229 - Predictions for 2025...

[00:00:00] Caroline: Welcome to Growing Steady, the show where we help online creators like you build a calm business, one that's predictable, profitable, and peaceful. We're your hosts, Jason and Caroline Zook, and we run Wandering Aimfully, an unboring business coaching program, and Teachery, an online course platform for designers. Join us each week as we help you reach your business goals without sacrificing your well being in the process. Slow and steady is the way we do things around here, baby.

[00:00:29] Jason: All right, cinnamon rollers, that's you. Let's get into the show.

[00:00:37] Caroline: We're back.

[00:00:38] Jason: It's 2025 and everything has changed. Nothing's really changed.

[00:00:43] Caroline: No, not yet.

[00:00:45] Jason: No, but.

[00:00:45] Caroline: No, but everything does change. That is the one law of the universe.

[00:00:48] Jason: This is very true. Nice. That's really deep. Really...

[00:00:52] Caroline: I'm a deep kind of gal.

[00:00:53] Jason: Wow. That is...

[00:00:53] Caroline: I'm sorry, do you know me?

[00:00:54] Jason: That is... That is something no one's ever said before.

[00:00:57] Caroline: Wow. He's being sarcastic. Okay.

[00:00:59] Jason: Welcome to 2025, everyone. We have a... an interesting little episode for you here. Obviously we have some pramble tops, but just, you know, we're taking in the new year. Just rocking that new year, new us energy.

[00:01:09] Caroline: I mean, you know, I'm a new year girly. Like, I love a new year.

[00:01:13] Jason: There are...

[00:01:13] Caroline: Honestly, I feel... I love a new month. I love a new week. I love new.

[00:01:17] Jason: Just like we have an emotional robot on this podcast and...

[00:01:20] Caroline: That's you.

[00:01:21] Jason: Emotion... Chief Emotions Officer on this podcast.

[00:01:23] Caroline: That's me.

[00:01:23] Jason: I think we have two types of New Year's people.

[00:01:26] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:01:26] Jason: I think we have people who are like, this is the fresh start I have been waiting for. Everything is new, everything feels great. My whole body is just blossoming into possibilities.

[00:01:38] Caroline: Abounding.

[00:01:39] Jason: And then we have people like me who are like, It's a Thursday.

[00:01:42] Caroline: Yeah. But like, okay, let's dig in deeper. That... this is why. It's because you, you... You are the lovely even keeled... We love you for it.

[00:01:51] Jason: Right.

[00:01:51] Caroline: The fluctuation does not exist for you.

[00:01:53] Jason: Exactly.

[00:01:53] Caroline: Every day is the same day. And that... your brain loves that, and that is why we love you. And for me, who is very much ruled by the emotions and every day is a different day. I love, like, I can catch the energy of a moment so much easier than you can. You're unaffected by the energy of the moment. And I'm very affected by the energy of the moment. And so I think New Year's is like a positive energy of the moment.

[00:02:17] Jason: Yeah. Sometimes you want to stop and take a photo of grass.

[00:02:20] Caroline: Okay. 

[00:02:21] Jason: And I'm like...

[00:02:21] Caroline: First of all, if it's... If it's a nice pattern, if it's beautiful, if it feels nostalgic, yeah, I will. I'll take a photo of grass. That grass that's coming in... 

[00:02:29] Jason: That's exactly what I'm talking about.

[00:02:31] Caroline: Yeah, that's right. I have a favorite patch of grass.

[00:02:34] Jason: Yeah.

[00:02:35] Caroline: Okay. That's who I am. This is jumping ahead a little bit, but this is a perfect example. We recently, yet again, had another reel accidentally pop off on Instagram.

[00:02:46] Jason: Oh, let's get into the pramble tops. We got three pramble tops.

[00:02:47] Caroline: I want to get into pramble tops because this is related. For those of you, just catch you up to speed. Many years ago, when we were on Wandering Aimfully's Instagram account, we... we no longer share content there, but we were trying to grow that account. And I was creating reels and, sort of randomly, I had this idea. It was just a trend using this audio. And Jason was like, oh, I think we should do it based on the closet. Like how you just, like, throw your clothes in the closet and have clothes piles. And I meticulously hang things up. Right.

[00:03:14] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:14] Caroline: And so we did this, like, stupid little, like, kind of... The basic premise was like, there's two kinds of people.

[00:03:19] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:20] Caroline: And the reel just, like, popped up. I don't know. It has millions of views.

[00:03:23] Jason: Yes. Over 3 million views. We had never had a reel over 10,000.

[00:03:27] Caroline: 10,000. Yeah. So it was wild.

[00:03:28] Jason: And then we did absolutely nothing.

[00:03:29] Caroline: It did nothing for us.

[00:03:30] Jason: Just FYI.

[00:03:31] Caroline: I mean, it did boost our follower count. Like, did nothing for our business. And then, funny enough, we, like, went off of Instagram, like, two weeks after that. But it was just funny to be like, this? This is what popped off? Okay, fast forward many years later, three years later, and we are still not sharing any content on Wandering Aimfully's Instagram. Shout out to our Instagram episode a couple of episodes back about, are we going to go back on? Are we not? I don't know yet, but I have been sharing content again on my personal art Instagram. 

[00:03:59] Jason: Dusted off the @ckelso.

[00:04:00] Caroline: I dusted off the old account, @ckelso, and that's where I share my art. And so I, my whole vibe with social media at this moment has been very unprecious. This is what the newsletter topic this week is about. It's just like, I don't want to overthink it. This is my 2025 resolution to myself. I just want to not overthink everything. Right. And so you And I were hanging out a couple of days ago, and you laughed. You looked over at your desk, and you looked over at my desk, and you just started laughing. And you're like, what is happening over there? And so you picked up my phone and you took a short clip of showing your desk on the left, which is just very neat and tidy, and my desk on the right, which is, I mean, the best way, it's not... okay, it is. It's a nest. There's just, like, things everywhere.

[00:04:44] Jason: It's a hot mess.

[00:04:45] Caroline: It's a hot mess, okay? And that is just...

[00:04:46] Jason: It's a creative, productive hot mess. 

[00:04:51] Caroline: Yes.

[00:04:51] Jason: But it is a hot mess.

[00:04:53] Caroline: It is a hot mess. And I didn't overthink it. I just put a little caption on it, added some music, a flute fail music, and just, like, threw it up on my Instagram. And wouldn't you know it, our second super viral reel took off. And this, this reel has over a million views at this point. And by the way, would... if I had it my way, I would not choose to have a reel have a million views because people come into your comment section, and you are not a person anymore. They're just commenting on your life. And it's a very scary comment section. I mean, most people are fine.

[00:05:22] Jason: Also hilarious, too. Like, especially for a desk. Like, people have picked apart every item. They're like, oh, got some Tylenol from Mexico, huh?

[00:05:29] Caroline: Yeah. Which is not accurate. Or they're like... or like, on Jason's desk, they're like, how does he even work? There's not even a laptop. I'm like, well, of course he just... Anyway, so it's really funny. But what I... I am laughing about is that the two times that we have had some type of content pop off, it has been this, like, you know, there are two types of people in the world, and they marry each other. And how different you and I are. And I'm like, if we just wanted to create content that we know would have a very high likelihood of popping off, it would be the differences between us. It would be like, me, who has a favorite patch of grass.

[00:06:01] Jason: Exactly.

[00:06:02] Caroline: You, who doesn't look at the grass.

[00:06:03] Jason: Yeah. Like, I go outside every day and it's just the exact same thing. Yeah, that was very silly. And also, like, I don't know. I just... as it was going viral in whatever way, shape, or form, just a lot of views, I was just laughing because I'm like, this was not... This is like, the hilarious part. It's not planned.

[00:06:21] Caroline: That's what I'm saying. 

[00:06:22] Jason: I literally just picked up your phone and just said some stupid things while I was recording her.

[00:06:25] Caroline: You didn't even do that for me to post it. You did that because we do that all the time for ourselves. Like, we like to go back and look at our videos, and so we like to, like, capture silly moments.

[00:06:34] Jason: And I just, I had to mention the fact that your remote for your laptop has been sitting on a napkin for months. And I don't know why a remote for a laptop needs a napkin, but it has one. And it has been bumming me out.

[00:06:45] Caroline: In my mind, I think it's like a little bed for it. It's like a little spot for it. 

[00:06:46] Jason: It doesn't need...

[00:06:46] Caroline: Soft.

