AI Summary
5 min readThe Anti-Trend Playbook: Why In-Person Experiences Are the Real 2026 Opportunity
In August 2022, Jonathan Courtney rented an entire Italian village—buildings, swimming pool, forest, the works—without knowing if anyone would actually pay to come. He hadn't booked the place yet. He just got footage of himself walking around the location, pitched it to his audience via a webinar, and sold out 75 tickets at $7,800 each in two days. The event cost roughly $100,000 to produce. It was his first in-person event in six years.
That story is the centerpiece of a broader argument Courtney makes: while everyone is zigging toward AI, automation, and digital products, there is a massive opportunity in zagging toward the physical, the in-person, and the deliberately inconvenient. He calls it the anti-trend.
The Core Insight
Courtney's thesis is straightforward. The AI explosion has made digital content creation nearly frictionless. Anyone can generate blog posts, videos, courses, and communities with minimal effort. The result is a flood of what he calls "slop" and "brain rot"—content that is cheap to produce and easy to ignore. Meanwhile, social media usage peaked in 2022 in many countries, and younger users are the first to cut back. People are craving the opposite: real experiences, physical objects, and genuine human connection.
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What you'll learn
- 1 (00:00) **Episode Introduction** - Host frames the episode around the "anti-trend" of going against AI to build a million-dollar business in 2026.
- 2 (01:01) **Defining the Anti-Trend** - Jonathan explains the core concept: going opposite to the AI and social media explosion to find massive opportunity.
- 3 (03:11) **The Core Mechanism: Digital to IRL** - Jonathan describes moving profitable digital products to in-person versions, finding them easier to market despite higher prices.
- 4 (05:54) **The Framework: How to Generate Anti-Trend Ideas** - Jonathan outlines the method: look at what's popular in the digital-only space and create an in-person version.
- 5 (08:56) **The Inherent Advantage of Scarcity** - In-person events have natural scarcity (limited tickets), making marketing campaigns simpler and more effective.
- 6 (10:49) **The "Summer Camp" Case Study** - Jonathan details how he created a high-ticket in-person event by stripping out all virtual elements from a common digital product (a mastermind).
- 7 (14:22) **Why In-Person is a Competitive Moat** - Jonathan argues that in-person events are hard to compete with and make a business feel more legitimate.
+ Full timestamped outline available in the app
Show Notes
Join me as I chat with Jonathan Courtney about how businesses can thrive by going against current digital trends, particularly by offering premium in-person experiences while others focus on AI and virtual offerings. He shares how his company has successfully transitioned from digital-only to in-person events, charging higher prices for physical experiences that consistently sell out. The conversation explores how physical products and experiences create perceived value, authenticity, and scarcity that digital alternatives cannot replicate.
Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
01:33 - The Anti-Trend to AI
05:53 - Why IRL Events
09:09 - Frameworks for Creating IRL Events
17:20 - JC’s Process for throwing IRL Events
30:27 - The power of physical products vs. digital offerings
36:22 - Final Thoughts and Conclusions
Key Points:
• Jonathan Courtney explains how to profit from the "anti-trend" to AI and digital automation by focusing on in-person experiences
• In-person events are becoming increasingly valuable as people seek relief from digital overload and AI-generated content
• Physical products and in-person events create scarcity and authenticity that digital offerings cannot match
• Building small, dedicated audiences (even just "100 true fans") can be sufficient to run successful high-ticket in-person events
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