LinkedIn

6 years ago was a different time.


I'd left my employer and struck out again as a heat-seeking fractional (before it was flavour of the year).

I saw RMIT Activator might be looking for a short-term resource, had a chat with Matthew Salier and then sent him this.

There's an outsized demand issue versus the supply for most mid-senior+ marketing jobs.

Newsflash - AI isn't going to make this reality any brighter.

But if you're a great marketer - you SHOULD know how to stand out.

It's your bloody job.

You can knock something like the attached out now in a fraction of the time it took (if you know what you're doing).

But there's an X factor you still need to stand out.

This was a fun stint and I'm grateful for the time and connections I made over there.

But more importantly I learned when you take the reins and go full-tilt at something you can make more things happen than you can imagine when you're street-fighting for briefs and opportunities on a quiet day.

I'm new to recruitment, here's what I've learned working with clients:



> > Understanding the value I bring

I know marketing and growth.

Game recognises game.

A client put their own ad up and got swamped with applications - they're busy - there's no way to evaluate/sense-check/work through such volume AND know what to ask, what to look for, and how to press.

We took it over for them mid-role and they were pleased.



> > Knowing when it's not a good fit

Another had been in touch and was actively canvassing the market with a discounted fee.

The roles this business wanted were my bullseye - I've worked in agencies, with big clients, and big tech and the claim about wanting "the best of the best" didn't ring well against "we're using multiple recruiters" with a discounted fee.

I had a stab at explaining pay-for-performance and the networks they'd have access to - but they fell on deaf ears and I let that one go.



> > Being ready to champion candidates and correct client behaviour

Business owners be busy.

So sometimes I've needed to correct poor feedback and be ready to champion a candidate that didn't pass the sniff test.

The way I manage uncomfortable conversations is to simply come from the client's perspective - I want the best outcome for them and am prepared to challenge if that's what it's going to deliver.



--



📸 from the couch today - had to cancel my usual Tuesday CBD coffee blitz with daycare lurgy 🤧

So how the bloody hell do you hire for AI skills?
 
 
I'm not talking ML engineers and rocket surgeons.
 
I'm talking about operations, marketing, sales, agency folk, and customer success.
 
You know - the meat and potatoes that goes into the GTM gravy.
 
I'm prepping some content for a webinar soon and would love to know what observations, comments, and questions you've got?
 
What I've observed so far:
 
👐🏼 Not many roles advertised explicitly ask for AI skills

👐🏼 Those that do tend to drift into hyperbole ie. you're an AI wizard with a spellbook of prompts! 🧙🏼🤦🏽‍♀️

👐🏼 There's not a hell of a lot of definition around what success looks like - other than - you must use it
 
I totally appreciate this is a work-in-progress and not an easy nut to crack - but don't ask don't get right?
 
I spoke to one business last year who put on a contractor to help innovate within the business - but they simply jumped ship when a permanent role came up somewhere else 🛳️
 
I don't normally ask for engagement on my posts with a close like - "so what do you think?" - but would love it for this one thank you very much 🙏
 
📸 me with my AI hat on ❤️⚪️💙

So this has been brewing in the background:
 
 
I met Tim Mundy while he was a co-founder at VideoMyJob and I tried selling him video services.

That was never going to work - but we kept in touch over the years, always threatening to work together.

Then I did some freelancing with Digital Affair, and enjoyed seeing mixing up my client abilities with the world of employer branding.
 
It kinda worked.

I loved the way he went about it with some of the biggest brands in-market and always with enthusiasm.
 
We tried a venture when AI hit, but things fizzled before they took off - for good reasons that only increased the respect I've got for him.
 
So when he called about GradEngage I was always going to keep the door ajar.
 
Then he said he's got Senaya Krishnan (graduate recruitment veteran) and Jon (technology expert) onboard and I thought alright - let's make room for this.
 
After coaching hundreds of early-stage founders who are struggling with product-market-fit - it's quite something else watching graduate recruiters listen to the pitch, nod and say "uh-huh" and telling us yes that's a problem and yes your solution fixes it.
 
I'm running at this very much from the back-end systems and growth perspective as I'm loving recruiting for and working at Pointer.
 
But I do think being a co-founder and operator lends a certain kind of credibility to the dance of finding great growth people right?

📸 Blue sky opportunities out there for anyone smart and leaning into AI right now imo

Had a shocker yesterday.

House inspecting, screaming kids, sick family.

Then at the end of the day I looked at my spouse and we were both smiling at each other - completely exhausted yet still together.

You barely notice the shockers when you’re going to rest like that.

How to get opportunities with AI.

Love this from the Antler newsletter:


Have noticed #3 with some of the best leaders I've worked with.

Looking at you Rachel Green and your magnetic abilities!

Fun fact:
I can't walk past a digger and not be bummed if my kids are absent.

I think to myself... what a waste.

The reason being they absolutely lose their marbles over heavy machinery and will correct me if I call a forklift a skid-steer...

So I try and take a snap when I go past one on my feet so I can show it to them later.

Do you know what else is a waste?

Not updating people about what I do and having them ask:

"So what are you up to?"

So here's the tl;dr -

I work with early-stage companies to recruit their go-to-market talent for Pointer.

I've found this to be a pretty natural extension of my startup consulting work in that instead of me doing the work - I find people to hire to do the work.

This has been a lot of fun because:

- I naturally track "who is good"
- Take good to know good (20yrs+ ain't no hollaback girl)
- I network vociferously (<-- today in words an LLM would never use)
- I've loved working with a team again
- I'm also running/directing Pointer's marketing with AI

This is where I spend most of my time each week, and I'm also noticing that most businesses needing talent are also needing direction on how to filter for AI literacy/skills/engagement.

