Founder of StrategyBreakdowns.com

TLDR: Worked in strategy consulting → Joined strategy team at Atlassian → Started writing strategy case studies → People liked them, so I left my job and went full-timeCheck it out → StrategyBreakdowns.comWe partner with companies like Atlassian, Notion, Intercom, Hubspot, Miro, Vanta, Clay, Mixpanel, and Ahrefs to reach 110k+ tech decision-makers. Click here to explore sponsorships → passionfroot.me/strategybreakdowns

Tom Alder

Apple makes $1 billion+ per year selling adaptors:

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👉 P.S. If you enjoyed this post, you'll love my newsletter - a 3-minute breakdown of the strategy playbooks and growth hacks behind the world’s greatest companies.

Join 110,000+ strategy nerds from companies like Google, Meta, Atlassian, and Netflix: https://lnkd.in/g2FWfXGR

The average enterprise employee spends 31 hours per month in unproductive meetings.

That's almost a full work week. 
Every single month. 
Gone.

And yet - meetings aren't the problem. BAD meetings are the problem.

The best hybrid teams i've seen don't have fewer meetings. 
→ They have better workflows that make every interaction count.

I genuinely think something's shifted in how teams think about productivity.

It used to be about individual output - more hours, more tasks, more hustle.

Now it's about connection quality and output. How seamlessly can 50 people across 12 timezones actually collaborate without losing their minds?

The companies figuring this out are pulling ahead. The ones still optimising for "busy" are falling behind.

--

Zoom is running a free summit on exactly this: how to make collaboration seamless across teams, locations, and timezones.

Feb 24 (EMEA) / Feb 25 (APAC)

If you're leading digital transformation, IT, or workplace strategy at a large org - worth grabbing a spot.

Register here: → https://zm.me/49SCY8r

#ad in partnership with the legends Zoom

Jamming with Rob Hoffman, Lara Acosta, and Tyler Denk 🐝 about our plans for 2026:

A few topics we discussed -

1. The reality of building while traveling the world.
2. Why vlogging is coming back for founders.
3. The timeless psychology of waitlists.
4. The bootstrapped AI SaaS paradigm.
5. Solopreneurship vs small vs big teams.

Honestly so refreshing to get new perspectives on things I’m actively wrestling with.
Also funny to see how the same decisions / problems / strategies resurface in peculiar ways, in such different contexts.

Would highly recommend following what these folks are up to if you haven’t already!

Rob and Lara are building Kleo.
Tyler is building beehiiv.

Incredible businesses powering many of the world's top creators and founders.

Feeling inspired. Let's build.

Every company spent the last 20 years building customer support processes that make people want to hang up.

Press 1 for billing. 
Press 2 for support. 
Press 3 to scream into the void.

Then came the "AI upgrade" - which mostly just replaced the robotic menu with a robotic voice.

Same frustration, different wrapper.

Here's what's actually changing now:
ElevenLabs just shipped Expressive Mode in their Agents platform.

The demo is WILD (video below). 

The agents don't just listen to what you say. 
They detect HOW you say it.

Tone.
Pitch. 
Pacing. 
Humour.
Feelings.

And they respond with the right delivery - using cue cards like [reassuring], [apologetic], and [enthusiastic] to match the moment.

Frustrated caller? The agent shifts to calm de-escalation.
Excited prospect? It matches the energy.
Confused customer? It slows down.

Previously, agent emotion was shaped entirely through voice selection and system prompts. Static. One-size-fits-all.
Now it's dynamic and contextual. Across 70+ languages (up from 32).
The turn-taking is different too. Their new transcription model captures intent and emotional cues so the agent times responses more like a human would.
The result: customers feel helped, not processed.
That's the gap most people miss about voice AI. The technology was never the bottleneck.

The emotional intelligence was.

Link to try below 👇

#ad #ElevenAgentsPartner

Every AI tool you've used in the last 2 years has the same interface:

A text box with a blinking cursor.

Quarterzip threw it away entirely.

Instead of building another chat wrapper, they built an AI that watches your screen share and guides you visually - like having a colleague sit next to you and point at things.

