235: 7 changes in online biz you shouldn’t ignore

[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. Hello. This is us coming to you from 2025. We're recording this and we want to share what's changed in the past seven years. What's shifted in us, as we like to say. 

[00:00:48] Caroline: The OGs will remember what shifted in us.

[00:00:50] Jason: Very wild to think about, like, not to the day, but basically seven years ago, Wandering Aimfully, kind of started.

[00:00:58] Caroline: Born. Yeah. Not just seven years ago, which is kind of what we're focusing on is like seven things that have changed in seven years. But then I was thinking, you know, I've been. You were doing business a lot longer than I was before me, but really, I started my solopreneur business in 20... I want to say 13 or 14. I was kind of freelancing in 2013, but, like, really started my business in 2014. So that's like over 10 years.

[00:01:22] Jason: Yeah.

[00:01:22] Caroline: Quite a few things have changed. Obviously. Everyone's like, yeah, obviously. But we decided to bring this to the podcast because this is the conversation that Jason and I are having regularly. And I don't know what it is. I think maybe it's the AI shift that feels so, like this line of demarcation, like everything's different now. And I don't know how you all are feeling listening to this, but it definitely feels like things are accelerating in a way where things are changing.

[00:01:50] Jason: Yeah.

[00:01:51] Caroline: And as a business owner, that can be really disorienting. It can feel like the earth is kind of like moving under your feet. And so, Jason and I thought it'd be fun to record this episode of the conversation that we have a lot, which is what has changed, but not just all the negatives that have. Like, we don't want to sit here and reminisce about the Internet of the past. We all know things look glossier and better in hindsight. We want to talk about, yes, how things have changed, but what do we do with that information? How can you as a business owner, take that change and accept it and adapt? And what does it mean for your business going forward.

[00:02:28] Jason: We're going to get to that in a moment, but first we're going to preamble about...

[00:02:31] Caroline: We got to pramble a little bit.

[00:02:32] Jason: Another tool that we have finished with the AI coding app, Lovable, which didn't exist seven years ago. It actually didn't exist a year ago, essentially. And this tool is called offermath.com you can go and you can use it right now for free for one hour. You get one hour to play around.

[00:02:47] Caroline: Who made this tool, Jason? 

[00:02:49] Jason: I made this tool in one weekend.

[00:02:50] Caroline: You did.

[00:02:51] Jason: And I think it's a great, simple, very simple tool that is not going to blow your socks off, but it is just going to help you if you have like three different, you're like, I think I want to build an online course, I think I want to sell Notion templates, or I think I want to start a membership. And you kind of just like get to put some numbers in there and go, I think I might get this many customers per month, I might like it this much. And then this little tool will just help tell you which offer is the best for you to move forward with and in a very simplistic way. So go in with very low expectations for what this tool can do because it's just taking this kind of table that we've created for years on putting in a couple different valuations of things for your offers and then deciding which one would be the best for you.

[00:03:30] Caroline: Yeah, it sounds very cliche, but you would be amazed at how many people don't do this exercise, which is estimate how many sales at a certain price point you can expect to get so that you can see what your total estimated revenue will be. Then hold that up against how much, how excited you are about the idea and give that kind of a weighted score so that you can evaluate if you have multiple ideas which one is the best one for you to pursue. 

[00:03:54] Jason: Yeah.

[00:03:54] Caroline: And it's just Jason created a simple tool to be able to do this exercise. And really, I mean it's twofold. Not only is it fun to use if you're just comparing ideas, but it will also give you an idea of a simple kind of one page tool that you can create using an AI tool, no code app like Lovable.

[00:04:10] Jason: Yeah, and I just, we, we've been talking about this a lot and I, I, I think this is going to be a recurring theme for us over the course of this year. You're just going to see us make more of these things because we always have so many ideas. But the limiting factor for us is just the time... 

[00:04:25] Caroline: And technical know how.

[00:04:26] Jason: The technical know how and then also the financial resources to pay a developer to bring those ideas to life. And that has never been our favorite thing to do. It works really well for some projects like Teachery. I have to have developers and they're great and it's really helpful to keep growing Teachery. But things like this, just like little tools like offermath.com that we just like want to dream up and have exist in a weekend, we can now do it ourselves and it's just amazing. So. 

[00:04:47] Caroline: What a time to be alive.

[00:04:47] Jason: You can, you can actually watch me build pretty much the entire thing from start to finish on our YouTube channel. I recorded a video. It's almost an hour long, but you do get to see all the prompts that I use, when I run into errors, how I fix them, how I go from like, you know, out of the box, the boring landing page. Well, not necessarily landing page for this project, but like the design that it kind of gives you, which is fine, but like how I tell it to make it look better and give it references and all kinds of things.

[00:05:11] Caroline: Yeah. And I think this would be a really fun project for someone to be thinking right now, what is the very simple functional tool that they wish exists in the world and spend a weekend watch Jason's video. You know, read a few, watch a few other YouTube videos about Lovable and try it yourself. I, I just, I really do think that these tools can open up the world to what you're able to create if you are a creative person. So. 

[00:05:36] Jason: Feel free to check it out, offermath.com. Now there's no cost to use it for the first hour and then I just added a little pricing thing. If you watch the video, you'll see why I just wanted to do something fun and different. So yeah, you can use it. And if you're a WAIMer who wants to use it forever, you can send me an email or message and I can give you the code. You get it for free included in WAIM. All right, so speaking of AI, let's get into the first thing on our list here of these seven things that have changed in seven years. And the, the, the big one that we're just all aware of and that we're even talking about right now is just AI. 

[00:06:08] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:06:08] Jason: And I think that...

[00:06:10] Caroline: Big changes. 