Carry on and remember consistency is the enemy of waste 🚜👷

The last job I applied for (and got) was in 2016.

It lasted a few months.

The best opportunities are elsewhere.

I have spoken to a few senior marketers recently about standing out.

And rather than trust they'll apply it - I'm dumping it here in the hope it helps some other people.


--


> Apply sales acumen to your search <

Don't apply and wait

Find the hiring manager's name, email, and phone number and tell them why you're so pumped for this role

Follow-up - I got auto-rejected on a role last year and called the recruiter up and told him why his wrong - it moved to interview

If you see a bullseye role posted - move fast - speed is way more important than you think

Most marketers I speak to think in longer time horizons, drop that and embrace a sense of urgency

--

> Use voice, video, and human stuff to circuit-break the automations <

Follow-up a connect request with a voice note or video

Nobody does this yet it makes you stand out orders of magnitude more

Like it or not - a perfectly crafted CV and resume reads like all the other applications that told AI to match the documents to the PD

So do something weird that stands out - I told someone to build an app for an application, they sent one to me 12 hours later (I didn't have an active role suitable for them - but that's memorable)

--

> Come in deeply prepared, even for screening <

The amount of information you can draw up on a business is nuts

Check their Meta ad library, Google transparency centre, reviews

What would you improve and why? I'd rather you have strong and wrong opinions than answer with "oh I like to review all the data and make an informed decision"

Yes but you don't have all that data now - tell me what you think NOW

--

> Go hard into building your AI literacy <

If you're a senior marketer you can afford the Claude Max subscription (~$140 per month)

Don't buy a course on "how to get started" - start building sh*t

You are operating in a time where you can figure out just about any technical challenge a marketer can be exposed to with AI

So stop dilly-dallying and build your literacy in figuring this out - this knowledge is applied learning, not courses, not podcasts, and certainly not paying a practitioner to educate you

--

> Work the back channels or learn how to

Join private communities and participate in them

This means skimming, adding some meanigful or genuinely helpful comments, and regularly watching the jobs boards

Hit your network for "interesting people to talk to" not "people hiring for jobs" - the former gets you WAY more value if you follow the breadcrumb trail


Go and get it.

--fin--

what a week!

run and gunning the city,
speaking on a panel at full speed ahead (see!),
sick family,
interviewing candidates,
vibing with the pointer team,
f2fs with an outgoing consulting client,

and some more I'm clearly missing.

it does feel like the year is in full swing and am feeling pretty darn good about 2026.

have a fab weekend 👋

Now or later?

I HATE the takes I see on here with:
 
"Hurr, Anthropic is hiring a copywriter" - see AI isn't killing it, or
 
"Hurr hurr, Paypal is hiring a Head of LinkedIn" - you see how important this is
 
(I literaly hear the HURR as I read it and think.... urgh!)
 
So let me make this abundantly clear:
 
I am a hypocrite.
 
But this post isn't about me.
 
It's about a job ad I saw from a forward-thinking company in Australia.
 
Like it or not - startups and early-stage companies are disruptors.
 
Most flame out.
 
A few rare ones come into ~$1B+ sales that only amplify their delusions of grandeur.
 
But their impact on the market over time is undeniable.
 
So let me make this part really clear too:
 
IF you are hiring for a marketing leader who is NOT leaning into AI and its capabilities right now you are flushing money down the toilet.
 
Look at this way,
 
I have worked in digital marketing for 20+ years.
 
And have been lucky to work with some epic companies and some of the biggest clients (and egos).
 
AI is an existential threat for marketing as we know it.
 
If there's even a 5% chance the above is true.
 
Do you want to hire a leader who is doing everything in their power to fight against the above?
 
Or someone who was made redundant and is keen for a similar job to what they used to do?

p.s. lol @ that salary

Ah fudge, it's that time of the week again isn't it?
 
MELBOURNE CITY COFFEE MEETING DAY ☕️
 
Nobody: ...
 
Literally nobody: ...
 
Me: Well okay, because everyone asked, here's the latest numbers and how we're doing!
 
Goal -
100 coffees by EOFY
 
Number of F2F meets so far -
21
 
Kinds of people I've met -
A growth marketer who has moved from NZ,
an account manager does square dancing,
an Spanish expat who listens to techno,
an old friend I used to rave with who now lives in Taiwan,
a fractional GTM force of nature,
candidates,
founders,
soon-to-be founders, and
former colleagues
 
If you're curious about life, want to swap notes, or like learning something new - hit me up and I'll share an easy way to get your free coffee in (did I mention it's my shout?)
 
I've had a rolling meeting on a Tuesday .~' disappear '~. so have some better availability now.
 
Here's Angus Clark - he's cool.

I ran into a friend while I was meeting him and described him to my friend as a "young go-getter"
 
👋

What fails in a competitive market:

- Vague asking to jump on a call
- Sending a CV in DMs without applying for a role and expecting something to happen
- Connecting about a role but not mentioning what role

What high-performers do:

- Are incredibly prepared and mention 1-3 specific things they have noticed about a company on first touch
- Politely but repeatedly stay in touch
- Will correct you with confidence and evidence when challenged on role suitability

Put simply - the latter knows what they’re fighting for and ready to dance.

We have roles up at Pointer - are you ready to dance?

Oh cool - some random liked my post from 4 months ago and I got a notification about it.

I love that shit.

Have nothing better to do than enjoy it.

It's so good.

Yeahhhhhhh do it again bot.

If you're looking for a leisurely yet thought-provoking Sunday read:

I highly recommend Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question"

He says its his best short story and I agree!

