How Brian Casel Used 20 Years of Experience to Build an AI-First Company

Speaker A: Are you ready to jumpstart your next big idea? Then?

Speaker B: Welcome to the Niche Pursuits podcast.

Speaker A: It's all about helping you find your niche, getting the motivation and strategies you need, and growing your ideas into something real. You're kind of the perfect person to interview just in terms of your backstory, what you're doing.

Speaker B: Right now, I'm running a business called Builder Methods. I'm teaching folks how to build with AI.

Speaker A: You have a couple of videos that have just hit really big. Anything that you learned from those videos, specifically as it compares to the 100 plus videos you've made?

Speaker B: I had one video back in March that just went crazy that was on the topic of openclaw. I've had several other videos that got into like the 50, 60k view range.

Speaker A: YouTube really only the starting point for you and your business from, from what I understand.

Speaker B: And there's a few different revenue channels, but there's the main one, the core of the business is the, uh, the membership, which is called Builder Methods Pro.

Speaker A: What's been your experience of getting people off of YouTube into an email setup or anything like that?

Speaker B: For a while, I was just promoting the newsletter signup very early on, like within the first 30 seconds of every video. Lately I've been pushing that to like the middle of the video, maybe even closer to the end, um, after I've delivered some value.

Speaker A: What have you learned from a high level where some interesting insight Learned about growing YouTube.

Speaker B: What's most interesting to me about YouTube is that like,

Speaker A: All right, welcome back to the Niche Pursuits Podcast. My name is Jared Bauman. Today I'm joined by Brian Castle with buildermethods.com, brian. Welcome aboard.

Speaker B: Hey, Jared. Yeah, thanks for having me.

Speaker A: It's good to have you. Uh, I was telling you before we hit record, you're kind of the perfect person to interview just in terms of your backstory, what you're doing right now. Going to touch on so many of the different things that I think people are really interested in learning about. But maybe before we get going into the nuts and bolts of the interview, as we like to do here, maybe give us some backstory like I teased at, tell us a little bit about your history and your journey into what you're doing now.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. Um, so, you know, usually when I answer that question, I kind of like to work backwards. So, uh, you know, today I'm based here in Connecticut with my family, and I'm running a business called Builder Methods, uh, where, uh, I'm teaching folks how to build with AI, uh, and that there's, there's a pretty wide range there. You know, I speak to business owners who've never really coded before and they're learning how to use you know, AI tools like cloud code and others to build their own internal tools or build startups. Um, also getting into using agents and using and like deploying agents in your business. Also have quite a few like professional software developers in the community as well. So it's like training and community. Um, and you know I work with teams as well behind the scenes on like how, how their teams can adopt AI. So that, that's been the story at Builder Methods and I run a YouTube channel. Uh, it's like the primary, you know, primary way people, you know, find my stuff these days. Talking uh, to all things building with AI agents and, and all that. Been um, running that for about the past year. Um, last cut, last five, six years. I've also been running a SaaS which I still run today, uh, which is called Clarity Flow. It's like a ah, video audio text messaging app primarily aimed at coaches who do asynchronous coaching with their clients. Um, and I've uh, been doing that since 2021. Um, and then um, you know, going, starting to like go back in the, in the years there. Um, I used to do a lot of like training and uh, training around the idea of productized services and I ran a productized service, uh, I guess you could call it an agency. Um, this was around 2015 up until I sold it in 2020. Uh, that was a business called Audience Apps which was like um, content marketing, uh, as a service, as like a product. Like we did it mostly blog writing. Um, way before that I did like a SaaS built uh, on top of WordPress. Anyway, like going all the way back. I come from a background as a designer and a developer and a builder, primarily a designer, first turned uh, you know, bootstrapped entrepreneur which means I picked up all, all the marketing skills and the content skills and um, and eventually I kind of took on like the full stack building skills. And then of course when, when I came around in the last couple of years that, that changed everything.

Speaker A: So here we are with a perfect, perfect backstory. That's why you're a perfect fit for the podcast. Like that I think probably touches on so much of the things that people listening have their hands in, bouncing around doing a bunch of different things. Congrats on your sale and uh, uh, of your, of your business at one point. And um, I guess I'll ask like what Caused you to create what you're doing right now as it relates to you said you've been doing it for about a year. What was the impetus to you got a SaaS. I'm sure that takes a lot of your time, um, or could take more of your time if you wanted to give it more. So why pivot to some degree and focus on what you're doing right now with builder methods?

