I'm Halfway Through a 30-Day Challenge and 96% of People Already Quit

The data, the 3 biggest creator problems, and my plan to escape the content creation hamster wheel

Tomorrow, I'll be halfway through this 30-day personal brand challenge by Jim Tang.

I'm sharing:

• The data

• The 3 main problems of creators

• How it feels to create content daily

• How can anyone improve their content/brand

More than 96% of challengers gave up

Only 3.9% of the 3000 registered challengers posted 10 content in a row (based on the daily check-in system on Discord).

It's ridiculous.

I get it, content creation is bloody challenging mentally.

But hey, this is how you can stand out from the crowd full of dopamine junkies and fake, AI-generated content creators. With consistency and authenticity.

People connect with people. Moreover, people follow people worth following.

What makes you worth following?

The value you can give.

That can be anything: your achievements (financial, scientific, sport, whatever), your character, your beauty, or anything that OTHERS find valuable.

Yes, from a business perspective, others define what's worthy in us, and it sucks. I hate it, but nothing I can do about it. It's part of the game.

And the reason why I'm not successful on social media has multiple potential reasons:

• My networking strategy sucks.

• I've been doing it only for 13 freakin days!

• My content is not valuable/consistent enough.

Probably all of them are true. Although I'm happy with most of my content, there is a lot to improve.

As Mr. Beast said,

"There is no such thing as perfect content. You can always improve something."

Here is the Instagram data

I've posted 13 content (yes, I need to post something today to keep my 100% streak). I've reached 1,211 accounts and got 4,771 views.

Am I happy with the results? Well… It depends.

On the first day, I was satisfied with the result of my 1st content. It got 60 likes. But the more content I made, the fewer likes I got.

Why? I'm pretty sure it's because of how many people gave up this challenge. The most likes are coming from people in the same challenge.

This shows perfectly how important networking is.

I'm proud of myself because I started this challenge, and I'm consistent. Nowadays, my performance is low and inconsistent in every area of my life. To me, this challenge is about building a habit, a system, and being consistent.

Did I feel furious sometimes? Hell yes!

For example, when a random "get ready with me" video (from a fellow challenger) got 300 likes, and my quantum myth-busting video, where I talk about the fundamental science of our universe, got 14 likes…

Maybe the topic was too "niche", or Instagram is not the right platform for educational content, or I should create better videos. Who knows? This is why we need to make more content before we can define what "good" content is, so we can make it even better.

As Alex Hormozi likes to say: more → better → new

While my quantum physics video only got 17 comments, I received 3 DMs from people genuinely interested in learning more about science and content creation.

Those quality connections matter more than vanity metrics; I'm attracting exactly the STEM-minded audience I want to serve.

Based on my data, any kind of content can work well. A carousel, a 5-second long, a 2-minute talking head, a well-edited, an unscripted video… honestly, whatever.

Do what feels natural to you, fits your brand, and what your ideal customer avatar likes.

We arrived at a crucial point.

The 3 main problems of creators

Based on the poll on the Discord server, the creators’ biggest problems are:

• I want to grow but nothing is working

• Creating content takes me too much time

• I feel lost and unsure of what my brand even is

I feel all of these. The funny part is, I know what to do, but doing it is really hard.

I love to help my client who is a tech creator/CEO. We've been working together for the last 10 months. I wrote him content that got almost 300K views. In the first 3 months, he got 1.2M views (73% increase) on LinkedIn and got like $100K with client work.

Yet, here I am, working my ass off to get 5K views and $0 on Instagram on my account…

But it was the expected result. Every beginning is hard.

I haven't created or promoted any product to sell. → $0

I scrolled through every introduction in the group and created a STEM engagement group to support each other. More than 90% of them are inactive. I haven't found many STEM creators to engage with daily → Low reach.

I haven't finished my content system → I'm in the hamster wheel of daily content creation, and it takes a lot of time.

I'm not sure what people will like or what I'll like to do in the long term → My brand has an identity issue.

The 5-step plan to improve

The goal is to create a content system that suits my needs.

1. I need to be clear on my content pillars, mentors, and topics.

I want to talk about science (like quantum computing), tech (like AI, coding) and entrepreneurship (like my creator business, or building a startup). But I need to be clear on who my "role models" are for a certain topic and with whom I want to engage.

2. Create a Google Sheet where I track with whom I engage daily.

I want to build genuine connections, and I should leverage others' audiences as well. It sounds a bit contradictory or "evil" but it's part of the game, unfortunately. Social media is… social. RIP introverts like me.

3. I should start with a specific hook and with pain points.

Although I created an ICP (ideal customer profile) document, I feel like I don't hit the pain points hard enough.

4. Focus on deep, valuable, educational long-form content.

Short-form content is valuable to grab more people's attention, but the simplest way to establish trust with your audience is long-form content. I feel like I started to create mini YT videos, so it makes sense to focus on Substack and YouTube.

Write for Substack (in my second brain) → record a YT video based on that post → split into multiple pieces for short-form content.

5. Plan my content for every week.

I already have a weekly template. I have many ideas every day. I just need to write one long, valuable content, convert it into a YouTube video, and I'll have short-form content for next week. This way, I need to film only once a week and don't have to think about short-form content ever again.

That's it for today.

If you’re creating content or want to create content but you feel stuck, let me know in the comments what your biggest problem is. I’ll do my best to help you.

If you found this valuable, follow me for more. I'll document how I create my system and share the templates, prompts, everything with you when they're ready.