Hyper Pony Studio

Owner

North Square Investments

Digital Marketing Consultant

FortéOne

Fractional CMO | Chief Marketing Officer

Ariel Investments

C.S. McKee

UX Collective

Contributing Writer

MAQTOOB

Digital Bootcamp

Instructor

The Simons Group

Senior Designer

👑 Web, Marketing, & Design Expert for Advisory and Consulting Firms 👑 Websites driven by marketing expertise 👉 hyperponystudio.com

👋 Hi I'm Manda!

Follow me and ring my 🔔 if you're in the financial services industry and want to learn more about:

👉 Marketing persuasion techniques 
👉 Writing copy that converts
👉 Attracting potential clients
👉 Turning those prospects into clients
👉 Professionally presenting your brand 
👉 Attracting your ideal clients
👉 Creating an EFFECTIVE website
👉 Establishing trust and building authority

🔻 🔻 🔻 Want to work together? 🔻 🔻 🔻

For advisory and investment firms:
🔹 Complete brand, website, & marketing overhauls
🔹 Ongoing marketing and fractional CMO services
🔹 Deep-dive website audits

For independent financial advisors:
🔹 Deep-dive website audits
🔹 Web and marketing flash audits
🔹 Ignite Your Site course coming soon!

Learn more, view samples of my work, or start your project at hyperponystudio.com!

👑
Hyper Pony Studio 
Digital marketing for the financial services industry

Manda Szewczyk

🎉 First Tiny Tweak of the new year for advisors: 
Remember to update the copyright date in the footer of your website to 2026. 

It seems trivial, but any incorrect information on your website will reduce trust. And especially for advisors, it's ALLLL about the trust!

- - - - - - - - - 

How many errors (misspellings, incorrect dates, etc.) would you forgive before you'd decide NOT to make a $300 purchase on a website?

- - - - - - - - - 

(BTW, this can be automated – all of my client's sites will update automatically each year – if you didn't build your site yourself, ask your web designer to set this up for you)

👑 Websites & Marketing Overhauls for Financial Advisors & RIAs 👉 Sharing digital marketing tips

Moe Choice

is mentoring solopreneurs to $15k+ months

Popped into Big Tesco for teabags and a multipack of crisps

You will NOT believe who I ran into in the car park

The man Steven Bartlett himself

He looked exactly how he does on Diary of a CEO

Sharp jawline

Like he was on his way to interview a billionaire or buy milk

Hard to tell

And I, being the picture of professionalism,politely blocked his car door and said

“My guy, hold still. This is going on Linkedin"

He didn’t say “yes,” but he also didn’t run,which in my book counts as enthusiastic consent

Great dude

Very calm under pressure
10/10 would ambush again


Gangsta Shit 😎


PS- For the record, if you take a selfie in Big Tesco, it automatically counts as networking

PPS - I got an extra point on my Club Card too!

_______________________________

25 Lessons (That nobody asked for) from 2025

But you're getting them anyway because I'm feeling philosophical


1. Your "perfect client" is probably sitting in their underwear right now, eating cereal for dinner

Stop overthinking it

2. The dog I'm housesitting judges my business calls harder than any client ever has

And she's usually right

3. Every solopreneur who says they have it all figured out is lying or selling a course

Usually both

4. WiFi quality matters more than office aesthetics

I've closed $10K deals from a laundromat with killer internet

5. "Work-life balance" is bullshit when your office is wherever you open your laptop