No SDK installation. 
No browser extension. 
No IT approval ticket.

Just a picture-in-picture window that sees everything you see. Any tool, any tab, any workflow.

Picture this:
- You’re onboarding to a new tool
- You brace yourself for a barrage of forgettable tooltips and painful ‘educational’ flows
- Instead, you click ‘Start Onboarding’ and you’re prompted to share your screen
- You share, and you’re placed directly in the app, with a helpful AI assistant in the corner that sees everything you see
- It’s trained on the help docs, all past onboarding calls, and can guide you through the journey whilst answering any question you might have along the way

They launched a week ago. Already running hundreds of AI-powered onboarding sessions a day with Apollo and Grab.

And the growth loop is elegant - every person who gets onboarded through Quarterzip sees the brand sitting inside the PIP window.

Product usage drives distribution.

I broke down the full strategy in this week's newsletter (link in the comments)

On July 7th, 2025, I added another SaaS idea to the pile:
A Chrome extension. SimilarWeb for builders. Traffic, revenue signals, founder socials, ads - all in a sidebar you can trigger when you visit any company's website.

A 9-bullet sketch of something I'd personally use a dozen times a day, if it existed.

Nothing came of it. Got buried under many more (half-baked) ideas.

Fast-forward 6 months.
The Figma team reached out about a partnership.
They wanted me to try their new prompt-to-app AI tool, Figma Make.

I mulled over the angle for a while, then realised I had the perfect test case.
Could I take a 6-month-old idea that had never left the notes app and turn it into a fully interactive, clickable product prototype? Without writing a single line of code? Without opening a design tool?

The pipeline I came up with:
→ 𝗡𝗼𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 (raw idea, 9 bullet points) 
→ 𝗖𝗹𝗮𝘂𝗱𝗲 𝗖𝗼𝗱𝗲 + 𝗪𝗶𝘀𝗽𝗿 𝗙𝗹𝗼𝘄 (interview to flesh it into a full PRD) 
→ 𝗙𝗶𝗴𝗺𝗮 𝗠𝗮𝗸𝗲 (PRD in, interactive prototype out)

One sitting later, I had my answer.
Here’s how it went down (link in the comments 👇)

Most newsletter sponsors get a terrible ROI.

All because they're advertising to the wrong readers.

Here's the thing about audience quality that most marketers miss:

1/ You need readers who make decisions.

This is the #1 mistake I see. Advertising to e.g. 1 million people containing 1k decision-makers, rather than 100k people containing 50k decision-makers.

71% of Strategy Breakdowns readers have meaningful influence over budget and procurement decisions at their company.

You need to get in front of the actual people who sign off on the tools, platforms, and services their teams use.

2/ Open rate is a proxy for trust.

Industry average open-rate is under 40%. Strategy Breakdowns sits at 55%, while earning the trust of 110,000 readers every week. Our sponsors inherit that trust.

3/ Niche is more efficient than broad.

A 110,000-person list of senior strategy and tech leaders doesn’t just contain *more* decision-makers than 500,000-person general business list - it is also costs less to advertise in. The signal-to-noise ratio is what makes our campaigns so efficient for sponsors looking to allocate their marketing budgets strategically.

4/ The seniority and industry breakdown matters.

- 30% Founder / C-level
- 20% VP / Director
- 40% Senior / Manager

Tech, consulting, and finance make up ~80% of our audience. I mean, these are literally the buyers.

5/ One ad isn't a campaign.

The sponsors who see the best results run 4 touchpoints minimum. Decision-makers don't act on first exposure, especially at this seniority level. (Honestly, when was the last time you saw a $100/mo tool for the first time and immediately pulled out a corporate card?) Plus, you need to test, learn, and iterate based on the data from each ad run.

6/ We treat it like a partnership (but actually).

Ad copy collaboration, custom AI tools we’ve built for partners, full 7-day and 14-day performance reports with 100% of the data we have available, ongoing input to optimise the campaign. Nearly every sponsor I work with (Atlassian, Vanta, Clay, Attio, Ahrefs, etc) comes back multiple times. 

