Jake Abrams

I help 7-9 figure DTC brands with revenue & CAC | I write The Process, a newsletter about modern growth marketing | Sold 100K+ personal cooling devices

Consumer Marketing & Growth Leader.  

Brands I've worked with:

Caraway
Jones Road Beauty
Skylight
Canopy
Insurify
Naked Wines
Rugiet
Sundays For Dogs
Momofuku
Sunday Lawn Care

100+ others

Book a discovery call in the featured section below 👇

Founder

The lean DTC growth marketing partner that I wish existed when I was an in-house marketing lead. 

At Odyssey, we help 7 & 8-figure DTC brands increase revenue & ROAS by finding the right combination of:

- Messaging
- Audience targeting
- Media channel allocation
- Creative

https://www.growodyssey.com/

Comfrt Clothing, Frost Buddy, and Underbrush are all using the same strategy to consistently go viral on TikTok while building massive creative pipeline.

Some marketers call it "nichemaxxing." I've created a 19-page playbook to help you deploy the exact same strategy for your brand.

Here's what's inside the Brand Nichemaxxing playbook:

- 4-tier content matrix from AI to hero content
- PDA framework for building micropersonas
- Full tech stack: Higgsfield, Genviral, Octo, Snowball, Discord, etc...
- Creator outreach templates that actually get replies
- Cost structures for every creator tier
- Winner selection framework for scaling organic to paid

The idea is simple: own the interest graph first, then amplify with paid.

Most brands do it backwards. They spend on ads before they understand what resonates.

This playbook walks you through 6 phases: niche definition, account setup, content architecture, creator recruitment, production rhythm, and measurement.

Get the 19-page playbook for free. No email gate. Just take it and use it.

1. Follow me
2. Like this post
3. Comment "playbook" and I'll send you the link.

Nichemaxxing across paid & organic social for 8-9 figure consumer brands | Writing about AI & advertising | Sold 100k+ personal cooling devices

This AI agent analyzed 12,500+ customer reviews and support tickets for an 8-figure DTC brand, created its own documentation for overcoming objections across hundreds of SKUS, then just started doing it...directly on the PDP.

Using AI like this can mean the difference between a 2.8% CVR and a 1.7% CVR. 

Essentially an agent that lives on your site, is trained on your catalog and every meaningful customer touchpoint, that can answer every question in 20 seconds or less.

These agents can handle conversion killers like:

Product fit: "Will this luggage fit in Delta's overhead bin?"
Comparisons: "Hard shell vs soft-shell for business travel?"
Technical specs: "Does it have 360° spinning wheels?"

I'm giving away the an 8-minute Loom video showing use cases for this type of agent, plus a guide to setting this up on your Shopify site in 15 minutes.

To get the video and guide:

1. Connect with & follow me
2. Comment "agent" below
3. I'll DM you the link

#DialogPartner

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The smartest people at Meta will tell you to build ads around motivators, not just micropersonas. 

I like this shift to motivators, because it forces you to start the creative process from a better spot.

Personas make you think about demographics. You end up with a bulleted list about a fictional human named Sarah who likes yoga and shops at Whole Foods. Nothing about that tells you what makes Sarah pull our her credit card and spend $150. 

Motivators do, though. 

When I do creative strategy now, I start by mapping out the actual motivators behind someone would buy or be interested in a brand. 

So for Sarah, maybe it's "I need an outfit that works for the December holiday party."

Then for each motivator, you map one core benefit that delivers the solution. That way, you build the creative around that feeling, not around "Sarah."

Then I do it for another motivator. And another....

By the time you've worked through 4-5 of them, you've got a full portfolio of creative assets, each built around a different reason to buy. Different themes, different visuals, different emotional angles. All for the same product.

That's the part people miss, I think. You're not trying to reach different types of people. You're trying to speak to different reasons to take action. A single product can have five completely different ads that all make total sense.

I feel like that's how you scale creative without running out of ideas or making yourself crazy with format multiplication.

Turn 35 today. Sheesh.