[00:06:46] Jason: It does not need a napkin.

[00:06:46] Caroline: The remote needs a soft, cozy spot to sit on, doesn't it?

[00:06:49] Jason: It's an inanimate object.

[00:06:55] Caroline: Oh, okay.

[00:06:56] Jason: Yeah. Uh, all right, let's get into two other pramble tops. We had three pramble tops we wanted to share.

[00:07:00] Caroline: Yes.

[00:07:00] Jason: Let's go over the... the first one, which we don't have to take too much time on, but just wanted to share our favorite Christmas gifts that we got each other. And I wrote this down because we have not bought ourselves Christmas gifts in years.

[00:07:12] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:07:12] Jason: Our Christmases have been spent at hotels or Airbnbs for years. And typically it has been like, oh.

[00:07:18] Caroline: Visiting family, by the way.

[00:07:18] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:07:18] Caroline: Usually in the States.

[00:07:20] Jason: It's not just like a thing that we do. 

[00:07:21] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:07:22] Jason: And typically, you know, maybe we'll do a couple of stocking gifts. Last year, it was fun. We wrapped 10 items around the house that we had already owned, but it was just, you could open 10 of your own items the other person chose.

[00:07:31] Caroline: Which was very fun.

[00:07:32] Jason: Which was funny. But this year you were like, hey, like, I think. I don't know, let's just do gifts. We have done gifts in a long time. So we set a little budget for ourselves. We created, like, a little inspiration board. I give you a lot of credit for, like, setting all this up because I was just like...

[00:07:43] Caroline: Yeah. My whole thing was like, I don't want to send you direct links to things because then I would just buy those things myself. But I also don't want you to have no idea.

[00:07:52] Jason: Yeah because, like, I would, you know, what am I going to buy you? Like, you know what I mean? It's just like, it's so difficult.

[00:07:56] Caroline: You want to get stuff that you like. So my, in case you want to steal this for next year, my solution was I'm going to give you three big categories of things to choose from. So my categories were, like, soft and cozy things, and then I gave a couple of ideas. It's like a PJ set, a robe, slippers, dah, dah, dah.

[00:08:10] Jason: Yeah.

[00:08:11] Caroline: Second thing is, like, art supplies, like, a couple of paints, an apron, so, et cetera.

[00:08:14] Jason: Yeah. So anyway, what I wanted to ask was, what is the... What is your favorite gift? Like, what stands out to you of all the things? And so I think we basically got each other, like, I don't know, 15 total things because half of them were small stocking stuff or little items. So. 

[00:08:27] Caroline: Yeah, picture, like...

[00:08:28] Jason: Out of those, what are those...? Yeah, like... like I'm looking at one, which is, like your phone clip that I got.

[00:08:33] Caroline: It's like a pop socket. 

[00:08:34] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:08:35] Caroline: I know immediately what my favorite is that stands out. Well, I have two, actually. Can I have two?

[00:08:39] Jason: All right. Yeah, sure.

[00:08:40] Caroline: Number one is you got me these comfy, cozy slippers.

[00:08:44] Jason: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:08:45] Caroline: And not only are they super comfortable, but they have the cutest little, like, red and pink bright smiley faces on them, and they're just so Made Vibrant, and they make me happy every single time I look down at my feet.

[00:08:56] Jason: That's fantastic.

[00:08:56] Caroline: And they're comfy, and so I like having something comfy. And they have the perfect amount of, like, hard sole, but not so hard that you're like, now I'm just wearing shoes in my house.

[00:09:03] Jason: Right.

[00:09:03] Caroline: So that was a great gift. And then the second one is you went off script.

[00:09:08] Jason: I did.

[00:09:08] Caroline: And you got me this, like, rad, bright purple, like, woven purse.

[00:09:14] Jason: Yeah, it's like a chunky...

[00:09:15] Caroline: Chunky, woven purse that I haven't been able to wear yet. But it is gorgeous and so weird and funky, and I love it.

[00:09:24] Jason: Nice. Well, I'm glad those worked out. I am actually gonna say one that I haven't even used yet.

[00:09:30] Caroline: Okay.

[00:09:30] Jason: Is my favorite gift. 

[00:09:31] Caroline: Oh.

[00:09:31] Jason: It is my dough mixer. 

[00:09:35] Caroline: No.

[00:09:36] Jason: It's my handheld dough mixer, which is like a little...

[00:09:39] Caroline: Is it called a Dutch?

[00:09:40] Jason: A Dutch...

[00:09:42] Caroline: Mixer?

[00:09:42] Jason: What's it called? It's basically like a whisk.

[00:09:44] Caroline: Whisk, yeah.

[00:09:45] Jason: It's basically a whisk, but it's flat and it's much stronger because a whisk will break if you try and do it in flour with, like, a little... 

[00:09:51] Caroline: Thick wire.

[00:09:52] Jason: Yeah, exactly. So I think it's a Dutch dough whisk is what it's called. I have not even used it yet, but I'm just now remembering that I actually made a batch of sourdough. And I forgot that it... it existed yet, so.

[00:10:03] Caroline: It's so hard to integrate new gifts into your...

[00:10:05] Jason: So I'm going to put it on my calendar, so...

[00:10:07] Caroline: And you haven't used your massage gun either?

[00:10:09] Jason: I haven't, but I haven't had any achy bits. Yeah, so. But yeah, you did get me. I mean, those massage guns were, like, $300 a couple of years ago, and now they're like $30. So it's just like, we have one that's, like, extremely affordable and, like, we can just, like, use it on each other. I did also, like, when we were trying to use it, we were trying to see it has, like, a number. It's like 1, 2, 3 on, like...

[00:10:33] Caroline: I go, whoa, it's going to go up to 10.

[00:10:34] Jason: Which is what you would think.

[00:10:34] Caroline: Then we pass 10, and I go, Whoa, it's. It's definitely 1 to 15. Then we pass 15. I'm like...

[00:10:37] Jason: But also from 13 to 20 is where it stops. It's all the same. And then it started just going by itself towards the end.

[00:10:44] Caroline: Oh, I think we're in, like...

[00:10:45] Jason: Yeah. So I think 10. I think 10's fine. 

[00:10:47] Caroline: 10's fine. Probably just 10.

[00:10:48] Jason: So anyway, that... that was just a fun thing that we did this year for the first time. I just thought we would share those little takeaways. So, yeah, my favorite gift is one I haven't even used it, but I'm just so excited that it's in there.

[00:10:58] Caroline: I'm glad that the excitement is still brewing.

[00:11:01] Jason: Yeah. Okay, let's get to our second pramble top, which we don't have to spend too much time on, but I know that folks listening to this podcast appreciate when we talk about we do live in Portugal. We live in a place where you probably don't hear a lot of people talking about on a podcast.

[00:11:15] Caroline: This is our second full year now living in Portugal. We moved here in November of 2022.

[00:11:20] Jason: Yeah. We're going on our third year.

[00:11:22] Caroline: I know.

[00:11:22] Jason: We've, we've...

[00:11:23] Caroline: We just wrapped up our second year.

[00:11:25] Jason: Second year.

[00:11:25] Caroline: Totally.

[00:11:25] Jason: We're going into our third year, which is kind of wild. So we went to a nearby town called Cascais. 

[00:11:33] Caroline: Which we had never been to. 

[00:11:34] Jason: We had never been to before. We had heard a lot of people talk about it. And for those of you who are familiar with California, many people have said that Cascais is kind of like the La Jolla of Portugal. It's definitely not the same.

[00:11:45] Caroline: As La Jolla is to San Diego. 

[00:11:47] Jason: Yes.

[00:11:48] Caroline: Cascais is to Lisbon.

[00:11:49] Jason: Yeah.

[00:11:50] Caroline: So it's sort of like this suburb outside of Lisbon. You know, people kind of, like, live there and then commute in. It's a little ritzier because it's on the water.

[00:11:58] Jason: And also, I think one of the defining features is if you've ever been to La Jolla or you know what it's like, houses are kind of built up on a hillside.

[00:12:05] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:12:06] Jason: Like, think, like, literally, like, vertically. Like, they just, like, go up, and they're all really big houses. And it's a very, like, affluent area monetarily. But we had never been to Cascais, so I was like, but do people know La Jolla? Like, I don't know. And when we got there, I was like, oh, yeah.

[00:12:21] Caroline: It does feel like that. 