Probably the thing I’m most proud of.

We have just 2 slots left before prices go up for Q2.

If your product is built for founders, PMs, engineers, or operators in tech - link to our full media kit in the comments 👇

How many DMs do you send per week on LinkedIn?

Hi, I'm Sayed! I'm an entrepreneur and growth marketer with 6+ years of experience helping companies scale.  I’ve built and led a marketing team for a health equipment company, launched and grew my own online printing business. Currently, I am writing a newsletter focused on practical strategies for online business growth.

If you're interested in growth insights and actionable tips, subscriber to my newsletter: www.startupblitz.net

Sayed Habib

You can do a lot with the free plan of Claude. Here are three practical ways it will save you time.

1️⃣ Create ready-to-use documents

Claude can generate downloadable Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and PDF files based on the conversation.

How to use it:

1. Tell Claude what document you need and the requirements.
2. It generates the file
3. Download, review, edit, and use them for your work

Quick wins:

1. Create meeting minutes templates
2. Create simple budget or schedule tables in Excel
3. Prepare draft proposal documents in PowerPoint

2️⃣ Expand what you can do with external tools

Claude can link to apps like Canva, Notion, Figma, Asana and Google Drive so you can reference data and perform actions inside those tools.

How to use it:

1. Enable connectors in Settings
2. Connect the app you want to use from the chat screen and give instructions
3. Review and tweak results inside the connected app

Quick wins:

1. Create images for social media by integrating with Canva
2. Organise tasks while referencing a Notion database
3. Summarise key points from documents stored on Google Drive

3️⃣ Reduce repetitive instructions by adding skills

You can package common workflows or specialised knowledge as Skills. Once set up, they can reproduce the same quality results without giving detailed instructions every time.

How to use it:

1. Go to Settings > Capabilities > Skills
2. Describe the workflow in text or upload it as a ZIP file
3. Claude will load the required Skills based on the task

Quick wins:

1. Register internal report formats and procedures
2. Automate material prep for recurring meetings
3. Generate work-ready files using official Excel and PowerPoint Skills

🔁 If you found this useful, please like and share with your connections.

Sayed Bin Habib 🐋

Practical AI tactics that save startups time and money | Zero breathless hype

“Which AI is the smartest?” - That’s the wrong question.

The better question is:  Which AI fits the job you’re doing right now?

Here’s a practical breakdown based on real use cases 👇

🟢 ChatGPT - The All-Round Operator

If you need versatility, this is usually the default choice.

Use it for problem solving, extracting meeting minutes from audio/notes, generating and fixing code, and automating regular content (templates, social posts).

Think of it as the “Swiss Army knife” AI.  Wide task coverage, reliable and Flexible.

🔵 Gemini - The multimodal integrator

Gemini is powerful when your work lives inside the Google ecosystem. If your workflow is deeply tied to Google tools, this can save serious time.

It is also best when you need image/audio/video/PDF understanding.

🟠 Claude - The writing & deep thinking specialist

Claude is strong at structured reasoning and natural writing.

Use it for brainstorming, long-form content, and deep analysis of complex documents or contracts.

Cowork/Claude Code can also handle tons of your enterprise work.

If clarity and depth matter more than speed, this is often the better pick.

💡 If you want to subscribe to one AI tool, I highly recommend Claude.

Which one are you currently using the most?

Here’s how you can use AI to find million-dollar opportunities in unfamiliar industries.

If you were to start a company, would you choose to solve a problem you already understand well, or explore a completely unfamiliar industry?

Let me tell you about Jordan Katz and Michael Mattheakis.

They entered the insurance world as complete outsiders. Yet they built an automation platform for insurance brokers that now generates tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue.

🚩 There's a widely held belief in Silicon Valley: the best startup ideas come from solving your own problems.

But Jordan, founder of Comulate, saw a flaw in this logic. 

Think about it: what happens when everyone in tech is solving their own problems? 

The market would surely be flooded with tools to boost developer productivity, software to optimise product manager workflows, and collaboration tools for designers.

But these areas are already incredibly crowded.