Here are 35 takeaways I have from the last 6 years as a "non-business" person building a business with 30+ people:

1. Expect daily disappointment
2. It's ok to be demanding if that's the clear standard
3. The ideas in your head are smart
4. Respect the audience's attention
5. Show undeniable proof
6. Work with challengers
7. Build systems for 50x output
8. Stay on the forefront of technology
9. Extreme bias for action
10. Creative generalists win now
11. Get over fear of speaking to your phone
12. AI + bad taste = epic fail
13. Rip structures, use original thoughts
14. Incentives drive everything
15. Pretty much everyone is winging it
16. Overcome initial content creation friction
17. Grow your own accounts first
18. Authenticity on Zoom is a superpower
19. Daily follow-ups with blockers, Mr Beast style
20. Work should feel like video game
21. Non-business people build differently
22. Ideas die without proper execution
23. Attention is the most sacred currency
24. Charge more than feels comfortable
25. Comfortable teams ship mediocre work
26. Systems unlock exponential output
27. Tech resistors always lose
28. Speed + direction = unfair advantage
29. Generalists are more important than specialists
30. Loom videos beat meetings
31. Tools don't fix shitty taste
32. You can only get so far ripping other's ideas
33. It's ok to start ugly
34. Practice what you preach, or else you're a fraud
35. Build leverage before you need it

---

Feel free to follow along as I document the path to building a $10M+ agency in 2026 by helping 50+ brands manifest the next era of paid social.

https://lnkd.in/epcpxd4V

I built a 250-video visual script library application in a day with Replit, Airtable, and Gemini. 

So I recorded an 8-minute Loom video outlining the entire process. 

I'm not an engineer. I did run marketing for a coding bootcamp, and maybe that experience helped me overcome the fear of "being technical."

Here's what I cover in the Loom video:

- Why my Airtable database was useless until I made this
- How I used Replit to put a visual frontend over raw data
- The hover-to-play feature that made this actually usable 
- How it auto-analyzes any TikTok or Dropbox link in ~60 seconds
- The prompt I use to extract hooks, transcripts, and full scripts
- How we use it to rewrite winning ads for new brands
- The N8N nightmare I replaced with this

I've been in marketing since 2013 and run a creative agency working with 50+ brands. This is the internal tool I wish I had years ago. 

Want the full 8-minute Loom walkthrough?

Follow or connect with me
Like this post
Comment "Build" 

And I'll send it over.

---

Repost for priority access.

I know an AI agent that sat on a DTC brand's PDP for 2 weeks, captured every question from shoppers, then showed the brand exactly why visitors weren't converting.

Using AI like this can mean the difference between a 2.8% CVR and a 1.7% CVR.

Essentially, this is an agent that lives on your product pages, answers questions in real time, and logs every conversation as a data point. After 2 weeks, you have a clear picture of what's blocking purchases within an easy-to-understand dashboard. 

These agents can handle conversion killers like:

- Compatibility: "Is this compatible with my device?"
- Confusion: "What's the difference between X and Y?"
- Fit: "Will this actually work for me?"

85% of this feedback normally dies in chat logs. But agents like this can turn that data into an actionable CRO roadmap.

I'm giving away a step-by-step Notion document that explains exactly how to set up this system on your PDP’s… 

So you have AI handling conversations, running an analysis on why people didn't buy, and delivering that to you in a dashboard with visualizations.

Works for any Shopify brand doing $1M+. Free to install, takes ~15 minutes.

To get the Notion doc:

1. Connect with and follow me
2. Comment "insights" below
3. I'll DM you the link

#DialogPartner

One of our creators just hit 50k views on a single TikTok.

She has 6,500 followers. She's paid ~$500/month for ~25 posted TikToks plus bonuses based on views her content drives.

This creator is an actual customer. She had a real transformation with this product. The proof is undeniable in the video she posted, and that's why it worked.

You can't script something like this. You can't hire a generic UGC creator to fake it. You can't recreate it in Higgsfield.

She's in our Discord community, where we're sharing tips for going viral and building a community around helping people earn by sharing their authentic stories.

It's all real. No generic content or fake testimonials.

This is the nichemaxxing strategy for 2026.

Massive communities of real people within a specific niche who you coach to go viral on TikTok. Everybody wins.

You have to be doing this as a brand in 2026.

The creative bottleneck doesn’t exist in 2026.

Learn:

Claude
Octo
Wispr Flow
Snowball

Combine with:

Exceptional creative taste
Operational psycho-ness
Next-level communication skills

Might sound harsh, but you gotta figure it out or you'll get left behind.

It takes you way too long to write scripts, and it's not your fault. 

It's because you keep having to re-feed the context to your creative strategy copilot every single time, and that's extremely annoying to do. 

Instead, run use this 3-part architecture that I custom built out for my agency:

First, work backwards from a format you already know worked. Have Gemini analyze the entire video. 

