Behind The Scenes
Take a look behind the curtain here at Creator Science.
Every essay
"You give better advice than you take."
The brutal honesty of my AI identifying my blind spots.
6 min read→Jan 4, 20262025 Year In Review
Inside one of my toughest (maybe most important?) years as a creator.
22 min read→Sep 7, 2025Slingshot Season
A peek into my plan to move forward by first stepping backward.
5 min read→Jan 4, 20252024 Year in Review
The good, the bad, and the honest.
22 min read→Apr 2, 2024Why I'm investing in IRL events
I've been thinking about events a lot. Technology has given us the (awesome) ability to reach people all over the world. But
4 min read→Apr 2, 2023Why I rebranded my podcast
This week, I crossed the finish line on a months-long effort to rename my podcast. My podcast (formerly named Creative Elements) is now
10 min read→Oct 16, 2022September Income Report – how I make and spend my money
Financial literacy is one of the most important aspects of being a professional creator. But, unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot of
14 min read→Sep 17, 2022Why (and how) I designed my community to stay small
I launched my membership community, The Lab, in March of this year. In just 6 months, it has: * gained 135 members * generated $96K * nearly
14 min read→Aug 21, 2022How would someone else run your creator business?
Inside The Lab this week, Cat Mulvihill shared a question that hit me like a ton of bricks. Here's what she said:
4 min read→Aug 7, 2022Behind the rebrand
Last week, I unveiled the new brand of my business and this newsletter. Previously known as Creative Companion, I made the transition to the
14 min read→Jul 17, 2022How I launched a YouTube channel
This was a pretty crazy week. This week we launched a brand new YouTube channel with the first-ever VIDEO episode of my podcast,
5 min read→Mar 18, 2022Introducing the Creative Companion Club
I'm coming up on five years since I started my creator journey. I started writing Creative Companion in January 2017 (though, by
5 min read→Episodes about Behind The Scenes
Everything We Learned From Our Second In-Person Event — The Good, The Bad, and The Full Economics
This week, my wife Mallory joins me for only her second podcast appearance ever to break down everything from The Lab Offline Powered by Circle — our second annual 2-day in-person retreat for Lab members, hosted June 8–9 at Hotel Renegade in Boise, Idaho.
Listen or watch→May 19, 2026Big 3: Three Wins, Three Concerns, and Three Experiments for May
Every month inside the Lab, I do a full retrospective: wins, concerns, experiments, with all the numbers on the table. I've never felt comfortable putting the whole thing out publicly, but I do think the practice itself is worth sharing.
Listen or watch→Apr 7, 2026I Spent Three Days With A Dozen New York Times Bestselling Authors
I recorded this just a few days removed from an author's mastermind in Franklin, Tennessee. I got a call from Haley at Kit a few weeks ago—she was putting together a small group mastermind with James Clear, and I was on the list.
Listen or watch→Mar 26, 20269 Things I'm Doing Differently in My Business
Nearing the end of Q1, I've been doing a lot of reflection on where the creator economy is heading, and where I want to take Creator Science.
Listen or watch→Jan 27, 202648 Hours With Clawdbot: How I’m Using It and Initial Reactions
Over the last 48-72 hours, I completely fell down the rabbit hole with a new AI tool called Clawdbot (rebranded TODAY to Moltbot).
Listen or watch→Jan 20, 2026Behind The Scenes: My End of Year Retro
Every month inside The Lab, I do what I call a monthly retro. It's short for retrospective. The idea is that, on a regular basis, you look back at what you have just done to learn from it, course-correct, and move forward.
Listen or watch→Dec 30, 2025Reflecting on a year of parenting (and how that’s impacted me as a creator)
Today I am sharing an episode between Josh hall and myself. Josh hall is a good friend of mine, a business owner, and a creator here in Columbus, Ohio.
Listen or watch→Dec 9, 2025Personal branding, building trust, and why most creators fail | Influence Anyone
Before I went on my current podcast guesting hiatus, I sat down with Howie Chan. I met Howie in person earlier this year at Matt McGarry’s Newsletter Marketing Summit.
Listen or watch→Nov 25, 2025I’m launching my new offer TODAY!
