#293: 12 Ways To Stand Out In 2026

Jay Clouse [00:00:14]:
Hello, my friend. Welcome back to another episode of Creator Science. It's just me and you today, just me on the mics doing a little solo episode. I wanted to hop on and share where I think some of the opportunities lie in 2026. I think it's undeniable that the world is changing faster than ever before, that things feel extremely uncertain. And what does that mean for creators like you and I? What does that mean for our businesses, our business model? Sometimes it feels like things just aren't working the way they used to. So where are those opportunities? I wanted to share some of the things that are on my mind as opportunities in 2026 to hopefully give you a nudge in the direction of what feels the most right to you. I have 12 of these, 12 ideas that I've come up with that I think are opportunities in 2026.

Jay Clouse [00:01:03]:
You don't have to go after all of them. I know I will not, but it's good to keep a running list of options, things that feel like there's opportunity there in a world where maybe opportunity feels a little scarce now that content feels so abundant. So 12 ideas starting with long-form writing. I'll get to all 12 of those after this quick break. Okay, idea number 1. I think there is opportunity in long-form writing today, which is not something that I would have expected if you would ask me in 2025, do I think long-form writing is becoming more or less valuable? I think it's becoming more valuable. Part of this is due to a surge that I'm seeing on X. Now, you know, Substack has been a good destination for long-form writing for a while now, and I think Substack is still a good destination for long-form writing.

Jay Clouse [00:01:59]:
I think your website, I think whatever newsletter tool you use is a good vehicle for long-form writing. But we're seeing renewed interest because of this recent competition that X ran where they're giving away $1 million for the most read article. It seems like as a platform they are pushing long-form writing, but what is encouraging to me is that there seems to be genuine hunger and interest in it on X as a platform. I think that's real. The numbers seem fairly inflated and a lot of the comment activity still seems kind of bot-y. You know, it looks like there's a bunch of bots commenting on it. But I think we're starting to see the pendulum swing in the opposite direction as people are realizing that short-form content, what performed well there, didn't necessarily nourish us a lot of times. And I think people are interested in going a little bit deeper, at least some people.

Jay Clouse [00:02:58]:
So I think there's opportunity in long-form writing, and that extends to bigger projects like books as well. It seems like the narrative is that readership is on the decline and book sales are down, but there's not actually a lot of data to support That is true. It seems like maybe there's a slight trend downwards in terms of long-form readership in the form of books, but not so different than we've seen in past decades. It seemed like there was a much sharper decline at the advent of the cell phone, but since the cell phone, the year-over-year decline hasn't changed much. So, you know, I'm reading more than ever before, and I think people are getting more interested in a more analog world, and I think that there's an opportunity for books to come back. What will that look like though in an AI world where research and writing is getting easier and easier? Will there be a boom in published books? Probably. If I were to guess, I would say probably. I don't know that traditional publishers are going to use this moment to become gatekeepers of non-AI-created materials.

Jay Clouse [00:04:07]:
I think they could, but anyone can self-publish that as well. So all this to say, I think in this moment there is more appetite for long-form writing, and if you want to indulge in it, I think this is a good time to do so on X, on Substack, in your newsletter generally. And if you're pulled towards doing a book project, I would encourage you to try it. I'm really enjoying the process, as, uh, long and slow and painful as it is. The people in the book world really care about the quality of the craft and the writing. And I find that to be very, very refreshing as a creator and an artist right now. So number 1, long-form writing. I think there's opportunity there.

Jay Clouse [00:04:46]:
Number 2, demonstrations. I'm finding that of the long-form content I am still personally consuming and not simply asking Gemini to summarize the video or the podcast. There are two categories of long-form video and podcasting that I really like. Number one being demonstrations. This really needs to be video, and this is idea number two. Sorry for confusing all the numbers. This is idea number two, demonstrations. This is one of the forms of long-form video I am still consuming at its own pace without trying to compress it through summaries.

