Tom Hunt

$3.6m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I'm doing.

Jan 2014.I'm walking home from a depressing New Year's trip to Oslo with an ex. girlfriend.It's raining in East London.I made a decision:I would replace my management consulting salary (£42,000) by the end of the year.I had no idea from where, but that was the goal...I just about hit it and left the corporate world.And I haven't been back since.Fast forward a decade and I've:- Tried and failed with 17 businesses- Invested in 11- Learnt a LOTThe one that is finally working is called Fame:- We have a weird culture (in a good way)- We start and grow podcasts for B2B businesses- We are fully remote and have 75 full-time team membersI live for our awesome team at Fame, building businesses and great marketing.And I post about them here 🤗

Founder & CEO

We start and grow the world's most profitable B2B podcasts.

Clients include:

👉 IDEO
👉 Workday
👉 HighRadius
👉 People.ai
👉 Zendesk
👉 Bevy
👉 Circle
👉 Suzy
👉 Mazars
👉 LeanData
👉 CXL
👉 Ramp
👉 Alibaba
👉 Signify
👉 eToro

$4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

“We need to let them go.”

I’m in a 1-1 and a manager thinks someone in their team isn’t performing.

I'm in shock, to me they seemed enthusiastic and a culture fit.


We dug into the details:

- What weren’t they doing?
- Why weren’t they doing it?

The manager thought they either didn't understand or couldn't do the role.

Then I ask:

“How did onboarding go?”

“What do you mean by onboarding?” they reply.


And that's when we found the issue:

We skipped the onboarding process and replaced it with "a couple of calls".


If you’re recruiting right, you owe it to yourself to onboard right.

You can’t expect someone to join and start performing, you need to set them up to succeed.

Onboard right or do it twice.

Agree?

I had a terrible boss.

And I spent more time with them than my partner.
 

They never raised their voice.

They smiled (kind of).

But they also started:

- Passing my ideas off as their own
- Expecting email responses at 10pm
- “Checking in” multiple times per day
 
Again, they weren’t ever aggressive or rude, they just slowly eroded my confidence each day.

I thought this was normal e.g. you get a job, you get a manager like this.
 

And then…

I moved roles and got a new manager, they:

- Stepped in when needed
- Never emailed after hours
- Saved most comms to our weekly 1-1
 

A great manager won’t get you promoted.

They will change the trajectory of your career.

Agree?

My 7 favourite startup lies:


1. We’re scaling
-- No, you still don't know how/if you'll be profitable

2. We’re going viral
-- No, your CEO’s LinkedIn fundraise post got a few more likes than normal

3. TechCrunch picked us up
-- No, your $10k per month PR agency got you featured

4. We’re partnering with Google
-- No, you’re paying Google Cloud for servers

5. The inbound pipeline is strong
-- No, some competitors requested a demo to see what you’re building

6. We have FANG-level talent
-- No, one of your devs interned at Netflix 6 years ago

7. The team are fully incentivised
-- No, they have paper options based on an inflated fundraise


And my absolute favourite:

8. We’re worth $30m
-- No, a hyped up VC gave you this valuation to make themselves look good (so they can raise their next fund)


Thank god we don't have to lie to ourselves.

Here’s to the bootstrappers 🥂

(Exit the hype-train and subscribe to Cash Machines)

I probably shouldn’t share this…

I like to call it the “Pay Rise Formula”.


Most people go about asking for money in the completely wrong way:

1. Pay review arrives
2. “Can I have more money?”

It’s an easy "not yet" from the boss.


But if you follow these three steps, you boost your chances of a pay rise by at least 56%:

(Not a guarantee but it works)

1. 6 months before the pay review ask your boss: “what do I need to be doing in the next 6 months to get a pay-rise?”

2. Write those things down and make a plan to hit them. Work hard.

3. A few weeks before the pay review, show the list (with things ticked off) to your boss in a 1-1 and ask them to confirm if you are actually doing those things


If done right, there is no way a boss can push back on a raise with the "not yet" excuse.