Today, I’m launching my first-ever Signature Product Bootcamp: A four-week, live course for developing YOUR signature product (that you can sell with confidence for years).
Listen or watch→Oct 14, 2025How I’m Approaching The Rest of 2025 (Behind The Scenes)
Today, I want to take you behind the scenes in The Lab this week. Every month I do a retro where I look at the months that just passed, things that went well, things that didn't go well, things that I'm changing because of that.
Listen or watch→Sep 2, 2025Live from CEX: Book sales, book updates, and planning for the future | Justin Moore
Live from CEX in Cleveland: catching up with my friend Justin Moore on book sales, book updates, and planning for the future.
Listen or watch→Aug 19, 2025Being a creator and a parent | Jay-Talking with Jay Acunzo
Reflecting on my first year as a dad and what that has meant for the business.
Listen or watch→Jul 18, 2025The paradox of book writing AND other things I'm working on [Weekend Update]
The first Weekend Update: the paradox of book writing, and other things I’m working on.
Listen or watch→Jun 24, 2025Detailed Breakdown: Our First Offline Event (And What We’ll Do Differently Next Time)
A behind-the-scenes look at The Lab’s first in-person event, Lab Offline in Boise, Idaho, and what we’ll do differently next time.
Listen or watch→Jun 17, 2025My numbers from May 2025 [From The Lab]
A transparent look at my May 2025 retro, the monthly review I share inside The Lab: key metrics, goals, wins, challenges, and the decisions behind them.
Listen or watch→Jun 3, 2025How to Build a Creator-First Business (That Actually Lasts) | The Strategy Hour Podcast
I flip the script as a guest on Abagail Pumphrey’s Strategy Hour podcast, talking about how to build a creator-first business that actually lasts.
Listen or watch→May 20, 2025How to Find More Time: Balancing Creative Projects, Business, and Personal Life
How I’m balancing creative projects, business, and personal life, and the new five-part framework I’m using to find more time.
Listen or watch→Apr 22, 2025Behind the Scenes: What I’m quietly working on
I know I enjoy it when I hear some of my favorite podcast hosts give a behind-the-scenes, a state of the business. And I thought maybe you'd like that too.
Listen or watch→Sep 24, 2024A transparent look at how my business performed in August 2024
This is going to be a special episode. You may or may not be familiar with The Lab, my membership community for professional creators. Each month in The Lab, I record a Retro – a 30-minute video breaking down that previous month’s performance.
Listen or watch→Sep 2, 2024"Has YouTube been worth it?" [Voice Memo]
Reflecting on our YouTube journey to 100K subscribers
Listen or watch→Aug 29, 2024Voice Memo – What do you think about this?
Are you into this idea? Comment on Spotify or tag @jayclouse and let me know.
Listen or watch→Jul 23, 2024Mid-Year Review: Goal progress, revenue, audience growth, and changes to my approach
We are halfway through the year. We have passed the six-month mark of 2024, and I thought this was a perfect opportunity to reflect on the first six months of the year personally and encourage you to do the same.
Listen or watch→May 21, 2024An honest conversation with my friend, Justin Moore (live from CEX)
Last week, I was invited to speak at the 3rd Annual Content Entrepreneur Expo, also known as CEX. We had more than 20 members of the lab at the event. It was fantastic.
Listen or watch→Apr 30, 2024Breaking down my $60,723 product launch
Earlier this month, I launched a brand new product called CreatorHQ. The way I’ve come to describe CreatorHQ is a complete operating system for creators – it’s literally the system I’ve built for myself in Notion to run the entire Creator Science business.
Listen or watch→Jan 16, 2024Redesigning MY sponsorship strategy (feat. Justin Moore).
Justin Moore is a sponsorship coach and the founder of Creator Wizard, a school and community that teaches you how to find and negotiate your dream brand deals.
Listen or watch→Nov 21, 2023Behind the scenes – What I'm planning for 2024
In this solo episode, I will give you a little bit of behind the scenes of the business.
Listen or watch→Sep 26, 2023Announcing one of the biggest projects I’ve ever done.