Quite prescient with what's happening today with AI and the direction increased energy consumption can go

How you used to vet marketing hires:

- what level Excel are you?
- tell us about a campaign you ran, what was the brief, what challenges did you run to, and what was the outcome?
- what was your budget?

How I vet marketing hires today:

- what have you shipped?
- what level AI are you?
- what speed are you learning at?

What am I missing?

Copped a nasty one yesterday.

An absolute star about to start with one of my new favourite clients and bam - circumstances outside of their control pulled the rug just before start date.

This happens.

The communications were clean and we need to put the word out there that we back up.

Blufire are looking for a Head of Sales and are a new-school agency, you have:

✅ Enterprise sales experience and are comfortable getting the real problem

✅ Hunting and building the case (you are the sales team - not the people who report to you)

✅ Hungry and want to share in big upside

✅ Experience in selling agency or marketing services

Jobs up on the Pointer website and you know what to do cobber.

Marketing that will NOT be replaced by AI:

- empathy
- understanding a person and business well enough to translate what they’re trying to do into actionable briefs and outcomes
- harnessing a feeling of pain or discomfort and being able to transform it into something that commodifys it, or makes it communicable at scale
- taste
- judgment
- stakeholder management

But if you’re wondering what can be replaced by AI TODAY.

Then come to our Pointer webinar on LinkedIn tomorrow at 12.

Or if you really want the beans - get in touch and I’ll hook you up with a registration.

✌️

A raging debate happening in our GTM ANZ community at the moment is "do I need an expensive CRM?"

And being able to manage/use/have technical skills with CRM is the top-requested skill from the 1k+ marketing jobs we saw in the Australian market in February 2026.

So who is "in the wrong" here?

I believe there's a lag between what talent teams and marketing job advertisers are saying they need - and what skills will be needed over the next 12-24 months.

I also believe the NUMBER ONE technical skill you'll need over this timeline is:

"Figure outerer"

A figure-outerer doesn't have a deep specialisation in technical SEO, email marketing, or even conversion rate optimisation.

They understand how marketing *works*, are data savvy literate, and can leverage tools in and out as the capabilities evolve towards an *outcome* and repeatedly work their systems to get to that outcome again and again.

I'm so bullish on this.

That's why I'm running a workshop on Thursday called:

"Is AI coming for your marketing jobs?"

I'm going to share what the most commonly requested marketing skills are, and also share what can be currently replaced by AI TODAY.

Not "when it's ready".

TODAY.

The gap in the market is people who have and can apply this knowledge versus the swathes of hiring managers who don't know any better.

Booking details on slide 12.

Things experts have said will never be beaten by AI:

- go
- chess
- Starcraft 2
- Texas Hold’Em Heads Up poker
- language translation
- basic code
- design
- enterprise-level software production
- basic marketing
- copywriting
- medical diagnoses
- legal advice

I don’t know how to put this to experts, but you’re losing.

I see crap takes every day.

e.g. You can’t “vibe code” a CRM

Okay - even if that isn’t true today - just how long do you think this “hard truth” is going to avoid being soft?

I am not a hype boy.

I f**king created a newsletter called AI vs Marshy FFS.

But I am telling you that when you hear “everything is changing” and shake your skeptical head, you are fighting with a reality that will encroach on your working life sooner rather than later.

You don’t have to be in love with that idea but it will help your livelihood to be considering it.

Now go back to scrolling through sloppy takes in your feed - I swear to God that everyone except Brad cringes at how much he is copy pasting slop on this bloody thing.

Quote of the day:

Well, yeah, tech AI, you've moved into recruitment, so you have the trifecta and you're smart and you also know growth.

No thank you, Samantha Philpot ☺️

^^ she's building something cool - keep an eye out

🎥 a re-enactment of my conscious grace in accepting such a statement

Brag post: I'll be noodling on growth with founders and operators in Torquay this eve.

This will be for Genesis, and it's quite a hop from Kangaroo Ground 🦘💨

But am stoked to share hard-won digital marketing smarts with what cutting edge looks like -

Last night I hooked in the AEO skill to Pointer's new website, combined it with AirOps, and built an automatic sourcing integration into Slack.

Looking forward to vibing with some enterprising minds 🫶🏻

More of?

I had a difficult conversation with a client about interview process recently.
 
Here's what they did to make giving feedback easier:
 
They welcomed the feedback and sought to understand it better
I could see that this was new information to them, and that it didn't fit their operating lens.
But instead of shutting it down, they immediately acknowledged the feedback and sought more information about it.
 
They asked clarifying questions so they could better understand it
Once they'd got their head around the issue, they asked multiple questions about what could be done better, what the impacts of this issue were, and how they could do better in the future.
 
They agreed to next steps and welcomed further feedback
It's hard giving uncomfortable feedback - especially when there's a business relationship involved.
Yet this left the door open and left me feeling confident that we'll be able to work together prosperously into the future.
 
--
 
Not all clients are like this.
 
Some blame other people.
Blame tools.
Blame you.
 
Never looking at the constant.
 
I'm fortunate to be in a situation where those clients are rare and get softly managed out 😘

📸 I usually knock out a post earlier than this in the working week - but have had some other "new client" issues the last couple of days... turbo twin toddlers is hard mode I'll tell you that much for 🆓

I've had more inbound "wanna job" in the last 6 months than near ever.


I am very happy with my very full plate (one I haven't mentioned on here yet but that's for another time).

So if you want a:

- growth marketing veteran
- comfortable spinning up things and orchestrating tools
- a multiple-industry and multiple-startup doer

And:

- you're willing to hire remote (AU East Coast)

Then:

- I have someone for you who is actively looking

There's not many people I go "they can do what I do" so use that information as you will.