Embrace it

6. The best business advice often comes from drunk strangers in foreign airports at 2am

Not from Linkedin gurus

7. Your imposter syndrome peaks right before your biggest breakthrough

Or right after eating gas station sushi

Hard to tell

8. Nobody gives a fuck about your morning routine

They care if you can solve their problems

9. The universe doesn't owe you clients just because you posted consistently for 30 days

Sorry

10. Sometimes the best strategy is admitting you have no fucking clue and figuring it out as you go

11. Your dog knows when you're bullshitting on sales calls

So does your prospect

12. "Passive income" requires more active work than just getting a regular job

The internet lied to you

13. The client who haggles over $50 will demand $5000 worth of your soul

Run

14. Being location independent means explaining to your parents why you're working from a different country every month

Again

15. Your North Star can be "make enough money to not move back in with your parents" 

That's valid

16. The best content comes from the shit that pisses you off at 11pm, not your content calendar

17. Every productivity hack is worthless if you're avoiding the one thing that actually matters

18. You can't "manifest" clients

You have to actually talk to humans
Revolutionary, I know

19. The gap between $0 and $5K/month is psychological

The gap between $5K and $15K is just math

20. Your competition is binge-watching a Netflix series

Not other solopreneurs

Act accordingly

21. If you're not embarrassed by your offer from 6 months ago, you're not growing fast enough

22. The best time to raise your prices was 3 months ago

The second best time is right fucking now

23. Nobody remembers your failures except you at 3am

Get over yourself

24. Building in public means everyone watches you fuck up in real-time

It's liberating as hell

25. 2026 will be exactly like 2025 unless you do something different

Physics or some shit


Capeesh? 🤌


PS - If you made it through all 25, you either really love lists or really hate doing actual work right now

Either way, I respect it

_______________________________

Linkedin could delete me tomorrow

I'd still make $10k/week within 90 days

This is precisely what I would do the very next day

I would take the exact same framework I use

That makes me $10k a week working < 25 hours

TO ANY OTHER PLATFORM THAT EXISTS ON T'INTERNET

Twitter, Twatter or Snap Chatter

And I will GUARANTEE you

Within 6 months (but probably half that)

I'll be making $10k a week working < 25 hours

In fact, I could do it with cold calls, Door-2-door sales or even thos God-awful networking events with shitty breakfasts

It doesn't really matter

Why?

It's NOT the platform
It's the framework

(Plus the work ethic, obviously)


Capeesh? ✌️


PS - Peter Kay. T'Internet. Google it

PPS - Fcuk it, here it is: https://lnkd.in/eTm4ArZK

______________________

It's time for this year's edition

Of My DM Thread of the Year awards


In association with Kondo: Superhuman for LinkedIn DMs & it's founder Mitchell Tan 📮 

(Without whom this would definitely not be possible)


And the winner is...

Stefanie G.

Please make your way to the podium


Peace✌️


PS - We all know people who actually communicate like this is real life

Right?

______________

"I'm a business coach"

Great

So are 47,000 other people on LinkedIn

Now try this:

"I work with first-time hospitality owners who have one venue"

When someone hears that, they either think:

"That's not me"... and they move on

Or

"Holy sĥit, that's exactly me"... and now you have their attention

That's the difference between a title and a niche

One makes you forgettable
The other makes you findable

Most solopreneurs resist niching because it feels like they're shrinking their market

But you're not shrinking anything

You're just making it obvious who you're for

And when you're obvious, people self-select

The right ones lean in
The wrong ones leave
Everybody wins


Capeesh? 🤌


PS — the word “niche” comes from French and means “nest”

Completely useless information

You’re welcome

_______________________________

People tell me I look “comfortable on camera”

That’s because they’ve never seen the footage of me

– Forgetting the script I wrote
– Coaching myself between takes
– Staring dead into the lens like I am questioning my life choices 

Perfection isn’t real

But commitment?
Oh, I’ve got that

Enjoy the reel

It’s proof that you can build a business and have the on-camera coordination of a startled goat


Capeesh? 🤌


PS — Scientists say goats scream to communicate stress

Same

But apparently that’s “unprofessional” on Linkedin

New year
New memes
Same internet nonsense 🥂

Every January people promise themselves a reset

New habits
New goals
New standards

The internet, however, remains deeply committed to being exactly what it is

Unhinged
Unfiltered
Unapologetic

So here we go again

Another batch of memes I probably shouldn't have saved

But definitely needed to share

Consider this your official welcome back

Scroll responsibly

Or don't
I'm not your dad


Peace ✌️


PS — If you thought the internet was going to "calm down this year," I admire your optimism