[00:12:22] Jason: It actually does feel like you have, like, very windy streets through all these houses that are built, like, literally straight up this hill. But then you have this, like, main area kind of on, like, a little bay where you have a bunch of restaurants and shops and things that all kind of surround this little alcove of water.

[00:12:38] Caroline: And then do you know if the Ferris wheel's up all year long or was that a just a Natal, Christmas...?

[00:12:43] Jason: I do not know. If I had to guess, I would say.

[00:12:45] Caroline: Because remember when Nuno was like. When we told him we were going to Cascais, and Nuno was like, oh, you can ride the eye, or whatever.

[00:12:50] Jason: Yeah. Yeah.

[00:12:50] Caroline: So that made it sound like it was up.

[00:12:51] Jason: If I had to guess, I would say it's up all year round.

[00:12:53] Caroline: Okay. Well, anyway, we went there during Natal season, which is what we call Christmas here in Portugal. And so all the Christmas decorations were up, and they had this big Ferris wheel. There's a huge tree with all these LED lights.

[00:13:05] Jason: Yeah. There's a cool little street where they've, like, lit the street, you know, and always. And it's very short. Like, it's not very long at all, but it's, it's very beautiful. And one of the things that we were excited about is we found this little boutique hotel, and it was so wonderful.

[00:13:20] Caroline: It was in the museum district. It was built into an old, like, family home. So this, like, big. It was like a home made into a boutique hotel. It had French doors that look out onto this park. It was just picturesque and perfect, cool and, like, modern and funky and art everywhere, you know? And so, yeah, it was just a fantastic trip overall. And Jason and I, one of our big kind of resolutions for 2025 is to plan out these little mini adventures every two months around Portugal. So it's a... it's a shame that we live within basically an hour from Cascais, and for two years we have not been there. So we're gonna sit down and seek out all these, like, little towns and do some road trips this year. 

[00:13:57] Jason: Yeah. And I think Cascais is like, a perfect little town that we were talking about. Like, you're probably not gonna wanna stay there for more than, like, three or four days.

[00:14:04] Caroline: Yeah. There's just not, like a ton...

[00:14:05] Jason: There's not a ton to do, but it's very walkable. It's, it's very much like a little Portuguese, you know, city. Especially on the water, you can just have a ton of different food. If you love seafood, there's so many seafood places, but we even found a bunch of great restaurant options. So it was just a fun little trip.

[00:14:22] Caroline: It was. It was the best. It was honestly one of my top two favorite trips that we did this past year.

[00:14:28] Jason: Fantastic. What was the other one?

[00:14:29] Caroline: Your Lisbon trip for your birthday.

[00:14:31] Jason: Okay. And I think we only did one other trip beside that, so it was, you know. 

[00:14:34] Caroline: Well.

[00:14:34] Jason: Out of three. All right. That is our pramble section of the podcast. We know it went a little bit longer than normal, but we got a lot to catch you up on because we haven't recorded an episode in, like, a month, essentially. But for this episode, as cruise director, I'm going to take you through. This was my idea.

[00:14:49] Caroline: This was your idea for an episode.

[00:14:50] Jason: I love prediction episodes.

[00:14:53] Caroline: Yes.

[00:14:53] Jason: I think they are just fun to hear what people think about things.

[00:14:57] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:14:57] Jason: And I like the fact that, like, it's very low stakes here on our podcast because we have basically no influence on society or business.

[00:15:04] Caroline: And we are not those people who, like, actually think we know everything. We recognize the absurdity of trying to predict the future, especially in this modern era where things are changing so fast. So I... sometimes I really dislike prediction episodes where people act like they know what's going to happen, and I'm like, get off your high horse. I don't know. Get off something.

[00:15:23] Jason: Get off something. Yeah. So we're gonna do this in three separate categories. We are going to do predictions for our two businesses. So WAIM and Teachery, both of us have two predictions, and the other person, we don't know what we wrote down.

[00:15:36] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:15:36] Jason: And then we're gonna do a final section of online business predictions where we have three predictions. And those might be a little bit more interesting to you as a listener. 

[00:15:44] Caroline: Yeah. That's just general like online business, industry, digital products, social media, like, what's happening?

[00:15:48] Jason: But obviously we have no idea if these things are actually going to happen. So it's just fun for you to listen to, I hope. All right, so let's start with WAIM. Now...

[00:15:57] Caroline: Also. Wait, can I do a preamble?

[00:15:58] Jason: Yeah, sure.

[00:15:59] Caroline: Or a caveat. I thought that predictions for our own business was silly because I told Jason, I'm like, isn't that just a goal? Like, I predict like that you're just setting a goal. But I do, once I got into it, I was like, oh, okay. I think predictions are just like. If I'm imagining it's the end of 2025 and I look back and I'm like, here's what happened this year. It doesn't necessarily have to be a goal. It could be just like...

[00:16:22] Jason: This happened.

[00:16:22] Caroline: This happened.

[00:16:23] Jason: But I will say we have not sat down and done yearly goals.

[00:16:27] Caroline: No. Because we're being very loose this year.

[00:16:29] Jason: Yeah, exactly.

[00:16:29] Caroline: This is the year of flow for me. This is the year of experimentation for you. 

[00:16:33] Jason: Yeah. So.

[00:16:34] Caroline: It's a loose year.

[00:16:34] Jason: I think the important thing about doing this prediction episode before we've even sat down to do any yearly planning or goal setting.

[00:16:40] Caroline: Is you can see where each other's heads at.

[00:16:41] Jason: Exactly.

[00:16:42] Caroline: Okay.

[00:16:42] Jason: All right, let's start with WAIM. So we will bop back and forth.

[00:16:44] Caroline: We love a bop.

[00:16:45] Jason: You can go first on WAIM with your first prediction.

[00:16:48] Caroline: Okay. My first prediction for WAIM.

[00:16:50] Jason: Yeah.

[00:16:50] Caroline: Is that I think. And you're going to see there's a theme with my two predictions. But I think we're going to launch a random spin off offer of some kind that is going to wildly exceed our expectations.

[00:17:01] Jason: Interesting.

[00:17:01] Caroline: Like, I think it's going to be a very ad hoc, like, oh, we made this for this other thing and like we should just spin it out into its own. Like, I don't know if it's a low price thing. I don't know if it's like it's an AI prompt pack. It's a little software tool. It's a.

[00:17:13] Jason: Which is kind of what we have, we've been playing around with, with the Calm Launch Formula that we launched. Everyone loves the AI prompts and if we just package those up as a thing.

[00:17:21] Caroline: But I think it's probably going to be something we haven't even said yet. But I just think we're going to kind of again, in the going back to the viral real idea, we're going to launch it in a very unprecious way. And I think it's going to surprise both of us and we're going to be like, oh, shoot. Do we have to like really market that?

[00:17:37] Jason: Yeah. So I have a related.

[00:17:39] Caroline: That's my prediction.

[00:17:40] Jason: I have a related one. Was that a production?

[00:17:42] Caroline: I was wondering if you were going to let me get away with that. And you didn't.

[00:17:45] Jason: No. Okay. So my first production is actually my second production, but it's related to your production that you just producted and it's we will finally have an evergreen product that sells daily.

[00:17:57] Caroline: Okay, that's related. Maybe it's this.

[00:17:58] Jason: Exactly. And so I think what I'm looking at, and we've talked about this a little bit on the podcast, but probably worth remembering because who remembers anything from a month ago is we're looking at we sell WAIM Unlimited, which is our main core business coaching offer, but that only opens twice per year. It's not really sold evergreen. And it's hard to sell a thing that's $2,800 Evergreen. It's just not really possible, especially when you don't have a big audience that's constantly growing and getting.

[00:18:20] Caroline: And it's doable with like funnels and stuff.

[00:18:22] Jason: Yeah, but we're just not interested.

[00:18:23] Caroline: We're not interested.

[00:18:23] Jason: We have the Calm Launch Formula, which is a basically a course that helps you learn how to launch in a calm way. Planning a launch three to six months in advance, getting everything done with AI prompts. And we just started selling that. It just went up for sale and has existed and that has actually sold in the past month like four or five units by itself. We've been off email, we've been off the podcast, we haven't been posting anything on YouTube or whatever. So it's nice that people are finding that basically through our website only. So that's good. But as we've been talking about, like we have an idea for a six month coaching package. We have an idea for maybe pulling the AI prompts out of Calm Launch Formula. And then we have a bunch of other little things that like we've been talking about and we'll see where they go. So I do think for my production that one of those things and I don't know, you know, when this will happen, but I think by the end of the year we will have something where we are getting a sale per day of a thing. It will probably be one of the lower priced offers because that just makes the most sense. But I think it will be interesting because we can finally, after all these years of trying to sell some things evergreen and not trying to sell anything ever seen for the past couple of years.