Speaker B: Um, see, so I guess going back to around, uh, 2024 time frame, um, I had been sort of working on my SaaS, uh, full time, focused on that and um, kind of the same story with a lot of bootstrapped SaaS where it gets to a certain level and it's sort of like slow, steady growth, but it's not like a crazy rocket ship m that you hear about on, um, wherever you hear about that kind of stuff. Um, so I started to look around like, well, maybe, maybe I should start to shift my focus into something else. Um, and I started getting the itch to build more stuff, uh, you know, build some new tools. I've always had kind of like the shiny object syndrome type of thing, um, especially as a builder who can design and build and market and talk to customers and all that. So, uh, started looking around and hacked around with bunch of tools and um, uh, kind of got a little bit, I would say, like burned out or frustrated with the idea of trying to find a new idea for a SaaS tool in the 2024, 25 era. Um, not only because of AI, but just in general bootstrapping and starting up a new SaaS tool and finding product market fit. It's more competitive than ever. Um, but the, the idea of building with AI and like that started to really change everything about how I literally built, like everything I do today is 100% different from what it looked like, like even 12, 18 months ago. Um, and that started become becoming really interesting to me as a topic, uh, like just personally in my own craft of building and designing tools and even how I use AI in my content and my writing and my creating anything. Um, uh, so that just became more and more interesting to me. I had Also, uh, about two years ago or so, I started to take YouTube pretty seriously in terms of like, let me try to get back on, like, growing my audience and my network. I had been podcasting for years and I still podcast today. But, um, YouTube and video was sort of a channel that I felt showed a lot of promise in terms of reaching, uh, many people. So I started doing YouTube videos on a, on A daily, on like a weekly basis about two years ago. But I wasn't really focused on AI yet. I was sort of just focused on like Ruby on Rails and, and some of the other little products I was hacking around on. And then around, um, like early mid-2025 I started making videos about AI, about how to, how I'm transitioning to AI, how I'm building with AI, started talking about spec driven development and things. And that stuff just started to really take off, obviously, which is what we're seeing on YouTube today. And um, started to really focus on that and then that became the signal that led me into, okay, this is like something that I can build on, having that connection with an audience. There's clearly a growing demand for information and community and training and staying ahead of the curve because we know that this stuff is changing so incredibly fast. Um, and I think I, uh, mean it's for me too, like I feel that same anxiety too. So I'm constantly learning. You know, even today I'm, I'm working with some new agent platforms just trying to learn and stay ahead of it, um, and just creating content that helps builders and business owners especially, uh, stay ahead of it. And then you know, it just became obvious that like, okay, this is where I see the most opportunity, especially for myself, given my own strengths and interests in the type of business that I was. You know, because I had been sort of hacking on SaaS products for the last 10, 12 years, before that, some productized services and agencies, but now where I'm at with my experience level and strengths and weaknesses when it comes to content or video or teaching, um, and building builder methods is sort of like the perfect fit for where I'm at right now. So here we are.

Speaker A: I don't want to put words in your mouth, so tell me if this isn't the case, but I've interviewed a lot of people over the years who developed an interest in something and started almost, sometimes accidentally, sometimes purposely kind of documenting their growing interest and growing knowledge and pursuit of knowledge in that category. And then before too long, just because of the right time, right place, because the topic was intriguing because so many other people were having the same interest and the same curiosity and the same desire to learn more about. Before long they kind of built a business out of it or the YouTube channel grew and then that turned into a business. Like how much of that is true? I mean, I watched one of your videos in preparation for today. You talked about being an AI skeptic and now obviously that's what your entire YouTube channel is about, I think you published that about six or seven months ago. How much of that is true? And I'm just really asking that to uh, to the listener right now who's listening and thinking. I have this thing I'm looking into and I'm just looking into it, I'm just curious about it, but it's all inside my own head, my own heart. And it seems like you've documented that and turned it almost into your next business.