It's like casting a net in a tiny pond already overcrowded with fishing boats.

So, Jordan and his co-founder, Michael, chose a completely opposite approach: they deliberately sought out industries the tech world had no idea about.

Eventually, they landed on insurance.

🛠️ They approached insurers not as salespeople, but as product managers.

A salesperson might ask: “What are your pain points? Our product can help you fix them.”

But a product manager would ask:

- “Why is this process designed this way?”
- “How do you handle edge cases?”
- “What's the historical reason for this seemingly cumbersome step?”

When they met with insurance companies over Zoom, the conversations often lasted for hours.

They’d walk through their daily processes step by step. When they saw a cumbersome task, instead of immediately saying “we can automate that,” they’d ask, “Why does this step exist? Who defined this rule? Are there exceptions?”

Only by understanding can you know which parts can be changed.

👨🏻‍💻 Redesign from first principles

When building solutions, Comulate would first map the client’s current workflow.

Typically, the diagram had over 30 nodes, with arrows resembling a maze.

Most software companies would simply replicate all 30 steps into their product, giving each step an interface.

But Comulate took a step back and asked: “If we could redesign this from scratch, what would the ideal flow look like?”

They found that, using AI and modern software architecture, 30 steps could be reduced to just three or four.
Michael mentions in an interview that during platform shifts, the winners are never the ones who simply copy old products into new formats.

The transition from PC to mobile internet is a classic example.

Instagram didn’t just shrink a desktop photo-sharing website to fit a phone screen. It redefined mobile photo sharing. 

The AI era is no different.

Many companies are using AI to boost existing processes.

But the real opportunity lies in asking: What old constraints no longer exist because of AI?

Anthropic has released a 33-page guide on building Claude Skills. It signals a shift in how we should think about working with AI.

The old question: “How should I write this prompt?”

The new question: "How do I make AI operate as a system?"

Skills are the answer Anthropic has provided.

So what's a Skill? 🤔

Skills ≠ prompts. It’s a structured, reusable system.

A Skill is a folder containing a SKILL.md file with structured instructions that teach Claude how to handle a specific task. You write it, Claude learns it, and it works consistently from that point on.

A simple way to think about it:

🔌 MCP gives Claude access to your tools (Notion, Linear, Figma)
🧠 Skills teach Claude how to use those tools the way your team actually works

You can package in scripts, references, and assets alongside the instructions. It will turn a one-time explanation into a repeatable, reliable workflow.

In other words, we're moving from "conversational AI" to "AI that automates work".

And what's crucial is this 👇

Anthropic built Skills with testing, reproducibility, and efficiency in mind.

No more: 

❌ “It worked well this time.”
❌ “Accuracy depends on the mood.”

The goal is to move toward AI that works reliably every time.

This isn't some prompting trick. It's an official framework for turning chat-based AI into business infrastructure.

The era of “just write a better prompt” is ending.

Read the full document to learn how to build skills  👇

The Complete Guide to Building Skills for Claude

A $10 alternative! Stop buying Mac Minis just to run OpenClaw 😭

Recently, I've seen so many people spending hundreds of dollars on Mac Minis just to run OpenClaw. 

But you can run OpenClaw on anything, really. There are so many perfect, low-cost alternatives.

The star of this show: A Qualcomm 410 Based Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot.

Modification checklist:

✅ Heatsink + Fan (Enhanced cooling for the Qualcomm 410, rock-solid stable after installation).
✅ Expansion board (Adds USB, TF card, and Type-C power).

After modification, simply flash Debian Linux, and the Go-rewritten PicoClaw runs smoothly.

💥 Key Comparison of this $10 Solution vs. Mac Mini

❌ Mac Mini: Costs $600+, bulky and takes up space. Pure overkill since you are not running local models.
✅ Qualcomm 410 Portable Wi-Fi Hotspot: Max $10, palm-sized, plug-and-play, power consumption comparable to a phone charger.

❌ OpenClaw: Heavy load, memory-intensive.
✅ PicoClaw: Lightweight and streamlined, adapted for low-spec configurations. Runs smoothly on the Qualcomm 410 with no pressure, fully supporting AI command execution and chat integration.