Happy Friday 😘

Comment "AGENTS" on another lead magnet post...

Or just lift the copy and tell Claude Code to build it yourself in your existing stack with the right APIs, MCPs, LLMs, etc etc.

People in tech are still sleeping on what's happened in the last 3 months.

You don't need sexy.

Does this ad disgust you?

What on earth does a picture of a woman holding a wine glass have to do with boundaries or not knowing where they are as an AI?

There's no question this is AI-generated -

And likely optimised through 100s if not 1000s of variations of content designed to elicit [goals].

It's more than likely some of the goals were:

- appeal to a certain audience
- imply/refer to something that isn't allowed to be advertised on the platform
- skirt as close as possible to the edge of ad policy to enable the above, and
- download / use tool

Knowing how it's made doesn't make it any less okay.

This timeline we're in is completely bonkers.

Chairing the Lived Experience Advisory Committee (LEAC) is one of the most engaging pieces of work on my plate.

The conversations, debate, and care placed into ensuring that SANE does everything it can to heed, work with, and serve its most important stakeholders is a joy to witness.

We’re looking for people with this experience and taking expressions of interest now.

These voices matter.

If you or someone in your network might be a fit - I implore you to give them a gentle nudge to apply 🫶

18 coffee meets so far.

Tuesdays.
Melbourne CBD.
My shout.

Some FAQs for the people asking:

- no, I don't have coffee every time - I don't really drink it, I'll throw one in every now and then to remind myself why I don't 🤪

- it's not really tiring - it's just a different cadence to other days and I am pretty good at juggling the other things I have to do

- the goal is to have 100 by EOFY - I'm pretty sure I'm going to smash it out of the park (there's 5 more today)

I've kept things pretty loose with who I'm meeting - I love meeting founders, but it's been a combination of operators, career professionals, and yes - people sounding out new opps as well.

It's led to more meetings with founders at other times, warm referrals, names of businesses I should hunt down and help, and just a chance to reconnect with people I love meeting who I would otherwise struggle to connect with regularly.

Including my friend Jimmy Dau - an old friend from my Sydney days.

We've been to gigs together, DJ'ed together, worked at UM Worldwide together, and holidayed in Europe together (I'll always remember that argument we had about Vinyl vs CDs vs MP3s and the kebab afterwards in Berlin).

He's looking for his next opp and any agency/media publishing business (in Melbourne) would be mad not to think about getting him in to lead their business.

I've got some spots left in March if you want to do the dance, and but you kind have to get in quick to land a meet - soz 🤷🏼‍♂️

Keep looking 👀

I'll be honest.

When I think: "fast AI adoption" I don't think of my spouse.

Sorry Georgia Hill -

I've been writing about AI for 3 years and barely a peep.

Sure - we had twins, moved house, moved jobs, and broke 3 different limbs in that time (among many other things) but never a peep about AI...

So when you told me you were using the free version of ChatGPT and "its actually good" a few months ago, I smirked.

But then something happened 4 weeks ago:

"Hey - you know how you have the paid versions of different AIs - do you think I would be able to look at one?"

And then OpenClaw happened 🦞 and the Internet melted.

I've done a lot with it already and that's a subject for another time.

But I was like - what if I set it up for Georgie, tell her to just play with it and work things out, and see where it goes.

In the space of a week:

1. Set up group chat and started looking for properties - set to send top 3 picks each Monday

2. G set it up to do the same with her part-time job search

3. Told the bot what her email was - which was DISGUSTINGLY CUTE because it already had her CV where her email was and it had to politely tell her

4. Had a specialist scan (not available at every testing centre) and delegated finding the numbers for who she had to call to the bot

5. Checking on dinner schedules for when I'm home (it's got visibility on my work calendar). Keep in mind I've offered the work calendar visibility in the past and doesn't want to see all the meetings I have - she just wants to know when I'm home

6. Asked for a private chat with the bot so she can keep doing her own thing without bothering me (done)

7. Wants a task list system and I suggested using Amazing Marvin - it has API/customisation-access and I have a lifetime deal - so while there's a learning curve it could pay off with AI.

But...

I'll need to set it up honey it needs an API key.

She then went and found it and gave it to the bot to set up the Amazing Marvin integration.

In a week.

--

I talk to EXTREMELY smart people every day who ask me "how do I get started with Claude?"

Meanwhile my loved one (who teaches people how to ride horses and things all I do for my job is "have meetings") is operating agents at a level of sophistication 80-90% of the people I interview haven't even touched yet.

So yeah - just needed to get that off my chest.

New year, more jobs.
 
For those of you new to this - we track marketing jobs in Australia as spotted on LinkedIn.
 
It's not an exact science - but we're starting to see:

- trends over time in the market

- where hires are located

- what kind of hires they are, and

- get a sense of the direction things are going
 
Some interesting bits for me:

>> An increase in entry-level roles - the whole profession seems to be "pushed down" - less executive/leader roles, more mid-senior roles, and an expectation (rightly or wrongly) that more can be done with less
 
>> Hybrid is there for a third of roles - and there seems to be a gradual reduction in pure remote. The roles we're hiring for with remote see crazy demand where businesses get their pick of the cream of the crop. So if your business can accommodate remote and you're struggling to find your growth specialist - this looks like a viable play
 
>> AI still doesn't get explicitly mentioned in many job descriptions. It's a new world after all. One way we vet for this (I think it's a must to be leaning in and experimenting) is querying what they're doing with AI both inside and outside the job. Often great candidates are investing in things outside just waiting for the pay-off to be able to bring into their roles when its ready.
 