Speaker B: That's a really good question. Um, I think it's definitely really helpful and a smart strategic move to lean into something that you are really genuinely interested in. And I, I hesitate to say like, you know, just build a business about something that you're passionate about because I, I don't necessarily think that that's always the wise choice. I mean I'm, I'm also a lifelong musician and I like that. But I'm not building a business around that. Um, but, um, but I will say that like for example my SaaS business, Clarity Flow, which is now it, it went through a few pivots early on but now it's focused on serving coaches like professional uh, coaches of all kinds, life coaches, business coaches and their clients. Um, I've done a lot of different marketing for that over the years. SEO a lot. There's a lot of like viral word of mouth stuff that happens with that. But I would not really be able to, to create a YouTube channel that speaks to that audience because I'm not really a coach. I've dabbled in coaching but I'm not like a lifelong or career long coach with, with an expertise and a, and a passion for that. Um, so I don't even really personally identify uh, so closely with the ideal customer, uh, Persona for that, which makes it really difficult for me to create personal brand, uh, type content like three for you know. But when it comes to something like builder methods and the content that I do in my channel now, that is me. Yeah, I'm every video. I can only make videos about things that I have something to say about and I have an opinion and I have something that I think is worth teaching and ah, some credibility and experience behind me to be able to share it with the viewer. Um, I will say though that I'm also at a point now where I don't really do anything by accident anymore. Um, if you're early on in your career and you're sort of just exploring your interests and exploring your craft and content, that can be a really uh, you can sort of get lucky and uh, start to see traction with something. But I'm not just like kind of throwing videos up there, you know, just because it's sort of fun and they're like, oh, oops. I just stumbled into a business. Like I put a lot of work. Even before the YouTube channel started hitting, I was still putting a lot of work into every single video. Trying to be strategic and writing scripts and um, editing and really just learning the craft of YouTube. As much as I'm learning about AI and building, uh, behind the scenes, I'm learning even more about what it means to be a YouTuber and I'm still learning and adapting and that's been a really fascinating process. But yeah, like I, you know, I'm, I wouldn't spend so much time on it if I didn't think that there's a potential to build something here and especially something that like, I'm ready to sink in the next couple of years, several years uh, of my time into. It's gotta be something that I'm interested in but also see some like, opportunity.

Speaker A: Let's talk about the business you've grown. I mean it's um, sounds like from what you said and from What I've seen, YouTube is the lead. YouTube is kind of uh, the top of the funnel approach or how you're getting in front of the most amount of people. You talked about some of the strategy that you, that you put into script writing and other areas. Like what have you learned from a high level. What are some interesting insights you've Learned about growing YouTube about uh, the process about what's working and what's not working, the types of things you've had success with, maybe some areas that you haven't succeeded in.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's uh, it's fascinating to me. Um, I'm still learning and I'm still even right now. Like this month I'm, I'm going through a whole process of rethinking my whole process again and trying to, trying to improve. What's most interesting to me about YouTube is that like there are so many levers that, that you can push on and improve. So with every single video there's, you can try to improve by a few percentage points in so many different areas. Whether, whether it's the ideation, like what topics you choose to make videos about, at what time, like the timing of the topics is crucial and then um, the framing and the hook and like how, how you're going to relate this to a person who might click on your thumbnail, uh, the script writing, the pacing, the um, the, the title and thumbnail, the packaging, um, all of it like it, it, it all plays into the success of a single video and it's still hit and miss. Um, but I'm, but I'm trying to work and analyze on like how can I improve that batting average so that I'm choosing better topics at the right time. Um, I, as I said I've done, I've done a lot of work with like pre production and scripting. So like a single video. A lot of my videos tend to be in the 15 to 20 minute range. Um, and uh, a 15, 20 minute video for me has taken days, multiple days of full, you know, full time hours of planning and writing and recording and then sending it off to my editor and having it edited and published. Um, so a lot of my work lately has been like, how can I cut that down? How can I streamline that? I am using a lot of AI in my process all the way through from ideation to scripting and everything. But still it's still a lot of time. So uh, so like this month I'm building some internal apps, I'm using agents to, to try to streamline that whole process. Um, and, and like also like some new strategies around like how I come up with new topics and what's the next topic I'm going to cover. So it's just really fun. Always uh, always learning and trying to adapt, you know.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's fascinating to see. I mean the people who take YouTube really seriously put a lot more effort in than I think maybe people realize. And I've interviewed people on here that are very successful on YouTube and to a T they all say like it's not just get up, record your thoughts, edit it a little bit, think of the best title you can think of in five minutes and move on.

Speaker B: Um, I mean it seems that way like when you watch.

Speaker A: It does seem that way. That's the thing, the good ones make it seem that way.

Speaker B: Yeah, it seems like that way by design but it takes a lot of work even if you're good at reading. And a lot of my stuff is scripted off of a teleprompter. And even then like every line I say like five times like for the, the one that we keep, you know. Um, so yeah, um, beyond YouTube and

Speaker A: I think this is where ah, it gets interesting. Not that YouTube isn't interesting, but YouTube's really only the starting point for you and your business from what I understand. And um, talk about what you do beyond the YouTube video, um, as it relates to your business, as it relates to getting people to take more action than just watch more videos. Like, what's the process? What's the. I'll use air quotes. What's the funnel like that you've created? And again, where have you kind of tweaked that, seen success over the years? This is the type of stuff everyone listening is really, you know, really wanting to sink their teeth into.

