, and it'll just give me video ideas for short form content. And so I have this little channel called My Agents, and I have three agents in here, [laughter], one of them is Peter Yang bot, which is trained on all your YouTube videos, but I didn't finish it in time to make it good. No problem, no problem.

So so these agents are based on your own product, Chorus, or is it based on, like, uh, something else? No, we've been testing it with a bunch of different products. These three agents are, um, created on Chorus, um, but there's a lot of products out there that you can create agents, and I just recommend trying it, because no one's figured this out yet, you know,

no one's figured out how to create a team of agents running in Slack that your whole team can use. It's like a really tough problem to solve. The way Anthropic is trying to do it is they're

use. It's like a really tough problem to solve. The way Anthropic is trying to do it is they're trying to build like a little mini, for lack of a better term, god that knows everything, where, uh, other companies, including us, we think of it like each one will be team members. So you'll

tag your marketing agent, and you'll also tag your developer agent, company developer agent, um, and you'll kind of have a relationship with the agent, um, like each person, it'll react differently to each person based on what it knows about the person. There's like a whole bunch of problems that need to get solved. But you can very easily export your Codex skills into,

um, these Claude agents, which are really fun. And so yeah, it's just been a lot of experimentation.

But Claude agents, uh, tell me, if I want to tweak something where I'm signed into some sort of app, Claude agents can't do that, right, or, like, they need your credentials. Yeah, I mean, there's, with browser use, I predict by the end of the year you'll be able to be signed in to all of your apps, and your agent will be able to use a browser, and you won't even be aware of it, like,

it'll just be able to use a browser, um, almost perfectly, and it'll be able to be signed in. Um,

and I think this is something that the big labs companies want to do as well, like a browser being able to control a browser in the cloud. Um, is much better for automations and cron jobs as well. Like, I don't know if you have any automations set up in Codex, but it is kind of annoying. Um, like I have none set up right now. I have Codex running

on my little Mac mini, I have some automations there, that's kind of how I get around it. But,

um, yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. But then, if it's a separate computer, it doesn't have access to your core files, which might be important. Yeah, like, it's a pain in the ass. Yeah,

pain in the ass in so many different ways. Like every agent type has its trade-offs, um, which we're seeing right now, we're trying to, all the companies are trying to figure out the right way to do agents, and, yeah, maybe it'll take another six months to figure out the best way to do it.

Cool, all right, dude, well, let me ask you one last question on kind of the overall business, right. So I feel like the content, from one content creator to another,

right. So I feel like the content, from one content creator to another, I feel like just growing the audience and getting more sponsorships, that's kind of a surefire path, because there's a lot of AI companies who want distribution and attention. Sure. And

then there's also a lot of demand, you know, like you said, there's a lot of demand from companies that want to build agents, train their employees, right, [laughter], but, like, in terms of actually building a product, that's a lot more difficult, just being like a SaaS product. It is a lot more difficult to do. And I do brand sponsorships, and I run mid-roll ads, and it's a great business,

I mean, it's an insane business. Um, yeah, and it is, I could very easily just kind of ride off into the sunset and make a very good living making content. Um, I think my content would run dry if I did so, because I learn being in the trenches, you know, like, I enjoy, the only reason I know a ton

about Codex is I spend time with developers every day who teach me really cool things, you know, like every day I'm learning three or four things, and we're actually, you know, in the content that I make, I actually want to help people implement agents into their business.

You know, I want to be a very useful creator and a motivating creator, and I don't think I could do that if I was just making content. Um, and so, yeah, I think doing, like, especially consulting stuff, I think it really does help, especially if you build a really talented team. You know,

my goal is to only be making content, I can still contribute to the business through top of funnel.

Um, but ideally, all I'm doing is making content, and you just have to surround yourself with a really good team, and there's a lot of talented people who would love to partner with you and do all of the work in creating a product, and I think you would learn a lot from it, um, or anyone in your position. Um, there's just a lot of upfront work that goes along.

Yeah, I don't want to just, same here, I don't want to only make content or be like some sort of news aggregator, you know, I want to actually learn how to build the stuff, talk about the building process. So, 100%, I mean, yeah, like, you know, Peter Levels on Twitter, yeah, you know, like he could never be a content creator, like, he's only interesting because he

talks about the things he's built and the experiences he goes through. And so that's kind of how I think about it, it's like, you know, that's the creator I want to be, is someone actually trying to build and use this technology. And yeah. Yeah, he's one of the few folks who actually have a bunch of successful SaaS companies, because his distribution is so

high, [laughter], and a lot of failed companies as well, he's failed like 40 times. Um,

he just takes a ton of swings at bat, which is also something that makes him really interesting.

Cool, all righty, well, I think people know where to find you online, do you want to do a pitch for your new product, Chorus, or should we talk about it next time? I mean, yeah, we're building, you know, Claude Tag just came out, Claude, uh, is a product that allows you to tag Claude in Slack.

Um, and then you have all your skills built into Claude. We're building a product that allows you to use any model. Um, you can message it in iMessage, you can message it in Slack, you can add it to group messages, which is what our users like the most. And we're constantly iterating, trying to help businesses. Right now I'm not even really selling the product as much

as selling our services, because companies want to work with us, and then we're using Chorus to implement agents for their business, and that's been just like an insane driver for us.

Cool, all right, well, you're an inspiration, man, thanks for being so open and sharing your whole process, and I personally learned a ton, so thanks so much. Amazing, yeah, thanks for having me.