🐧 From Professor to Ali Abdaal's Head of Content | Ines Lee

‍Today, in 10 minutes or less, you’ll learn:

• 👩‍🏫 How an Oxford PhD economist became a key player in a YouTuber's content empire
• 💪 How to reframe setbacks using the 10-10-10 rule and other mental tactics
• 🤑 The surprising financial upside of leaving academia for the creator economy
• 💻️ Non-obvious advice for switching to the creator economy, irrespective of background

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👩‍🏫 From Professor to Ali Abdaal’s Head of Content | Ines Lee

Ines is currently Head of Content for doctor-turned-entrepreneur Ali Abdaal. She leads a talented team to make content on Ali's various content platforms (YouTube, social media, etc) and helped create the New York Times Bestselling book Feel-Good Productivity.

She’s passionate about helping creators and entrepreneurs make impactful content through writing and developing data-backed content strategies.

Previously, she was an Economics lecturer in the UK and got her PhD in Economics from Oxford University. She lives in the UK, grew up in Hong Kong, and her parents are based in Malaysia so she’s still figuring out where ‘home’ is :)

Tell us about your career journey.

I started my career in academia. I did a Masters and PhD in Economics at Oxford University. At the time, I was pretty sure I wanted to go into the policy-making world (think World Bank, IMF)

As a kid and teenager, I loved writing and painting. That creative side died down as I got more serious about my studies and pursued my career in academia.

But that creative itch kept coming back. I picked up these creative interests again over the dreaded Covid lockdown period. At that time, I’d finished my PhD and was teaching undergraduate Economics at Cambridge while doing research (on the economics of health and education 🤓).

The creator economy was booming and my sister sent me an Instagram post where Ali Abdaal, a YouTuber I'd been following, announced he was hiring a “content writer”. It was my first time hearing this job title. I applied, waited for a few months (there were 3-4 rounds in the process), and got an offer.

In October 2021, I officially started working with Ali. I wasn’t ready to leave academia yet so I kept my ‘main gig’ in academia and wrote for Ali on the side.

At the end of 2023, I decided to quit academia and go full-time. My role at Ali’s has been a roller coaster ride (in the best way possible): YouTube scriptwriter, book researcher-writer-marketer for the New York Times Bestselling ‘Feel-Good Productivity’, and now Head of Content. It's been a lot of fun.

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In your article, ”Want to work for a YouTuber? Try this.” you described how you discovered and applied for the content writer job with Ali Abdaal. What do you think helped you stand out?

When I applied for the content writer job at Ali’s, the trial task was to write a YouTube script for a book summary video on Adam Grant’s book ‘Originals’. If I look back, I think the key things that helped my writing stand out were:

1. An ability to distill information in an accessible and entertaining way. This applies to both the sentence/paragraph level (e.g. how can I keep this amount of information but make the paragraph shorter?) and to the macro level of the piece (e.g. how many parts should the piece have and what's the relationship between each part?) This skill is super important when writing academic papers, so I’m glad that academic training seeped into my creative work too!
2. An understanding of Ali’s tone of voice. This is very important whenever you’re writing for someone. You want to make sure that they feel like they would say the words that you’ve written.
3. An understanding of how to use visual and audio elements to supplement the writing: The writing has to fit the medium: you shouldn't write a script in the same way you'd write prose. My script contained screen directions (e.g. what b-roll to use to clarify a point) as well as hand-drawn illustrations.

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Given your insider POV, what are 2-3 skills that creator businesses look for in candidates, but have difficulty finding?