Speaker B: Yeah, sure. So, um, and I've done so many businesses before Builder Methods. So like, not only SaaS, I've done productized services, I've done other info products and trainings. I've done plugins, I've done. I've done a lot of different stuff. Um, so it's been fun to experiment and learn, uh, and different pricing strategies. What I really like about Builder Methods, at least right now, is that it essentially has. There's a few different revenue channels, but there's the, the main one, the core of the business is the membership, which is called Builder Methods Pro. Uh, it's an annual subscription. Um, you know, we're still within the first year, so it's like sort of lower price than what it will be, uh, later this year. But, um, basically that subscription gives you access to a growing library of courses, uh, and training videos. So as of this recording, there's like over 100 videos in there, broken out into several courses on, you know, building, uh, with AI, building with cloud code, learning how to build even if you don't have development experience, setting, uh, up agents like OpenClaw and Hermes and that kind of stuff in your business. Um, growing library of that kind of stuff. And then there's the community. You know, hundreds of other builders in there sharing notes. I do some live sessions with the community. So that's what you get with, with the annual membership. Um, and uh, prime, that's like primarily like, like every. Everything that I'm releasing. Um, new courses, new. I, uh, mean I also release a lot of like, free, uh, tools. But like any kind of support for that, that kind of stuff goes into the membership. Um, so there's not really a lot of like, tiers to choose from. I might introduce tiers later on, but that's, that's where that's at. Um, behind the scenes, sometimes I work with companies, uh, and teams who, who bring me in to do like a private workshop for their team on how to leverage AI and set up agents. Um, and I've done a little bit of brand partnerships on the YouTube channel, but that's been much More selective and, uh, off and on lately. But, um, yeah, the primary thing is Builder Methods pro at this point. And I mean, I also do a free newsletter. So a lot of my YouTube videos point folks into the newsletter and, uh, that's how you hear about my stuff.

Speaker A: Okay, I want to ask you a little bit more about that really quickly. I just want to jump in with our sponsor for the day, Quiet Light. Um, just mention them and then we'll get into a couple of the. More the other questions. Um, if you're curious, speaking about businesses, I mean, Brian's had a lot of businesses over the years. If you're curious about what your business might be worth, uh, might sell for. If you're just trying to understand your options, maybe thinking down the road, um, Quiet Light is a great place to go. I've talked about them before in the podcast. What stands out about them is a couple things. Number one, they're advisors or actual operators. So you're not really getting a broker. Not that that's bad. But Quiet Light, these are people who've been in the process themselves, whether it's building or buying or selling. And so you get that one point of contact from the point you get the valuation all the way through to closing. And so it makes it a lot more personal, makes it a lot less chaotic. Um, you also, uh, get to take advantage of the fact that they carefully vet their businesses and their buyers. So you're not just enrolling your business on some marketplace. You're going to get, um, kind of a buyer, uh, value a valuation that meets with another buyer. So these are a couple of things that make them stand out. You can get, uh, your confidential valuation@quietlight.com. uh, it's a free valuation. Just go to quietlight.com and you can get that. Um, Brian, back to what we were talking about. You talk about YouTube to the free newsletter. Um, how does that pivot work for you? A lot of people have talked in the past about how getting people off of YouTube is difficult. Uh, YouTube wants to reward people staying on YouTube. Um, at the same time, if they just stay in the YouTube funnel, they never really get to a place where it's, uh, a little bit more convenient for you to kind of market to them or give them opportunities to taken advantage, take advantage of an opportunity. So what's been your experience of getting people off of YouTube into an email setup or anything like that?

Speaker B: Um, yeah, so I've, it's worked fairly well still. I, I, I've heard that like, you know, it's hard to kind of pull people off of YouTube onto an email list. Um, I have had consistent subscribers coming into the list and I do promote it on basically all of my videos. But lately I've, I've been actually experiment again like those leverage points. With YouTube there are so many different things that you could experiment with. For a while I was just promoting the YouTube, the newsletter. You know, sign up very early on, like within the first 30 seconds of every video I would cut into a, into a promotion for it. Um, lately I've been pushing that out to like the middle of the video, maybe even closer to like near the middle to the end, um, after I've delivered some value before I ask you to take some action. Um, and I sort of like that like, like where it's at right now in terms of its location in the video. Um, uh and you know part of the reason for that is that it's like a balance of like what's actually more important to me from a funnel standpoint. Is it getting people on to getting like a first time viewer onto the newsletter or is it getting that first time viewer to really dig my stuff on the, on the video so that they watch three more of my videos, subscribe to the channel and then, and I mean the, the level of trust that raises uh, and like kind of loyalty from someone who really trusts my voice and kind of vibes with how I explain things. That's worth a lot. And yeah they, a lot of times eventually they'll, they'll come into my newsletter or they'll just go and join Builder Methods Pro directly. That, that happens too. Um, but I mean there are other things that I do like I, I've done this off and on but I, I've, I've put on workshops like um, live workshops that are sometimes paid but like low ticket price. Um, I um, was doing more of that uh, late last year. I might bring that back at some point so that, that's another like low ticket price entry point, um, into my funnel. Uh, but it's like a step before kind of joining as a full member. Um so that's another thing. And yeah I'm still, I'm still like thinking about new ways to you know, create some like new like free trainings that I might release soon and stuff like that.