Pro-activity pays.

Agree?

"OK let me get this straight..."

"Because it kind of sounds like you built yourself a job."


It's 11:37pm in 2017 and I'm sat with a good friend enjoying a spicy margarita in a seedy city bar.

He's shouting into my ear because they closed something called a "Series A":

- How their going to change the world
- An upcoming TechCrunch article
- All the people he needs to hire
- Their "enterprise motion"


But something isn't making sense to me:

1. He has to report to the board every month
2. Any cost greater than £25k must have board sign off
3. He can't take cash out whenever he wants
4. Board needs to sign off his salary
4. If he leaves in the next 4 years he only keeps a slice of his own company
5. If they don't sell it for a massive amount he may get nothing
6. To sell it, they need investor sign off


He replies:

"Yeah I see what you're saying, but the reality is the company is now valued at £20m, my stake is £6m, so I'm basically a multi-millionaire"

😳


As you can imagine, it didn't work out well.

Glad I stuck to building Cash Machines.

$4.5 million ARR, 0 raised.

$500 invested.

It’s been a wild ride.


We have built Fame as a service business with mostly intangible assets.

We did it without selling a single piece of equity to venture capital.

But even asset-light businesses get stuck.

You often need to buy speed to hire a star developer, fund a new marketing campaign, or pay a tax bill.

In those moments, I did not want to wait weeks for a bank.

Unless I had another option.

An option like iwoca.


They fund small businesses that move quickly and have already funded 100,000 businesses in the UK. 

They lent £3.3 billion to business owners who need to move fast and build resilience.

You can apply for business finance between £1,000 and £1M in about five minutes.

They typically give you a decision within 24 hours.

Apply here to check your options: https://lnkd.in/euSG4SCm

NOTE - applying does not impact your credit score.

#Ad

Brand partnership • $4.5m ARR. $0 raised. I have no idea what I’m doing.

It felt like the responsible thing to do... 


But then it turned out to be one of the worst business decisions ever.

Depreciating assets hurt the balance sheet, locking up capital that could be used for growth. 

For example... 

We are in a hiring sprint, bringing on 2 - 3 new team members in Feb. 

Old Tom would have dropped thousands upfront for laptops that would be worth significantly less by next year.

That isn’t scaling.

It’s a cash drain.

Instead, we are using Raylo.

It took 60 seconds to set up a subscription for the latest HP laptops, and they arrived the next day.

Here is why I recommend Raylo as an affordable option for small businesses:

- Protect Your Cash: We paid £0 upfront. Every pound saved on hardware goes straight into growth.

- Upgrade Freedom: With the MacBook M5 rumors floating around, I am not worried because we can upgrade the team to the latest models for free with Raylo's monthly rolling option.

- Zero Drama: If something goes wrong with a device during the subscription, Raylo's Lifetime Warranty covers technical faults and they sort it quickly.


Or in other words:

Stop buying "stuff" that rots on your balance sheet. 

Convert your tech to OpEx and keep your capital for growth.

Check out the subscription options for your team here: mdsh.io/raylo-business 

#Ad

Online entrepreneur with extensive experience in B2B lead generation, SaaS and AI Automation.

Currently bootstrapping FlowGent & Postiv AI

Postiv: More leads & sales in less time. AI Agent for on-brand LinkedIn content

FlowGent: More leads & sales from Instagram DM's

Always open to DM's - happy to connect 🤝

Jan Musscher

You've got 3 seconds to hook your audience on LinkedIn.

If you mess it up, your post disappears.

If you nail it, you get:

→ More profile views
→ Better engagement
→ Quality inbound DMs
→ Actual opportunities

How to nail it? You just need the right hook template.

So I've compiled 212+ proven viral hooks that actually work:

☑ Question hooks (get people curious)
☑ Problem-agitation hooks (tap into pain)
☑ Contrarian hooks (challenge beliefs)
☑ Story hooks (pull people in)
☑ Data hooks (build instant credibility)
☑ Bold statement hooks (stop the scroll)

These are the exact hooks used by creators with:
→ 100k+ followers
→ Consistent viral posts
→ Inbound leads every week

Want the full list?