Jay Clouse [00:05:23]:
And the reason being We like to see how other people do things. It's magical that I can ask AI how to explain how to do just about anything and it gives me a step-by-step, but there will always be other human beings that I hold in some level of esteem and admiration. And I'm saying, I am directing my life to be more like this person. I want to work towards having their lifestyle, their career success, And if I'm trying to chart my course towards that person, I'm going to be uniquely interested in seeing how exactly they do certain things. And so an over-my-shoulder, behind-the-scenes, watch-me-do-this kind of demonstration, I think is really good content right now. I'm seeing a lot of it in the AI space. Of course, I'm seeing a lot of content of all kinds in the AI space, but watching people use these new tools helps to kind of turn on a light bulb and give you some ideas for how to use it yourself. So I think this show, don't tell style of demonstration content is a big opportunity in 2026, which is kind of interesting because it's almost like a return to tutorials, an early style of YouTube content.

Jay Clouse [00:06:37]:
But I think it's interesting. I think for an interview podcast like mine, demonstrations is going to be something that I'm going to try more of this year on the channel. Idea number 3: verifiable human experiences. I took a pause in watching the Olympics today and am recording this podcast episode before watching the Super Bowl tonight, and I've really enjoyed both those experiences. Why? Because those are verifiable human experiences. These are people doing things that are hard, that is stretching them, people at the top of their game, and you don't know what the outcome is going to be. AI can't generate that, at least not exactly. You know, like they could simulate it, but the level of attachment we feel to teams or our country— that's hard these days— but the way we feel attached to a team that we identify with or a person we identify with, watching them struggle and succeed and sometimes not succeed, That is really, really interesting.

Jay Clouse [00:07:40]:
I don't exactly know the straight line to draw between what we do as creators and what we see in the world of sports, because what we're seeing in the world of sports is that there is so much demand for that content. If you look at the deals that are being done for streaming services and cable networks around live sports, it's bananas because this is the thing that routinely brings in appointment viewing to these services because people want to see other people have a human experience that they know is real and unique and there are stakes and there are people who have trained for this. I don't know what that looks like for creators, but I do know that there's an appetite for it. And if you can figure that out, you'll be successful. Idea number 4 is online community. This isn't going to seem new or surprising to you. But listen, the world is crazy right now. I think everyone can agree that everything in the world feels heightened, and a lot of people are having a really hard time.

Jay Clouse [00:08:44]:
As an empathetic person, as a sensitive boy, I have a hard time seeing so many people have a hard time. And the only thing that has kept me going and moving forward is that I have people around me offline and online that I feel like I can lean on, I can talk to, I can commiserate with, I can relate to. I think it's really, really important. And aside from just the, the political climate here in the United States and abroad, I am really worried for what AI is going to do to jobs. Just in 2 weeks of playing with what's possible in AI today with ClaudeBot or whatever agentic tool you're using, I'm worried about people's jobs. I really am. And I don't think we're doing anything to look forward and say, what are we going to do when layoffs go beyond big tech and into smaller tech and small businesses? I'm really worried about it, and I think it's going to be more important than ever that people have community around them to catch them and support them and keep them going. I think it's really, really important.

Jay Clouse [00:10:08]:
So no matter who your people are, I have a sense they need community in their lives, and if that does not exist for people offline, then online is the next best option, if there's not an online space where your people tend to gather and hang out and support each other, that could be an opportunity. And I think in 2026 and 2027, we're going to see more of a bridge between online communities and offline communities going both directions. I'll talk more about that here in a second, but I don't think we're going to feel a huge chasm between online and offline communities. I think the best online communities will have offline components. And I think the best offline communities will have online components. It's really about can you attract and sustain a group of people who need each other. The hardest thing about this, by the way, isn't just that you need to have a community mind or have someone on your team that can kind of manage this. It's that even in the best communities, there will be conflict.

Jay Clouse [00:11:10]:
There inevitably will be conflict. And As a community creator, you have to be the mediator, and it's the worst part of the job. Nobody likes doing it. It's my least favorite thing when I have to send somebody a message in the lab and say, hey, this is against our code of conduct, or I heard this. It's just the worst, but it's important. You have to do it. And because it's hard and because it is uncomfortable and because most people won't do it, that's why there's still opportunity in creating community online. Education is changing.