Speaker A: So how detailed, you know, once people get to your email list, how detailed is, is that process? How intricate is that? Um, uh, you know, how often are you sending emails? Do you have you know some, some market automation set up talking to an AI Guy, I've got to wonder, I've got to imagine you've got some pretty cool things maybe going on behind the scenes. There's. But um, once they make it over to email, like what's that process look like for you?

Speaker B: I used to be a lot more sophisticated with it. It's pretty simple at this point. I mean I do a lot like not live but like I actually write a ah, new broadcast newsletter about once a week. Um, but I do use AI in that process to help me. It helps me draft everything from YouTube scripts to my newsletter scripts. Um, but it's still me. Like it's still like my ideas uh, trained on my history and my interest in my voice and AI and Claude helped me to draft that stuff and I'll sort of finalize it and send it out. Um, so that, that's a real message about something that I'm actually interested or curious about this week. So it's a little bit more like sort of live notes if you will. Um, there is a little bit of automation so like if you're a new subscriber and you haven't joined Builder Methods Pro yet, you'll get a drip email sequenced out. Uh, that sort of um, I've got like a couple of like Pillar. It's, it's really mostly like my free tools. Like I've released some free building tools, open source, uh, frameworks to, to make the building process easier and uh, most of those dripped emails sort of like promote those and I'll insert a mention about Builder Methods Pro. It's, it's, it's pretty low. Uh, like it's, I'm not very salesy or pushy. I'm just like this is here whenever you're ready and you can join, you know, whenever you want. Um, I don't do any of these like timed launches or anything like that. Um, it's just again like I, right now I just really like the simplicity of. Yeah, uh, there's a lot of free content, a lot of free tools that you can find on my YouTube channel and my newsletter and uh, when you're ready to join the membership and the community and get access to all the courses, it's there whenever you're ready.

Speaker A: It's know how much have you learned about like your, your ideal customer, you know, your, your customer avatar, your isp, whatever you, whatever you want to call it these days, like how, how much have you learned about that as you've built this up and how important has that been or has it not been important at all. Has it just been something where hey, people come in the door, they have the interest and that's fine, or, or have you really learned about that and then kind of pivoted what you say, what you do, who you target, et cetera?

Speaker B: Yeah, super important. Uh, I've been talking a lot about this lately and thinking a lot about it. Um, by the way, I, I co host a podcast with, with two friends of mine called the panel, um, where we just talk like behind the scenes of our businesses, like what we're thinking about each week. So that, that's kind of fun. And I've been talking about this there.

Speaker A: So.

Speaker B: Yeah, and I, and I've also sort of recently shifted a little bit. Um, so the current design of builder methods.com is sort of new. There was a different version of it about a month or two ago. Um, same name and stuff, same product line. But when I started the business last year it was really speaking more to the professional developer who needs to get transitioned over to using things like claude code and using AI more in their already professional career as a software developer. Um, I still get quite a few people coming through and I get engineering teams and stuff coming through. Um, that I help. But I have more. In the last couple of months I've shifted more to speaking to like the business owner. A lot more people who are non technical, um, although you know, non technical people should give themselves a lot more credit because I think that there are a lot of like really experienced business operators, whether they're marketing or operations or like who are really systems. They have the systems mindset that you know, processes SOPs, hiring human teams and you know, scaling up businesses. That, that is, that can actually be a very technical systems skill set that you're building up. But these days you can take that systems mindset and apply it to building uh, custom built tools and using agents. And I mean if you're familiar with SOPs and processes then you're familiar with skills that you can plug into any agent. Um, it's the same thing. Um, and so that's really exciting to me as someone and I've always been a process, uh, person. So that's, that's really interesting. And these days you don't need to actually learn. And I've been a 20 year professional software designer developer. I don't write code anymore. And you don't actually need to learn how to write code anymore. I think you do need to learn how software tools are assembled and how the pieces talk to each other. Um, but the process of Learning how to build is a lot more accessible than it was even just a couple years ago. One of my courses goes, it's called Become the Builder. Uh, but it's pretty exciting now if you're a non technical person who wants to build like internal tools that can power your business, uh, there's a lot of opportunity there. I mean we were talking about YouTube a second ago and like I'm really fascinated with these large YouTube channels and behind the creator, you know, there's like a whole team of like writers and strategists, uh, and designers and um, you know, script writers and stuff like that. Um, I'm doing that just myself. I do have one human editor who works on the video editing side, but I'm building out a team of AI based agents that help with the ideation and the script writing and the creative. And that's been a pretty fascinating process.