Comment "HOOKS" below and I'll DM you the complete list.

♻️ Repost to get priority access.

Jan van Musscher

Get more high trust clients with Postiv - AI Agent for LinkedIn Content

No alternative text description for this image

Anthropic just dropped a 33-page guide on building Skills for Claude.

I broke it down so you don't have to read the whole thing.

By the end of this, you'll know what Skills are, how they work, and how to build one from scratch.

---

What is a Skill?

A skill is a folder that teaches Claude how to do a specific workflow.

Instead of explaining your process every single time, you package it once.

Claude learns it, remembers it, uses it.

The folder contains one required file (SKILL .md) and optional scripts, reference docs, and assets.

To install it: go to Claude AI > Settings > Skills > Upload the zipped folder.

---

How Claude reads a Skill (3 levels)

Level 1 → A short summary at the top. Always visible. Claude reads this to decide: "is this skill relevant right now?"

Level 2 → The full instructions. Claude loads these once it decides the skill is needed. This is where your workflow lives.

Level 3 → Extra files like docs and references. Only pulled in when Claude needs the details.

It's like a filing cabinet. Claude reads the label first. Opens the drawer if it's relevant. Digs into the folders only when it needs to go deeper.

---

Skills + MCP: Why You Need Both

MCP = what Claude can access (tools).
Skills = how Claude uses it.

Without a skill: users connect your MCP and ask "now what?" Every session starts from zero.

With a skill: Claude already knows the workflow. No hand-holding needed.

---

How to Build the "SKILL .md"

The description is everything.

It's how Claude decides whether to load your skill at all.

Two parts required:

Part 1: What does this skill do?
Part 2: When should Claude use it?

Good description:
"Generates SQL queries for the customer analytics database. Use when user asks about customer behavior, purchase patterns, retention metrics, or churn analysis."

Bad description:
"Helps with database stuff."

Too vague. Claude will never know when to trigger it.

---

Testing Tips

Three things to test:

☑ Does it trigger on the right requests (and NOT on unrelated ones)?
☑ Does it complete the workflow correctly?
☑ Is it faster and cleaner than doing it without the skill?

There's also a built-in skill called "skill-creator" that helps you generate your first SKILL.md in 15-30 minutes.

---

Common Fixes

Skill never loads → description is too vague. Add specific phrases users would actually say.

Skill loads for everything → description is too broad. Add: "Do NOT use for general X questions."

Skill loads but doesn't follow instructions → SKILL.md is too long. Move detailed docs to the references/ folder.

---

What to do now:

Pick one workflow you keep explaining to Claude over and over.

Use skill-creator to generate the first draft.

Test it manually, fix what breaks, ship it.

Skills turn repetitive explanations into permanent knowledge.

Build your first one this week.

The-Complete-Guide-to-Building-Skill-for-Claude

OpenAI, Anthropic & Google are launching an AI accelerator in.. Europe!

Here's what you missed this week in AI news:

→ AI Giants Form Joint Startup Accelerator Despite Rivalry

OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google announced a collaborative startup accelerator on February 11, marking an unprecedented partnership between fierce competitors. The initiative aims to support emerging AI companies in Europe with infrastructure access and technical guidance.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/eZSFUqHk

→ Tech Stocks Rally as AI Capex Hits All-Time Highs

Major tech indices rebounded on February 11 as investors responded to record-breaking AI infrastructure spending announcements. The rally reflects renewed confidence in AI monetization after weeks of volatility tied to agent capabilities and SaaS disruption fears.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/etSngYDR

→ Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 Now Available in Microsoft Foundry

Microsoft integrated Anthropic's flagship model into its Azure AI platform on February 11, giving enterprise customers access to Claude's advanced reasoning capabilities. The partnership strengthens Microsoft's multi-model strategy as it pursues AI independence.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/e23sN8hq