Second, you pull that context into Claude, which already has project files about everything you need to know about the brand you're writing for.

Third, your Claude needs a set of overarching skills that sit within your Claude organization that tell it how to write like your agency or you. 

When you do this, the output is actually good. It's not a shitty first draft. 

Because Claude already has the direction...what made the original format work, how to write like the brand, and how to be good at creative strategy. 

That's the architecture.

I recorded a quick video walking through exactly how I set this up. Watch it if you're tired of re-explaining your Claude how to write like your brand or write like a real creative strategist.

Here's the embarrassing truth that a lot of "AI is replacing everything" bros haven't talked about honestly...

Making good AI video content at scale is actually kinda hard.

Getting prompts right is a skill. It takes time to develop. You have 8-12 seconds per scene. Iteration is slow. A lot of the output you get early on is going to be unusable and you're going to waste a lot of time. 

Compare that to certain types of content that are just genuinely faster to shoot on your phone.

For example: I've been making 7 talking head "yap" videos per week for my own TikTok that I've grown to 27k+ followers. I just pick up my phone and speak for 60-90 seconds. And then it's done.

Why would I spend the time to clone myself and try to recreate something with AI tools that will always feel slightly off, when it doesn't save me any time or cost? Plus people will hate me for AI-ing myself. 

How about if you're Comfrt Clothing, and your top performing TikTok affiliate videos are just Gen Z-ers in their bedrooms taking selfie videos? They just show off their hoodie, show off a few features, and add a caption. That's a 15-minute shoot on an iPhone.

There is no AI workflow that beats that for speed, cost, and authenticity.

So before you burn 20 hours crafting an AI workflow for videos that are easier to just shoot with your phone... ask yourself if it's actually worth it.

A Matthew McConaughey & Timothée Chalamet interview recently went viral, in which McConaughey said that the moral plea against AI is not strong enough and will lose out to the economic incentives.

No lies told there. 

But here's what might actually slow it down:

Everybody hates "AI passed off as real" content.

No major brand I know would unleash an army of AI influencers right now who are pretending to be real. That nuance is everything. The brand risk is enormous.

Maybe that changes in 10-15 years when Gen Z and Gen Alpha are the primary consumers and the cultural relationship with AI-generated content has shifted.

Impossible to actually know.

But in the next year? 

AI takes over certain categories, but humans retain control of most categories.

Because authenticity and emotional connection is still what builds brands. 

Faking it has massive consequences.

DTC brands, I would STOP making $300 UGC videos and immediately firing them into your ad account.

This used to be a logical strategy. But in 2026, you're missing the bigger opportunity.

I've worked with 100+ consumer brands, and so many are spending 100% of their time "creating content for paid", and 0% of their time deploying it organically first.

If your ad account is full of unspent creatives, do this instead:

- Scrape your customer reviews for content ideas using Motion (Creative Analytics) or Claude
- Scrape organic TikTok for winning angles using Snowball
- Talk to your ad account data using Octo
- Identify good creators with Meta creator marketplace
- Set up a Discord to manage and motivate them

Then:
- Get creators on performance deals where they post to their own accounts
- Build your own network of slideshow & faceless accounts
- Deploy every creative test organically first
- Prioritize putting paid spend behind content that earned organic views

Test this for 30-60 days.

You'll see massive improvements in creative volume & winning creatives while reducing wasted ad testing spend. Plus you'll build a massive halo that lifts your entire business. 

Let that drive which content deserves your paid budget.

You're stuck at $250k/month in Meta spend because you don't understand exactly what's happening inside the system you're feeding money into. 

Let me break down the 4-model architecture running your ads:

ANDROMEDA
This is the retrieval engine that scans tens of millions of ads to find candidates for each impression.

GEM
This is the ranking superbrain that takes Andromeda's pool and decides which ad wins the impression.

LATTICE
This is the consolidation layer that connects multiple ranking models and shares learnings across Feed, Reels, and objectives.

SEQUENCE LEARNING
This helps model user behavior over time. Not just one impression, the full sequence of actions before and after.

How they work together:
→ Andromeda retrieves 
→ GEM + Lattice rank 
→ Sequence learning personalizes.

What this means if you spend $250k+ / month as an 8-9 figure brands:

- Creative diversity is how you deliver ad candidates
- More variants = more signals = better matching
- The AI handles distribution, you handle inputs

You need operational willingness to hit quality + quantity + differentiation b/c that's what the entire system runs on.