[00:06:11] Jason: Listen, wherever you fall on the map and maybe we will at some point record a podcast episode where we talk about the ethics of AI and like the implic... implications and all of that, like, I think that is a worthwhile conversation to have. But there are people who are much smarter than us, who are a lot closer to these things that are doing this. But I think it is very... For me personally, as someone who gets very set in their ways very quickly, it took a lot for me to like, embrace this new tool as, oh, I shouldn't fight against this.

[00:06:41] Caroline: Why do you think, where do you think your resistance came from in using it? Was it just...?

[00:06:45] Jason: Yeah, I think for me, I get really productive and good at doing things in a certain way, and then when there's a different way to do them, it's like when we first started talking about, like, working with AI, you're like, hey, let me show you how to, like, clean up this list of, you know, data or whatever. And it would take like, literally three minutes to do it. If I did it by myself, it would take me 30 minutes or an hour, like, just manually doing it. But the manually doing it, there's no friction, it's just time. But the three minutes, it's like it's frictionful because I don't know what I'm doing. So even though, like, you know, I may be messed up.

[00:07:18] Caroline: I wonder if it's like a control thing, now that you're describing that.

[00:07:20] Jason: Probably.

[00:07:21] Caroline: Like you're handing over control to this, you know, AI to... We call it robot. It's not really robot, but an AI. But you're... You are so used to taking matters into your own hands that you almost don't know any other way. You're like, why would I hand this off to someone? You're like...

[00:07:36] Jason: I can just brute force my way through it.

[00:07:37] Caroline: You can brute force your way through it. I think something that is also interesting, that maybe has something to do with why I was so quick to hop on and you were more resistant is because I... the way my brain works, I really struggle with blank page kind of stuckness. I don't know what the technical term is. 

[00:07:55] Jason: Yeah.

[00:07:55] Caroline: You don't.

[00:07:56] Jason: No.

[00:07:57] Caroline: You're very good at getting started. So you have an idea and you just get the ball rolling and you don't. And you kind of are going to figure it out as you go. There's nothing intimidating to you about sitting down to like a blank Google Doc. You're like, I'm just going to start writing. For me personally, I don't know how my brain is wired differently than yours, but I have a really hard time getting started. I have an idea in my head. It feels. I... Maybe it's that my brain is calculating all of the steps ahead of me instead of the first one. And so for my brain particularly, AI was like this game changer because suddenly I can just type a few sentences into a thing and the ball is rolling. It's like I don't have to sit there and wrestle with myself to work up the, it's like, you know, and the thing that I have found over the years that gets me over that hump is exactly what ChatGPT does now where I, I have gotten to the point where I can like set a timer for five minutes and just like write gobbledygook on a Google Doc or I can start typing and, and that is what I have found is the most effective way for me to get over kind of the procrastination. Cause if I could just kind of break the seal it feels easier. But now I have this like you know, ever... this like smarter than me thing, entity, who's endlessly creative, who learns on the fly, who can help me get that ball rolling.

[00:09:11] Jason: Never runs out of ideas.

[00:09:12] Caroline: And it's amazing and I, I use it for everything and I find more and more and more use cases for how it improves my life. And it doesn't feel like it's replacing my creativity, it feels like it's enhancing and it's supporting and it's kind of greasing the wheels in a way where I can use my human creativity.

[00:09:32] Jason: Yeah.

[00:09:33] Caroline: More effectively.

[00:09:33] Jason: And I think like again we want to share some of these changes and then also like you know, maybe the bad, maybe the, you know, definitely the good because I think there's, you know, something to be positive about with all these changes. I'll give you a very concrete example. This past week I've been working on the welcome email sequence for our six month unboring coaching members. And basically what I did is I went and I grabbed an email that I wrote, this my voice. So like my perfect, you know, this, I wrote this without AI. It was like a while ago and I put that in. I said hey, I want you to like understand this for context of how I write. And it's just one email so it's not a ton. I said here you go. And I said now I'm going to give you a task and I want you to help me write these emails. And I want like 12 emails but just give me an outline first of what you like these topics should be and like here are the points I want to hit. So I gave it some data. So it gave me a bunch of things and like half of them kind of sucked. Half of them are good. I was like, okay, great. And so I did that. Then we started having the emails get written. And so it does a first draft. And I was like, I don't really like that. Like, do it again. Like, it's too AI-y.

[00:10:31] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:10:31] Jason: And we all know what that kind of feels like. And then I was like, actually, you know what? This is going to be faster if I stop trying to, like, force the AI to like, write in my voice. I'm just going to take this. This is my draft. Someone wrote this for me.

[00:10:42] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:10:43] Jason: And now I'm going to rewrite it in my own voice. And so it took me no time at all to rewrite these emails, but they're my voice. 

[00:10:48] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:10:49] Jason: It just, I got started so much faster. And I think, like, these are the little moments where to write a... I think it's like an 11 email sequence. In total, I think it probably took me two hours. I would not have been able to get that done. 

[00:11:00] Caroline: That'd take me...

[00:11:01] Jason: 10 hours.

[00:11:01] Caroline: Yeah, exactly.

[00:11:02] Jason: Like, it just would have been so much longer and it would have been so much more arduous because I'm like constantly thinking and trying to figure it out. So I just, I see these tools popping up all over the place for all different aspects of our, our businesses specifically, and not just like ChatGPT is the only one. And I, I think the takeaway here is seven years later. Boy, we can get so much stuff done faster, which frees up extra time to think about all these other ideas. I don't think there's any... what am I looking for? There's a reason why right now, in the past year, we've had more ideas than ever. And I really do think it's because all the mundane tasks that took us a long time can get done faster. And it's freed up mental space for things.

