i made 500+ videos. then AI took over

hey friends,

about a year ago, i decided to post content.

raw behind the scenes, sharing what i’m doing. eventually led to me making this newsletter too lol.

i made over 1,000 pieces of content since then. i learnt a lot

the biggest lesson was that volume negates luck

i’m not a full time content creator. i’m trying to build software businesses. some days i have the idea, the energy & the time to record.

some days i don’t. that’s why i focused on building a system that doesn’t rely on me

here’s how it works, and how you can copy it. i open sourced it all…

the manual recording problem

manual content depends on three things showing up together.

time. energy. discipline.

if one disappears, the video doesn’t go out.

that is why i think the best way to grow with video now is using ai production.

it allows you to get more shots on goal, and daily content with 0 excuses.

what ai should remove

ai removes the repetitive production bottleneck.

it does not remove my taste or responsibility.

my reels engine watches github, hacker news & rss feeds for topics people are starting to care about.

when something breaks out, it can turn that trend into a script using my voice rules, render my heygen clone, build the graphics & captions in remotion and run quality assurance on the video

then it sends the video to me in telegram.

nothing posts until i approve it.

ai does the work that burns time. i still decide if the source is real, if the hook is honest, if the opinion is mine & if the video should exist at all.

human judgment stays exactly where reputation is on the line.

why speed matters

if a story starts moving today, recording it next week is usually useless.

reels engine has a breakout watcher checking for trends every two hours.

instead of waiting until i have time to record, it can turn a relevant idea into a video draft in minutes.

that lets me trend-jack without dropping whatever i'm building.

more importantly, it lets content keep going out when founder life gets busy.

consistency stops being a daily test of willpower.

take the full engine

i open-sourced the entire reels engine under the mit license.

repo: https://github.com/johannships/reels-engine

if you want help setting it up, click here

it has the research pipeline, script system, avatar rendering, graphics, captions, qa, telegram approval flow, metricool scheduling, neutral config, setup docs & a sample episode you can render without account keys.

your identity, voice rules, avatar details & secrets stay in local files or environment variables.

copy it. change it for your niche. keep the approval gate.

build with me

want direct access to me & weekly calls where i break down the systems i’m building?

join AI Operators.

want my team at Cyndra to give your company a free, in-depth AI audit?

book a call here & we'll identify what can be safely automated, what should stay human & where you should start.

no pitch. just value.

i appreciate you reading this.

i want this newsletter to be the most useful thing in your inbox.

if something resonated or you have questions, just reply. i read & respond to every email.

i’m rooting for you & hope the best.

→ johann