[00:19:25] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:19:26] Jason: We will have something that we can say, here's how we did this, here's how it's working, and we can kind of break that down.

[00:19:30] Caroline: Fantastic. 

[00:19:31] Jason: All right.

[00:19:31] Caroline: So similar. Kind of.

[00:19:32] Jason: Yeah, kind of similar.

[00:19:33] Caroline: Okay.

[00:19:33] Jason: Yeah.

[00:19:34] Caroline: Now we need to bop. Oh, it's back to me. No, I want you to go first.

[00:19:37] Jason: For my second for WAIM.

[00:19:38] Caroline: Yep. Repeat.

[00:19:38] Jason: Okay, great. So my second production for WAIM. It's actually my first production, but because yours, I producted to your production. I believe this podcast will change completely.

[00:19:50] Caroline: I knew you were gonna say this.

[00:19:51] Jason: Or. 

[00:19:52] Caroline: Or.

[00:19:52] Jason: We will keep this podcast as our just, like, super cozy check in on what we're working on in business and not too, like, strategize, and we will start a second podcast that is way more strategic towards an outcome.

[00:20:08] Caroline: Whoa. 

[00:20:08] Jason: That's my prediction.

[00:20:08] Caroline: Two podcasts, buddy?

[00:20:10] Jason: That's my prediction for the year.

[00:20:10] Caroline: You haven't even, like, tossed that idea to me.

[00:20:13] Jason: I know.

[00:20:13] Caroline: Until just now.

[00:20:14] Jason: But I just. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I. I know that we have been talking internally for a while about if we want this podcast to grow, we have to do something differently.

[00:20:23] Caroline: We do.

[00:20:24] Jason: Because there is nothing about this podcast that is discoverable. There's nothing about it that's attracting people to listen because we're not talking about timely things that are going on.

[00:20:31] Caroline: I love exactly what you said. I love that it is so cozy, and I love that I think people listen to it because it's less tied to an outcome. They just want to hang out with people who are also doing online business and trying to navigate life at the same time and just keep. They want to be kept company in, you know, a topic area that gets them thinking, that has them laugh a little bit. And so I like the coziness of it, so. I know.

[00:20:58] Jason: So we might. It might be some type of focused podcast that has, like, a video element and is more timely and kind of like, following the discussion of what's going on in the online business space in some capacity.

[00:21:11] Caroline: And by the way, this is not in my. This might be in one of your online business predictions in general, but this is related.

[00:21:18] Jason: I'll give you a poker face. I won't respond.

[00:21:20] Caroline: Okay, great. But the thing about, like, the cozy podcast format, for example, though, the reason why I think it's still so important is because we can see that the idea of, like, a follower is dying. Right. The idea of a subscriber, the idea of a follower, like, it's becoming less and less Important as all of these social media platforms move to like the interest graph, where it's just, it's all about the piece of content. And it's not because if someone follows you, it's not a guarantee they're even going to see your content. Right. So, and people do less following because they just trust that the algorithms are going to serve up to them the content they want to see in their feeds. That said, I think for online business owners, that means that it's going to become that much more important to create spaces where people have sort of appointment viewing with you and go. And your relationships go deeper. Because if you're following, like, let's just say we were on Instagram right now, if you were following us there, you might not see our content. And so what does it even mean to follow us on Instagram? Right. Like, it's not a guarantee. But if we create a deeper relationship with you here on the podcast, if you know us in a, you know, deeper way because you've built trust over hours and hours of listening to us, you're that much more likely to go like, oh, now Jason and Caroline are sort of like a part of my week and I want to go hang out with them in an audio sense. 

[00:22:42] Jason: Yeah.

[00:22:42] Caroline: And so I, I just think those, those channels as much as like they now are going to serve two different purposes. Right. It's our classic thing we always talk about. You have find channels and you have nurture channels and like there's two different strategies. But I do think those nurture channels don't sleep on those.

[00:22:58] Jason: Yeah. And I just, I just think about the content that I want to create in 2025. If you're asking me, like, and I've mentioned this to you before, but not really on the podcast, is like, I don't have any interest in creating like a hot takes opinion based thing.

[00:23:11] Caroline: Totally.

[00:23:12] Jason: But I love that we are tastemakers by nature and I think we find a lot more things that people don't find. And I think having some type of online business taste making show, just like The Publish Press with Colin and Samir, like that is the pulse of what's going on in YouTube. And I love that newsletter because I am not interested in like going and finding all the things that are going on, but they're presenting it to me every single week and I love it. And I think like, if we had a podcast that was like that, that was like, hey, this week in like online business trends, here's what we're seeing like here, you know, here are the things that are happening. And, like, here's what's being taught. And, like, it's. It's a little bit of, like, reporting on what's going on, but it's more of, like, synthesizing a lot of information that's going on in the world that, like, it's hard to navigate through. And more being like, here are the things that we saw. And, like, this is why this is interesting for you. And take it or leave it. Have your own opinions. We're not here to give hot takes. It's just kind of.

[00:24:01] Caroline: Yeah, it's. It. It does appeal to me. The. My worry, which I've told you before, is the second that you attach yourself to some type of trend or current of not events, but, like, current anything, you unintentionally put yourself on a hamster wheel of, I have to be up on the latest and greatest. And that sort of feels counter to our general ethos, which is like, go at your own pace. Like. 

[00:24:26] Jason: Yeah.

[00:24:26] Caroline: Go slow if you need to. And so I just. I don't want to box ourselves into this corner where we feel like, oh, I can't be off of. You know, I can't be offline for two weeks because things are going to happen. It's like, that's. That's sort of our mentality is like, I want to be able to spend two weeks offline.

[00:24:43] Jason: Yeah, I hear that for sure.

[00:24:44] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:24:45] Jason: All right, so what is your second prediction? I'm going back to prediction.

[00:24:48] Caroline: Okay. My second prediction for WAIM is that I think that our YouTube channel is going to finally see some real growth.

[00:24:55] Jason: Interesting.

[00:24:56] Caroline: But not from the type of content that I think right now.

[00:24:58] Jason: Yeah.

[00:24:59] Caroline: I think that by the end of the year, we're going to look back and I'm going to be like, okay, we did see some growth on the channel, but I just think that it's impossible for me to know what type of content is going to hit. And so I'm going to have to create. I'm saying I because I'm going to be the one who is mainly taking over the channel. But I just think I'm saying that because I'm reminding myself that it's going to take experimentation to find it.

[00:25:22] Jason: Of course. What's your prediction related to that prediction of how many YouTube videos will be published this year on the way YouTube channel? Well, this is a deep thought.

[00:25:35] Caroline: Between 30 and 40.

[00:25:36] Jason: 30 and 40. Okay.

[00:25:37] Caroline: That's my prediction.

[00:25:38] Jason: We will see.

[00:25:39] Caroline: Okay.

[00:25:39] Jason: All right, let's transition over to Teachery. So if you have not listened to our past couple episodes. You kind of got a snippet of it there. Caroline is basically taking more control over WAIM and more control especially over the content creation of WAIM. So in creating YouTube videos for WAIM, that will mostly be her. I'm going to spend most of my time on Teachery. And so this is where I'm going to spend more of my focus. You will spend less of your focus. So I think that's why it's interesting for these predictions because you're not going to be involved in the day to day or even in the product or anything at all with Teachery. I will be involved in the day to day of WAIM. I'm not going anywhere. But you're leading more of the content direction and I'm just kind of like, you know, there to help.

[00:26:16] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:26:17] Jason: So let's go with your first prediction for Teachery.

[00:26:19] Caroline: Okay. My prediction for Teachery is that by the end of 2025, I think for the first time ever, except for when we first started WAIM, because we started with fifteen hundred dollars as revenue.

[00:26:31] Jason: True.

[00:26:31] Caroline: I think Teachery is going to out earn WAIM's yearly revenue.

[00:26:34] Jason: Wow.

[00:26:35] Caroline: I think Teachery is going to make more money like gross revenue.

[00:26:38] Jason: Yeah.

[00:26:38] Caroline: Than WAIM this year.