I'll keep playing with the format of this and if it raises any questions or comments please let me know! 🙃

Presented a thing today at Founders Fest First Move by Aussie Founders Club - thanks for having me.

Here’s what I said I think:

1. Things are stupid level capable since Opus 4.5 - see chart

2. An MVP marketing stack/flywheel = regular content, distribution list, regular events, brand kit, and a newsletter

You don’t need AI for this - you can rinse and repeat the above and slay.

3. If you were to use AI - set up master document with 3-layer architecture - it fills gaps you didn’t know you had

4. Connect tools, APIs, MCPs, and LLMs as you like (people sleep on Perplexity)

5. Build your flywheel

(I look forward to pointing back to this post when Pointer is big timeby EOY 🫡)

Have fun and be good to your loved ones 🫶

Marketing jobs ✨

Compare the pair.

Same day.
Same tool.
Results on different sides of the spectrum.

Both using Clawdbot yesterday (OpenClaw isn't going to catch on guys 🦞).

Scenario 1:

Stuck in the foyer to meet a contact for a F2F.
We haven't done this before and I've got takeaway I'm trying to bolt down.

I forgot to grab his number and was waiting for him to see his LinkedIn DMz.

Spoke to my "executive assistant".

Can you get his details for me?

No his phone number - I've got the credits in my GTM stack.

Bingo, phone call made, I'm out of the foyer, we're in business.

Scenario 2:

Actually how many face-to-face things am I doing this week?

4 - and then a big event at FounderFest on Wednesday.

Wut?

FounderFest is on Thursday, no Wednesday.

My bad.

--

You can see why people are confused by AI.

One scenario felt like complete wizardry (tbf combined with my skillz too).

The other felt like my stomach dropping like the time we hired and moved someone from the other side of the world and realised it wasn't going to work out.

I do know there's advantage in keeping up with this stuff and I expect the entire go-to-market function is going to move in this direction.

But c'mon.

Unlike most senior marketers - I LOVE being on the tools.

In large organisations - that's a death sentence:

"Delegate"
"We have an agency for that"
"You wasted your time doing WHAT?"

In an early-stage - it's a matter of survival.

The "tools" in the last few years have grown exponentially - as have the capabilities.

But there's still a lot of ho-hum out there, SLOP, and more than likely overwhelm.

So come to The First Move this Thursday.

Buckle in, and I'll knowledge bomb my way through Claude Code showing you how to build your MVP marketing stack.

I don't do fluff.

And I break things down in a way that features zero hype.

Would love to see you 😘

34 days.
 
Around about now is when New Year's Resolutions start fading.
 
You might notice your motivation to get out of bed earlier fading.
That the gym is appears to be "less full" than it was a couple of weeks ago.
Or your strong career intentions are meeting slightly more resistance.
 
Well this is your call to arms.
Rattle your cage.
Ask yourself "why" they were set in the first place.
 
Was there emotion behind it?
Frustration?
Were you dissatisfied with something and set a big ambition to fight it this time.
 
Well here's the good news:
What you're feeling is the real work.
 
Get curious about that resistance, that ebbing away, and accept that motivations fade.
 
Underneath it is the REAL stuff you need to work through.
 
It's messy.
It's uncomfortable.
And that's where the breakthroughs happen.
 
Trust me, I've been there - I'm allergic to horses you know ;)

On keeping up.

This agency needs a Head of Sales to takeover from the Founder.

Blufire are firing - blufiring?
And winning business.
They also offer a unique model that connects their performance to ROI for the customers they serve.

You're probably (or know someone) from media publisher side, commercial analytics, or an emerging commercial leader at another agency.

It's an integral hire with upside that will make an amazing milestone for the right talent.

Any questions lmk or just go ahead and apply:

https://lnkd.in/gVCBaBnP

3 down, 97 to go.
 
So every Tuesday I'm coming into the city and shouting people coffees ☕️

My intention - learn more about the people I'm connected to (or soon to be connected to) and build momentum as I sail through 2026.

My goal - crank out 100 of these before EOFY.
 
One of the meets last week was with 📖 Ken Thomas.

He's an energetic networker himself (and in a few of those more formalised networking groups)!

We swapped notes on early-stage companies, the mistakes and challenges we see, and why he's fired up to help these kinds of companies set up their sales process and infrastructure before moving away from founder-led sales.

I learned heaps and we managed to chuck in some footy banter (you've been warned).

Want to be part of this sweet caffeinated deal?

You need to be in the CBD and it needs to be a Tuesday.
Have my people talk to your people and I'll sort you out with a booking link.
 
I have to run - another 4 booked today and it's going to be 40-million-degrees today so omg wtf am I doing...

Last week I shared how to set up an early GTM stack using Claude Code, terminal, and live API keys (oh no he didn't!)

You couldn't do this without a lot of pain 6 months ago.

Now you can set up an agentic workflow that takes direction, gets better with feedback, and does the orchestration required for early growth of your business.

We'll be doing a lot more of these over 2025 - join the GTM ANZ community to get first dibs.

p.s. skip to about ~5mins in as you don't need to hear me warming things up

Rant incoming 😘

655 more in December, than in November.
 
I double-taked the data.
 
That's a good English sentence, right? 🤭
 
More marketing jobs in December than November.
 
In case you didn't know -
 
We've sent up a pulse-check to see what's happening in the market and what's trending.
 
It's not an exact science, but seeing what's posted on LinkedIn each month gives me a bit of a steer on marketing job land than I would have otherwise have.
 
