As a startup founder, taking a break can seem nearly impossible. You’re constantly juggling tasks, managing teams, and driving growth. But is it possible to take a week-long vacation and go off the grid without pausing any initiatives and still work on your target goals?

This was the challenge I posed to myself when I took a week-long vacation with my family. I badly needed a vacation, as the first quarter was super hectic. But I just launched my company a few weeks earlier, and I was thinking it might not be the best time to take a vacation. So, I said, what if I can still reach all my goals while being away?

The main thing I need to work on consistently is publishing content because that’s how I establish my credibility and attract potential clients. My core content is video. But it’s hard to produce videos consistently. I especially hate the part where I must put makeup on and block hours of recording time. I have toddlers who get too rowdy when they are bored. It can be stressful to record videos while you’re hearing all that ruckus!

But alas! I found the answer. I can just clone myself and record videos.

How to Clone Yourself

A few months earlier, I produced a series of videos for Vidpros, an on-demand video editing company. The videos were all about AI tools. As part of the series, I tested Heygen. Heygen creates a clone of your voice, face, and background and turns them into an AI avatar that you can keep using.

I already had this avatar, so I thought, “Why not use it?”

My AI Video Strategy

So, before we dive deep into the process of creating your AI clone, I want to share my strategy first. I’ve worked on many video projects in the past, and I know for a fact that YouTube shorts bring the most results.

It’s great because:

They are easy to produce. They bring thousands of views even if you don’t have subscribers.
Their great for building brand awareness if you publish shorts consistently.
I also know that my ideal clients—early-stage startup founders—use YouTube and prefer bite-sized content.

My goal is to publish a 30-second short daily that answers the most frequent questions I get from founders who are planning to build their remote teams for the first time in the Philippines.

Why 30 seconds? First, I believe that viewers won’t watch a long video when it’s AI-generated. Also, 30 seconds only uses .5 credit in Heygen. I chose the $29 plan, which gave me 15 credits. I wanted to publish one video per day, so that gives me about 30 videos for a whole month.

Lastly, based on my past data, YouTube shorts perform well if they are less than 30 seconds. I’ll measure the success of the videos by the number of impressions, views, and number of subscribers. At this point, I wasn’t expecting direct leads yet.

However, I planned to promote the video series on LinkedIn. Posting on LinkedIn regularly generates inquiries and booked calls on a weekly basis.

How to Write a Script for Your AI Clone

Before I created my AI avatar on Heygen, I already knew how I would write the scripts. I have tons of blog posts on this site. All I had to do was shorten them into a 30-second video script using ChatGPT.

The idea is to use what you already have so you don’t have to start from scratch. I fed ChatGPT all of my blog posts first before I started writing a script. Once it had all the content, I started generating the prompts for the script. First, I had to get the structure written.

The video had to start with a question followed by a straightforward answer. Here are a few of the prompts that I used:

How to Create an AI Avatar on Heygen

Creating an AI avatar in Heygen is simple. It won’t take you more than an hour. But this advice works if you already have a ton of video experience without AI. That’s because you’ll know the best way to look at the camera and get the pauses right.

Here are the steps for creating an AI avatar:

Record a two-minute video.
Give Heygen permission to turn that video into an AI avatar.
Wait for Heygen to process the video.

That’s it! It’s simple. You have to follow every instruction for recording the video, so your AI avatar will look as natural as possible. The key is in the pauses. You need to pause after every sentence. But it should be a very brief pause! You can also smile a bit while you’re talking and accompany with very slight hand movement. Don’t move your head too much!

How to Create AI Videos by Batch

Once I was satisfied with my AI avatar, I started creating videos. I pasted the script from ChatGPT to Heygen’s Studio Avatar. I tried to create as many videos in one sitting. At the first session, I was able to create 10 — more than enough to cover my vacation. I was gone for 7 days.

Once I had the videos ready, I scheduled them by batch from the YouTube Studio app for the whole week I was away. The whole process took me about 1.5 hours – from creating the avatar to writing the scripts to scheduling the videos on YouTube.

Once I did this, I was happy because I could relax on my vacation, knowing that a series of content would go out. I was also excited (and a bit nervous) because it’s a totally new type of content than I usually publish. I’ve published videos before, but not AI-generated. I was also worried about getting complaints from the comments.

Lead generation is the only part of the business that I haven’t fully delegated to another teammate, so that’s why this was extremely critical to get done before my vacation. Luckily, the daily operation works well without me because I’ve got a recruitment team and a fractional marketing team.

Results of the AI Videos

My initial goal was brand awareness, but I really didn’t expect a lot from it. I wasn’t sure if people would watch a fully AI-generated video. But to my surprise, I got great results:

1600+ views
10+ new subscribers
3 inquiries (2 from past clients, 1 new from LinkedIn)
2 booked calls (1 from past client, 1 from LinkedIn)

I also got comments and messages from my network. They were impressed with my AI clone! They actually couldn’t believe it was AI.

Other Ways to Clone Yourself

If you’re not a video person, there are other ways to use AI to clone yourself. For example, you can create a custom GPT. Your clients can use it to access your knowledge, so you won’t have to keep answering the same questions. You can also use it for your team. You can upload all the procedures there, so everyone can access them even when you’re not around.

If you don’t like the idea of building a GPT, this is possible when you’re using Notion and Clickup. Both of these project management system tools have AI integrated into them. For example, I use Notion for all our work and personal projects. With Notion’s Q&A feature, you can ask anything! It will use all the existing notes and databases you have in your workspace to answer those questions.

My ultimate dream is to build a Solitude of Fortress interface where you can ask a question, and an AI hologram of me answers it. With all of the AI advancements, I feel like it will be a reality in no time.