PPS — Vote for your favourite in the comments

Or just silently judge me
Either works

_______________________________

Shìt I Found On the Internet 

I am a narcissist

At least, that’s what it sounded like when I answered this question on Cut The Tie with Thomas Helfrich 

He asked me how I define success

I said

Doing what I want
Whenever I want
With whoever I want

Thomas laughed and said,
“Pure narcissism”

If you strip away the context, it does sound selfish.

But here’s the part people miss

That definition of success has nothing to do with ego.
It’s not money
It’s not status
It’s not “winning”

It’s freedom as the baseline, not the reward at the end

Most people define success as a destination:
“I’ll be happy when I get there”

And when they finally arrive, they think:
…is this it?

So I stopped chasing outcomes
and started designing a way of living

Because when success means doing what you want, when you want, with who you want,
the fastest way to get more of it
is helping other people do the same

The more people I help reclaim their time,
build work around life instead of the other way round,
and stop chasing someone else’s version of “enough"

The more freedom I create for myself

That’s not narcissism
That’s alignment

And once success becomes a direction, not a destination,
every decision gets easier


Gangsta Shit 😎 


PS - Don’t worry, real narcissists don’t ask themselves uncomfortable questions

They start podcasts

_______________

The only thing worse

Than some motivational quote

That is being passed off as your own


Are the people on your timeline

Commenting on said quote "thoughtfully"

To try and show their world that they are 'winning'


Peace✌️


PS - Happy new year mo/fos

______________

Some people buy programs
Priscilla Leigh bought results

Here's what actually happened

When she joined 216, she wasn't "struggling"
She was doing what most smart people do

Working hard, spreading herself thin, and hoping clarity would magically appear

Truth is: Clarity is earned, not found

She had two niche ideas
No predictable pipeline
And no daily plan she could actually follow

Sound familiar?

Yeah, thought so

So we stripped everything back:

1. One niche. One direction. One audience
   No more half-in, half-out
   The relief was immediate

2. One simple list of people she could help
   Actual prospects — not imaginary "ideal clients"
   Real names, real problems

3. One daily behaviour she could repeat
   Voice notes. Conversations. Consistency
   No more "what should I do today?"

And once everything pointed in the same direction?

She closed her first high-ticket £1,997 client in just 21 days

Not because of luck
Not because of algorithms
Not because of some "perfect content strategy"

But because she finally gave herself something every solopreneur needs:

A system simple enough to do consistently
and strong enough to fucking work

Stop collecting strategies
Start building a system that actually delivers


Capeesh? 🤌


PS – When your business finally moves in One Direction, everything stops feeling like a solo career after Zayn left

_______________________________

"What are your goals for 2026"

My 'goal' today is the same as it was yesterday

My 'goal' yesterday was the same as it was last week

My 'goal' last week was the same as it was last month

My 'goal' last year was the same as it was in January 2016


To live a life

Where I am doing what I love

Every single fucking day of the week


And to do this


Whenever I want

From wherever I want to be

With the people I most want to be with


This is way more important than 'goals'

This is a vision for the life I want to live

It is the direction of travel that drives EVERY decision


Goals without direction are pointless

Goals are just my best guesses

To get me to where I want


Once I got clarity on this, everything changed.


Capeesh? 🤌


PS - I once set a goal to drink more water

I now own five water bottles and am still dehydrated

____________

The best prospects never need convincing

I talked to Fran Callado and he asked me how I approach outreach on LinkedIn

I told him:

"I only look for people who are already looking for solutions"

While you're out here trying to educate people about their problems,
I'm talking to the ones who already know they're fucked

Because here's the truth about LinkedIn:

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝘂𝘆𝗲𝗿𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗯𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗱𝗰𝗿𝘂𝗺𝗯𝘀 𝗲𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘆𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲

• Asking questions in the comments
• Engaging with posts about their exact pain
• Viewing your profile three times in 24 hours
• Literally signalling, "Hey, I'm shopping for answers"

Meanwhile, most solopreneurs?