Other notes:

=> AI mentions still not strong, growth marketing the most AI-forward role - no surprises there

=> A lot of mid-senior roles out there - I'm guessing teams want more done with less resource

=>Project management, CRM systems, and SEO the most mentioned skills in job descriptions
 
I kinda like making this a regular "thing" - and I'm not sure what will happen with January's data but am predicting a small dip.
 
What do you reckon people?

What happened to me in 2016?
 
Well what didn't happen!?

A huge amount of things to share from - wedding (that's now ended), Bulldogs winning the Grand Final (that's definitely ended), and some audacious high-risk moves.
 
Inlcuding the decision to leave Facebook.
 
I've been watching a lot of Graham Weaver lectures lately - and he says when you leave something and do the harder thing, it gets worse before it gets better.
 
That was absolutely my experience.
 
But it also prompted some big personal questions like:

"Who are you Marshy?"

"What do you actually want?"

"Is this all there is?"
 
Which I can now answer with the utmost confidence knowing who I am, what I'm about, what I'm striving for, and who I'm serving.
 
Yet I'm still grateful for my time at the 'book.
 
I made a lot of friends and catch-up with a good portion still to this day.
 
I got to rumble hand-to-hand with executives with strong agendas and actually challenge, persuade, and befriend them as I figured out what worked being a client partner.
 
I also learned from an incredible manager in Naomi Shepherd, who seemed to strike the right balance between challenging me, letting me just run and do "my thing", and coaching me in scenarios where I just knew I could play better.
 
2016 is this weird inflection point for social media - for most of us oldies there's multitudes of content we can choose from and the idea of just "sharing what's on our mind" came quite naturally.
 
The world feels different now - there's more fragmentation, more algorithms, more AI, and much less authenticity.
 
I look back at that time with gratitude for where I was and newfound understanding of the role it played in leading me to where I am today.
 
Giddy up 🐎

Want to see me build an early GTM stack with Claude Code from terminal?

Well I know what you're thinking...

- What's a GTM?
- What's a terminal?
- What's Claude Code?

Well if you're asking these questions - I'll save you the time - DON'T come to this session.

This for growth operators, founders, technical sales people, technical marketers, and probably cybersec enthusiasts who enjoy torturing themselves.

I'll get hands-on and answer questions with the goal of demystifying what can be an intimidating tool if you didn't grow up with MS-DOS and X-Tree Gold.

https://lnkd.in/dpCjXM6r

Common sense and compassion required here.

Doing the reps 🫡

Are you one of my 100 coffee meets this side of FY26?

I want to buy coffee for:

- new faces working in growth
- leaders in fast-growth companies
- doers who GSD
- people who have their fingers in multiple pies
- anyone I’ve previously worked with
- anyone recommended by my network

Melbourne-CBD and Tuesdays only.

Let’s go 😘

Practice.

Last year I was on a sales call and I bragged to the seller:

“I subscribed to Lovable when it was called GPT Engineer and have locked in legacy pricing”

I leaned back in my chair with an air of smug satisfaction.

Seller:
“I invested in Lovable when it was valued at $15m”

Okay you win that round champ.

But I’m looking forward to winning 2026 with what’s happening at Pointer.

If you want to talk about setting up your company’s growth engine: let’s talk.

But wait until next week, right now I’m learning the hard way that no matter how much you enjoy throwing down classics on your dusty Traktor—

Your twin boys will enjoy trainwrecking them even more and are physically incapable of sharing.

Let’s gooooo 2026.

I have another week off and am back on the 13th.

I reckon I’ll be ready…

Some things I’ve done during the downtime:

- read lots of sci-fi

- plotted and schemed

- turned my phone onto monochrome, instead of keeping me off completely, it reduces my use significantly - a much better result

- eaten too much

- spent nearly all my time with family and loved it

…and getting bloody excited about nailing 2026.

See you there 👋

3, 2, 1… the year is as good as done!

A few challenges:

- going all-in on a startup - I was unable to get the outcome I wanted and moved on

- navigating the ongoing emergence of AI and separating hype from practical

- working through an abundance of opportunities with methodical criteria in order to set things up for 2026

A coupla wins:

- loved my paid speaking gigs - lighting up (and educating) a room has always been a happy place

- crossing paths with some serious founders via coaching

Focus next year:

- growing with Pointer, there’s big plans for GTM, recruiting, people, marketing, and partnerships and it’s great to go into 2026 excited to unleash plans


—


I’ll be reading, writing, hooping, Dadding, and recharging until then 💫

Great writers don’t say “here’s the thing”.

I see your slop and judge.

Mercilessly.

Fin.

2,000+ marketing jobs were advertised here in November.
 
I know because we tracked every single one of them for Pointer.
 
In my chats with Ricky Pearl - we wanted to get a sense of the market data and what's actually happening to identify what value I can add.
 
Here's some of the biggest takeaways:
 
>> AI is only mentioned in <20% of roles, and only a fraction of those are requiring this expertise.

What a folly. In the early roles I've gone to market with - I'm actively screening for it.

"Tell me a project you've done with AI in the last 12 months and what impact its had".

Crappy answers give you things like I've done some prompts in ChatGPT. With stars their eyes light up, they lean in, and cheekily share how they were able to set up XYZ for true leverage.

This tells me hiring managers and the people writing the ads are either hiding what they truly need - or don't know how to hire for it.
 
>> There's lots of mid-senior roles (45% of them).

My hunch here is because teams are shrinking/remaining flat - but the expectation is these hires will be able to do more with the same, or more with less.

Which is funny given the LACK of AI-led language in job descriptions - how are these people going to be able to do that without AI skills?
 