Jay Clouse [00:11:40]:
I don't think that self-paced courses as we've known them will hold the same value or be as core to your business model as it may have been in the past in a couple of years. You know, there's a lagging indicator here. There's a lagging time period. But I do think that the way we learn will be hyper-personalized responses from some sort of AI-powered tool. To our specific situation, you know, step by step, here's how you should do it based on your context. And also we will continue to learn from people, people that we believe have done the thing we wanted to do, whose advice and perspective we trust. And that will likely happen either in one-on-one conversations if you know that person or within communities if you don't know those people and you need a way of reaching them. So I think online community continues to be a big opportunity.

Jay Clouse [00:12:33]:
And if you're well suited for it, it's a rare skillset that people really value. And, um, I would encourage you to explore it. Idea number 5 is live learning. This is kind of similar to what I was saying about online communities, but because I don't think self-paced courses will have the same, uh, value that they used to, I do think people will still value learning in a group setting. We've been doing it forever. You know, there was this hype around cohort-based courses a few years ago, which is hilarious to me because literally learning in groups with a teacher in the front, that's just education. That's the way we've done things for forever. Doing it online really isn't that different.

Jay Clouse [00:13:12]:
But the great thing about live learning is not only are you getting the instruction, but you get bespoke personalized support at times from the, the instructor or the people around you. A good live learning experience will bake in opportunities for you to do the work within it. So there's like this accountability mechanism to kind of force forward progress. And there's the community aspect to it. Anybody who is joining the same live learning experiences probably have something in common. And by hosting that live learning experience, you are now the hub that has created new relationships between people, and that's really, really positive. So live learning is great. It tends to be valued more highly than self-paced learning, so the price points are typically higher, the price sensitivity is typically a little bit lower, and it's a good way for you to kind of kickstart the community building that you may be considering doing.

Jay Clouse [00:14:12]:
Now there's a big caveat to that, which is— I'll keep this short— If you are doing cohorts, if you're doing live learning in a cohort setting, and at the end people are going to want to continue the community in some way, do not just have some free, always open community experience in the back end that now you are promising to sustain forever, because that is not a sustainable model. It ends up being something that the more successful your cohorts are, the more people you have in the community, the more expensive and time-consuming it is to maintain that free community that you're no longer being compensated for. The incentives aren't super aligned for you to make that a good experience, and it can kind of sour the positive experience of the live learning if the back end isn't better. So I really am a huge proponent of a two-offer system where you have live learning on the front end and then a membership on the back end for people who want to continue. But That is for another episode to dive into that more. We've got idea number 6 here and then we'll take a quick break. Idea number 6 is local media and community. For the last few years, I've seen more and more local newsletters pop up, but I think there's still a ton of opportunity there.

Jay Clouse [00:15:29]:
I mean, depending on where you live, if you're not in a major, major metro where there's already a bunch of this, there tends to be such an appetite. For people to be tapped into what is happening around them locally. It's a great way for you to become one of the central characters in your community, but also provide a huge community service of connecting people in the community to businesses and events and causes and interesting things happening. It's difficult to get the infrastructure up and running of printing and distributing physical newspapers in your hometown. Maybe you've had a newspaper in your hometown that went out of business. But doing it digitally with a newsletter, super easy to do. I've seen people pair their local newsletter with a local Instagram account. And I think both of these things have a huge opportunity for a membership component, let alone the advertising component to it.

Jay Clouse [00:16:28]:
I think that as things feel more crazy and we're sucked into national news all the time, providing people a positive community experience in person with their neighbors is really, really powerful and really appreciated and really important, honestly. Connecting people to their neighbors, to their community, giving them a sense of belonging and joy and getting out of like the big giant national issues or wherever you live, the larger region, getting out of that and just remembering that, okay, here in our community, this is what our life is like and what we value and how I connect to these people around me. All that is so important. And I think as the world became more globalized, people started spending less time in their local communities and investing there less. And so being a local media entrepreneur and community builder, I think there's opportunity there and it's probably going to be opportunity that you can capture quickly with very little competition, which is great. After a quick break, I have 6 more ideas for you. They get actually weirder and weirder as we go. So stick around.

