The Startup Ideas Podcast

Episode: Inside Dan Koe's AI Content Engine

Host: Greg Isenberg
Guest: Dan Koe
Date: October 6, 2025

Overview

In this episode, Greg Isenberg sits down with Dan Koe, renowned creator with millions of followers, to demystify Dan's high-output, AI-driven content system. Dan details how he leverages large language models (LLMs), simple tools, and smart workflows to ideate, validate, and distribute content across multiple platforms. The conversation is a step-by-step playbook—including prompts and tools—making AI-powered, viral-worthy content creation accessible to creators at every level.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dan's Multi-Platform Content Ecosystem

• Dan explains that all his content—newsletter, X/Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, Threads—is fundamentally the same piece, repurposed for each platform.

• His weekly routine is anchored by his newsletter (written 1-2x per week) and 2-3 daily social posts, starting with X (formerly Twitter) due to its character limitation.

• Quote:
  "All of my content is the same across all different platforms...It comes down to my newsletter and two to three social media posts a day. I write Twitter first because it's the limiting factor [in character count]."
  — Dan Koe [02:44]

• Once an idea performs on X, he expands it for the newsletter, which in turn serves as a script or outline for YouTube.

• Efficient distribution: Tweets become Threads posts, images for LinkedIn/Instagram, and video scripts for YouTube/TikTok/Reels.

2. Idea Generation & Validation

• Dan validates ideas on X first: if a tweet lands, he knows it has potential across other mediums.
• He suggests mining inspiration from your niche on YouTube—by sorting competitor content by "most popular" topics, not copying the content but analyzing the angle.
• Quote:
  "Go to their account, filter by most popular, and just write down 10 of the videos you think you could recreate. You're not stealing the video—you’re taking the topic, the angle, your own perspective."
  — Dan Koe [05:34]
• Dan maintains a living document of ongoing idea prompts.

Research Process with LLMs

• Uses Gemini or Claude to summarize long-form resources (e.g., multi-hour YouTube videos, PDFs), drastically shortening research time.
• LLMs provide summaries, key points, and cross-reference previous work for creative synthesis, but Dan prefers to write the final content himself.
• Quote:
  "LLMs can pull from YouTube videos or PDFs, allowing you to talk to them and pull up the relevant points...that turns six hours of videos into a thousand words."
  — Dan Koe [07:53]

3. Sourcing and Structuring Viral Tweets

• The foundation of Dan's success is ruthless note-taking and maintaining a swipe file of standout ideas and structures.
• Uses tools like Super X and Tweet Hunter X to surface top-performing tweets from aspirational accounts and repurpose their structure or ideas into his own brand voice.
• He practices swapping ideas and structures for maximal creativity and variety.
• Quote:
  "You have to become a ruthless note taker and just consistently save ideas...until you've read so many...it's become second nature how to structure an idea."
  — Dan Koe [13:00]

4. AI-Enhanced Prompt Playbook

Dan shares specific prompts for:

• Generating YouTube titles from newsletters (using top-performing title patterns)
• Deep Post Generator: Extracting paradoxes, quotes, pain points, and arcs from long-form content to spark dozens of related social post ideas.
• Bulk content idea generation (as many as 60 at a time) focusing on his brand’s signature: harsh advice, counterintuitive truths, big insights.

Daily Routine:

• Two hours each morning: one newsletter section + three social posts, distributed to all platforms. One day per week is reserved for shooting and editing a YouTube video.

5. Scaling Virality: Experimentation and Spinoffs

• Rapid experimentation—testing new ideas and doubling down ("spinoff") on winning formats/posts is core to Dan's audience growth.
• About 30% of posts each day replicate proven themes, the remainder is for experimentation to find the next "hit".
• Quote:
  "You need to experiment until you strike gold...Then consistently create spinoffs...while continuing to experiment with your other posts."
  — Dan Koe [24:34]

6. The Visual Debate

• Greg asks about using images to boost post reach.
• Dan intentionally avoids visuals to force clarity in writing and believes idea density plus novelty trumps visuals, but recognizes that visuals can act as a "crutch" for weaker ideas or as a "pattern interrupt".
• Greg shares that even a decent idea paired with the right image can outperform text-only tweets ([31:00]).