Specific skills vary from role to role (e.g. an operations associate doesn't need writing skills in the same way as a writer would), but from my recent experience in hiring I'd say the following 3 skills are important for most roles in the creator economy:

1. High agency and ownership - Not waiting around for people to tell you what to do. Being able to spot problems and propose solutions.
2. Continuous learning - knowing what you don't know and being able to learn it effectively. The creator space moves so quickly. While experience is important, I'd argue it's even more important to make your employer think ‘Ines might not know how to do this now, but I'm confident that if I give her one month to take this course and talk to these people, she'll figure it out'
3. Good balance between creativity and operations/strategy - Some creatives focus too much on the art and neglect the business side. Some business-minded people focus too much on the operations side and forget about the art. Finding someone who can wear both hats is amazing. When it comes to writing online, people like Nicolas Cole, Dickie Bush, Nat Eliason, David Perell are great at teaching this balance.

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You transitioned from a stable professorship to the volatile creator economy. How do you stay motivated when faced with setbacks?

Setbacks and negative feedback are never easy to stomach. My go-to's to make it easier:

1. Reframe setbacks and negative feedback as opportunities for improvement.
2. The 10-10-10 rule: ask myself whether this setback will matter in 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years. Usually, the answer is no which is a great reminder to not sweat the small stuff.
3. Remind myself that my younger self would love to be where I am right now - the stressors and all!
4. The 'what would  do?' technique: I ask myself what someone I admire would do in the situation. Usually, the answer is to accept the setback, don't over-react, and find a way to move forward.
5. And lastly, a good rant to the people who love me and always listen to me does wonders.

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What financial considerations influenced your decision to make the leap?

Academia is not particularly well paid, especially in the UK. So, perhaps surprisingly, my leap from academia to the creator economy meant an increase in income (not a drastic increase, but an increase nevertheless).

So, I would say that overall financial considerations weren't the primary concern. My bigger concerns were:

• Having to 'start again' in a new career - I was climbing the academic career ladder and the thought of having to start in a new career (where academic credentials didn’t matter) was scary.
• The sunk cost fallacy - I (arguably, wrongly) had the mindset that 'I've invested so many years into academia, how can I throw that away?’
• External perceptions - I grappled with the fact that being an economics professor comes with a degree of 'prestige' while working for a YouTuber - unfortunately - currently doesn’t.

It took me a while to realize that the longer I delay the decision, the harder the leap will be and that it's silly to play the prestige game to make other people happy.

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What have been the pros and cons of pivoting to the creator economy?

Pros:

• The people: The people I’ve met in the creator economy are the most growth-minded, creative, entrepreneurial, generous, and driven people I’ve ever met in a work context. I’m very lucky to work with colleagues whom I consider friends.
• The learning curve: It’s a really exciting space with lots of opportunities to learn something new every few months
• The autonomy: In my experience so far, there’s a lot of flexibility to work on what you want, in a way that suits you, and at a time and location that you prefer (I work at a remote company which amplifies this benefit, of course!)

Cons:

• Harder to describe what you do to your family
• Less clearly defined career trajectories. For example, in a consulting firm, you might enter as a junior analyst, become a senior analyst, advisor, manager etc, then move all the way up to becoming a partner. That kind of linearity is rare in the creator economy.
• Potentially less stability and more unknowns. Many creator businesses operate with an early start-up vibe. The HR systems sometimes aren’t always fully locked in.

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What is one non-obvious piece of advice you give to people looking to switch from other industries into the creative economy?

Reframe the ‘switching industries’ problem as a ‘skill arbitrage opportunity’.

The creator economy isn’t just for creatives. There’s a need for a broad range of skills -technical skills (e.g. web development), business (e.g. marketing, finance, legal), operational expertise (e.g. logistics, event planning), and more.

Many creator businesses lack the institutional knowledge common in traditional industries. So, what's common in your current field might be rare and impactful in creator businesses.

If you’re a lawyer with corporate experience, look for creator businesses that need legal expertise. If you’re a marketing specialist for a tech firm, look for creator businesses that need help launching a product. If you’re a project manager, you could bring structure and efficiency to creative teams used to more fluid workflows.

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Where can we go to learn more about you?

• The best place to connect is LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/drineslee
• My website has more info on my work, ghostwriting services, and info on how to get in touch: ineslee.com

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