Tuan Le

Why do I always think i'm going to win Ep 3 at shortscut

after 3b views, i only follow 2 editing rules: 1/ if there's no new information, cut it. every millisecond counts 2/ caption everything. people read faster than they hear, and a lot of people watch on mute you don't need fancy transitions or sound effect packs.

You can't compete with me. I want you to win too.

Reminds me of when Vinay, the former CTO of Loom, shared a vulnerable blog post about life after "making it" that went viral. He described how, after selling Loom for $975M, he was left wondering... what now? ~~ My take: I went from being so broke I offered to shoot videos for restaurants in exchange for a free meal to now running a team of 30+ teammates and a growing business. I think money is awesome. Money doesn't buy you happiness, but it does buy you options. I have the option to take care of my loved ones (that I didn't before). I have the option to go out and not look at the bill. What makes me happy is watching the relationships in my life thrive, watching my parents experience things they didn't before, watching the love of my life laugh and giggle, watching my team put their heart in to their work as a creative and get paid well for it. I used to let external factors (like nice cars, nice watches, or how high the next mountain is affect me). But I realized all these materialistic things don't give life meaning. All it does is buy you temporary confidence for people that don't care about you at all. I think everyone should go get money. But realize it won't solve every problem in your life. Money isn't nothing, but it isn't everything.

how to read why your video flopped: no views: bad hook views, no likes: boring idea no comments: nobody felt anything low watch time: dead space in the edit no shares: not relatable no saves: nothing worth coming back to

when a video works, most people try something different the next day. we do the opposite. a food delivery app's first video with us did 1.8m views. so we made the exact same video again. 600k. then 300k. we didn't change anything except the angle. posting something new every day is starting from zero with extra steps.

every product has 3 layers: 1/ what it is: a supplement 2/ what it does: more energy and a better mood 3/ what it means: "i feel in control of my body and my life" most brands make content about layer 1. people only care about layer 3. so a supplement brand shouldn't post about the supplement. it should post about sleep, stress and discipline.

If you understood how many people win when i win, you’d realize my ambition is not selfish.

stop going to networking events hoping to bump into the one person who changes your life. our biggest client found us by asking chatgpt for the best short-form agency in north america. they checked all 5 websites it gave them and picked ours because it looked the best. build something and post about it. they'll find you.

when you're young, dumb and broke, work for free. get in the room with someone who knows way more than you. do free work and pick up whatever they're doing that works. i worked for free for 3 months for an agency owner who couldn't pay me. in exchange he taught me how to write an email, negotiate and run a business. then i used what i learned to build my own company. it's now about 10x bigger than the company i worked for free for.

the moat is being kind

before we post a video, we ask one question: what does the person who shares this get to say about themselves? people share what makes them look smart, funny or like they found something cool first. and if they can't explain your video to a friend in one sentence, they won't share it.

ai made content free to make. now every feed is full of polished videos that feel hollow. people can feel it even when they can't name it. anthropic and ramp get this. their marketing feels like a person made it. coca-cola went full ai and got torched for it.

in 2022 i pitched a client 10 tiktoks for $2,000. if they didn't work, full refund. the first video did 700k views. the second did 300k. they gained 9,000 followers overnight. we've given back 1 refund since. when nobody trusts you yet, take all the risk off them.

5 years ago i was broke, unemployed and depressed. i'd just dropped out of school and was sleeping on my friend's couch. then i watched a gary vee video that made me want to get up and build a better life for my family. so i started sending cold dms. i sent thousands and got rejected almost every time. i shot videos for restaurants in exchange for food. years later i got to meet him in new york. i told him his video got me started, and that since then i'd retired my parents and built a million dollar agency. he said "i'm really proud of you, brother."

a japanese restaurant we worked with was getting 200 views a video. i was making them beautiful cinematic food videos. then we copied a format that was already going viral: someone walks up to a chef and asks "hey chef, can you make me something with this?" people saw a chef in a professional kitchen, so they trusted the video in the first 2 seconds. they gained 300k followers in 3 months.

i gave everyone on my team a $5,000 company card. 7 months later they'd spent $300k. in that time we went from $1m to $7m arr. someone in the comments asked if that covers a rolex. if it makes them more productive, yes.

i'm not talented. i'm just good at not giving up. times i almost quit: - dropped out, spent all my money on camera gear, then covid lockdown hit - worked for free for 3 months because nobody would pay me - sent 1,000 personalized emails and got 0 replies - an employee tried to sabotage the business and we lost $50,000 overnight i never thought my problems were that big though. if everyone threw their problems into a pile, you'd take yours back immediately.

how i'd get to $10k a month as a freelance video editor: find 5 businesses willing to pay you $2,000 a month. 1/ cold email them. keep it short: who you are and how you help their business. your only goal is a meeting. don't pitch a price 2/ on the call, ask questions. what problem are you trying to solve? what does success look like? what's the budget? 3/ make a no-brainer offer. if the videos don't do the job, they get their money back 4/ underpromise. if you can deliver in 2 days, say a week, then deliver in 3 most people email 5 to 10 businesses a day for a week, hear nothing and give up.

when i was charging $2,000 to $3,000 a month, i was making hundreds of videos for a pile of clients. the cheapest clients were always the hardest to work with. so i doubled my prices, and half of them left. i made the same money with half the clients, and finally had time to go find better ones. every cheap client you keep is taking the spot of a better one you haven't found yet.