How to Actually Grow in 2025 & Why More Content = More Opportunity | Tea with GaryVee ep. 86

Executive overview

GaryVee uses episode 86 of Tea with GaryVee to hammer a single thesis: the gap between creators who grow and those who stall is almost always volume and consistency, not tactics or trends. He field-tests this live by interrogating guests — a millennial-focused financial advisor, a family beef brand, a social agency owner — and in each case the diagnosis is the same: not enough content in enough places, not executed for long enough.

The core insight is that more content creates more surface area for algorithmic discovery, and nothing — compliance, AI anxiety, or a busy schedule — excuses the failure to produce it.

Live social selling (TikTok Live, Whatnot) is called out as the biggest underexploited opportunity right now, because live feeds surface to cold audiences in a way static posts cannot. On AI, GaryVee's message is deliberately calming: it is infrastructure, not a task — it will come to you, and your uniqueness is still the irreplaceable input.

Volume is the non-negotiable foundation

• 50 pieces of content a day is the aspiration, not hyperbole
• Most people try for a week, see no results, and quit — fitness is the direct analogy
• 18 months of extreme output with nothing to show is the real threshold for reconsidering
• Social media algorithms reward scale; one thoughtful post per week is invisible
• GaryVee's own team spends hundreds of hours a week on the first three seconds of clips alone
• One-person shops are viable — he ran his for eight years, 15 hours a day

Compliance and trend-following are excuses, not obstacles

• Financial professionals cite compliance as a creative barrier; it is not — fake claims are never required
• Stitching bad financial advice from fake advisors is an audience-building opportunity, not a threat
• Following trends to get reach is self-defeating: if everyone does the same trend, no one stands out
• Differentiation comes from genuine knowledge, personality, and audience focus
• Deep niche expertise — UFC stats, Beanie Babies, Angus beef — is inherently valuable content

Live social selling is the biggest current opportunity

• TikTok Live pushes content into cold feeds; it is algorithmically superior to static posts for discovery
• Whatnot is worth doing even for small audiences because the friction to purchase is very low
• A family beef brand already winning on TikTok should triple down, not test cautiously
• The missing component for most people is tenacity and consistency, not platform choice
• Millions of people have resellable assets (sneakers, games, clothes) and are sitting on untapped cash flow

AI is oxygen — stop overthinking it

• The AI anxiety of 2025 mirrors the "worldwide web" anxiety of 1993–96; the outcome was the same
• AI will be embedded natively in every platform (e.g., Spanish-language auto-translation now default in Instagram)
• You do not need to find the best AI tool; AI will find its way into your workflow
• If AI did everything for everyone identically, it would work for no one — human uniqueness remains the edge
• A tattoo on your shoulder is a legitimate reason someone buys your beef over a competitor's

Accountability is the rarest and most valuable asset

• Losing everything and cycling through five jobs in a row is a signal something behavioural needs to change
• The fix: contact former employers, ask for honest exit feedback, take notes, and act on them
• Four companies firing someone in a row is data, not bad luck
• When things go wrong, the people who are at their best are those with strong foundations and self-awareness
• "I'm hurting and I don't blame anyone else" is the road to recovery; blame deepens the hole

Overrated / underrated rapid takes

• Being the face of your business: underrated — not required, but a free and replicable-proof moat in the post-2015 world
• Post Malone: underrated — entrepreneurially intuitive, humble in rooms, one hit away from next-level
• Brands doing social in-house (Fortune 500): overrated — VaynerMedia's fastest growth is replacing in-house teams at large companies
• In-house social for small startups who understand the channel: underrated
• Measuring success by follower count: outdated — views and reach now encompass both follower and non-follower audiences

Content formats and channels worth doubling down on

• Long-form written content (Substack, Beehive) is hotter than ever, not dying
• Email newsletters remain valuable when they deliver genuine value per send; unsubscribes signal a content problem, not a medium problem
• YouTube, TikTok, LinkedIn, Twitch, and Kick are all viable — the issue is not which platform but how many and how often
• IRL streaming (backpack-style livestreams during travel) is an underused format for building authentic connection
• Live Q&A formats surface real audience problems; GaryVee's chat instantly confirmed massive financial illiteracy as an addressable market

The college question and education ROI

• If someone else is paying and you are not going into debt, university is a paid social holiday — enjoy it
• If debt is involved and the goal is to build something meaningful, the classroom is the wrong room
• Top communications programmes are still teaching press releases and basic Twitter; the internet has lapped them
• Real skills compound in real-world action, not in reverse-engineering a grading system
• The question is not whether to stay or leave — it is whether you are spending more time on real output than on assignments