I built my first real vibe coding app with Airtable, Replit, and Gemini. 

Process was:
- I built out this big Airtable databse
- Gemini analyzes any video and put the analysis in Airtable
- I created a front end for this using Replit

You can hover over the videos, and they auto play. You can open them up, and get the script. .You can even copy a prompt that you can preload into Claude
to do a rewrite of that video for your specific brand.

The prompt auto checks the project files in Claude that tell it how to write like that brand, and then it does a rewrite and gives you all this extra helpful context.

This was a massive game changer for my process of:

- Working backwards from a format
- Adapting it for the brands that I'm working with
- Applying my creative taste to edit the content in a human way afterward

"Content creators are toast, AI is going to replace all of you."

Here's why I believe this take is fundamentally wrong...

I run an AI-native creative agency. I use AI every single day. And I genuinely believe AI is one of the most important shifts happening in our industry.

AI will infiltrate certain categories and never touch others.

Any animation that is not Pixar-level, top 5%...is probably gone. Why pay $5,000 when you can prompt and tweak something that is relatively comparable?

Same with word walls, cinematic story ads, static creative, memes, and product renders.

But then there's content where the entire f*****g point is that it's real.

Pull up Comfrt Clothing on Kalodata. They're doing $10M+ per month on TikTok Shop. Look at their top 10 revenue-driving videos. None of them are AI. Almost all are real micro and mid-level influencers.

Because the content that works on TikTok is "I am a real person who bought this thing and here's what I think."

The second that's AI, the whole thing falls apart. 

At the end of the day, authenticity has always been the driver of building the best brands.

That didn't change just because it got cheaper to fake it.

Brands that have hired ex-Odyssey team members:

Gruns
Hexclad
AG1
Trip

I don't believe there is a better place to learn modern creative strategy, as long as you're hellbent on joining the top 1% of humans at this skill. 

We're hiring again for a critical position to help us deliver on our goal to elevate 8 & 9-figure consumer brands into the top 1% of their category for creative diversification & distribution. 

Apply here: https://lnkd.in/eYex6PPW

To apply: send a Loom video showing proof of two things:

1. A TikTok Shop you've managed...walk us through the results & what you did personally to grow it.

2. A Discord creator community you've managed...show us the server, your activity, and how you kept it engaged and growing.

"Do you get brands from posting on TikTok?"

I don't even know what to say back, cause I don't think of things that way. 

All I think about is:

- The thoughts in your head about marketing are actually smart
- If you pair them with the right hook, people will pay attention
- Just keep putting that out there, into the world
- They will find the right people
- When they're ready, they will just reach out
- I have a better chance than someone they never saw in their feed

That's literally it.

Let's say you need to build 10+ affiliate programs from scratch.

The goal: onboard 30+ micro-influencers per brand within 15 days.

Here's the setup:

Target: creators with 5k-50k followers already posting in each brand's niche (not random people)

Half the brands sell on TikTok Shop. Half don't due to business model constraints.

Compensation structures vary by creator:
• Commission-only + free product
• Retainers for high volume (30 posts/month) + view bonuses
• Retainers + sales commissions

Requirements:
• Full content buyout for ad rights across all platforms
• Dead simple process for sparking and partnership ads
• Ability to manage multiple programs simultaneously

Nice to haves:
• Payment management
• Dynamic creator payments based on CPM model

What's the 10/10 tech stack for this for < $2,500 / month?

Is it:
• Just Upfluence
• Just Aspire
• Just SARAL - The Influencer OS
• Refunnel + a CRM like Streak 
• Social Snowball ☃️ + a CRM like Streak 
• Superfiliate + a CRM like Streak 
• Some other combination
• Something else entirely

You need operational efficiency here. 

What have you used at true scale that actually works?

Upfluence

Aspire

SARAL - The Influencer OS

Refunnel

Streak

Social Snowball ☃️

Superfiliate

Jack Dorsey fired 40% of Block staff "because of AI."

Here's exactly what to do next if you're afraid of being next...

18 random thoughts from growing my TikTok from zero to 26k+ followers in a few months.  