→ OpenAI Faces Revenue Challenge Despite Model Advances

The New York Times reported on February 11 that OpenAI is struggling to convert AI capabilities into sustainable revenue streams. Despite launching GPT-5.3 Codex, the company faces mounting pressure from Anthropic's gains in coding tools and enterprise adoption.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/eVSs8G-J

→ Anthropic Software Impact Triggers "DeepSeek Moment" for Investors

Software stocks dropped sharply this week following Anthropic's agent capabilities demonstration. Analysts are comparing the market reaction to the January DeepSeek panic, with investors questioning long-term software valuations in an AI-agent world.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/eWM3Hwgw

→ AI Companies Pledge to Cover Data Center Electricity Costs

Microsoft, OpenAI, and Anthropic committed to covering 100% of their data center electricity costs amid growing energy concerns. The pledges signal awareness of AI's environmental impact as compute demands continue scaling exponentially.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/eTFc-Yup

AI News This Week - What You Missed

5 AI breakthroughs you can't afford to miss this week if you're a tech founder or enthusiast.

The AI war just went nuclear. Here's what happened in the last 7 days:

🥊 OpenAI vs Anthropic: The AI Cola Wars

Anthropic launched Claude Opus 4.6 yesterday. Hours later, OpenAI dropped GPT-5.3 Codex.

Same. Exact. Day.

Claude Opus 4.6 hits 80.9% on SWE-bench (outperforming GPT-5.2 and Gemini 3 Pro). It now ships with a 1 million token context window and powers Claude Code with agent teams.

https://lnkd.in/dDvsBMpc

OpenAI fired back with GPT-5.3 Codex - their most advanced coding agent yet. Faster performance, deeper reasoning, and real-time collaboration features.

https://lnkd.in/dXdiJiNW

The rivalry is getting personal. Both companies are running Super Bowl ads this weekend, and Anthropic's commercials literally mock OpenAI's plan to bring ads to ChatGPT.

https://lnkd.in/demB-RRT

💰 Wall Street Freaks Out Over AI

Claude Cowork's new plugins (especially for legal) triggered a massive software stock selloff last Friday. We're talking nearly $300 billion wiped out in one day.

Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.6 update makes Cowork even more capable for complex enterprise work. The market is paying attention.

https://lnkd.in/djc3Wk2e

🎯 GitHub Copilot Gets Claude Power

Claude Opus 4.6 just launched in GitHub Copilot and major platforms. The integration brings breakthrough capabilities to millions of developers.

https://lnkd.in/dNxuUUay

Bottom line: The AI arms race is accelerating faster than anyone predicted. If you're building in this space, the competitive landscape just shifted under your feet.

Which model are you betting on for 2026? Let me know in the comments 👇

♻️ Repost this to help others stay ahead of AI news too.

PS. This post was created with Postiv AI, your LinkedIn AI agent. Our users get thousands of extra impressions in the first week. Try it for 7 days →

AI News Round-Up: Feb 6, 2026

3 patterns every agency founder must embrace to turn LinkedIn into a lead generation powerhouse.

I scaled a lead gen agency to 7 figures purely on LinkedIn and cold email.

Along the way, I noticed the same patterns across agencies that won:

PATTERN 1: Consistent visibility over viral posts

They showed up weekly without fail. No gaps. No excuses. The algorithm rewarded their consistency with compounding reach.

PATTERN 2: Expertise showcase over promotion

They educated instead of selling. Every post demonstrated real knowledge. Prospects came to them already convinced of their value.

PATTERN 3: Engagement over broadcasting

They didn't just post and ghost. They commented, built relationships, and had real conversations. That's where the actual deals happened.

The agencies still struggling? They're inconsistent. They post only when they have time. They focus on follower counts instead of relationship depth.

When I started taking LinkedIn seriously, our agency transformed:

→ Inbound leads became our primary source
→ Cold outreach got 3X better results
→ We grew from 20K to 80K MRR

The breakthrough wasn't posting more. It was systemizing content so I could focus on engagement and relationships.