Jay Clouse [00:17:47]:
We'll be right back. Idea number 7. I call this AI for normies. I don't know what your specific niche is., but I do know that there's some AI application for it. The more narrow and specific and weird your space is, probably the greater the opportunity that there's not already somebody doing an AI for this type of person content. And look, I don't wanna encourage you to make your entire business AI content. I think a lot of people are pivoting all of their content into AI. But if your audience has an opportunity to leverage some of these new tools in a way that saves them money, saves them time, makes them money, that is something that's going to be hugely appreciated.

Jay Clouse [00:18:37]:
And honestly, there's a lot of tailwinds for anything AI right now. So if you are somebody who, you know, your audience is not being taught how to use AI and you know exactly how they could use it to improve their lives, there's still opportunity there. As much as it seems like everybody is doing that, there's still opportunity there for sure. Even just seeing how many people are setting up services businesses right now to help people get ClaudeBot up and running, it's wild. But I think more important is I know a lot of people listen to this show and they have a very particular audience and they help that audience do a very particular thing. And my guess is a lot of you probably haven't seen people in your niche saying, here's how to use this specific AI tool to help you do this very real specific thing. If you can actually close the gap between a problem these people have or time they're spending to save them time, save them money, that is a huge service you're doing for them. I think there's still a lot of opportunity there to basically do tailored AI content for whatever your, your niche space is.

Jay Clouse [00:19:41]:
Idea number 8, effortful art, and really effortful anything, because the pendulum is swinging in the direction of, hey, AI can save you a ton of time doing this, watching people choose to spend an inordinate amount of time doing something is really engaging, really interesting, because it just feels like a clearly counter and specific decision to do that thing. Sometimes we see it in comedy, sometimes we see it in art. I think anything you do, you could ask yourself, what is the far end of what effort can do here. Where can I exert more effort than anyone else and see what the result is? I just watched, uh, actually someone in the lab sent me a video of someone who crafted out of wood. They made it look like a jacket and a hat hanging on a wall like a peg, but it was all a wooden sculpture. That is effortful art. I watched a comedy video where these guys, over the course of a very long period of time, just shrank their mailbox a small amount day after day to see how long until the mailman noticed, and would he continue to deliver mail into a smaller mailbox. That's comedy, but that's effortful.

Jay Clouse [00:20:57]:
You know, it's a long time period. It took a lot of planning. It took a lot of patience in the actual filming and delivery of that idea until they got the gratification of, okay, and now I post it and see what people think. The longer you spend making something, especially if it's verifiable that you've put a lot of time and effort into it, the more unique that is. And that's something that I think is an opportunity now that everyone's trying to compress the effort required into the smallest possible dose. Idea number 9: being unapologetically yourself. I think we need weirder people. When I look at YouTube or X, I mean, it's been a thing on YouTube for a long time that people will basically say, find an idea that's already worked and then put your spin on it, which is good advice if you're trying to de-risk whether a video performs and get a lot of views.

Jay Clouse [00:21:54]:
I get it. It's happening on X now also because the For You page has become such a dominant feature of X that if you look at what's already trending on the For You page, you can just make your own version of it. But unlike YouTube, there's far less time spent in production, in filming and planning and post-production. So the rate at which copycat content can spring up on X is so fast. But we see it on every platform. If something does well, people say, okay, let me do my version of that. But it creates a lot of sameness. And as I've tried to push myself to do that at times, it just makes me kind of resent the work.

