the human element. A popular online writing teacher stopped his course 4 months ago. His name is David Perell. He is young, taught a course called “Write of Passage” for 6 years, and the AI boom has “set off an existential crisis” in him. There’s a certain irony in an influencer who has benefited from AI (Twitter algorithms) becoming challenged by AI (LLMs). If you’re a non-fiction writer - it’s going to become near impossible to perform better than AI. This means we’re going to have to work...
11 days ago • 1 min read
cutting edge. I share principles in this newsletter for a reason. The tech changes. A shiny thing will fade. Fast tactics are trumped by sound strategy. I work with tech startups and have done this for a long time. So it’s only natural people want to know what is happening on the edge. Today I’m going to indulge that curiosity - and let you know that the principles are more important. Things like the below only work if you understand the principles. So here’s what I’m seeing: AI-trained video...
19 days ago • 2 min read
more from every bite. I learned this from working with nonprofits. Squeeze more value out of everything. The way we think about selling is linear. Create offer Pitch offer Make sale But next to nobody in the real world (where our customers live) thinks like this at all. In nonprofit land, budgets are scarce. You HAVE to do more with everything because there is nothing extra. So you become thrifty. Let’s say we’re selling graphic design services. Here are all the ways we can stretch what we’re...
27 days ago • 1 min read
fist in the air... Here’s your next evergreen campaign idea: Pick a regular time. Fabricate a playful reason for marketing. Run it into the ground. Think about it. There’s already Mothers Day, Black Friday, Valentines Day, Movember… These are all marketing gimmicks. In Japan, on Christmas Day, it’s tradition to purchase a bucket of KFC. I wish I was lying 😂 So rather than “fight the system” go ahead and break the system. In the digital wilderness we’re all bucking against generative AI....
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
the growth stack. A common question I hear after speaking: “Would you recommend tool X?” Sometimes it’s a popular one.Sometimes it’s one I haven’t heard of.Sometimes it’s an exploitative POS. I answer on the spot.Give my impressions and what I think about.The questions move on. But “the tool” is the wrong question to ask.I’ve agitated on this a lot.The best growth people are tool agnostic. This means they’re not a Salesforce guru.They’re not a Zapier wizard.And they’re certainly not reliant...
about 1 month ago • 1 min read
know your numbers. I’m often surprised. By how quickly things can be dismissed. Growing a venture takes time. Growing a business takes time. Growing a side-hustle takes time. People miss this. A certain amount needs to happen against time. Numbers + time = desired result. The numbers are what people miss. A founder has launched a new offer. It’s brave. It’s putting themselves out there. 80 people have been to the page. 30 have clicked through to the buy now button. No sales. Does this mean...
about 2 months ago • 1 min read
how I reflect. I love this time of year as a writer. There’s a natural prompt that comes as the end of the year arrives that gets the juices flowing. At the start of the year - this was a newsletter about AI. We’re now at the end of the year - and it’s a newsletter focused on early growth. The reason for that change was simple - it’s closer to my business. But a bigger reason is a general uneasiness about what’s happening with AI, the world, and what’s going to stand out in the future. So...
3 months ago • 3 min read
saying 'no' would be stupid. I have a confession to make. I’ve never sat down and watched The Godfather series. But the “make them an offer they can’t refuse” line STILL sticks in my head. As a business owner - you can’t obsess over this enough. Not like violent Mafia. More like “I understand your problem so well that I’m going to give you something that’s impossible to say no to” sort of way. There’s a growing trend in AI and automation that’s making cold email, cold LinkedIn, cold pitching...
3 months ago • 1 min read
keeping up with your industry. A question I received yesterday: “How do you keep track of all?” I get this a bit. My friend was asking about how I know what’s going on in the startup space. He just moved back to Australia and was curious. The recurring question is on the how. So today I’m going to walk you through a top-line process for staying all over a niche. I’ll use the startup niche - but keep in mind you can apply this to whatever industry you’re across (and should). This is a part of...
4 months ago • 3 min read