Speaker A: It is interesting you do that connection. My friend's father runs a window washing business, a local window washing business. And uh, I was over at his house, I saw him, I've known him for a while. I was talking to him about it and he was just saying like, man, I don't know where to get started. I'm already 10 years behind anyways, you know, blah blah, blah. And I was kind of saying the same thing, like if you know how to manage a group of people and a group of people, you know, who go out and produce the same product every single time they go to a different business and wash the windows, house, wash the windows, corporate environment, like you could use something like very similar to skills and Claude coworkers. Um, it's the same thing. It's just you're actually, you probably have a head start compared to a lot of people who don't understand how a process and a system works, how it works in a business environment.

Speaker B: Totally. If you have any experience managing people and hiring people, even if just virtual assistants or whatever it might be, you've done this before, you've created processes, you've given somebody a job that they have to do on a recurring basis every day. And so that's like yeah, you could spin up like an open claw or a cloud and prompt it and talk to it. And that's kind of interesting for some, for some cases. But what I'm really, when it comes to agents, I really like to think about like what's the thing that I want to have running every night at 2 in the morning while I sleep and I, I show up in the morning and it just did some work and I can review it, you know, um, that's, that's always, I mean and like yesterday I had a call with a builder Methods pro member, older guy and he runs a dental practice in, in California. And I mean he's, he's just learning how to build custom internal tools for like the case management and the accounting and bookkeeping for his dental practice. You know, and it's like, yeah, you could buy some SaaS tool off the shelf, but it doesn't quite fit, it doesn't, it doesn't deal with their special case and you know, it's, it's a really interesting time right now.

Speaker A: I want to, we have a, we have some time. So I want to circle back and just ask you a couple more questions about YouTube that I didn't ask you because I didn't know if we'd have time. But I mean uh, just again looking over your YouTube channel before I reached out to you about coming on and whatnot, I mean you have a couple of videos that have just hit really big and I would say really big. Especially given that, you know, your target market is not, you know, watching the people watching cat videos on YouTube, right? Like it's a pretty smaller group of people and yet you've gotten videos to hit just sub of a million views. You've gotten some of these videos to really take off anything that you learned from those videos specifically as it compares to the hundred plus videos you've made. I'm always curious to ask you about that because some people are able to get a lot of insights from some things that go really big like that.

Speaker B: It's um, Yeah, I mean I had one video uh, back in March that just went crazy that was on the topic of openclaw. Um, I've had several other videos that covered like Claude code that got into like the 50, 60k view range. And in between those, I've, my, my videos have. If you look at all the videos on my channel, you'll see a pretty wide range, right? Like it, you know, the, the, the duds as I call them, like that. You know, I still do videos today that are like maybe 1 or 2 3k views in the first week or two. Um, um, it's a little bit, it, it can be kind of makes you a little bit crazy to, to think like, like, you know, because like there, there are definitely times when I think that I have just recorded a banger and this is gonna, this is gonna, and there have definitely been times when I'm like, I don't know this is, this is a weird topic. No one's going to connect with this. And then, and then the views go crazy like that. That definitely happens. Um, I guess looking back on it. And this is. I'm trying to take a lot of these learnings and how can I build them into a system that helps me choose the right ideas at the right time going forward so that I can increase that batting average? That's something that I'm thinking a lot about right now. Um, I mean, timing in, in this particular space, in, in the AI building, with AI space, timing is, is a big factor. Uh, so talking about new tools around the time when they are gaining popularity is just going to result in a lot of views. And I mean, that's basically what happened with my OpenClaw video. It wasn't one of the very first ones. It, I think I released that maybe about a month or 2 After Openclaw hit the world, but I think it was pretty close to the time that they got acquired by OpenAI. So like, there's some, some juice from it around that. Um, but you know, that stuff is, is very variable as well. I mean, I was doing a lot of videos late in 2025 about Claude Code and, and those. Every time I would include the word Claude code in the title, it was going to do well, but that wasn't the case, uh, just a few months later. So like now, um, it might be, it might do well, it might not. It just depends. Like there are these like short windows of time where just waves of interest and waves of demand are coming in and then they're sort of fading out. And if, and so that can be frustrating to me as someone who's like, like I'm trying not to be like a news channel. I'm trying not to constantly chase what is the hottest trend that just hap. Especially in my, in this space of AI stuff is dropping every single week. Um, and then there's a lot of pressure, like, okay, this new thing just dropped. Get a video out within 48 hours. I mean, to try to have a. And I'm crazy about quality and script writing and editing and I don't just throw up a loom every two hours. Um, so I'm actually more interested in how can I just be valuable and teach something that, um, that actually helps. Like, I think that, I mean, the other thing that, that I'm starting to learn now is that like, yes, videos that do well, views wise, help grow the channel and help the reach. Like there's, there's no doubt about that. But most of my videos, even when they have pretty low views, are still helping my business.