>> Over 50% of roles still ask for Excel skills.

LOL.

As a junior burger at a media agency we used to laugh about what our friends thought we did, versus what we actually did (There were memes IYKYK).
Our friends thought we were having lunches and hanging out with beautiful people. What we were actually doing is pivot tables and vlookups to identify what allocation should go where.

I die a little knowing that some things haven't changed.

But I guarantee you its a proxy for "data literacy" which will only increase in importance as tools keep appearing and disappearing.
  
--
 
More in the slides, and if you want a sticky beak at the full data set - comment "POINTER" and I'll hook a mofo up 👊

What do basketball, startups, and networking have in common?
 
Well it's the trifecta for me and the Melbourne community had a Christmas party yesterday to celebrate.
 
I delight in telling friends that this exists.
 
The combination of endrophins, hooping, and chats with other operators is something special and for someone who lives an alcohol-free life, it's bloody nice not networking over beers and pizza.
 
Big kudos to Brandon Burns for pioneering this in Vic and being the conduit for some great conversations.
 
I won an award for being "cool under pressure" (🤣) and love the trophy.
 
A big thank you to the sponsors that help make it happen too.
 
P.s. If anyone is looking for lots of extra hooping over the Summer lmk - I'll be visiting some pickup games on weekend nights when I can :)

I had a blast nerding out on chaotic early startup GTM with Ben Morrell.

An early hire will never fully “crack the code” for your growth engine, but a great one will help you avoid a lot of mistakes and get you the data, insights, and early traction you need to get to the promised land.

I’ve seen my fair share of challenges over the years and it was fun note-swapping with another talented operator in Europe in Ben!

https://lnkd.in/gbbBcdne

A fat and juicy secret about fractional:

I've made 6 figures worth of billings from just 6 people.

Not clients. Super referrers.

Source: 10 years of my own Xero data (may they burn in an unholy fire 🔥)

6-7 people account for most of my revenue.
All of these people have sent me 5-25+ projects.
Another is over 6 figures alone.

Here's a playbook for finding super referrers:

-> slay your initial project
-> they learn exactly what you can do
-> they know what you do, what its billed for, and how they can bill it
-> they keep you in mind when other clients/similar problems arise

Finding them is harder now than it was when I started because frActIonAL is a trend.

What I would do if I was starting again:

> 5-10 new meetings per week
> Aggressively staying in touch with old contacts/peers/people you worked with (they're the highest value)
> tracking the above until its 2nd nature

Fractional flexibility sounds amazing.

The reality of making it work is harder.

Got another question about this recently and thought I'd spread the holiday cheer 😉

(Yep that's me).

5 a week for 3 months.

I had a nice spike of inbound enquiries after announcing joining Pointer with most of them coming from senior candidates looking for work.

Rather than repeat myself, I'm going to share some "tactics" that can help (rather than me - we're still lining up businesses to work with, and the roles I'm active on are more mid).

1. Get super clear about what *you* want to do - at senior-level this requires going to places you don't want to go to.

The uncomfortable questions you don't ask yourself or only ask yourself in the safety of a therapy room.

A great coach can do this too.

I'm also told ayahuasca does this - but if you need to travel to the other side of the world to "find yourself" maybe that's the part of the problem you should be investigating.

You could also do a lot worse than reading and applying "Building a Winning Career" by William Cowen - it was recommended to me by someone I respect and admire.

2. Get active on back channel.

One way you can do this is by creating a list of 50 dream companies you admire.

Then connect with mutuals in 5 of them each week - the people you connect with will be different depending on whether you're in growth, finance, or customer success - and you should be short, specific, and ask for coffee.

You will get a response rate of 5-30% depending on what level you're at and how thoughtful you've been with your career/networking to date.

3. Repeat this for 12 weeks.

It's boring.

Predictable.

And WILL create NEW opportunities you haven't had access to before.

~~

95% of people ignore stuff like this.

And I'd say 80% of the people who ask me these questions F2F also ignore this.

Then wonder why the same things are happening to them again and again.

This isn't a "market conditions" thing.

It's a learning new skills, taking an interest in people, and creating your new destiny thing.

~~

Of course - if you're a business on the other side looking for the mercurial talent that can step-change things then there's a good percentage chance I can help you now

😘

Are photo dumps a thing on LinkedIn?

Well it's Friday so I'm doing it and happy Friday fuckers:

1. hort innovation sbc showcase with Georgia Hill - good to "showcase" some of the work we do with my number one
2. stupid old switch b0rks the internet when the weather changes
3&4. made the mistake of posting a selfie in Town Hall and got punk'd by old internet clubbing buddies in a Slack channel
5. that's a proper tea
6. have been hit and running the cbd every Tuesday for back-to-back f2f meets - 2 left for the year
7. can 3ball (when not playing in our wednesday comp)

A lot happened this week too:
- Announcing my Marketing recruiter role with Pointer
- Christmas parties with Aussie Founders Club
- Getting a call from a client making sure I'm still working with them (yes)
- Board meeting with SANE 🫶🏻
- About 25 meetings
- Conspiring with Tim Mundy 🎓 🤝

And then come out of all that to learn LaunchVic is ending.

I feel for the staff affected, but have LOVED the f*** it we'll do it ourselves energy that's happened from "the scene" in <24 hours.

Two more weeks to LFGOOOOOOOO 🔥

Christmas came early #grateful #blessed

Here's 1 reason why I'm excited about 2026:
 
I'll be joining the team at Pointer to build out their Marketing function.
 
I met Ricky Pearl years ago - one of the first questions I had asked was about the combined value proposition of recruiting tech sales teams as well as training them.
 