[00:26:39] Jason: And just for full transparency, because we love sharing numbers, WAIM last year made around 360 to 380,000. I'm going off the top of my head, so I don't have the exact number. And Teachery made 211,000.

[00:26:50] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:26:50] Jason: So they are a distance apart.

[00:26:52] Caroline: They're distance apart. But Teachery did some major catching up in 2024.

[00:26:57] Jason: 2023, Teachery made $136,000.

[00:27:00] Caroline: Yes.

[00:27:01] Jason: And 2024, 211. So big jump by adding in our lifetime plan. So I do think there is. I think you're right. Like I think that we, for the first time, Teachery form a revenue standpoint, will get close. 

[00:27:14] Caroline: Which would be something huge to celebrate at the end of 2025 only because for the past five, six years we have said that our ultimate goal is for Teachery to out earn WAIM. And so that would be really.

[00:27:26] Jason: What's really funny about that is we say that, but we're also saying that WAIM will have evergreen products for the first time.

[00:27:31] Caroline: But I don't think that evergreen products are going to make that big of a dent.

[00:27:35] Jason: No. It's...

[00:27:35] Caroline: In our revenue.

[00:27:36] Jason: But it may, it may push it just a little bit.

[00:27:39] Caroline: Like if I had to put a number on it, I think in the most like generous prediction if we did get evergreen working, I think it would. I think just those products alone, separate from WAIM Unlimited, would bring in maybe 50 grand.

[00:27:54] Jason: So you're saying.

[00:27:56] Caroline: That's the total revenue. 

[00:27:57] Jason: So it's like your top top?

[00:27:57] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:27:58] Jason: Oh, my top top would be a hundred thousand. 

[00:28:00] Caroline: Okay.

[00:28:00] Jason: Well, that's like my top top. That's like, you know, you're publishing YouTube videos. Maybe we're doing something like it is moving the needle.

[00:28:07] Caroline: I'm being realistic about the price point that a lot of those evergreen offers would be at in comparison to the price point of WAIM Unlimited. And so I've run the numbers preliminarily as the main WAIM person, and I just think it's more realistic. 50.

[00:28:24] Jason: Okay. And also like that evergreen revenue, again, we have not set yearly goals yet. And so we will set a goal that feels extremely achievable as a low goal, and then we'll set a goal that is a high goal. And if the high goal is 50 grand, then that'll be great. And we'll report back at the end of the year how that happened.

[00:28:39] Caroline: Yeah, I said 50. Just. Oh, okay. Okay.

[00:28:41] Jason: Yeah. What did I say?

[00:28:42] Caroline: I thought you said 15.

[00:28:43] Jason: No, I said 50. All right. So my first prediction for Teachery is we will actually unlock a new revenue stream. Now, this one, you know, a little bit I know what's going on behind the scenes, but I haven't really fully figured this out yet. But we are definitely going to release a theme marketplace with Teachery as a feature. So this is you as a creator, can create a theme of a course design. You can add it to the marketplace and put it up for sale. Let's call, let's say that you sell it for 50 bucks. Teachery will take a small percentage of that because we will be the ones showing that to people to purchase. And when I say small percentage, I'm saying like 10% or less. Like, it won't be any more than that. But that's a whole new revenue stream that Teachery has absolutely never had. And I think there's something very interesting there in creating this marketplace and having people being able to design course themes, sales page themes, with our new landing page builder, email capture themes, you know, membership course, you know, themes, hub themes. So a lot of opportunity there that I think is going to be really interesting for Teachery. Now, I don't think it's going to be that much revenue, but again, Teachery has had one revenue stream for its entire existence, so this is very interesting.

[00:29:53] Caroline: It's interesting. By the way, I'm just having a moment where I'm like, if you have not set any goals for your business for 2025, just cause like for whatever reason you were just like the end of the year came and went. Highly recommend just setting aside 30 minutes for yourself to set instead of goals set predictions because I'm just finding that these really are just all goals but they're so much more fun somehow by making them predictions instead of goals. Like you would think it would be less fun because you're sort of taking away the ownership from yourself by just being like, oh, the universe is going to serve up. But it's really fun because it sort of like takes the pressure off of yourself to be like, like you just saying that. I think we're going to unlock a hidden. And that's so much more fun than saying like I want by the end of the year to launch a theme marketplace where that makes X amount of dollars. Like it just feels so dry.

[00:30:39] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:40] Caroline: Predictions are just way more fun.

[00:30:41] Jason: Yeah. All right, what is your second prediction for Teachery?

[00:30:43] Caroline: Okay, my second prediction is that you are gonna try influencer marketing for Teachery, like user generated content and it's gonna have some good early results but you're going to not like it. And so you're gonna have to choose whether to keep going or not. That's what I think. I think you're gonna, I think the managing of like people and the like just having to care about what algorithms are doing and what content is doing and having to even like look into what's happening on TikTok and figuring out a system for that. I think you'll accept experiment with it because I think the curiosity will get the better of you, but I think that you will ultimately just be like, is this even something I want to spend my time on?

[00:31:23] Jason: Yes, I do like this prediction because it has been on our radar, my radar for the next thing to do is an experiment with user generated content for Teachery. And but I think in the experience that we have had using with the pay per click ads company that I've been using for the past three months, I know I have to, to find someone like them to do it because I just don't have the mental capacity or the time bandwidth to invest in like.

[00:31:50] Caroline: Okay, so maybe this prediction act... Production actually won't come true because you're not even going to manage the day to day of it.

[00:31:55] Jason: But I do think, I do think that what I was going to get to. I think you're right though. I may not like the content so much.

[00:32:01] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:32:02] Jason: That I'm like, this isn't worth it. Like, it's too cringe for me. Like we, you know, we always mentioned this. I don't remember who said it, but it's like, what's the amount of cringe you're willing to take on?

[00:32:10] Caroline: Exactly, because you have to take on some.

[00:32:11] Jason: Exactly.

[00:32:11] Caroline: You have to be willing to do some amount of cringe to put yourself out there. But everyone has their own line where it's like, okay, I just can't do it.

[00:32:17] Jason: Yeah. I don't know. So we'll see. I am very interested in it. I'm very interested just from an experiment standpoint. Like I would love to.

[00:32:24] Caroline: Experimentation is the Word of the Year.

[00:32:25] Jason: Yeah, exactly. Film the... for three months I tried user generated content for my SaaS app and here's what I learned. I'm not going to gatekeep this information any longer and we'll see what happens. So. But I like that prediction.

[00:32:35] Caroline: That's my prediction.

[00:32:35] Jason: All right. My second one for Teachery.

[00:32:37] Caroline: Yes.

[00:32:37] Jason: Is kind of related a little bit to the first one, but maybe not, I believe. So. We. We. One of the features that is literally about to come out as we're recording this episode is a new landing page builder.

[00:32:48] Caroline: Yes.

[00:32:49] Jason: Which is not as cool as Squarespace. It is not as slick as like all the.

[00:32:56] Caroline: Sell it to them, babe.

[00:32:56] Jason: Landing page builders. It kind of sucks. No, I'm just kidding. 

[00:32:57] Caroline: Hey, worse than Squarespace. What do you think are the big high points? Worse than Squarespace.

[00:33:02] Jason: Probably worse than Wix because I think Wix actually is a pretty good builder.

[00:33:07] Caroline: Better than nothing.

[00:33:08] Jason: Better than... I don't know, but it doesn't matter. We are going to have a new landing page builder that is drag and drop functionality and it's very easy to add a button, throw an email, capture, do whatever. And there's no template to it. It's just a free form. You can do whatever you want. Adding sections. I think this is actually going to unlock through our users figuring this out, a new way to use Teachery to smell. To smell. To sell smaller digital products quickly and easily. So essentially what people will be able to do with Teachery is kind of use it like Gumroad, where you can like spin up a quick what we'll call a landing page. But it's just a. It's just a little thing and like it can just be an image, some text and a button and it's just. You just sell the thing. Like it's super quick and super easy and I, I can see this coming down the road and I don't know if it's exactly that, but I think this landing page builder is going to open up some unlocks for people to create some really interesting ways to sell things via Teachery. 

[00:34:00] Caroline: Especially because if you do have the lifetime deal, then you don't need a Gumroad, right? Then it's like, oh, I can actually bring all my little digital product selling things in house under Teachery. And you know, you're not paying for software every month.