Speaker A: Um, and it's funny, you stole the question, right? Um, my next question was from a business standpoint, we know how valuable these viral videos are, but did you notice any tangible uptick in business from it in terms of, I mean, shelter, that kind of thing?

Speaker B: I mean the sheer volume of it. Like, yes, it had a positive impact, um, but even the low performing videos still have a positive impact. Um, and sometimes even better. Like they bring in higher qualified people into the funnel who are more engaged, they stick around longer, they tell, they talk about it more to their friends. And that's more interesting to me now. Um, and really like I go deep on like research. Like I'm trying to understand like exactly who is resonating the most and what do they need, what do they want to learn and how can I be the best teacher, both on the free content on YouTube and the courses that I'm releasing. Like, I'm about to do one on deploying agents in your business. And I'm constantly asking the question of like, what are you trying to build in your business? How can I, how can I teach this in a way that's actually useful? Um, that doesn't go out of date, you know, in two weeks when the next, when the next Hermes, uh, or Open Claw drops, you know. Um, so it's, yeah, it's a, it's, it's a, it's a funny game. But um, but yeah, it's also kind of, I mean I'm into it. I like the process of creating videos. I like teaching.

Speaker A: So yeah, what a time to be alive. In a good way and in a somewhat anxious or stressful way, trying to keep your business at the forefront. Um, probably about two more questions. Um, next question would be around this topic of content creation you talk about. I have a lot of courses and content available and then you have your YouTube channel. How do you determine what goes on your YouTube channel versus what goes into say a course or into your community or into your paid version of what you're offering?

Speaker B: Yeah, it's something that I'm still trying to wrestle with. Um, as I think through the next few courses, I, uh, mean I definitely go more in depth and more like step by step tutorial style inside the courses. Uh, which doesn't always make for the most interesting videos on YouTube. Um, if you compare my YouTube videos to the videos that are inside the membership, there's just much more produced on the YouTube side. Like there's a lot more script writing, a lot more editing, a lot more perfecting, making sure the pace is right. Because, like, the truth is on YouTube, like, yes, first and foremost, I'm there to teach and provide value. But the game is to make sure that a viewer who just clicked my thumbnail is going to want to stay and watch for at least most of the video. And that's the signal that YouTube is looking for to. To spread it to more ideal people who fit what I'm teaching. Um, on the. When I'm creating a video inside, they're already in the membership. And my goal here is just to make sure that I'm giving you the clearest, simplest roadmap to actually build or actually use the thing that I'm. That I'm showing. Um, and so that's sort of like the difference between, uh, and. There's some overlap, like, a lot of, like, the big concepts. And I like to kind of come up with frameworks that are simple to understand. You'll hear me talk about them on the YouTube channel. I'll talk about them again in the courses. But I'll probably unpack it more with, like, real projects that you can follow along and learn inside the courses.

Speaker A: Yeah, I want to ask you about AI. I mean, we've been talking about how you've grown your business, which is, uh, on the topic of how to integrate AI. Uh, but we haven't asked you about AI, so I want to at least make sure there's one question about that. I also don't want to date the podcast. We get a lot of people who come and listen, you know, in a month and two months and three months in a year, uh, talk about AI in terms of what are some examples of how you're building agents? Because you mentioned it. So I'm going to piggyback off what you said, like agents that are running at night. Give people an idea of some examples of that just to get their mind going. I know you got a lot of videos on this. I would encourage people to go check out Brian's YouTube channel. I've got one earmarked I'm going to watch later on today as I eat lunch, because the topic is super interesting. But, you know, so you talk a lot about this, but just to give people a little bit of a taste, like, what are some things you're using agents for that you set up with one of these AI platforms that anybody has access to.