✅ The model also doesn't clutter your desk, can be tucked away next to a power socket, invisible and hassle-free.

You don’t have to build this janky solution. You can also run it on an old phone, old laptop, or simply run it on a vps.

Don’t get swept up in AI hype. Don’t pay too much attention to influencers. You don’t have to buy a Mac Mini.

Quick tip: You can use Nano Banana 2 inside Google Flow and generate unlimited images without any watermark.

Google Flow is an AI video generation platform that can create and edit high-quality videos from text and images.

While primarily known as a video tool, it actually supports image generation too.

Even with the free plan, you can use Nano Banana 2 and Nano Banana Pro.

🟢 What I like:

- More generations available on the free plan compared to via Gemini
- Generates 2-4 images at once with a single prompt
- No "♦︎" watermark in the bottom right corner
- Choice of "1K/2K" output sizes

⭕️ What I don't like:

- Aspect ratio limited to "16:9" and "9:16" only

If you are using Nano Banana to create images for LinkedIn, definitely give Google Flow a try. You’ll thank me later.

Generate Nano Banana 2 Images Without ♦ Watermark

I've organised what can be done with the current Gemini.

12 practical use-cases. You can try them right now to make your work more efficient:

1. Brainstorming — rapid idea lists and angles.
2. Writing & editing — polish emails, posts, proposals.
3. Research — Summarise trends and recent findings.
4. Meeting notes — turn recordings into decisions and action items.
5. Task management — extract unfinished tasks from your inbox and drives.
6. Image creation — make infographics and visuals.
7. Video creation — script or assemble short corporate clips.
8. Music generation — quick background tracks for videos.
9. Slide creation — build presentation decks from a brief.
10. Long-document editing — improve structure and logic at scale.
11. Guided learning — step-by-step lessons for upskilling.
12. Data integration — turn notebooks and docs into reports.

Give Gemini 3.1 a try. You will find it much more reliable than the previous versions.

If you're a frequent user of Gemini, you should definitely download the Gemini Voyager browser extension right away!

Those who use it will know how convenient it is. It has several key features:

1️⃣ You can create folders: You can drag conversations into these to manage them. Previously, finding similar conversations was a real hassle. Now it's so much easier.

2️⃣ Super fast search through chat history: If you've had long conversations and can't find specific parts, you can now directly navigate to exactly where you want to be.

You can also adjust the conversation width, making it even easier to view.

3️⃣ Remove watermarks from generated images: You just click to remove the watermark, and it downloads the watermark-free image for you. How cool is that?

4️⃣ If you have any prompts that you think are exceptionally well-written, you can save them directly into your 'favourite prompts' for future use.

5️⃣ You can save particularly good conversation records as Markdown, PDF, image, or JSON files and download them locally.

6️⃣ You can open multiple tabs and directly rename each conversation tab to whatever you want.

So download the extension. You can find it in Chrome, Firefox, Edge and Safari store.

You’ll thank me later.

⚠️ Warning: Stop 'Googling' right now. 

Continuing to search for information via Google Search is an utter waste of time. In this day and age, NotebookLM's Fast Research is overwhelmingly the strongest tool.

Simply instruct it with the information you want, and it will automatically stock 10 relevant webpages and YouTube videos. 

From there, simply ask questions about what you want to know. The AI will instantly extract and output the most optimal answers from the stockpiled sources.

Compared to Google search, the research efficiency is on a completely different level.

❌ Limitations of Google search:

- Top results are often filled with affiliate marketing and SEO-optimised articles.
- It takes a long time to find the primary information you really want.

✅ NotebookLM "Fast Research" revolution:

- Simply ask "Tell me about X," and the AI will automatically select reliable sources.
- With a single prompt, it loads up 10 articles or YouTube videos at once
- Zero ads, zero noise. Only pure "knowledge" is delivered to you.

From now on, instead of Googling, ask NotebookLM.

taplio

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taplio

The Battle

Tom Alder

Sayed Habib

Followers

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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);}Tom Alder's LinkedIn Performance

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