[00:34:13] Jason: The only limitation is that I still refuse to integrate with PayPal as a payment processor because their code base is just absolute garbage. But I will say it is very funny. I've been getting emailed from a product person at PayPal for the past six months who she keeps checking in and I'm like, if you can tell me that you have figured out how to fix your recurring payment failed system, I will let our developer look in the sandbox.

[00:34:34] Caroline: She's like, bye, see you next year.

[00:34:36] Jason: I'll follow up on that. And I'm like, yeah, exactly. It is atrocious code and I don't know how people and other platforms use it and it doesn't break. So. All right, those are our WAIM and Teachery predictions. Let's get into what you probably actually care about if you clicked into this episode. And that is our online business predictions.

[00:34:52] Caroline: General predictions. 

[00:34:53] Jason: I'm going to go ahead and go first because you were correct and you did call out.

[00:34:58] Caroline: I knew it.

[00:34:59] Jason: One of my predictions. This is because I've been talking to you about it.

[00:35:01] Caroline: Well, we've had many conversations.

[00:35:03] Jason: Exactly. I do want to give full credit. I'm mentioning them again in this episode to Colin and Samir because they did a full predictions episode and this really was what made me kind of think about this as like a viable thing. But what they mentioned was and what we have kind of seen happen in other places and other people talk about is this idea of platforms like YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, phasing out the followers or subscribers. And I do think in 2025 this is going to be something we see on one of these platforms. I think that number will disappear on one of these platforms. And I actually, I don't think it's going to be YouTube because I think the YouTube subscriber plaque is like an interesting enough visual marketing thing for YouTube in general.

[00:35:46] Caroline: But do you think that the, the follower plaque, where my brain went just when you said that was remember in like the 2000s when before Spotify and streaming music, it was all about an, it was all about a song going platinum, right? And you would get the platinum album, you put it on your wall. Do you think that replaced with the follower plaque could be a views plaque?

[00:36:08] Jason: Yeah.

[00:36:08] Caroline: Right. So you have surpassed 1 billion views on your channel. So it's not. Because that would. That would follow the logic of that it's no.

[00:36:17] Jason: There's a new thing.

[00:36:18] Caroline: There's a new thing. It's no longer about the follower. It is about the content library as a whole. It is about the body of work as a whole.

[00:36:26] Jason: Yeah. And I've actually been thinking a lot about this since that Colin and Samir episode. And specifically for something like. And again, I don't use TikTok but call Instagram, the exact same application in some respects. I actually think it's going to be a net positive to remove the how many followers do you have?

[00:36:43] Caroline: I don't think they'll ever remove it. I just thought about this and I was like, imagine all the celebrities that have 11 million, you know, 100 million followers. There's no way.

[00:36:53] Jason: Yeah, I don't know. But let's play devil's advocate on the other side of that. Like, if you're a smaller creator and you're creating, it's so disheartening to never see that follower number go up.

[00:37:02] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:37:03] Jason: But I wonder if it's less disheartening to create content on an ongoing basis. And maybe you don't see a lot of views on things, but maybe one thing gets a little bit more views and that gets you going because then at least you see that number go. You see number go up somewhere. But if the follower number was gone and you at least have a piece of content that does a little bit better, it gives you the motivation to keep creating. Whereas I think a lot of people lose full motivation to create. 

[00:37:29] Caroline: And that is a net negative to those platforms. Right. Because they need people creating content. I wonder if it ends up being something like you can customize your profile by choosing the metric.

[00:37:38] Jason: Yeah. You just hide the.

[00:37:40] Caroline: No, like, do you want your profile to show your followers number or do you want it to show your views number?

[00:37:45] Jason: Right. Yeah.

[00:37:46] Caroline: You're like average monthly views.

[00:37:47] Jason: Yeah, I think.

[00:37:48] Caroline: I think that's interesting.

[00:37:49] Jason: I think there's definitely something interesting there. I think you're right. There are a lot of big accounts that like drive a lot of.

[00:37:53] Caroline: Oh, my God. And even. Yeah, I just think they'd be up in arms if suddenly their follower count went away. But piggybacking off of that, this is not a prediction, but it goes back to something that I was saying about the nurturing podcast and everything is like, if we believe that these platforms are moving in that direction, what small business owners can do with that information is remind themselves that building these bridges from some of these platforms to closed containers, things like private communities, things like email newsletters, things like podcasts, like, it is going to become that much more important to kind of siphon off the attention. So it's like all these little... the Tiktoks and the Instagrams of the world, they become the apps of just your billboards that you're setting up on the mainland, as we say in our marketing metaphor, which is just like you're, you're trying to get attention, but you need to always be mindful of where you're sending that attention into a more closed and close relationship.

[00:38:52] Jason: All right, we'll see at the end of the year if I'm correct. What is your first prediction?

[00:38:55] Caroline: My first prediction has to do with the online course space in general. And it's something that I think we've already seen in 2024, but I think it's going to become even bigger in 2025. People are always talking about the death of online courses. And, you know, with AI, especially, and ChatGPT, is there even a need for courses anymore? Because you can just ask ChatGPT, what are my steps to get X, Y and Z outcome? And that is true. You can do that. I don't think online courses are going to die, but I think that customers are going to expect some type of either done for you or accountability element. Like, I just think I would not launch an online course in 2025 if it did not have a done for you element or an accountability group of some kind because people are not going to be paying for information anymore now that AI has kind of commodified that they are going to be paying for implementation. They are going to be paying for save me time by doing this for me even I think we're in a sweet Spot too, with ChatGPT, where users are not savvy enough to use it to complete their tasks fully. And so those of us who are kind of on the cutting edge, who have been really interested in AI since the beginning, can create AI resources to bridge that gap for users who have not put in the hours to figure out how exactly to prompt ChatGPT to write them a sales email. Right.

[00:40:12] Jason: And we, we talked about this in episode 218. If you want to go back and listen to it, we did a full episode on, Are done for you courses the new thing? And I totally agree with you. Like, I, you know, again, as.

[00:40:23] Caroline: Is that one of your productions?

[00:40:24] Jason: No, as, as a, as a person who, you know, is running a course platform and has for years, I just think that the, the time and place for jamming a bunch of videos and lessons into a course and just like letting someone be like, good luck. I think with AI tools, it is definitely extremely helpful. And it, it gets exactly what you want to have happen is a customer buys a thing from you, implements that thing and gets results is the most important thing that can happen.

[00:40:50] Caroline: The most important thing. And my part B to that which is related is I think we're going to see not just done for you resources in the form of templates and swipe copy and things like that. I think we're going to start to see online business creators building tools.

[00:41:06] Jason: Yeah, for sure.

[00:41:07] Caroline: Because we haven't even. We could probably do an entire episode on Lovable. Jason and I over in December have been playing around with a new AI tool called Lovable. And it is this. I don't know if it's what they would call like an AI agent. Have you heard this term?

[00:41:20] Jason: Yeah, I think an AI agent is actually something more that's doing work for you.

[00:41:23] Caroline: For you.

[00:41:24] Jason: This is more of like a... It's an AI layer on top of writing code and building apps.

[00:41:30] Caroline: So Lovable is basically you can create working software using plain language. Right. Prompts. It's a ChatGPT, but it's building the software. It's building your databases at your backend.

[00:41:41] Jason: This is an exact example of, if we had our other podcast. 

[00:41:44] Caroline: This would be on the podcast.

[00:41:45] Jason: This would be a big part of the other podcast.

[00:41:47] Caroline: Okay, well, send us an email. Should we create a second podcast on, like, trends? What's trending in the online business world?

[00:41:54] Jason: On trend?

[00:41:55] Caroline: Maybe we should go back to my dough. My dough metaphor.

[00:41:57] Jason: On the rise.

[00:41:58] Caroline: On the rise.

[00:41:59] Jason: Yeah.

[00:41:59] Caroline: What's new? What's rising? What's rising? What's in the new rise? New sunrise.

[00:42:05] Jason: Can I quick...?

[00:42:07] Caroline: Watch your dough rise. That's what it was.

[00:42:08] Jason: That it just made me think about. Even when we recorded that episode 218 about this idea of done for you courses, I had started percolating on the like, well, should Teachery do this for you? And then I was just like, that's someone else's responsibility. Plus, I don't want to force anybody to do it.

[00:42:22] Caroline: Do what for you?

[00:42:23] Jason: That do the done for you part. Like create some version of like you put your course content in here. 

[00:42:28] Caroline: And then it like.

[00:42:29] Jason: Exactly.