Speaker B: Yeah, so I'm always a little like, I'll share whatever here. But, uh, I'm always hesitant to use examples from my business because most people are not YouTubers, you know, um, so the processes that I have them working on to help me in my YouTube channel are not going to be super relevant to the person who's just running like an accounting firm or something. Um, that being said, for, for me as a builder, like, I still spend most of my time actually building tools. Tools, um, that I use, uh, or free tools that other builders will use. So a lot of software work, I do break my AI usage into like two big buckets. There's, there's the bucket that helps me build and that's like, I don't even really think of that as agents. That's like me and primarily Claude code interfacing together at the same time. Today, let's build a tool or let's, let's work on, on deploying a tool in my business. And then there are the other big bucket are like agents who are running autonomously on a recurring schedule, typically running at night or sometimes they're running every hour. Um, they are doing recurring tasks, following skills, following processes that I, that I put in place. So on that kind of stuff for, for me, the, the recurring processes, um, are mostly around my content pipeline. So there is like ideation. I have agents who are watching feeds of, of other people and channels and industry stuff, but they are also consuming my own activity. So, uh, Transcripts from my YouTube videos, transcripts from my podcast, they're, they're seeing what I'm building in cloud code, they're seeing the logs from all that and they're analyzing that and pulling out like, oh, that's something that could be teachable. Or that's an interesting thing that you were designing this week. Maybe that can turn into a video. Agents are pitching ideas to me and I can look at them and say like, yeah, that's, that's good. Let's, let's greenlight that for development. Um, I come up with my own ideas a lot, most of the time as well. Uh, then I have agents who take a raw idea and develop the whole script. And that is multiple phases of like, okay, which ideal customer is this for? What's the hook? What's the draft? And then they're gonna, you know, what's the, what's the story arc that we're gonna write out here? Then I have a whole process for them to tighten up that script. Um, I've got other agents who help with um, all, ah, like the packaging, like titles and thumbnails and stuff like that. Um, I Still for now I still use a human editor uh, for my, for the video editing stuff outside of the YouTube. So I do have an agent process that helps with like monthly bookkeeping stuff. So there's every. Everyone has sort of a different process for this. Like you know, look at the bank statements and categorize all the expenses and do all the things. Like there's a process for that that I have an agent help out with. Um, uh, so I have free open source tools on GitHub which receive uh, like pull requests so people uh, making contributions or filing issues and stuff. I have agents who scan that stuff every day and either automatically merge or suggest merging their pull requests or automatically close them and thank them and say it's not a good fit. Right now they have criteria that I know what's a good pr, what's not a good PR to accept or merge and they help do that. Um, so stuff like that, um, uh, in my SaaS business and clarity Flow we have agents that help with some customer support stuff. Uh, and tracking. I've got agents that, that track feedback from my audience and analyze all the questions that come in and um, and, and sort of distill down like these are the top questions or these are the top trends that I'm seeing in uh, in your audience and that helps develop content. So yeah, always.

Speaker A: I know it sounds like you're like, well most of running a YouTube business so it won't be very applicable but just hearing you talk about it out loud so often jogs people's memory or prompt something. We're like oh, I haven't, I don't do YouTube for a living but I heard that idea. I can apply that to my business or I can go now and run with it. So great answer. Yeah, thank you. Just hearing people that are experts that are doing it at scale talk about it, it's oftentimes so helpful. Um, Brian, um, this has been awesome. Thank you for joining. Where can people go to follow along? You've got the YouTube channel. I will include that in the show Notes. Definitely give it a shout out though so people hear it um, uh, on uh, a live read. Anywhere else that people can go to learn more about what you're doing?

Speaker B: Yeah, so uh, I'm on YouTube. Uh, Ryan Cassel B R I A N C A S E L uh, the businesses@buildermethods.com I also co host with uh, two other friends Jordan Gall and Justin Jackson, we co host a podcast called the panel that's on YouTube. And uh, on your podcasts so, uh, every Friday we, uh, just get on and kind of shoot the shit and talk about our businesses. That's, that's been fun as well.

Speaker A: Well, that'll be good for people who like to listen to podcasts, who I'd assume probably are here because they're listening to, to this podcast.

Speaker B: There you go.

Speaker A: And, uh, and also just a big thank you to our sponsor, Quiet Light, for making this, uh, podcast possible. We, uh, talked a ton about business today as we do on this podcast every week. But, um, if you have a business, if you're wondering how much it's worth, if you're wondering what you need to do to grow it to a place where it's worth what you want, feeling stuck wanting a way out, whatever it is, you can go to Quiet Light and get a free valuation@quietlight.com. there's a couple reasons why they are a great resource. Number one, their team is comprised of people who have real firsthand buying, building, selling experience specifically to online businesses. For the record, um, so you're talking to people who understand what owners go through. They pair you up with one advisor, so you're working with one person the entire way through. It's not a marketplace. It's more of a curated business buy, sell arrangements. So you can get a free and confidential valuation@quiet light.com. again, that's quietlight.com. so big thanks to them. And Brian, big thanks to you. Good luck growing, uh, what you're doing. Um, it is a rapidly changing world that you're focusing on with AI and so I'm sure you'll have no shortage of content. Uh, but, uh, I'm excited for you and your YouTube channel and your business. So thanks for joining us.

Speaker B: Yeah, thanks, Jared. This was fun.

Speaker A: Good. We'll talk soon. Bye.

Speaker B: Bye there, Sam m.