- I kinda think you're a fraud if you make content for a living but are unable to grow your own social accounts
- Every thought-out LinkedIn post is a script for TikTok
- Unscripted TikToks become more LinkedIn Content
- Just fire off that "hot take"

- Audio quality matters more than camera quality
- Just buy the RØDE mic, it's awesome
- Making your own videos is best way to become a better CS
- Every CS should try to grow a TikTok, even it's a faceless account

- The hook is everything
- The hook should be oddly specific: use keywords and numbers
- TikTok "categorizes" you, and it becomes easiest to get views in that category
- The random thought in your head is good enough for TikTok, as long as you have a specific hook

- It's easier to get views on TikTok than LI w/o resorting to "lead magnets"
- It's possible to work out and make 3 TikToks during my kid's naptime
- People will watch and comment even if it's just a talking head video
- Your audience is on TikTok b/c everybody is on TikTok

- TikTok drives real business opportunities
- I had 3 leads comes through last week who discovered us on TikTok

Anyway, those are my thoughts.

After running AdTribe for six years and managing over $100M in ad spend, I learned how hard it is to build and keep a world-class media buying team.

Finding great talent takes months.
Training takes even longer.
And the wrong hire can cost you clients and profit fast.

So I built the service I wish existed back then — Haven.

Haven is a white-label media buying partner that helps marketing agencies scale without hiring.

For $799 per account, you get a complete senior-level growth team:

✅ Media buyer
✅ Creative designer
✅ Video editor
✅ Developer
✅ Performance strategist

No hiring. No overhead. No training headaches.

Today, more than 20 agencies partner with us to handle their paid media.

A few of them said it best:

Olivia Kean, CEO at Fusion Hub
👉 “It’s allowed me to focus on the things I love, knowing they’re crushing it on their end.”

Kory Baraba, CEO at Grow Fast
👉 “We’ve worked with 4–5 different media buyers from Haven, and they’ve all been amazing.”

See more client stories here: https://www.hirewithhaven.com/clients

If you run a marketing agency and want to scale fulfillment without adding headcount,
connect with me or reach out at dmitry@hirewithhaven.com

Dmitry Fesenko

I used to stare at a blank page for hours.

No idea what to write on LinkedIn.

Now? I have enough content ideas for the next 3 months.

One shift changed everything: I stopped trying to create and started reflecting.

Here's what I mean.

Writing content is just thinking out loud. You reflect on things you said, things you did, things you thought about.

That's it. No magic formula.

I'm not a LinkedIn guru. Most of my posts get less than 1,000 impressions. But I show up every day because eventually the right people will see it.

Here's where I get my content ideas:

→ Client calls (I record everything with Fathom)
→ Team meetings
→ Our Notion docs
→ Content I consume (like Alex Hormozi)
→ Things I build (like our Airtable backend)
→ Random thoughts throughout the day

I review my day and turn it into 5-10 content ideas.

Some hit. Most don't. But I'm never staring at a blank page anymore.

Stop trying to be creative. Just document what you're already doing.

Where do you get your content ideas?

CEO at Haven | Hire world-class media buyers for 65% less than in the US | $100M+ in managed ad spend

AI can do most of my job. I'm not worried.

Just got back from Bangkok. Met up with a few clients and partners while I was there.

One conversation stuck with me.

If AI gets so good at doing our jobs, what edge will service businesses have?

We agreed on one thing: in-person relationships are the real moat for B2B.

AI can optimize your campaigns. It can write your copy. It can analyze your data faster than any human.

But it can't grab dinner with your client. It can't build trust over a round of golf. It can't shake hands and look someone in the eye.

I'll take that trade every day.

Honestly? It's the best part of my job anyway.

So while AI handles more and more of the execution, I'll keep building relationships with the people I like.

Playing golf with clients. Having conversations like this one in Bangkok.

That's a future I'm excited about.

What's your moat?

(Mine might involve a negroni or two 😁)

We have 400+ Slack channels.

It's a nightmare.

2 hours every morning just to get through messages. And even then, client questions slip through the cracks. One missed message can cost you a six-figure contract.

So our developer built something cool.

A custom tool that scrapes all Slack messages every 30 minutes and creates a dashboard with:

→ All unanswered client messages
→ Response time per media buyer
→ Accounts with the most communication (for unit economics)
→ Working hours when media buyers are most active

But here's the best part.

AI analyzes every message to determine urgency. If a client waits more than 2 hours for an answer, the media buyer gets a DM notification. If it hits 3 hours, the team lead gets pinged too.

We just launched this but initial results look promising.

Slack has always been our biggest energy drain. This is our first step to making it efficient while still keeping human relationships with our clients.