[00:11:43] Caroline: I think the danger of that is, and we see this over the course of time is as humans become more efficient, we just keep moving the goalpost in what our measure of a productive day or productivity is. And so I think that is the danger is the more you can accomplish now with AI, you have to be careful not to set your expectation for yourself so high that you burn yourself out. So that, that's the... that is the danger of it. But let's, with each one of these kind of big changes that have happened on the horizon, Jason and I also want to like, wrap up with, okay, what... how do you take that knowledge as a business owner and what do you do with that?

[00:12:21] Jason: Yeah.

[00:12:21] Caroline: And I think as it relates to AI, what my advice would be, what do you do with that? I think we've repeated it many times on this podcast, but I think, number one, leading with curiosity, like, really setting aside the time to investigate some of these tools so that you can decide for yourself how you want to use them, if you want to use them. But I mean, investing the time to watch a few videos on YouTube or follow a few people who you think are AI experts and really just give yourself the chance to know what these things can do for you. I think is step one. And it's a time investment that I think for me personally has paid off like a ton.

[00:13:01] Jason: I will give you one more example before we move on to the second thing. We had a WAIMer reach out to us. And as we've been talking about these, these tools like Offer Math and our WAIM of Stones app that we built using Lovable. And they're like, okay, like, I think you mentioned, like, GitHub, like, I don't know anything about GitHub. And I was like, great, ask ChatGPT to explain it to you. Like, you don't know anything about it. And they're like, I don't know why I didn't think of that.

[00:13:21] Caroline: I know.

[00:13:21] Jason: And, and I was like, have you ever looked up any videos about GitHub? And they're like, no. I... Look, I searched Google or YouTube one time and I was like, this is not for me.

[00:13:30] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:13:30] Jason: Like, I am so overwhelmed by, like, what's going on here. And I think, like, that's a perfect example of anything you're thinking where you're like, man, I wish I knew something about this.

[00:13:39] Caroline: Yes.

[00:13:39] Jason: And see if you can learn it. So. 

[00:13:41] Caroline: Yeah, you and I, I think. And again, that those are the things that start to come to you when you use it more.

[00:13:46] Jason: Yeah.

[00:13:46] Caroline: Because it kind of needs to be integrated into your thought patterns. But that's... that is something I use it for all the time. And that goes for things that are not, like, business and productive, but just interesting. You know, it's like, oh, well, we'll kind of encounter something in the Portuguese culture. And I'll go, I want to learn more about that. Or I want to know more about, you know, how did the Portuguese get their independence? I want to know the history of the place that I live. I want to know the politics. And yes, you can Google that, but it's so difficult to piece together things that are helpful rather than telling AI specifically. Here's what I'm looking for, and you know, I want to understand this in five minutes or less.

[00:14:19] Jason: All right. The second thing here, and this is going to be hard for some people to hear, and I think this is one of those that's like, you just have to accept the reality of this. And seven years ago, your business and what you do and the problem you solve could be kind of vague and could be kind of broad.

[00:14:36] Caroline: Right.

[00:14:36] Jason: And you could get away with it.

[00:14:37] Caroline: You could just be like, I help businesses grow.

[00:14:39] Jason: Exactly.

[00:14:40] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:14:40] Jason: Or like, I, you know, whatever. You gave a good example. But I think the, what we're seeing nowadays, especially in the 2025, is algorithms are everywhere and they're constantly trying to pick out the content that resonates with people and is unique and interesting.

[00:14:57] Caroline: Yes.

[00:14:57] Jason: And I think the more vague and broad you are, the less you're going to have a chance at getting any type of organic reach through. Especially, you know, just if we're being honest, TikTok, Instagram, like these types of platforms.

[00:15:09] Caroline: Cause you're again, if you think of every piece of content as sort of competing for algorithmic attention, when you're being super broad, you're just, you're competing in such a, a competitive space versus every time you niche down and you're specific, you're kind of in a more blue ocean strategy type of place where you're competing with less content, you can you become that much more attractive because I, I, I forget where I saw this, but I saw this analogy that was sort of like, okay, you're in a messy restaurant. If you just kind of go, if you start waving your hands like, nobody's going to really like, your friend is across the restaurant. They're not going to even like, notice. Instead, all you could just do is say like, hey, Gary, you know, across the restaurant or whatever. And Gary's going to turn around. Why? Because you're specifically cutting through the noise with the thing that is going to get Gary's attention, which is his name.

[00:15:59] Jason: Right.

[00:15:59] Caroline: And it just kind of was a visual for me of that's what you're doing when you say like, hey, are you a busy mom struggling with X, Y and Z? It's that shout across the restaurant that cuts through the noise. And so I think, you know, this point in general is we have entered a time where it's, it's, it's very cliche advice to niche down to be more specific, but it's just the natural consequence of living in such a noisy content world now. And we just had a coaching session where we were giving specific advice to some of our WAIMers. And we had this wonderful WAIMer who has an incredible website and a great business set up, but their industry is personal growth. And everything on their website and all of the messaging, it was clear, but it was incredibly broad. And I said the reason why your content has not resonated or really gotten any traction is because you are competing with the personal growth content... every piece of personal growth content that exists in the world, which is so much stuff and it's important and it applies to everyone. But if it applies to everyone, nobody's paying attention to it. And so our advice to her was, okay, let's figure out, you know, her specific business was about using journaling and digital journaling to get to know yourself better, to tap into your intuition. Let's identify a specific person at a specific moment in their life who needs this for a specific reason.

[00:17:23] Jason: Yeah. And what we kind of talked about too was if you can, even better, if you can pull from your own experiences that then give you layers and stories that you can share. So.

[00:17:32] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:17:32] Jason: As an example, it's like I just retired and I'm trying to, you know...

[00:17:37] Caroline: Find myself again.