Jay Clouse [00:22:37]:
And it feels— even if I'm trying to put my spin on something, it doesn't feel fully me. And I think this is a time that you can just be unapologetically yourself, be uniquely you, and it will be harder for people to copy that. I can't guarantee that that will perform really well, especially in the immediate term, but I do think that is what actually creates real memorability and affinity and a higher ceiling on what you're able to do. I think you've just got to be more yourself. Originally, I called this idea number, number 9 here, be weirder, or like be really weird, because we just need more unique voices. We don't need the 20th person saying, here are 10 side hustles you can start this year. We need more people saying, hey, look at this really obscure instrument that I found at a yard sale and learned how to play, and I'm just doing it because it's fun. Or I don't know, whatever you're intrinsically pulled towards, I think you should lean more into that.

Jay Clouse [00:23:46]:
This is something that I'm going to experiment more with myself this year as well. One of my current resolutions is that I want to spend more time writing, and I don't want to feel constrained by the container that is Creator Science. So that writing will live on my Substack publication at j.blog. It will live on a new Instagram account that I created called Jay's Writing. Because I just wanna get outside of that. I want to create things that feel intrinsically me without having to be through the lens of the business. And that's actually where I'm feeling really excited and really lit up right now. And I think leaning into it more and more is a big opportunity over time.

Jay Clouse [00:24:29]:
Idea number 10 is doing the unscalable. As we've moved more and more towards the direction of automation, people think about scalable design and decisions and how you can do something without any incremental cost, which is fine. But I think we are getting to a less and less human world. And I think there's now magic to be made in doing things that are inherently unscalable. Instead of just sending a welcome or post-purchase email, What if you literally called your customers again? We don't do this enough. What if we literally called to check in on our customers, even if they're customers of an info product or a resource or a template or your membership? What if you just sent them messages to check in? Just them. Not something that you created and used a merge field to make seem personalized, but what if you just personally reached out to 5 of your customers a day? You know, what if you did more of the unscalable? I'm thinking about this in the lab where one of my biggest goals for this year is to reinstate a new and better one-to-one introduction mechanism into the community. We used to use a third-party tool for this.

Jay Clouse [00:25:47]:
That tool died. There are other third-party tools. There are ways that I can automate this. But what if I just didn't automate it? What if I just made it a task on my list that every week I sent 5 one-to-one introductions between members of the lab? And after that, what if I sent 5 of them a voice note that was just them? I should do more of that, and I think you should too. I think doing things that just show that you care and you're thinking about people and you're not trying to just squeeze every ounce of blood from the stone, I think it stands out. I really do. I really feel like we've flung too far in the optimization absolute utilization and, you know, trying to wring everything out of our customers that we can. I think we've gone too far.

Jay Clouse [00:26:38]:
I think there's opportunity to be proactive in going in the opposite direction, making better products, charging fairer prices, reaching out more personally, doing things that don't scale, I think is an opportunity in 2026. Two more ideas for you here. Number 11 is fewer moves, bolder strokes. If there's one thing I'm frustrated by in my business right now, it's that we are too sprawled across different platforms, different mediums, different priorities. We're trying to do too much. And as time goes on and competition increases on every social platform, I don't think we can compete on all the platforms across all the, the mediums and products we're trying to do I think it gets harder and harder unless we are hiring and resourcing for it. And so I'm really feeling pulled to make difficult decisions to pull back and do fewer things. I think I heard this articulated by James Clear at one point after he had some kids, where he said he has a mindset of making fewer moves but bolder strokes when he does it.

Jay Clouse [00:27:45]:
And that really resonates with me because I think in a hyper-competitive world That's more important than ever. So I'm really thinking about how do we in our business strategically decide what we will no longer do. One thing that was easy was I deleted TikTok because I don't trust our government. So there's one fewer platform that I don't have to hang out on or even try to hang out on. But I think there's a lot more I can do in this direction. I have been posting less on YouTube, as you've probably seen. Part of that is because that's the most time and resource intensive platform that we are on with extremely uncertain returns. The ceiling is very high, but it's also not where I love to create content the most.