7. Prompt Engineering: Creating Prompts for Prompts

Dan delivers a meta-workflow for creating highly tailored prompts to extract viral content from LLMs:

• Break down high-performing posts using AI, analyzing hooks, structure, psychology (“a masterclass in writing from one piece of content”).
• Compile these breakdowns into a comprehensive writing guide.
• Use a self-referential prompt ("prompt that creates prompts") to build AI assistants for any content style—including onboarding questionnaires for ghostwriters or managers.
• Quote:
  "There's a two-step process here: anything that I like, I ask Claude or ChatGPT to break it down, teach me how to do it, then I turn those instructions into a prompt that interviews me for the exact thing to execute as best as possible."
  — Dan Koe [32:20]

8. Application Beyond Tweets: Offers, Scripts, Landing Pages

The same breakdown and prompt-building process can be used for:

• YouTube scripts, landing pages, product offers (e.g., using Alex Hormozi’s frameworks), newsletters
• For ghostwriters/agencies: Onboarding prompts gather all necessary voice and value context before content creation ([43:49]).

9. Mindset & Takeaways

• Greg admits Dan’s system is a “surgical” masterclass compared to his own “brute force” approach, suggesting listeners should “have no excuse not to be posting every single day” using these techniques ([43:00]).
• Dan concludes that AI isn’t about outsourcing thinking but about iterating and learning faster—failing faster and leveling up your craft.
• Quote:
  "In my eyes, doing things this way isn’t like outsourcing your agency...It's actually getting you closer to being high agency and learning through doing."
  — Dan Koe [44:40]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• "If you understand human psychology and can use AI to help you understand that more, your content will see a notable increase in engagement." — Dan Koe [03:50]
• "I'd rather produce one amazing thing a week and just put all my attention into that and put it out across all platforms..." — Dan Koe [19:00]
• "If most people who haven’t practiced writing content for a long time were given a million followers, I do not think that would help them in the slightest." — Dan Koe [31:44]
• "This alone is a masterclass in writing one piece of content...you can use it for almost anything." — Dan Koe [36:10]
• "It feels like I’ve been doing content like a Neanderthal." — Greg Isenberg [42:33]
• "You really don't have an excuse not to be posting something every single day if you have this." — Greg Isenberg [43:24]
• "The best way to learn is by building projects, failing, iterating, etc." — Dan Koe [44:15]

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 00:00 – 02:44: Dan outlines his high-output system and “same content everywhere” strategy
• 05:34 – 10:29: Mining topics from YouTube, using LLMs for research and inspiration
• 12:05 – 19:00: Generating viral tweets; building note systems and swipe files
• 19:00 – 24:28: AI prompts for title/caption/post idea generation; repurposing across platforms
• 24:28 – 26:40: Growth loops: Spinoff posts and follower acceleration
• 26:40 – 31:44: Visuals vs. text; when and why to add images/videos
• 32:20 – 37:17: Prompt engineering and meta-prompt workflow explained step-by-step
• 43:00 – 48:03: Application for teams/ghostwriters; using AI to speed up learning
• 48:03 – 50:40: Reflections, recap, and Dan’s closing philosophy

Resources & Links

• Dan Koe’s Newsletter & Socials: [Linked from show notes]
• Dan’s Prompt Templates & Playbook: [To be included as Google Doc in show notes]
• Greg’s Startup Ideas Database: https://gregisenberg.com/30startupideas

Final Thoughts

Dan's systematic, AI-augmented approach offers a replicable model for creators looking to scale their output and impact—without sacrificing originality. Even hosts like Greg found themselves rethinking old habits. With detailed breakdowns, prompt templates, and a focus on high-agency learning, this episode is both a blueprint and a motivational kickstart for any entrepreneur or creator looking to seize the current “unfair advantage” of distribution in the AI era.