[00:17:38] Jason: Find myself again. And so it's like the niche there is retirees who are looking to find themselves. And we talk, we've talked about this for so many years and we have fallen prey to this issue of you feel like you're going to niche yourself too small and there's not going to be a big enough audience. There is a big enough audience and there is a right sized audience for your business. Now if you were like, it's retirees who are left handed and only eats pancakes two days a week and they also have a pet hamster, that's too, that's too far. 

[00:18:04] Caroline: A little too much.

[00:18:05] Jason: You may only find one person who does that. 

[00:18:07] Caroline: But if you charge $100,000.

[00:18:09] Jason: |Then you're fine.

[00:18:09] Caroline: Then you're okay.

[00:18:10] Jason: But I think this is why this is a good thing that has changed in seven years is it's, it's about embracing the things that you have stories about and that you have experiences with that you can attract people who then you can help based on that very specific information.

[00:18:27] Caroline: And isn't it in a way such a beautiful thing that, you know, we're all humans with these extremely unique lenses on the world, these extremely unique experiences. And I think at the core of what a lot of us creators and entrepreneurs want is to match our skill set and our experience and our stories to people in the world who need those things. And so to help other people. Right. And so isn't it a beautiful thing that you can choose kind of a niche point of your story or your interest or your hobbies or something like that, and you can find people out there who have those same niche hobbies or interests or needs or problems, and you can help them and, and you can turn that into a business. And I think that's really cool. I, I think it's cool that the algorithms have changed in such a way that people who have these, like, very niche businesses can thrive.

[00:19:17] Jason: Yeah. Okay, let's move on to the third one, which is a... just a real kick to the pants for...

[00:19:24] Caroline: Real kick to the pants.

[00:19:25] Jason: The Zooks and what we have talked about for seven years. And it's that foundation articles, speaking specifically blog articles written for the purpose of gaining traffic from Google and other search engines, they're just not really a thing anymore. And I know that...

[00:19:41] Caroline: It's not even that they're not a thing. It's that... it's that I can't in good conscience tell someone starting a business that that is a good investment of their time because of the uncertainty of the outcome, the amount of time investment it takes, and there are just better uses of their time.

[00:19:54] Jason: Yeah, I mean we, we have seen this in spades, like, especially with the calm business encyclopedia that we did last year. I really thought that was going to be a helpful boost for us in organic traffic. But there was literally like, right after that when like all the, like, Google changed its entire search to be the like, AI search, like, first. I'm like, oh great, there goes that. And, and obviously that content that they're feeding the answers to is getting pulled from articles like ours and yours. But you're not going to get a link. Like, no one's going to go, they got the answer. Like, they're not going to click through. Like, it's not going to happen.

[00:20:27] Caroline: Yeah. And we'll be totally honest, you know, I think some people listening to this might be able to relate to this. But a part of that is our sincere wish and hope and desire that the answer is not always organic social media content.

[00:20:42] Jason: I miss blogging. That's the answer. I just want to say it. I miss blogging.

[00:20:46] Caroline: I wish that it didn't always have to come down to if you want free advertising for your online business, organic social media content is the way to go. I wish that that was not the answer. I, I'm becoming less and less convinced that there is an alternative, at least a free alternative to that. I think the closest thing now is maybe, you know, discovery newsletter platforms like Substack, I think you can still build an audience.

[00:21:14] Jason: You're saying options that are not social media platforms.

[00:21:16] Caroline: Yeah, options. And I, and I will say, because you could argue that Substack is a social media platform, I would say options that are not short form...

[00:21:24] Jason: Video content.

[00:21:25] Caroline: Video content. 

[00:21:26] Jason: Yeah. And I think this is one that it's been really hard for me to come to terms with because I've just loved writing these articles. Like it has been a thing that has served us so well over the years. Like we only have the audience that we have because of both of us writing articles and newsletters for multiple years of time and to see that effort not be worth it anymore. And I do know that like local businesses are actually doing well with some SEO stuff. So. 

[00:21:53] Caroline: Of course there's still certain types of businesses where...

[00:21:55] Jason: But if you're in the digital products business space, like, it's just, it is really not working. Like, we're just absolutely seeing that. And so the shift here and the acceptance of this change is to go, okay, that is all right, that that doesn't work anymore. The... if you do not want to use social media, like you said, the kind of like step before using social media is a discoverable newsletter platform, Substack, Beehive, even some with, you know, ConvertKit or Kit. But you need to know people who can like recommend you and whatever. So that one's a little bit harder.

[00:22:25] Caroline: Which speaks to like, you know, kind of collaborating with other people and getting exposure to their audiences. There's still certain ways around it, but for time investment, if it was me and I was starting a business from scratch tomorrow, I would still probably go to these, you know, free platforms and I would create short form content. And that's just how I would choose to invest my time.

[00:22:47] Jason: And you're talking about social media platforms.

[00:22:49] Caroline: I am talking about social media platforms. You know, The Instagrams, the YouTubes, the TikToks of the world. And the reason I would do that kind of speaks to maybe one that we can skip to after this one. But something amazing about this era that we're living through right now with social media is that you don't have to have built up a following of tens or hundreds of thousands of people in order for one single piece of content to make a huge impact and get picked up in the algorithm and, and to gain a lot of followers overnight. It is very much these algorithms have moved to the place where if the piece of content itself is grabbing people's attention and providing value and getting a lot of engagement. It doesn't matter how young your account is, it can really... Or how, you know, how long you've been away for that matter. Because we had this piece of content that I had been away for three years and within three weeks of coming back, it goes viral and you know, I get a thousand new followers on my account. When else would you have been able to do that before? It did not happen in the way that it happens now. And so that's the flip side of it is like there are negatives to it. Of course it is very frustrating to spend years building an audience and people don't even see your content. That's frustrating. But the flip side is the individual piece of content is really king now.

