The Black Book

About The Black Book

Every creator building a real company needs a place to think – not just create.
Inside The Black Book is where we keep our best thinking.

The Black Book is our living library — strategic memos, experiments, and operational playbooks for creators turning audiences into companies.
These notes document the systems, failures, and breakthroughs behind scaling creative ideas into durable, profitable businesses.

If you’re new, start here. It will help you understand how we think about creator-led companies, operations, and systems.

Step 1: Start with the [Audience] and [Systems Thinking] sections below — they form the backbone of every creative business that scales.
Step 2: Subscribe to get new Black Book memo every Tuesday: part high-level strategy, part practical creator-friendly breakdown.
Step 3: Begin your own Black Book using the reflective framework below.

The Habit: Know, Discovered, Learned

Every day, I record field notes about building creator-led companies – fulfillment, logistics, product design, hiring, systems, and everything in between.
Each entry is simple and follows a reflective loop:

⁉️

For every challenge, opportunity, or small victory, I record one thing I Know, Discovered, or Learned.

Know: A principle you already understood but saw proven again in the field.
Discovered: Something new or unexpected that surfaced – a system that worked, or one that completely fell apart.
Learned: A mistake or insight that forced an upgrade to your process, your strategy, or your assumptions.

The point isn’t to record everything, only what moves the needle. This habit creates clarity under pressure. It turns experience into frameworks, frameworks into systems, and systems into growth.

You can adopt it too: keep a notebook, keep it short, and keep it human. When we gather inside The Vault, you'll see how other creators track their own Black Books.

Through Creator Unleashed, I share the same notes I use to scale my own companies – from seven figures to eight and beyond.

This is not inspiration. It's intelligence.

Why It Matters

The digital world is full of noise and contradictory advice. The Black Book cuts through it. It focuses on what few creators talk about publicly:

operations
systems
product strategy
fulfillment
logistics
hiring and team structure
audience economics
margin engineering
the backend of a creator business

If you've ever wondered how creators actually scale – how they move from selling "things" to running a legitimate company – you'll find the answers here.

Want to learn more about Creator Unleashed? Start digging below.

How to Explore the Black Book

Use the Table of Contents below. These categories mirror the way scaleable creative businesses are built – from finding an audience to constructing the systems that support growth.

You can also search by topic or keyword — or just start with the first memo that sparks something.

Don’t just browse — subscribe to get memos every Tuesday.

Search by Keyword

Explore by Topic

Audience

Storytelling with systems allows you to build an audience quickly and keep their attention in a busy world. Learn to capture the right audience with story.

Creative Entrepreneurship

Where creativity meets operational reality. Models, revenue logic, and strategic decisions that turn a creative pursuit into a company.

Read more essays on Creative Leadership.

Creator Psychology

Success can be a fickle thing. Explore mindset, identity, resilience, and how not to get buried under it all.

Currency

Money and time are your only currencies you can leverage in business and you have far more control over them than you think.

Leadership

Creative leadership isn't just managing people. It's culture, direction, energy, and the responsibility of building environments where others can do their best work.

Small Teams

Small teams are where it all begins. How to hire, delegate, and inspire a small team toward a big vision.

Strategy

Strategy is how creativity compounds over time through long-term positioning and brand architecture.

Systems Thinking

Designing creative businesses like an operating system rather than a guessing game. Systems thinking is about transforming chaos into repeatable results – helping creators build flywheels, frameworks, and habits that scale.