That's why I built Postiv. To help founders replicate this pattern without the 6-hour weekly grind.

Automate content creation. Invest the time saved into building relationships.

That's the pattern that turns LinkedIn into a lead machine.

Ready to implement these patterns? Let me know in the comments 👇

♻️ Repost this to help others scale with LinkedIn too.

PS. This post was created with Postiv AI, your LinkedIn AI agent. Our users get thousands of extra impressions in the first week. Try it for 7 days →

Turn LinkedIn Into Your Lead Gen Powerhouse

Your LinkedIn text-only posts are getting ignored. While visuals get 2.5x more engagement(!)

(Comment "IMAGE" to get FREE access to this AI tool)

But most people don't create visuals for their posts.

Why? Because it's painful:

→ Open a design tool
→ Spend 3 hours creating an infographic
→ The output? Ugly as I'm not a designer.

By the time you're done, you've lost momentum.

I built something that fixes this (for free!)

An AI that creates LinkedIn infographics in 10 seconds. One click. Done.

The kind of visuals that make people STOP scrolling.

It went live last week and the results are insane.

Free access for the next 48 hours only.

Comment "IMAGE" below and I'll send you the link.

♻️ Repost this to get priority access.

One case study can be transformed into six LinkedIn posts. Here's how top creators are multiplying their content without reinventing the wheel.

Most founders have client wins sitting in Google Docs gathering dust.

Meanwhile, they're spending hours trying to come up with fresh post ideas.

The smart move is extracting different angles from what already converted.

Here's the exact process I use in Postiv:

1. Upload your case study once.

2. Tag it in the chat with @ followed by the case study name.

3. The AI agent creates a post specifically about that case study.

But here's where it gets powerful →

Ask for six different posts with different angles and hooks.

The AI generates:
→ The transformation story
→ The biggest obstacle overcome
→ The surprising result
→ The methodology used
→ The lesson learned
→ The contrarian insight

One case study becomes a week of authority content.

Each angle targets a different reader mindset.

Some want inspiration. Some want proof. Some want tactics.

You're not repeating yourself. You're maximizing reach.

Every client win you've delivered is sitting content waiting to be shared.

What's stopping you from repurposing your client wins? Let me know in the comments 👇

♻️ Repost this to help others maximize their case study content too.

PS. This post was created with Postiv AI, your LinkedIn AI agent. Our users get thousands of extra impressions in the first week. Try it for 7 days →

One Case Study = 6 LinkedIn Posts

Most B2B founders think they need new ideas every single day to stay consistent on LinkedIn.

You don't.

You already have enough content. You just haven't unlocked it yet.

Every Notion doc, YouTube video, PDF, or blog post you've created is a week of LinkedIn content waiting to be pulled out.

Here's the workflow I use:

→ Take one existing asset (a doc, a recorded talk, a newsletter issue)
→ Import it into Postiv
→ Let the AI pull out the key ideas, frameworks, and stories inside it
→ Turn each one into a standalone post

One 2,000-word blog post typically gives me 10-15 post ideas. A 30-minute YouTube video? Easily 10.

The mistake most founders make is thinking content creation starts with a blank page.

It starts with what you've already built.

The irony is that the founders who say "I don't know what to post" usually have more material sitting unused than people who post every day.

I did this myself when I was running my lead gen agency. I had decks, SOPs, client reports, recorded calls. All of it was content. I just wasn't treating it that way.

The import-first approach changed how I thought about LinkedIn entirely.

What's one asset you have sitting around that could become a week of posts?

You Already Have Enough Content

"You killed Jeffrey Epstein, you animal!"

Disney sent ByteDance a cease-and-desist. SAG-AFTRA called it "blatant infringement." The MPA demanded a full halt.

All because of a viral deepfake of Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt in a fight scene so realistic most people couldn't tell it wasn't real.

I saw the clip a couple of days ago and my first thought was not "wow, legal nightmare."