[00:24:08] Jason: Yeah. And I think we have a video that I'll link in the show notes that's our, our foundational content kind of mindset shift. And it's like a little matrix of what content to think about creating short, short form versus long form versus nurture content. If those things are like, what does that all mean? Just go watch the video, click the link in the description of this podcast episode to find that. And I think that will be really helpful for you to frame because everybody that we tell to go watch that watches it and goes, oh, okay. So like I was only making nurture content, which is like content that is not going to be discoverable and people are not going to find because it's just not created for that purpose. So yes, we are sad also that articles and blogging and writing is not as helpful anymore. But it's like everything that we're kind of talking about in this list, if you're just gonna fight against it and like shake your fist at it and be angry, it's not gonna get you anywhere.

[00:24:59] Caroline: Yeah. And I will say, I mean there's still plenty of, you know, blog articles that get passed around, but the only way that they get passed around...

[00:25:06] Jason: Is through social.

[00:25:07] Caroline: Is through social and by creating bite sized versions of it.

[00:25:11] Jason: And you know, I even think for us, like, you know, we, we might still publish articles here and there, but it is definitely now where it was first on the list of like one of the first things you should do in your content plan so that you have that kind of foundation set. I just wouldn't spend time doing it first. I would do it kind of at the bottom like the last thing unless you're doing super local business or whatever.

[00:25:30] Caroline: Totally. So speaking of blogging and putting articles on your website.

[00:25:36] Jason: Yeah. Your website. 

[00:25:37] Caroline: Here's another one that is, maybe we didn't want to believe it, that the writing was on the wall. And I'm not saying that you... That websites are obsolete. That is certainly not what I'm saying. But I think number four is that, you know, compared to seven years ago, websites are not as important and they are not at the top of the list any longer. And if I was probably getting started, I would not spend a ton of time building out this, like, beautiful, desktop, optimized website because the majority of people's attention are on social platforms and on their phones.

[00:26:12] Jason: Yeah, this one, this one hurts because we're people who love websites.

[00:26:15] Caroline: Love websites, love web design.

[00:26:16] Jason: Own a ton of domains, love building websites. It is a fun thing to explore new builders like Framer, and like, we love what those things provide. But I think the reality is that when you look at just like, what is a website? Like, what has it been? It's a place for someone to consume content that you are creating about you, about what you do, the problem that you solve, et cetera. It takes a long time to kind of like, get all of that content from a website. But you go to an Instagram page, a profile of a person, and you can look through and... And watch a bunch of short videos, read a bunch of carousels, go through some stories or whatever. You get the context right there. It's easy. And I think that, again, like, I am personally coming around to a lot of these things. Like, I'm mad that I'm coming around to them.

[00:27:00] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:27:00] Jason: But it's like, you either...

[00:27:01] Caroline: I'm not happy about it.

[00:27:02] Jason: Yeah, you either fight the current and you're gonna end up getting crushed by it no matter what, because it's stronger than you, or you go, all right, I gotta turn into this, and I gotta figure out how to lean in this and be okay with the fact that, yeah, I built this website and it was beautiful and it was amazing and it was a thing that I loved, but especially for people who are starting new things, I just wouldn't spend all this time building a website. Obviously, you need some pages, like a lead capture page.

[00:27:24] Caroline: Yeah, exactly. And that's... and that's really the takeaway here is I'm not saying, like, don't, like, go trash your website. We're still going to have a website. I just think that the weighting of a lot of these things, meaning the amount of weight that you're putting on them, the importance they have in your business, the impact they have in your business, is changing and therefore, your time allocation to, I know you are listening to me right now, listener. And the amount of obsessing you've done on the pages of your website and the little designs and adding the flourishes and the getting every line of copy right, you know who you are. What I'm saying is it's a moment for you to go, is that time that I am spending obsessing on my website even a good investment anymore in a 2025 world?

[00:28:07] Jason: Yeah. And listen, the good news about this is you can actually spin up an Instagram profile pretty quickly, and you can give people a good experience of who you are, what you stand for, what you love, what your business does, the unique parts of you, little snippets of your life, little quotes and things that you love. Like, all of this can be done fairly quickly, and then it's discoverable by people where a website that you just create, it's, you know, the metaphor I've used for years is just like, you're putting a hotel up in the desert. There's no road to get there. There's no nothing. Like, no one can find it. It does not exist without you promoting it. Whereas, like, your Instagram profile and the content you create can. And your TikTok profile and the content you create can. And, and again, this is coming from two people who thankfully built an audience 10 years ago. So, like, we've been able to leverage that audience for years and continue to grow it. So that's why you don't see us continually posting on social. But, boy, if we were starting a new thing tomorrow and we weren't allowed to use our existing audience... 

[00:29:03] Caroline: That's what we would do.

[00:29:04] Jason: 100%. We would be on these social doing it, because you just have to. That's where people's attention is.

[00:29:09] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:29:10] Jason: All right. The next one we did a full podcast episode about, so we won't spend too much time on it. You can go back and listen to that episode. I forget what it is, what number, but you can scroll back. You'll find it. The idea is that online courses have changed.

[00:29:24] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:29:24] Jason: And we are moving from a... here's a bunch of information that I've organized and put in one spot for you as an online course. And you can now learn this at your own pace and figure it out to, like, let me help you implement and solve this problem. And this online course is going to support you and do that. And as two people who've been making courses for over 10 years at this point, and, you know, we have a course platform. I can tell you that the people who are succeeding and the people whose courses are selling are the ones who are focusing on more outcome based things and less about like, hey, here's a quiz and a course to help see if you learn this thing. And it's like, no, here is a tool that I built alongside this course that helps you put this into action. Here's a Notion template that you literally go and duplicate and then figure out and use for your business or your situation. And you can now do this thing that I'm teaching.