Pitching everyone with a pulse
Copy-pasting scripts like NPCs
Treating LinkedIn like a digital car park where they're handing out flyers

That's not outreach
That's just spam with extra steps

The people who need convincing will drain your energy, negotiate every penny, and come back six months later with "I'm still thinking about it"

The people who are already looking?

They respond faster
Take action quicker
Pay without drama
And actually implement the shit you teach them

Stop trying to create demand
Start capturing it

Because the best clients don't need persuasion
They need direction

Be the person who gives it

Or keep chasing people who don't want to hear from you

Your choice


Capeesh? 🤌


PS – When someone likes 3 of your posts in a row and also laughs at a joke that wasn't funny... they're ready to buy


_______________________________

New year
New goals

Same inboxes full of “thinking about it”
And yet…

Another 216 cohort

SOLD OUT

People who committed early this January:

Angela Jansen, PhD, MHS 
Cesar Marin 
Gloria Cuberos 
Josh Millgate 
Oluf Nissen 
Omar Taher 
Patricia Selmo 

The difference is never talent
It’s timing and commitment

Next cohort link is in the comments 👇

Don’t overthink it into next year


Peace ✌️


PS — Action burns more calories than overthinking 

(This is not medically accurate)

____________________________

Look, I’m not saying my 'For You Page' is unhinged

But if the government ever subpoenaed my algorithm

I’d simply have to leave the country

So instead of keeping this goldmine private

I present, again: Shìt I found on the Internet...

A weekly compilation of things I absolutely shouldn’t find funny

But laugh at anyway because life is short

And the bar for entertainment is on the floor

Just the kind of content you stumble across when you should be doing something productive

But decide to let the dopamine win instead


Enjoy 


Capeesh? 🤌


PS — My FBI agent is exhausted

_______________________________

Shìt I found on the Internet 

NASA landed a rover on Mars

Scientists cured another disease

Someone probably solved world hunger

But you're here

For memes

For tweets from people who definitely shouldn't have internet access

For screenshots that belong in a digital museum of "wtf"

Look, we both know you have 47 unread work emails right now

Your Q1 planning deck isn't going to finish itself

That LinkedIn Learning course is judging you

But first... 

*gestures at carousel*

This. This is more important

Welcome to my weekly TED Talk on why the internet was a mistake (complimentary)

Swipe to lose brain cells you weren't using anyway →


Peace ✌️


PS-  anyone asks, you didn't see these here

You found them during "market research." 

I'll back up your story

_______________________________

Most people don't "leave" corporate life

They escape it

That's exactly what Tom Schin told me when we sat down for Team of One

He spent years climbing the ladder

Big companies, big teams, big titles

And every move took him somewhere smaller

Until he realized something

He didn't want to belong to a company anymoreHe wanted to belong to himself

And the moment he said this line, I knew it would hit people

"I don't want to go back to being somebody's employee.If I try something and fail, it's on me"

That's the soul of solopreneurship right there

You go from asking permission → to making decisions
From navigating hierarchy → to navigating yourself
From "Is this allowed?" → to "Can I live with the consequences?

And the freedom?
It's addictive

Tom didn't start a business because some guru told him he should

He didn't build a brand because it was trendy

He built his own path because the alternative felt like dying slowly in conference rooms

If you've ever sat in your car after work, wondering if this is all there is

This conversation will resonate deeply

Full clip below 


Capeesh? 🤌


PS — Corporate titles get longer the closer you get to burnout

By the time I left, mine was basically “Senior Executive Director of Please Don’t Email Me Again"

_______________________________

Aristide didn't change his service

He changed what he led with
Five weeks later, he closed his first $5k+ dream client

No outbound outreach
No pitching marathon
No explaining his process three times on a call

So what actually shifted?