[00:42:29] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:42:30] Jason: But now I'm actually wondering like I do, I am curious if there's a way to think about using OpenAI and like layering it into a Teachery course where once your lesson's done as the course creator you can say like create the done for you like...

[00:42:44] Caroline: Resources.

[00:42:45] Jason: Or whatever from this. And I don't know exactly what it would create, but I think it's a huge value add.

[00:42:50] Caroline: Oh, that'd be a huge value add. 

[00:42:51] Jason: To be like as a course creator, you don't have to think about doing this. You just need to know that Teachery is going to help give your customers.

[00:42:57] Caroline: Well, the MVP version of that would be you just write a prompt for ChatGPT that I've written before which is I think it's in Calm Launch Formula actually where it brainstorms done for your resources to add into your product. And so the MVP version is like maybe it doesn't create them for you yet.

[00:43:14] Jason: But it gives you the idea.

[00:43:14] Caroline: But it just gives you the ideas. It says, hey, I saw you had a lesson on how to create a great offer. A great done for you resource would be an offer checklist. You know, it's like stuff like that. 

[00:43:23] Jason: Yeah.

[00:43:23] Caroline: That's a cool idea .

[00:43:24] Jason: Anyway, that's a fun prediction.

[00:43:25] Caroline: Okay, that was my first. How are we going to get through this? That was my first production.

[00:43:28] Jason: Okay, so my first prediction was the phasing out of followers subscribers account on social media platforms. Your first prediction was...

[00:43:34] Caroline: Done for you is going to be huge.

[00:43:37] Jason: In online...

[00:43:37] Caroline: In online courses.

[00:43:38] Jason: I'm going to go with a quicker prediction here because I want to save my maybe slightly longer one for my last one.

[00:43:43] Caroline: Okay.

[00:43:44] Jason: I think Notion will get acquired this year. 

[00:43:46] Caroline: Whoa.

[00:43:48] Jason: If I'm picking a company to do it, I think it's Atlassian, which is the company that bought Jira and Trello and like a couple other like very like productivity tools. I actually, I don't mind it and the reason I will say that is because as a not power user of Trello, but as someone who has used Trello every single day for the past, I mean, eight years when Atlassian bought them.

[00:44:10] Caroline: They didn't change it.

[00:44:10] Jason: Nothing changed.

[00:44:11] Caroline: Okay, I like that.

[00:44:12] Jason: And so I actually when I saw that they purchased Trello I was very nervous because I'm like I've used Jira and it sucks and I don't like it. It's very corporate. Trello is not. It feels very like freeform and fun and easy to use and they didn't mess it up. And so I actually think this is a really good target for Atlassian if they want to increase their portfolio. And you know, it does kind of fit into what Notion does. So I don't know. I just think, I think Notion is one of these companies that it is the first in quite a long time to be so disruptive to. I mean, everybody who listens to this podcast has probably at least tried Notion, if not like checked it out.

[00:44:44] Caroline: I think what's interesting about that is there are now a lot of Notion clones popping up and so maybe it is a good time for them to, to make that move because it has caught on, right, this idea of the building blocks and the idea of having such a flexible. But yeah, they, I give Notion so much credit. They really, they were a true disruptor in like, like the way that people think about connecting information and building their own customized workspaces. And they did such a good job. But I hope nothing changes with it because I, four years later and there is probably no, like, maybe it's Notion and Canva are the two that I would say there's probably no tool that has changed my workflow and I... and I would have to say Notion the most because it changed my life. It didn't just change my business, it changed who I am as a person, is a person who is more on top of their life because I have built my own system.

[00:45:34] Jason: I'm so glad I mansplained Notion to you like six years ago incorrectly. So, I mean, I did introduce you to it. So we have it on. We literally have it recorded.

[00:45:43] Caroline: And, and, and I'm so glad we have it recorded because we can go back and watch how terrible your description was.

[00:45:48] Jason: But did I not introduce it to you? Did I?

[00:45:51] Caroline: A mansplainer would say that, wouldn't they?

[00:45:52] Jason: Absolutely. All right, what's your next one?

[00:45:53] Caroline: My next one is again more going back to just like kind of the online course space and digital creators. But I think that more small business owners are going to start embracing ads. And the reason I think this is because, listen, you and I have been not anti ad, I would say, but for probably the past 10 years we have tried if at all possible, not to do paid ads. We have relied on organic social media growth because it's free to market our businesses.

[00:46:26] Jason: And what's the reason why?

[00:46:27] Caroline: Because it's free.

[00:46:29] Jason: But what's like.

[00:46:30] Caroline: Well, like I don't want to. Yeah, it's like part of it is because it's free.

[00:46:33] Jason: Yeah.

[00:46:33] Caroline: Part of it is because I don't want to figure out ads because it's so complicated. Part of it is I don't want to give all of my marketing dollars to this big... to Meta.

[00:46:42] Jason: My biggest thing is I don't want to spend $10 to make $12.

[00:46:44] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:46:45] Jason: So it's like to me that feels like a losing sum game because at any moment the rug can get pulled out from under you and your business crumbles apart. So this is why we have like basically avoided. As you've heard, we are doing pay per click ads through Teachery. It is only through Google right now. It is at a point where without the management fees of the company, which you can't get rid of, it is profitable. It's a 2x profitability on return on ad spend. But if you include the management fees, it is not profitable yet to to run those ads again. We're only three months into it, so that could very much change in three months. But I agree with you on this prediction. I think this is very interesting.

[00:47:16] Caroline: Right. And so there's been this entire group of us, I think though, in the online business space who have really avoided ads for all of those reasons that we just mentioned for a long time and we've been a lot more comfortable with like, okay, maybe organic social media growth to build your audience takes longer, but it's your own sandbox and you're in more control and you're not having to risk, you know, putting money in. And great. I do think we're arriving at this place related to the point about the kind of phasing out of followers where no longer are you even guaranteed. You're pouring all this energy into organic social media content and you're no longer guaranteed that people are even going to see it. People who have followed you, people who have opted in to see your content and maybe 10% of those people are even seeing you at all. And so I do think that business owners are getting fed up with this idea of like I'm pouring all my energy into something that is just shouting into the void and they are going to go, okay, I have two options now that all of these apps are changing to the interest graph where it's very much it's the individual piece of content. It's not your channel or your page as a whole. It's like any piece of content can pop off. See previous mention of weird video of our desks. Now that we're moving to that, I think business owners are going to have a choice where they go, either I'm going to have to double down and start learning some of these things like the hooks and how to do my captions so that it grabs attention. And what are the ways to play the algorithmic game to try to make each of my pieces of content more sticky and more scroll stopping and... and you're gonna just kind of go, okay, I'm gonna have to play that game. Or there's gonna be those of us who are like, I don't wanna play that game. But no one's seeing my content. So maybe it is time for me to open myself up to the idea of setting small budgets and just doing content the way I wanna do it and paying for visibility.

[00:49:03] Jason: I mean, I totally agree with this and I think even for us, like, we're getting to a place where, like, it just seems a little bit more interesting to try on a small scale because it's like, here's the thing. And I think Mariah Coz is the one who we heard this, say this before is like, you can, you can kind of grow your revenue in two ways. You can spend your time or you can spend your money.

[00:49:23] Caroline: Right.

[00:49:23] Jason: And I think for all of us, social media is spending your time. Like, you're not really spending money necessarily to do that. It's just all your time to build those things. And spending your money. You know, it's, it's a whole different animal. But I think at this point in the like, social media space, they're kind of overlapping slightly because it's like almost everybody's paying for something to create social media content, whether that's someone to help or whatever. And I think like, if it's not working, doesn't it make more sense to then shift over to doing ads where at least you can see... I can test a lot more things faster and I actually have a potential to get a return on my money. Just creating social media content into the void. There's like, absolutely no.

[00:49:59] Caroline: Totally. And I'll be the first to admit, like, we have been a little slow on the uptake because I don't know, I don't know if it's that just for so long, somehow in my mind, like organic social felt somehow more...

[00:50:11] Jason: Like altruistic.

[00:50:11] Caroline: Altruistic or because I was just like ads and da, da, da. But I do think that there comes a point where as a business owner, you cannot be delusional about the market and how things are shifting and you can't like no amount of wishing that we could go back to social media of five years ago is going to make it so.

[00:50:33] Jason: Yeah.