[00:30:14] Caroline: Yeah. It's about... and it really has always been about solving problems. But I just think that the, the tolerance that customers have for courses that are not getting them to that result quickly, easily, efficiently has gone way down. And it's because it's a few things. It's. Number one, there's just way more courses out there now. And so people are being very discerning and going, I don't want the one that is going to make me do all the heavy lifting. 

[00:30:41] Jason: Yeah. 

[00:30:42] Caroline: You know, number two, I think. And we'll talk about this one in a second actually. I just... it's a natural consequence of people's attention spans being so low.

[00:30:49] Jason: Yeah.

[00:30:49] Caroline: Is it's like don't make me sit through all of the lecture like tell me how to solve my problem.

[00:30:57] Jason: Which is exactly why. And we talked about this in that previous episode. When we built the Calm Launch Formula course last fall, we made it a point that every video had to be like five minutes or less and every lesson had to have an AI prompt that you could copy and paste and it would help you solve that problem in minutes.

[00:31:15] Caroline: And there's a reason that people rave about that course. And it's like, you know, the, the thing that people have talked about the most within our program in a while. So I think that's just like validation that that format is working for meeting this moment where people's expectations are.

[00:31:29] Jason: So your positive takeaway there is just think about... online courses are not dead. They are not things that people are not buying. But what they are buying is more implementation based learning tools and templates and things. Less just here's a bunch of information that I gathered for you and you can watch this in your leisure.

[00:31:48] Caroline: I saw a guy on YouTube and he was like, don't sell courses, sell solutions.

[00:31:52] Jason: Exactly.

[00:31:52] Caroline: And it's just like, it's cliche but it's true. You're not selling a course, you're selling a solution to a problem. And never lose sight of that.

[00:31:58] Jason: Yeah. All right, number six on this list. Seven years ago, TikTok didn't exist and Instagram didn't have reels. And you know, we were still writing blogs back then and we were happy about it, and our attention spans were quite a bit longer.

[00:32:14] Caroline: They were.

[00:32:14] Jason: But in seven years, our brains have been TikTokified and Instagram reelified, and it is no longer the same way of kind of operating in the world. And we have so much more access to so much more information just in these past seven years. And it's really hard to be focused.

[00:32:31] Caroline: Yeah, I just. I was like, Jace, I think we need one in here that isn't just about the way that people's purchasing habits have changed. That isn't just about how the media landscape has changed. I think we need to acknowledge that it's harder in many ways to be an entrepreneur now because of the amount of self discipline and focus that it requires. And I think it is harder to be focused in a 2025 world than it was in a 2018 world or a 2015 world.

[00:32:59] Jason: For sure. I mean, just I was saying to this to you when we were writing on the notes, I'm like, imagine how much time you spent on Instagram seven years ago in one sitting. Like, when you sat and looked at your phone.

[00:33:08] Caroline: Like, what did a doom scroll feel like? It felt like looking at somebody's highlight reel for 30 minutes and being like, okay, I'm ready to move on with my day. 

[00:33:15] Jason: Now it's like, you can get sucked in for two hours. And you're like, what did I just...? What just happened? 

[00:33:20] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:33:21] Jason: Like, I just was in a black hole of information. And we always play this game where it's like, okay, because we all do it. It's like, all right, you just scrolled TikTok for one hour. Can you name three videos you watch?

[00:33:31] Caroline: We try to quiz each other.

[00:33:32] Jason: And we can't.

[00:33:33] Caroline: And we're like...

[00:33:34] Jason: Like, our brains are just like, they're not able to do this.

[00:33:36] Caroline: Which is scary. 

[00:33:37] Jason: It is scary. And, but it's also one of those things where, okay, so what do we do with that information?

[00:33:43] Caroline: Right.

[00:33:43] Jason: And what we do with that is you first of all just recognize that it's not something that's wrong with you.

[00:33:48] Caroline: Yeah. You're not broken if you're like, man, this is really feeling harder to make progress on my business. And it's like, yeah, because you have so much more noise in your head now than you did three years ago or five years ago.

[00:34:01] Jason: Yeah. And especially as of recording this there's obviously things going on in the world. In the US, there's really crappy politics, things that are happening. And like, that stuff weighs on you. And we've never been able to consume more of that stuff at every turn. And even in just in the difference of seven years, there is so much more content created around those things that infiltrates our lives that there's no wonder why you go to sit down and do some work and you're like, 10 minutes later, I'm back looking at Instagram.

[00:34:24] Caroline: Yeah, think about it. I mean, seven years ago, it was, you know, deluge of news articles. Now it's for every deluge of news article, there's the 12 think piece, short piece, contents that are everyone's opinions about the news article. And it's the, the macro trends about that and this take and the that take. And it's just, it's, it's, you know, extrapolated. It's exponential. And so to Jason's point, it's about going, okay, I acknowledge that. I'm not going to change that. And so maybe that can take a little bit of the pressure or like the shame or the judgment that I place on myself. And in that same breath going, okay, now that I've acknowledged that, I do recognize that I have a choice here. 

[00:35:05] Jason: Yeah.

[00:35:06] Caroline: I have a choice of how much screen time. Even though it's hard to limit it, even though it's hard to, like, police yourself with that stuff. The, the impact, the positive impact that it will have about creating rules and boundaries around it are going to be so worth it. And, you know, it's like doing the dopamine detox thing, like doing the, you know, it's like, I remember following all of the election stuff at the end of last year, and I hadn't been on... I refuse to call X. I haven't... I hadn't been on Twitter.

[00:35:37] Jason: That's how we stand up and fight. 

[00:35:38] Caroline: I refuse.

[00:35:39] Jason: We call it Twitter.