It was: this is where everything is going.

AI-generated content just became impossible to ignore for every marketer, every founder, every brand on the planet.

Hollywood is scared because it works. And the founders who figure out how to use it to tell their real story, share their actual expertise, and show up consistently, they're the ones quietly building audiences while everyone else is still debating whether AI content is "authentic enough."

That debate is over. The early movers already won that argument.

ByteDance got greedy (because infringing copyright? not cool). But the direction they're pointing at is real, and it's moving fast.

Are you already using AI for your content? Would love to know how.

PS. This news was picked up and turned into this post by my Postiv.AI LinkedIn assistant.

I was paying a ghostwriter $3,000/month just to stay visible on LinkedIn.

But I couldn't stop as it was an important lead channel and we got a significant ROI from it. And the time to do it myself? Absolutely not there while in the growth phase of my agency.

That's when I realized: every founder has this exact problem.

You need LinkedIn (even if you don't want it). But you don't have the time and mental space for it, and ghostwriting is expensive.

So I built the thing I actually needed.

Today we're launching Bob. Your always-on AI content agent inside Postiv AI.

Here's how Bob works:

→ Every Monday he scans your business sources (blogs, newsletters, news, industry updates)
→ Builds your full LinkedIn content plan for the week
→ Drafts your posts in your voice, from your own material
→ You review, approve, and schedule

That's your entire week of LinkedIn content. Done.

I grew my agency from 3 to 12 persons when I started taking LinkedIn seriously. Consistent posting was the single biggest growth lever I had.

But most founders can't sustain it. Not because they lack ideas. Because they lack a system.

Bob is that system.

Week one he's good. Week four he sounds exactly like you.

For a fraction of what I was paying a ghostwriter.

Postiv V2 is live now to try for free → postiv.ai

If you've been putting off LinkedIn because you don't know what to post, this is for you.

This is what happened in AI this week ⤵

→ Amazon's $50B OpenAI investment may depend on an IPO - or AGI:
Reports surfaced this week that Amazon's commitment to OpenAI (part of a $100B funding round valuing the company at ~$730B) could be conditional on OpenAI hitting one of two massive milestones: a successful IPO or achieving artificial general intelligence. Negotiations are ongoing.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/e_izdEy9

→ Google drops Nano Banana 2:
The image generation model that went viral for turning people into action figures is back with a sequel. Nano Banana 2 adds more accurate text rendering, real-time web search integration, and new creative controls for keeping characters consistent across multiple scenes. It's now live inside the Gemini app.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/e6r3GQPP

→ Big Tech will power its own AI data centers:
Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Oracle, OpenAI, and xAI are set to sign formal agreements at a March 4 White House event - committing to "build, bring, or buy" their own electricity supply for new AI data centers. The move comes after Trump's State of the Union address called on Big Tech to stop relying on the public grid for AI infrastructure.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/ewCHGDEC

→ OpenAI, Google, Microsoft, and Intel bet on community colleges for AI talent:
A national consortium of US community colleges announced partnerships with some of the biggest names in AI this week. The goal: build a pipeline of trained AI talent at scale, beyond the traditional four-year university track.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/ezvvJ3vv

→ Michael Burry flags a "troubling" surge in Nvidia's supply commitments:
The investor behind "The Big Short" is sounding the alarm on Nvidia. In a Substack post, Burry pointed to Nvidia's purchase obligations jumping from $16.1B to $95.2B in just 12 months - noncancelable orders placed before knowing actual demand. He called the surge "troubling" and tied it partly to TSMC requiring longer-term contracts.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/eJqedefW

That's the week in AI. If this is useful, follow me for the weekly roundup every Friday.

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Jan Musscher

Followers

Posts

Engagements

Likes

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJan Musscher's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

taplio

The Battle

Tom Hunt

Jan Musscher

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);}Tom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance

Performance ScoreJan Musscher's LinkedIn Performance

Ready to grow your LinkedIn presence?

Performance ScoreTom Hunt's LinkedIn Performance