[00:50:33] Caroline: And so you do have to go, okay, well, if I want my business to thrive, what are the new rules of the game which they sort of change every couple years. Right. What are the new rules of the game and what is a strategy that is both aligned with my values but also is not delusional about where the market is and so everyone has to figure out like, what that looks like for them. But I, I think maybe there's a hybrid approach too, where a small... because I, I know there's a small business owner right now who's like, well, I don't have money to put towards ads. Like, I'm just trying to get my business off the ground. So what am I supposed to do if organic social media growth doesn't like, you know, work anymore? And here's what I would do. I would try to come up with a little bit of a hybrid approach where I, yes, I would do the 10 to 20 hours of research on like, what is a hook, you know, what text on screen is more helpful than not for creating short form video. How to think about my content ideas from the perspective of like, what has a chance to take off on the algorithm and then not overthink that stuff, but just have like a general knowledge of it. I would then still do, do my thing, create the content that I want to create, but experiment with some of these things I'm learning about hooks and try to like incorporate some of that knowledge into my content. And if I get a piece of content that really takes off, then I would feel confident in putting a little bit of, I would attach a call to action to that. I would turn it into like an ad and I would try to sell one of my digital products to it.

[00:51:55] Jason: Right, for sure. Yeah. And I think like part of it too is like, it's getting easier to set up ads. Like you used to have to like go into the Meta Ads thing and like, like take a whole course on how that works. And I think there's easier ways to do that now. I don't think it is super easy yet, but I think that will change this year too.

[00:52:10] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:52:11] Jason: All right. My last prediction in the online business space, I, I really firmly believe this one's going to happen. And I'm not sure if I agree that it's a good thing or a bad thing.

[00:52:22] Caroline: Okay.

[00:52:23] Jason: I think we will see AI generated email newsletters within the platforms that create newsletters. So beehiiv, Kit, Substack, etc. I think this can go one of two ways. Number one, the easy, low hanging fruit for them is like, you want an email newsletter? Prompt the AI and it will start writing email newsletters. 

[00:52:41] Caroline: And it'll train on your previous newsletters.

[00:52:43] Jason: So that's second part. First part is just give it a prompt. 

[00:52:47] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:52:47] Jason: I want to create a daily coffee recipe newsletter.

[00:52:50] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:52:50] Jason: And it's just going to create a daily coffee recipe newsletter and just start sending it out. I can tell the frequency, I can tell it the length, I can tell the tone of voice, et cetera. I think what would be interesting for people like us is we have written hundreds of newsletters forever train the AI on what we've written and like where all the gaps that we have not written about things and present us with a bunch of ideas and present us with first drafts of newsletters. And I actually think this is like a net positive for people like us where time is always something that we're trying to get as much back as possible. So the less amount of time we can spend writing an email newsletter after having written hundreds of them, I think it's a net positive to have a platform say, hey, I've read all your newsletters. These are 10 topics that you haven't written about yet that are kind of in the same thing. And here's a twist on them, here's a draft that I wrote and we can read that and be like, ooh, this is kind of compelling and turn that into a newsletter and send it, or just let it send. And I know for some people listening to this, that feels awful. And it feels like the soul is being taken out of a piece of content that you're creating and that like is your human mind is creating. But I actually think that like this is actually where AI supported content, like AI generated supported content is helpful because it's doing so much computational work that our human brains can't do on previous stuff we've created to not just repeat ourselves, but to find new ways to say things or to fill gaps where we haven't filled them.

[00:54:13] Caroline: I think that's interesting and I'm, I guarantee that those platforms are working on that right now for sure. So I think you're right. And my final production is related to that.

[00:54:22] Jason: Oh, interesting.

[00:54:23] Caroline: Which is, I think if end of 2023 was like the birth of kind of AI generated, you know, chat, I think that was when ChatGPT kind of came on the scene end of 2023, right?

[00:54:35] Jason: Yeah, I think it actually was like years before that. But I think like this is the interface of GPT.

[00:54:39] Caroline: Consciousness. Yeah, 2024 was really the first year we all started like integrating it into workflow. So I think what's going to happen in 2025 is AI generated content is going to make these social media apps absolutely noisy beyond belief with AI generated content. And what's, I think what then the natural progression of that is, is this is my like kind of left field prediction. I think that the feed, the feeds are going to become so noisy with AI generated content that a new social media app is going to emerge that is based around this premise of a human connection. So I don't know if it means it is going to filter out AI content. I don't know how they are going to police that in any way, shape or form. But all I know is that I can sense that like my logical brain goes as the feed gets noisier and noisier and noisier with all of this sort of unhuman because we can all feel it. Right? Like. And yeah, some of these AI tools are going to get so good that you're not going to be able to know the difference. But I think on some level you can already see the sort of thirst for humanness and connection getting stronger as these more robotic features start to take over. And so we haven't had a new app on the scene in a while. The thing that came to my mind was like, BeReal. Remember the BeReal moment?

[00:56:02] Jason: Yeah.

[00:56:02] Caroline: Where it was like a moment in your day and like, here's what you're actually doing. I don't know if it's some version of that, but I just think there's going to be a new hit app that is actually going to get some traction around this idea of human, non AI stuff. And I think also maybe they're gonna figure out some way that. I don't know if it's bringing the followers back because maybe we're past that era now. But I think they are going to observe the fact that there are a lot of disgruntled creators on apps like Instagram who are very disappointed that these audiences that they have spent years building are no longer really useful because people are not seeing their content. And if this new emerging app can figure out a way, again, maybe it's not the follower relationship, but just a more reliable way for people to see their content, even if it's not built for the algorithm. I think that there is an opportunity for some app to capitalize on the disgruntled nature of people who have been on Instagram for many years. And no longer can connect with their audience.

[00:57:05] Jason: Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder how much potential leverage it has because I think like what makes these social network apps popular is the fact that like they get spread around so much and this one feels like it's like it's going to be a little bit quieter and so there's going to be less like.

[00:57:21] Caroline: But you know, I think the only hope then for it is to choose a different value prop where okay, if it's, if it's less about reach and eyeballs but somehow you can create relationships that are deeper and creators start to see that their conversion. So I don't know if it's a feature like stories or whatever it is, but it's like, oh, I'm creating a deeper relationship with my audience and therefore whenever I post content here, not only is my audience actually seeing it, but the conversions I'm getting are that much better because, you know, the relationships are deeper. Then I think that's a value proposition different than okay, I go to Instagram to try to create this experimental content for the algorithm that might pop off and get millions of views. That's my attention platform. And then this other platform is like where I go to build deep relationships. It's like almost like the nurturer idea. Right? 

[00:58:07] Jason: Interesting. Well, those are our predictions. So to recap, my three predictions were we will see the phasing out of followers subscribers on one big platform. It will just disappear. Notion will get acquired. I'm saying if it happens it'll be by Atlassian. And then we will start to see AI generated newsletters as a feature within email newsletter platforms.

[00:58:27] Caroline: My three were done for you elements of online courses are going to become like really big in 2025. More small business owners are going to start embracing ads for small, small spends and then a new social media app is going to come on the scene that is built around this idea of not AI.

[00:58:44] Jason: And I think it will be fun because now that we've recorded this and we haven't really done an episode like this before the end of this year, we get to look back and see how completely wrong we were.

[00:58:55] Caroline: I can't wait to see that.

[00:58:56] Jason: Especially with our own like WAIM and Teachery productions. I think those will be fun to look back on. So hope you enjoyed this episode. A little bit of something interesting. Feel free to send us any feedback if you want about the potential of a second podcast. It's more of like a trends and what's going on in the online business space. And again, it's not a hot takes. It's not an opinions. It's not like a...

[00:59:16] Caroline: It's not a controversy.

[00:59:17] Jason: It's tastemaking.

[00:59:18] Caroline: It's quite literally just, hey.

[00:59:20] Jason: Here's a cool thing.

[00:59:21] Caroline: We're into this stuff, so we're going to go out and find the cool stuff for you.

[00:59:24] Jason: Yeah. hello@wanderingaimfully.com if you want to send a message. And we appreciate you. We hope you have an awesome start to 2025. We hope that you're blossoming with possibilities. You're looking at all the fields of grass.

[00:59:35] Caroline: Yeah. Think about your favorite patch of grass for me. 

[00:59:38] Jason: Definitely. All right. I'm going to go use my dough whisk and it'll be a fantastic day.

[00:59:43] Caroline: I'm going to put my slippers on.

[00:59:44] Jason: Okay. Bye.

[00:59:45] Caroline: Love you.