[00:35:39] Caroline: I hadn't been on Twitter in years. But, you know, it was a, it was a weird time and things were changing by the, by the day. And so I got sucked back in so quick. Like three days of checking it once a day and trying to keep my handle on it. And before I knew it, it was three months of checking it every single day. And I can't get those hours back. 

[00:36:00] Jason: Yeah.

[00:36:01] Caroline: I can't get that sanity back.

[00:36:03] Jason: Unfortunately, we don't have...

[00:36:04] Caroline: I've broken the habit again. I'm not spending any time in that hell.

[00:36:06] Jason: We don't have a big positive takeaway from this one, other than just the acceptance of the fact that if you're feeling this way, it's everybody's feeling this way. 

[00:36:14] Caroline: It's everybody's feeling this way. And take the power back into your own hands and create boundaries for yourself around not letting yourself get sucked into these apps for hours at a time, trying to reset your focus, trying to reset your attention. It is possible, but it takes a real intentional effort on your part. So if you think it's hard, there's nothing wrong with you.

[00:36:35] Jason: Also, my action step for you listening to this is just literally the next time you open up the app, which is probably very soon after listening or even during, go to your following feed, like who you're following and just unfollow 10 people. Just literally take 10 people out of your feed. You're like, that doesn't always make me feel good when I see that content. I compare myself to them or like they post a lot of stuff that like, I don't know of how I feel. Just, just unfollow. Like, yeah, just these little things that you can take control of. They do help. And I know that it's really hard because, you know, you've invested a lot of time into cultivating these, these lists of things, but like, you've got to take control of it.

[00:37:07] Caroline: Also not to do a shameless plug for joining WAIM Unlimited.

[00:37:12] Jason: Yeah, sure.

[00:37:12] Caroline: But I do think that kind of an offset to this particular one can also be joining small communities because when you have that itch to go to a social media site or to give yourself that little dopamine hit, I do think that you need replacements for that. And I think a good replacement for that is let me go to the WAIM Slack and let me check in on like what my business friends are doing. Let me get that little hit of like a few messages, maybe DM with someone who is working on something similar to me, I can get that little bit of quote unquote distraction. But it's still like moving the ball forward on my business goals. And I'm with people who also want to be positive, want to be uplifting, don't want to doom scroll. You know, we in our community, like, we're very much not like, let's not acknowledge that... 

[00:37:56] Jason: The world doesn't exist.

[00:37:57] Caroline: Yeah, like they're... that's the thing about our community that I love is that we're very open to, when people are like, the news right now, it's like, yeah, there's plenty of people there to commiserate but we don't focus on that in our community. It's like we try to keep it a space where when the world is burning, you can come here and you can hang out with your friends and you can find some community and solidarity.

[00:38:17] Jason: Yeah. And control the things you can control, which is like working on your business, you know, like, it's hard to do, but it is still something that can provide you freedom and flexibility and financial return.

[00:38:25] Caroline: Exactly.

[00:38:26] Jason: All right, the last thing here on our list of seven things that have changed in the past seven years. This one, it, it's obvious, but it's also never been more true. And it's the fact that seven years ago, consistency would get you really far.

[00:38:38] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:38:39] Jason: You just showed up every week in an email newsletter. You just showed up two to three times on social media per week. And you didn't have to be super unique. You didn't have to have a real interesting twist on anything.

[00:38:50] Caroline: And you were almost guaranteed to be able to build an audience and build a business. 

[00:38:53] Jason: Because you just outworked most people.

[00:38:55] Caroline: Right.

[00:38:55] Jason: And most people were not going to be consistent. And the problem is now that with AI and with all these tools and with everything becoming easier to create content, is that everyone can now create content way faster.

[00:39:05] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:39:06] Jason: And the part of this that really matters is, yes, consistency, because with so much noise, you do have to keep showing up so that people remember you exist. Like, people forget that we exist because we're just on social media. It's hilarious. They're like, oh, yeah, like I forgot about you, what you've been doing. Like, yeah, just still running profitable businesses, but we just haven't had to use social media. Thank you so much. But what really stands out to us in this change, and it's the thing that has always been a focus for us, is just embracing what makes you unique.

[00:39:35] Caroline: Right. So before consistency could get you so far, now it's really consistency plus uniqueness. And you really, really... I can't emphasize this enough. If you are building a brand in 2025, if you are building a business, you have to do the inner work to figure out what your unique angle on your industry or your niche is. What is the thing that is going to break the mold of what people expect in that industry so that you can cut through the clutter? Because there, I know there's a lot of you right now who are like, okay, listen, I'm on board with all these. I mean, maybe not on board with all these changes, but, like, I accept this is happening. I've been creating content. I've been putting myself out there. I'm not getting any traction whatsoever. And I would be willing to bet that one thing that is missing for a lot of people who that's the case for is you're following a blueprint and you are not doing anything differently or scroll stopping enough to have to have your brand be memorable in people's minds.

[00:40:36] Jason: And I think the easiest way for me to, like, tell you how to do this is to go to the people's accounts that you really like their content and just dissect it for a moment. Just be like, why do I like this? It's like, oh, I really love this woman because she's always in her car and at some point, like, you know, a bird scares her and, like, she's afraid of birds or something. Like, this is like, a very silly example. But there are those things that stand out to you, and they can be very simple things. But it's important for you to realize, like, okay, I'm looking at the people that I follow, and, like, these are the things that stand out to me about them. Great. So I have to have some of these things, and if you don't, then cultivate some. Figure out something like, you know, get weird, get different. Like, there's a whole bit of experimentation that you can do here to figure out what makes you stand out and unique from other people. And you may not have things that you list off right away, but then you can just try things.