Jay Clouse [00:28:30]:
I have actually been enjoying this podcast a lot more that I've gone back to just audio only for the last several episodes. It feels more naturally me. It feels easier. And in so doing, I think the episodes have gotten a little bit better over the last couple of months. And I want to see where that energy continues to take me. By not doing other things, it gives me more space to do the things that I really want to do well. And the same is true for you. I think it's really, really important to give yourself the permission to not do things that you don't love doing or that you don't want to get better at.

Jay Clouse [00:29:07]:
I think we'd all be better served doing our best work in the mediums and the formats and the containers that we most enjoy, and being okay with not being other places. Idea number 12 here, last one and I'll let you go. I call this being a good hang. You've probably heard of Amy Poehler's podcast Good Hang. I think this is actually a great example. I love listening to that podcast because it does feel like I'm just hanging out with these people. I don't want to speed that up to 2x or ask Google to summarize those interviews because I'm not trying to just extract the most amount of knowledge in the shortest amount of time. I'm actually trying to just enjoy the experience of being with those two people, as parasocial as it is.

Jay Clouse [00:29:57]:
I have a friend of mine who has a podcast back in our hometown. These are long episodes. And his retention on those episodes are great, better than the retention that I have in this podcast that I've been doing for years. And what is that about? It's fundamentally a different type of show and it appeals to a different type of person. And I really do believe that for a lot of podcasts that are successful, especially longer shows and especially more on the entertainment side than the education side, those shows are successful because people just want to hang out with the people on that show, whether it's a host or co-host or there are guests involved. The experience of listening can be comforting, especially if you don't have the community that we were talking about earlier. Sometimes you actually spend more time with your favorite podcast hosts than you do some of your best friends. I know that's true for me.

Jay Clouse [00:30:51]:
I know that I spend more time listening to some of my favorite podcasts than I spend on the phone with some of my best friends, which is crazy. But these people become important parts of our lives. And so as I create content and as you create content as well, I think it's important to think about the experience as a whole. Are you creating an experience that is just enjoyable to be a part of? Do I enjoy the time I spend with you? Are you a good hang or are you just commodity information that I'm trying to extract as quickly as possible? I think we want to be in the former category. I think we want to be somebody that people just enjoy the experience of hanging out with. We want to be somebody who people click play on our podcast episode, not because the title was hooky, not because they recognize the name of the guest, but because it's Tuesday and we want to hang out with you. You know, I think that's where you want to be as a creator, and that gets easier when you're unapologetically yourself. It gets easier when you're doing effortful things and spending your time doing stuff you truly care about and not trying to be spread across all of these different platforms.

Jay Clouse [00:32:03]:
You know, a lot of these things play together, but I think it's really important to think about how do we differentiate from commodity information if we're coming at this from an educator, teacher, information background, as a lot of us are. And I think being a good hang is more important than it's ever been. So those are my 12 ideas for you. I will quickly recap them. Number 1, long-form writing. Number 2, demonstrations. Number 3, verifiable human experiences. Number 4, online community.

Jay Clouse [00:32:39]:
Number 5, live learning. Number 6, local media and community. AI for Normies. Effortful Art. Being Unapologetically Yourself. Doing the Unscalable. Fewer Moves, Bolder Strokes. Being a Good Hang.

Jay Clouse [00:33:00]:
If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving a rating or review on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. We're trying to get to 500 on Apple Podcasts, trying to get to 300 on Spotify. If you're on Spotify, leave a comment. I absolutely love comments on Spotify. It's such a cool feature. Every time I get one, I see it immediately. It's a push notification. I love reading it.

Jay Clouse [00:33:18]:
I love responding. All those reviews go a long way to helping us grow the show. If you want to hang out with me more, join me in the lab. Go to creatorscience.com/lab to learn more. Links to everything mentioned is in the show notes. Thank you for listening, and I'll talk to you next week.<iframe data-testid="embed-iframe" style="border-radius:12px" src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/episode/4hrONVS9QOvec9DTw20NYm?utm_source=generator" width="100%" height="352" frameBorder="0" allowfullscreen="" allow="autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; fullscreen; picture-in-picture" loading="lazy"></iframe>