AI is awesome.

Happy Friday 🍺

Our media buyers manage $30M+ in ad spend every year.

Here are the AI tools they actually use daily:

For thinking & strategy:

→ ChatGPT: Reports, analysis, strategy drafts, brainstorming, client comms. The workhorse.
→ Gemini: Research, structuring ideas, operational tasks.
→ Claude: Deeper analytical work. Audits, data analysis, strategic recommendations.

For creatives:

→ Sora: Video concepts and short-form ads.
→ Symphony: UGC-style ad videos.
→ Veo 3: High-quality video creatives (usually paired with our designers).
→ NanoBanana: Static visuals and ad creatives.

For workflow & data:

→ Adnova: Speeds up campaign setup and simplifies creative workflows.
→ GoMarble: Pulls data directly from ad accounts. Compares performance across periods. Syncs with Asana & Slack so we can track team workload.

Two years ago, none of these tools existed.

Now they're part of our daily workflow.

The role of a media buyer is changing fast. The ones who adapt will thrive. The ones who don't will get replaced by someone who did.

What AI tools is your team using?

AI tools media buyers

Our team was checking Slack on weekends "just in case."

And they'd end up working 2-3 hours on stuff that could've waited until Monday.

That's not sustainable. And it's not even efficient.

The real problem: we're spread across timezones. Media buyers in Europe. Me in Canada. Clients in the US and Australia. There's always going to be friction when someone sends a message outside working hours.

So we're building something simple: Urgent Forms.

Every white-label partner will get a dedicated link. When something is genuinely urgent and the team has checked off for the day, they submit the form.

The moment it's submitted, our team lead, the media buyer, and I all get a ping on Telegram or WhatsApp.

Since we're spread across timezones, someone will always see it.

The goal: media buyers can actually disconnect on weekends. No more opening Slack "just to check." If it's truly urgent, it comes through the form. If it's not, it waits until Monday.

Clients get peace of mind knowing urgent issues will be handled. Instead of sending a Slack message into the void and hoping for the best.

It's not fancy. Just a short form connected to a few notifications.

We discussed this with our team leads yesterday and rolling it out soon.

If you run a distributed team and struggle with after-hours communication, might be worth trying something similar.

Happy Friday ya'll 🍻

$1.36M in managed ad spend
$4.08M in ecom revenue
20,353 leads generated

That's February at Haven.

The breakdown:
→ 91 active accounts
→ Avg ROAS (ecom): 4.04x
→ Avg CPL: $44

Performance:
→ 63% of accounts overachieved (100%+ of target)
→ 11% on track (80-99%)
→ 26% underperforming

Platform split by spend:
→ Meta: 58%
→ Google: 41%
→ Pinterest, Taboola: 1%

Wins this month:

✅ Best financial month ever (32% EBITDA)
✅ Found two rockstar media buyers for multi-million dollar apps
✅ Hired new head of paid media
✅ Hired new COO 

That's what I love about the agency business.

One month you feel like all stars are aligned against you and you want to quit. The next month you're firing on all cylinders.

The key is not to get too excited when things are good, and not get too sad when things are bad.

You just gotta love the game.

Onto March 💪

We just placed a senior media buyer into an app spending $500K/month on ads.

Here's how it happened.

Doug is Head of Growth at a women's health company. Their founder built a massive audience and decided it was time to launch a product.

It blew up.

They scaled to $500K in monthly ad spend within a year. But Doug had too much on his plate. He needed someone great to take over Meta, Google, and TikTok ads.

We've placed a ton of talent into high-growth apps, so he reached out.

From signing the contract to the candidate accepting the offer: less than 6 weeks.

Probably one of the smoothest placements we've done.

P.S. If you're running a high-growth app and need a killer user acquisition talent, we have a few great candidates ready to go. DM me.

This is what winning looks like.

Scrolled through our Slack and had to screenshot these:

👉 "Team work because they are so happy with Meta performance!"

👉 "The client is so excited and had minimal revisions for us."

👉 "You're killing it over there. Super happy to have you as part of the team."

👉 "Excellent news on spending much more on NFL this year, good work."

This is what happens when you pair agencies with media buyers who actually care.

We're not just filling seats. We're placing people who treat your clients like their own.

That's the difference between a contractor and a partner.

White-label media buying now makes almost 70% of our revenue.

What started as me selling extra capacity of my media buyers to other agencies became the biggest revenue driver in the business.