[00:41:27] Caroline: I think this is so hard for those of us who are maybe, like, squarely in the millennial category, who grew up with Instagram, because Instagram as a culture is so different than TikTok as a culture, right? Like, on Instagram, it was all about putting your best foot forward. It was all about your glossiest highlight reel. It was always about, like, mem... Like, it was not that long ago that it was the perfectly posed era of, like, the lay flats and the... And everything was just sort of, like, curated and, and your whole feed was aesthetic and everything. That was the Instagram culture. TikTok came along and the pandemic came along and people were, you know, Gen Z came along and they were like, F that. Like, I'm not going to take the time to set... Of course there are still people who, like, perfectly curate, but as a whole, the culture there is like, show up as yourself. Don't try to be fake. Be yourself. Be your weird self.

[00:42:19] Jason: Yeah, you've showed me so many TikTok, because I don't even, I'm not on TikTok at all. But you've showed me so many. I'm like, this is popular? Like, this is... And it's, it's just because people are craving that normalcy. But there is a twist there. There is something unique there about what they're doing. And so, you know, I think this, this last takeaway. The, the point is, yes, consistency matters because there's just so much, and you do have to keep showing up, but you can't keep showing up. It's kind of like, you know, the second point that we talked about. It can't be vague, and it can't be broad. It needs to be unique. It needs to be interesting. It needs to be different. And that doesn't mean it has to be hard. That doesn't mean you have to spend 10 hours to create one reel. It just means you have to figure out, like, what's your thing that can be interesting or different in this.

[00:42:59] Caroline: Yeah.

[00:43:00] Jason: And I don't think there's any person who can tell you exactly what that is. I think the thing is just going, like, well, what do I really like? Like, what really resonates with me? Like what? Like, oh, like, maybe you're someone who's obsessed with plants, but you're talking about, you know, creating digital journals. It's like, okay, great. Well, like, how do you blend those two? Right? Like, what is a way that that always comes together and, like, content kind of comes out of that?

[00:43:21] Caroline: Yeah. We are... Take ice cream, for example.

[00:43:24] Jason: Oh, sure.

[00:43:25] Caroline: You know, we...

[00:43:26] Jason: Because we're big Ninja CREAMi ambassadors?

[00:43:28] Caroline: Yes, we are Ninja CREAMi ambassadors. We were out here living in a chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, chocolate chip world for a long time. Long time, we were.

[00:43:36] Jason: Yeah.

[00:43:37] Caroline: And then what happened was everyone said, okay, we've done that for how many decades? And then you see, like, the Jenny's ice creams of the world come along, and they're like, I'm gonna do creme brulee, banana nut. Dah, dah, dah.

[00:43:51] Jason: Yeah.

[00:43:51] Caroline: It's like the nuanced flavors, and it goes crazy because people are like, I've never tasted anything like this before. Like, I want to know what that tastes like. I want to know what a, you know, pistachio and fig ice cream tastes like. You have to think of yourself. We are in the era of the Jenny's ice cream of branding, not the, you know, flavors. Yeah. We are not in the Breyers era. We are in the Jenny's ice cream era of, you have to find out what your very nuanced flavor is and confidently show up as that person. And I know that's hard to do, but it is the task before you is to embrace being yourself. I know the word authenticity is overused, but, like, that's really what people are asking for, and that's what it requires to cut through the clutter in such a noisy world.

[00:44:37] Jason: Yeah. All right. Those are seven things that we have kind of shifted and observed in the past seven years. I think the big just metaphor that has been working for me in my own brain is like, the tide has shifted in the business world, in life, and whatever, and you can either try and fight that current and you can just, like, wear your arms out and you're going to drown eventually because it's just not going to work. It's a little dark, but you get it. Your business is going to drown. Or you can just... You can, you can just turn toward the current a little bit and you can accept whatever that means for you and what you're willing to do and be a part of that. And I think that really just means, like, showing up on social and, like, the type of content you create and, like, how you're putting yourself out there. But it's like, what do you, what do you want more? Do you want more to have a business that is thriving and successful and brings you money and peace and, like, affords you the life that you want? Or do you want to hold true to your principles that you believe blogs and websites are still the way to do things? And, like, I'm never going to use AI. Listen, I understand why people don't use AI, but I just think there is a bit of this that you, you can't fight. You can fight the bad parts of it, obviously.

[00:45:42] Caroline: Obviously, you should.

[00:45:43] Jason: Use the parts of it that are helpful for you and that can move your business forward in a 2025 era, because everything is different than it was seven years ago.

[00:45:52] Caroline: And I just think there's so much room in the gray of everything, which is like, yes, like, just what you said. Like, yes, of course, hold tight to your principles in the way that you want to run your business. And it doesn't mean that you have to go along with every trend that pops up with... You don't have to fight or you don't have to accept the current and just let it drag you around. You can still hold tight to certain things that you're not willing to compromise on. It just means having a pragmatic and practical mindset about witnessing when the tide changes around you and, like, not being delusional about, you know, holding so tight to the black and white of the things that you said you would never do or that, you know, like Jason said, I'm gonna only run my business on blogging. If you wanna do that, more power to you. But I do think there's a pragmatic element of this, which is if it's not working for you, if you see the numbers going down, if you're not reaching your enough number, maybe it's time to roll with the tide a little bit.

[00:46:50] Jason: Yeah. All right. We hope this episode was helpful for you.

[00:46:54] Caroline: We enjoy talking about this stuff. I mean, hopefully it's relatable that we're only going to be in a world that is changing faster and always from here on out. And so I hope that this podcast can be a place where you can at least go, oh, I've been thinking about some of these things, too. Or I've been feeling this way, too. And I wonder how the Zooks are kind of navigating this. And that's what we're here to share with you.

[00:47:18] Jason: Yeah. All right, we'll see you in the next episode.

[00:47:21] Caroline: Thanks for listening.

[00:47:22] Jason: Bye.