(Ep 45) CREATOR LAB -> Going inside the mind of the world's best creators and entrepreneurs 💡

Bilal Zaidi | Founder & CEO

Mar 09, 2021

Hey friends,

Back again with another edition of The Founder recap - this is Episode 45. If you’re new here, my goal is to give you a quick synopsis of what got me thinking from this week’s episode of The Founder Podcast in 5 minutes or less.

No idea what The Founder is? Read this.

Mission control:

Listen -> Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Website
Learn -> Founder favorite resources
Free money -> Discount codes
Follow -> Twitter | Instagram | LinkedIn

And who am I?

I’m Kallaway - a future founder trying to get some answers before I jump in the ball pit myself.

Let’s get it.

This Week’s Episode (Ep 45) 💡

Guest -> Bilal Zaidi, Founder & CEO of Creator Lab

Mission -> Creator Lab is on a mission to the tell the stories of the world’s greatest creators and entrepreneurs

Episode available on -> Apple Podcasts | Spotify | YouTube | Website

In this episode we talk with Bilal about…

👶 The origin story of Creator Lab

🚀 Having a front-row seat for the rise of YouTube & Android while working at Google

🛠️ Tactical insights for launching and growing a podcast

📍 How to define success for creative endeavors

🕵️‍♂️ A personal operating system for optimizing effectiveness and efficiency

🔨 Brainstorm of the week -> Live Shark Tank style show where the audience can invest and democratizing access to private markets

Summary 🔍

What is Creator Lab and how did Bilal get started?

Bilal has been a hustler from an early age.

Growing up in the UK, he was fascinated by entrepreneurship and became known for selling CDs, hats, candy and sim cards to his classmates on the playground.

By 16, he had a thriving ecommerce store and got a taste of what it was like to make money while slept. He loved it.

After reluctantly attending university at the request of his parents, he was scouted by Google Europe to work in partnerships and digital marketing.

Fortunately, Bilal was at Google during the hyper-growth days and had a front-row seat to the explosion of products like YouTube and Android. He would eventually go on to run their Fashion & Sports division and architected partnerships with brands like ASOS, TOMS, Puma, Coach, Topshop and UnderArmour.

Along the way, Bilal was constantly networking and having inspiring conversations with colleagues and powerful business leaders around the world.

In 2015, he saw an opportunity to document those conversations and share them for the world to hear. That’s when Creator Lab was born.

Bilal’s vision for Creator Lab is to interview the world’s best creators and entrepreneurs and break down the tactics behind their business success.

His angle has always been that he’s not a journalist. He brings the perspective of someone who is also in the trenches and trying to peek behind the curtain. This approach creates relatable dialogue and actionable outcomes for listeners to leverage.

After several ebbs and flows of consistent posting, Bilal doubled down on the Creator Lab brand in August 2020 and has seen steady growth ever since.

His guest list is impressive including recent interviews with Tim Urban, Shaan Puri, Jack Butcher and Andrew Wilkinson.

🚀 Here’s why I’m a fan and excited about Creator Lab 🚀

Bilal and I are similar in that we both strive to get beneath the surface and unearth relevant tactical insights that listeners can apply and leverage in their own life or business.

I think Bilal has a refreshing interview style, emphasizing authenticity and genuine curiosity over hidden agendas and mainstream media narratives. With each interview, he seems to uncover more and more of the “never before heard” nuggets and anecdotes from high profile guests.

With the rise of the creator economy and more and more creators building powerful personal brands, it’s exciting to think about where Creator Lab will be in the next few years.

Bilal’s Startup Manifesto 📜

What’s a Startup Manifesto?

During each episode, I ask all of my founder guests this question:

If you had to write a Startup Manifesto with 5 of the most important key lessons or pitfalls to avoid when starting out, what would they be?

Here’s what Bilal had to say:

Know why you’re doing something and be very clear about it.
Stack rank the things you’re spending time on and know the priority list of your goals.
Many people think they have a business idea but it’s really just a product idea. Start with the problem and focus on defining it properly. Don’t start with the solution.
Use 10X (macro) and Kaizen (micro) to balance out your approach. If you’re starting a business in a new industry, you can design something that’s brand new and take moon shots with 10X thinking. On the flip side, during the daily grind, focus on getting 1% better each day.
Make sure in whatever deals you’re doing, there’s room for everyone to eat and the pie is split. Avoid greed at all costs and make sure the end state benefits all parties involved.

What Got Me Thinking From the Episode 🤔

After reflecting on my conversation with Bilal, here’s something that really got my wheels spinning:

Commitment to Consistency 👍🏽

Bilal has one of the more exciting brands in the startup podcast and media ecosystem.

Although he’s experiencing success now, he’ll be the first to tell you that it’s been an arduous and inconsistent road.

When Bilal started his podcast in 2015, he pre-recorded 10 episodes and planned to continue releasing on a consistent cadence. After getting into the production, he quickly realized the amount of time that was required to produce high quality content.

While working a full-time job at Google (and then switching jobs to charity: water a couple years into the journey), he would often go months without posting a new episode.

This was super frustrating for him because he genuinely loved having the conversations with his guests. Selfishly, the podcast was one of the main ways he got into the room with some of these high-powered entrepreneurs and it bummed him out that he couldn’t keep a consistent cadence.

After a period of quitting his job and traveling the world, he decided he would double down on the Creator Lab brand and treat it like a job. Since August, he has dedicated 20-30 hours per week to produce high quality content with stellar guests.

I wanted to highlight this story is because it’s a struggle that I’ve faced over the past year growing The Founder as well.

Producing a podcast or any creative pursuit with high quality content and a consistent release schedule is no easy task. Throw in a full-time job, significant other, family, health practices and any other travel/hobbies, and it’s near impossible to balance it all.

During the interview, Bilal shared an interesting breakdown on how he thinks about prioritization and where he spends his time.

I think understanding your priorities and mapping out time committment is critical before jumping into any creative venture.

Here’s what I think about before starting any project:

Do I genuinely enjoy spending time on this today?
Would I be willing to give up something else currently in my life today to spend time on it?
How much free time do I have right now?
Am I willing to let other things in my life suffer to make this happen?

If all four answers don’t point to a resounding “YES”, I would advise not starting.

Time is your most precious asset. The reality is that unless your job is your hobby (rare and unlikely), you’re only going to have time for one other thing on the side.

Whatever it is, make it count.

Wrapping it Up 📕

I hope you found this interesting and inspiring! If so and you want to help support our journey to bring The Founder to millions of people across the world, here’s a couple things that would be really valuable to me and the show:

If you enjoyed this post, share it with one friend that you think is on the same wavelength.
Share
If you haven’t already, subscribe to this newsletter so you can get them delivered to your inbox each week!
Listen to the full podcast episode with Bilal on Apple or Spotify. If you don’t have an hour to listen to the full episode, pick a couple of topics you’re interested in and skim through (topic time codes in the show notes).
Watch the full episode and our top clips on YouTube.

If you’re feeling super giving:

Find our show on Apple Podcasts (https://apple.co/2VCosu6) and (1) subscribe, (2) give a 5-star rating and (3) leave a couple sentence positive review. This doesn’t seem like it would move the needle but it really is a massive help!
Give our Twitter/Instagram (@founderpodcast) a follow.

Till next time ✌️

Kallaway