Why I love this model:

→ Retention: most of our agency partners stay with us for years
→ I'm barely involved in fulfillment. My team leads handle most of it
→ Agencies basically become my sales reps, so i can just focus on hiring great talent
→ Most of our partners become close friends (same vibe)

But this is not all rainbows and sunshine.

This is probably the worst agency model for most founders. Here's why:

→ High volume, low ticket. To hit $100K MRR, we need to manage 130+ accounts
→ Heavy ops. We have over 20 full-time team members
→ Every agency owner needs different things. We personalize our offer for each partner
→ Timezone differences are still tricky. It doesn't work for everyone

Despite all that, we're still pushing hard. Signing new agency partners almost every week.

The relationships make it worth it.

I'm still having a ton of fun building this.

If you need a trusted media buying partner, reach out. We're bringing on 5 new agencies in Q2 💪

Everyone's chasing the latest Claude update.

They're missing the point.

Here's what no one wants to talk about: the boring stuff. The data.

Everyone will have access to the same LLM models. The only way to differentiate yourself is to have a unique dataset you can train your models on.

We started building this with our developer. A database that will eventually become the brain of our AI agent.

Here's what we're feeding it:

→ All accounts data and creatives
→ Every public Slack message
→ Notion SOPs
→ Asana tasks
→ Team call recordings
→ Stripe invoices

Literally every piece of information we use to operate our agencies.

Now here comes the boring part.

It takes an enormous amount of time and effort to organize your data properly.

It means rewriting all your SOPs and only keeping the ones you actually use. Otherwise you train your AI on the wrong processes.

It means connecting all 90+ accounts and making sure every data piece is being collected.

It means constantly giving feedback on the quality of outputs. Which, by default, no one wants to do.

Only then can you build a truly AI-native agency.

Otherwise you have no edge 🤖

I was 100% sure this person didn't exist.

We needed a new Head of Paid Media.

But I wasn't actively searching. I figured I'd have to grow one internally. Finding someone great from the outside felt impossible.

Then Diana, our new team lead, recommended her previous Head of Paid Media.

She said he was as good as our last one who stayed with us for 8 years.

I hopped on a call with zero expectations.

Diana was right.

Illya had done everything we were lacking:

→ Built processes media buyers actually follow
→ Ran a dedicated creative department
→ Understands that media buyers need to become growth strategists to stay relevant

We sent the offer the next day.

The lesson? Your team is your best recruitment channel.

They know who's great. They've worked alongside these people. They can vouch for culture fit in ways a resume never will.

Before you post another job ad, ask your team who they'd want to work with again.

Do you ask your team for referrals?

adtribe

aceleads-agency

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I run two agencies. Here's my entire tech stack.

9 tools I actually use every day:

1/ Fathom

Records every call and pushes notes straight into CRM.
I use call transcripts to write most of my LinkedIn content.

2/ Claude

I asked it 50 questions about me, my goals, and my businesses.
Connected our Notion, Gmail, and financial data.
Added people I admire.
Now it's my go-to for business and life advice.

3/ Stanley

My new favorite writing tool.
I always struggled to make Claude write in my voice.
Stanley makes LinkedIn content way easier.

4/ Superwhisper

New tool I just started using.
Saves a ton of time on typing. Now I can brain dump ideas in 30 seconds instead of writing for 5 minutes.

5/ GoMarble

I use it to ask Claude what's going on across our entire client portfolio.
My team loves it too.

6/ Folk CRM

By far the easiest CRM for social selling.
Perfect if you're living on LinkedIn like me.

7/ Veed.io

I have zero video editing skills.
With Veed, I get 10 to 20 short-form clips from client calls in minutes.

8/ AuthoredUp

My go-to for writing and scheduling LinkedIn posts.
Simple UI. Useful analytics.

9/ HeyReach

Automatically sends 25 to 40 connection requests a day to my ICP.
First DM is also automated.

What are the tools you can't live without?

👇 Drop them in the comments.

1 (1)

I started my first business 10 years ago.

It was a disaster.

Back in 2016 I quit my job as a customs officer and was trying to figure out what to do with my life.

I read Richard Branson's book "Screw It, Let's Do It" and was ready to make millions 😅

A long-time friend and I went through a few ideas and decided to export wood pellets to Europe.

Our market research was based on:

→ Ukraine has a lot of forests
→ Wood scraps must be cheap to get
→ European companies would line up for our product

We formed an LLC called "B&F Trading" (what an awesome name).