It wasn't a new funnel
It wasn't a rebrand
It wasn't some secret growth hack

He stopped talking about how his service works
And started leading with why it matters

Instead of

"Here's our process…"

The conversation became:

"Here's the outcome this creates for you"

That single shift did three things at once:

It filtered the wrong people out
It pulled the right people in
And it turned sales calls into decisions

By the third call, the client was asking when they could start

Not what Aristide Zouheir would do

That's what happens when you stop selling your process

And start selling their future

Congrats to Aristide
Very earned


Peace ✌️


PS — The brain decides relevance in milliseconds

"Here's our process" doesn't survive the first one

Most solopreneurs don't fail because their idea is bad

They fail because they quit before the idea had a chance to breathe

I was talking to Sacha Awwa on Team of One, and she said something that every solopreneur needs to hear

"People give up too fast because they don't test long enough to find their true niche"

Most people are out here obsessing over "product-market fit"

Meanwhile, Sacha's focused on something far more important

Customer-market fit

Not "is my product amazing?" but "are these my people?"

Because you can have the best offer in the world

The cleanest funnel
The sexiest opt-in page
And still crash and burn

If you're trying to serve the wrong people

There's an ocean of potential clients

But you're not fishing for the whole ocean

You're looking for your specific school of fish

The ones who swim at your speed

And the biggest risk in partnerships?
Same thing

Not "will the offer sell?"But "are we actually a good match?"

Most solopreneurs never slow down long enough to answer that

If you're launching a new offer every month

Rebranding every quarter

Changing your niche every time someone doesn't buy

You're not iterating, you're panicking

Testing → learning → adjusting

That's how you find the clients you're meant to serve

And the partnerships that won't make you lose your hair

Full clip with Sacha below 


Capeesh? 🤌


PS — Jellyfish have survived 500 million years without a brain

So yes, your buyers can find you

Don’t panic 🪼

_______________________________

Most outreach fails for one simple reason

You're talking about your offer
Instead of their world

Before you ask “what should I send?”

You should already know who’s on their team, what they publish, and what they’re drowning in

Because here’s the difference between amateur outreach and professional outreach

Amateurs ask:
“What do I say next?”

Professionals think:
“Where is the friction in their environment?”

Here’s a perfect example we were breaking down

You research a prospect and discover they have someone named Sophie handling their email marketing

She’s also juggling e-commerce, comms, and probably hasn’t slept properly in months

That’s not random information
That’s your fucking angle

If you haven’t read their press releases, watched their videos, or even signed up to see what Sophie’s actually sending out?

You’re not researching
You’re guessing

And guessing smells like laziness

Now compare these two approaches:

❌ “Hey, I help companies with email marketing.”

vs.

✅ “I saw Sophie’s doing your emails on top of everything else. What if I took that off her plate completely?”

One of those gets ignored
The other gets respect

Not because it’s clever
Because it proves you did the work

Know what happens when they realise you actually get how they operate?

The whole dynamic flips

You’re no longer pitching
You’re collaborating

That’s the moment the fish has already taken the bait

And at that point?

Your only job is to stay focused, stay specific, and not blow it


Peace ✌️ 


PS — The average person spends more time choosing a Netflix show than researching a prospect

One of those pays
One of those is just Peaky Blinders again

_______________________________

taplio

The Battle

Manda Szewczyk

Moe Choice

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreManda Szewczyk's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMoe Choice's LinkedIn Performance

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taplio

The Battle

Manda Szewczyk

Moe Choice

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance Score.css-goub6s{font-size:var(--chakra-fontSizes-md);font-weight:500;color:var(--chakra-colors-gray-600);display:block;margin-top:var(--chakra-space-1);}Manda Szewczyk's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreMoe Choice's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreManda Szewczyk's LinkedIn Performance