If you're not familiar with the word syndicate, it's an investing term.
Listen or watch→Jul 11, 2023What we’ve learned in our first year on YouTube (feat. our editor, Conor Conaboy)
This week, the Creator Science YouTube channel turns one year old!
Listen or watch→Jun 6, 2023BONUS: Breaking down my journey on Tropical MBA
This is a special episode for me. I've been a long-time listener of Tropical MBA. TMBA is a podcast between Dan Andrews and Ian Schoen. It's the first podcast focused on location-independent entrepreneurship.
Listen or watch→Mar 28, 2023Creative Elements is now Creator Science! Here’s why I’m rebranding.
This podcast has a new name: Creative Elements is now Creator Science. Here’s why I’m rebranding.
Listen or watch→Feb 14, 2023How I’ve doubled my following on LinkedIn in the last few months
For the past several months I’ve been experimenting with my own growth strategy on LinkedIn, and I’ve doubled my following. Here’s the full strategy.
Listen or watch→Jan 31, 2023Behind the scenes of my first solo YouTube video (our most successful video yet)
We released our first-ever solo video on the channel yesterday. And so far, it's the most successful video on the channel yet.
Listen or watch→Jan 17, 2023Behind the scenes: How much I earned (and spent) in December 2022
This week I have a REALLY transparent, audio-only episode of the podcast for you. It’s a peek behind the curtain into The Lab, my private membership community.
Listen or watch→Jan 10, 2023What's underneath brand building for creators
I was recently invited on the Bootstrapped Founder podcast, with Arvid Kahl.
Listen or watch→Aug 22, 2022BONUS: Podcast Movement, newsletter rebrand, and more!
A short, audio-only episode with a few behind-the-scenes announcements, including where to find me at Podcast Movement 22 in Dallas.
Listen or watch→Jul 13, 2022BIG Announcement: We're on YouTube!
Why we decided to make Creative Elements a video show.
Listen or watch→Jun 6, 2022BRB – Going on my honeymoon!
Mallory and I got married over Memorial Day weekend, so I’m taking a few weeks off to celebrate.
Listen or watch→Apr 28, 2022[BONUS] Talking about my money story and the MOAT Method on the Danny Miranda Podcast
To continue to celebrate our 100th episode this week, I’m airing a second interview with yours truly this week.
Listen or watch→Apr 26, 2022My Story and Reflecting on 100 Episodes of Creative Elements
This week marks the 100th episode of Creative Elements! That's 100 unique interviews (and 87 unique elements) in just over two years.
Listen or watch→Feb 10, 2022[BONUS] Creative Independence on The Accidental Creative
Last week I was featured on The Accidental Creative, a podcast hosted by Todd Henry since 2005. It’s one of the most influential and important podcasts out there for creative professionals, and I was honored to be a guest.
Listen or watch→Dec 21, 202111 Lessons Learned in 2021
I think we can all agree that any year is a step up from the year that was 2020...but I have to say, 2021 was better than I could've imagined.
Listen or watch→Nov 23, 2021Unveiling Our New Cover Art!
I'm thrilled to share the new Creative Elements cover artwork with you.
Listen or watch→Aug 19, 2021BONUS: Managing Creative Overwhelm with Nick Wignall on Minds & Mics
In this episode of Minds & Mics, I talk with my friend Nick Wignall. Nick and I get into the details of creative overwhelm and burnout and how I (try to) manage it.
Listen or watch→May 11, 2021BONUS: Behind the scenes of Creative Elements and my creative career (Everything Is Marketing)
I wanted to share a little bit of a different episode with you this week.
Listen or watch→Mar 11, 2021BONUS: Building Community and Being Acquired (Indie Hackers)
In this bonus episode, I'm talking with Courtland Allen, the founder of Indie Hackers. As I’ve shared a couple times over the last few months, my accelerator and community Unreal Collective was acquired by Smart Passive Income in January of this year.
Listen or watch→Feb 2, 2021Emily Clouse – Our podcast illustrator talks drawing, breaking into comedy, and our childhood
Emily Clouse is a Los Angeles-based comedy writer and cartoonist who illustrates this show!
Listen or watch→