Our GTM strategy was to cold call importers and undercut competitors on pricing.

(we paid someone under the table to get the database of all wood pellet importers)

Here's what went wrong:

→ Wood leftovers aren't easy to find, even in Ukraine
→ The quality was poor. Most wood companies just throw it away. And Europe is very particular about quality
→ Margins were brutal. 20 tons of product cost $2,000
→ European importers valued long-term partnerships. They didn't want to work with two 20-somethings trying to undercut everyone.

Needless to say, we made zero dollars.

But it taught me lessons I still use today:

→ How to evaluate demand before spending money
→ How to do basic GTM: website, cold email, outreach
→ How legal stuff works: contracts, taxes, LLCs
→ How to sell. I cold-called hundreds of people. Terrifying for a nerd like me.

Every business is hard. There are always things you don't know until you start.

But each failure makes the next one easier.

What was your first business flop?

Got this email from an agency owner we used to work with years ago.

"Been reading your emails. Thank you!"

"We should meet up and shoot the shit. Maybe BKK or Chiang Mai or Hua Hin."

Scott used to be one of our white-label partners. We worked together but never met in person. After the project ended, we lost touch.

Then my newsletter brought him back.

Starting my newsletter was probably the best investment I've made in my business.

I started with zero strategy. Just shared everything I was working on.

→ New tools I'm testing
→ How I structure my agencies for efficiency
→ Problems we face when scaling
→ Personal stuff (like me doing a health checkup in Bangkok)

I didn't want to treat it like a sales funnel. I just wanted to stay connected with people I like.

Then something interesting happened.

People I hadn't spoken to in years started reaching out. Some of them referred us new business. Others wanted to meet up and talk shop.

If you've been sitting on the idea of starting a newsletter, just start.  

Don't overthink it. Just write like you're updating a friend.

Thank me later.

Brand positioning explained in 30 seconds.

I'm currently in Asia. Anyone who's been here knows 7-Eleven is the spot.

I walked into the protein milk section and counted at least 10 different brands.

Same flavors.
Same price.
All with exactly 30 grams of protein.

Except one.

This brand has 33 grams.

I'm a simple consumer. I see more protein for the same price, I buy it. Every single time.

That's the power of brand positioning.

You don't need to reinvent the product. 
You don't need a massive rebrand. 
You don't need to slash your prices.

Sometimes you just need one small difference that matters to your customer.

It could be 10% more of what they actually care about.
One feature your competitors don't have.
A single reason to pick you over everyone else.

When everyone zigs, you zag.

Had coffee with a developer in Thailand last week.

He taught himself to code 10 years ago so he could become a digital nomad.

And it worked.

He traveled the world. UpWork gave him all his clients. Life was good.

Until it wasn't.

Over the last 3 months, he got zero jobs. The market got more competitive. But more importantly, businesses just need fewer developers now.

Here's the irony.

Just a few years ago, being a developer was considered the highest career pursuit. Learn to code and you're set for life.

Now they're the first ones being replaced by the machines they built.

Things change fast.

But I don't think knowing how to code is worthless. I don't think it ever will be.

It's just not enough to be a pure tech engineer anymore.

The people who will succeed most are those who are technically skilled AND understand the business side:

→ Why are we building this feature?
→ Do our customers even need it?
→ What's the best distribution channel for this?

Being able to coordinate AI agents and engineers to get results for the business will be invaluable.

Generalists are back in demand.

What skills are you doubling down on?

The best engineers won't build the best companies anymore.

Evan Spiegel said it in a recent interview:

"Before, so many resources were dedicated to engineering. Now people are gonna be much more focused on marketing and distribution."

He's not the only one. OpenAI's Greg Brockman says taste is now a core skill. The pattern is clear.

Building is getting cheaper. AI can spin up a product, an app, a landing page in hours. The barrier to create is basically gone.

So what becomes the most valuable skill?

Creating content that gets attention from the right people.

Sure, Claude can write your LinkedIn posts. But that's not an edge when everyone has the same tools.

The edge? Knowing what to say. Understanding your audience so well that your content actually lands. That takes taste. That takes you.

And as AI floods every channel with generic content, trust becomes the scarcest resource. People buy from people they trust.

The companies that win in the next 10 years won't be the ones with the best engineers.

They'll be the ones with the best marketers.

Good time to be running a marketing agency 😅

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