"Its hard" was the short answer.
 
But even harder was the belief that when you put skin in the game and take responsibility for your placement's success - with education and a placement fee that runs over 12 months - it leads to better outcomes for both clients and the team.
 
I've obsessed over such things in growth marketing land.
 
Watched as leaders are swayed to invest in this tech company's flavour of education, or make hires that are high-risk and unlikely to stay.
 
And have thought to myself "surely there's a better way".
 
Well we're keen to figure that out.
 
I'm placing a few roles as we speak and I'll be scaling my existing client work right down after Q1 2025.
 
Let's flipping go 🔥

You literally don't understand marketing until you learn this.


Pattern recognition.

Generative AI has made this worst. No question.

Great data literacy is being able to look at sets of numbers and understand what is likely to happen next.

I wrote about it in a book that was released around the same time as ChatGPT.

There's a section called "Notice" - which is laymans for measurement.

Here's some home truths:

REPEATING THE SAME THING IS ALWAYS GOING TO HAVE DIMINISHING RETURNS.

It never gets better. So that campaign that popped off will perform worse if you run it again. You need to toggle/change/improve/tweak/alter to get a better result.

NOTHING LASTS FOREVER.

Andrew Chen calls it the law of shitty clicks. You have to constantly invent and reinvent new ways to attract and retain new customers. Resting on your laurels in the online world is a recipe for diminishing revenue.

SENSE CHECK NUMBERS THAT ARE TOO GOOD TO BE TRUE.

Your 25% accept rate was to 12 people. Your 8 conversions (against 5 actual sales) means the data is wrong. A sample size of your friends isn't going to equate to reality and scale.

A SMALL AND ENGAGED AUDIENCE BEATS A HOLLOW AND MASSIVE AUDIENCE EVERY DAY OF THE WEEK.

Including Blurstday. AI has made this worse. I have lost count of the amount of times I've heard: "we're for everyone". Are you better than oxygen homie? Because that's what you're competing with and even that gets its arse kicked by pollution.

Now.

Go forth and do wonders with your newfound wisdom.

Run away now.

Ta-ta.

9 months, 10 pitches, 1 night.
 
 
I loved going along to the Hort Innovation Australian-Grown Innovation Build Demo Day by Startupbootcamp last night.
 
It was even better having a warm Melbourne night and being able to get away and share some of what we've been working with my beloved G.
 
I was like a proud Dad seeing the startups pitch.
 
For some of them - this is their first dance and exposure to this world and seeing them give it a big crack was really satisfying.
 
A big congrats to all of the startups and I was glad to play a small part in coaching you through your progress 🫶🏻

OpenAI is this generation's Myspace.

It has popularised AI.
Everyone knows the founder.
It's also carrying an unsustainable business model that can only be made good through a buyout.

Myspace popularised social media.
Everyone was friends with Tom.
It sold to News and Tom is doing fine these days.

But the leader rarely wins in the long run.

Apple put MP3s on the map.
Facebook blew up social media.
And someone else will do the same with AI.

Watch this m̶y̶space 😉

here's what I do to learn about AI:

1. write about it in a newsletter - it forces me to get clear about how I'm thinking about its impact and where its fitting in

2. teach clients about it - I get paid to learn faster than them, and apply those learnings for them that's win-win

3. jump between different tools - i trial indiscrimanately, purchase discriminately, and unsubscribe/cancel ruthlessly

4. i talk to peers about it - it gives me a steer on how they're thinking about it in work and what they're doing

5. i watch a lot of youtube + listen to long-form podcasts - there's a lot to keep up with and I've found creators I trust and like

6. i save any great shares and knowledge on topics I'm into - I keep them in Reader and come back to them later

7. i play and experiment with workflows - workflows are much more rigid than agents but enable more predictable outcomes, i put different inputs in until i can get results I'm happy with

8. deliver my own thought leadership in this space - I've done keynote speaking, trained teams, and recorded the YTs

anything I'm missing?

I used to have a 5+ drink minimum rule at Christmas parties.

In agencies, corporates, tech companies... you worked hard and played hard and that was the done thing.

As a sober freelancer (5 years and counting) there's obviously not the same vibe.

Until last year when Aussie Founders Club threw a Christmas bash that was just bloody good fun for someone who has been in the "startup space" for a very long time.

I had so much fun that when Megan Luttrell 🤝 was looking for supporters I was happy to put my hand up and help out :)

LaunchVic are supporting too. Among other magnificent orgs (not Leo though - he was double-booked).

Details:
- Thursday, 4th December
- Cremorne Digital Hub
- Free entry

See you there?

😘

Want to solve your pricing problem in Melbourne?

Here’s evidence from a veteran that Kayla Medica’s pricing masterclass in Melbourne next week is a SMART PURCHASE ✅

Oh you want more?

I’m one of those sickos that actively tracks who is “great at their craft”.

This information isn’t Google-able.

It only comes from back channels and private conversations with operators who know.

One such operator talked about coming into a business and having a lot of work to do across a lot of things.

Except one area -

The product marketing side of things was LOCKED DOWN and TIGHT.

Everything documented.
Everything clear.
Everything made sense.

The operator did what any great operator did -

And sought who was responsible for such magic.

Unfortunately Kayla Medica had left the business by then but had left that STRONG an impression.

I don’t need to tell you how impressive that is nor how impressive her workshop will be.

But if you did need someone to tell you…

You want your AI and data sovereign from Day 0?

✅

No tech bros or megalomaniacs to be seen.

I used to be TERRIFIED of being weird.
 
Or quirky.

Or sharing that I used to play Warhammer as a 14 y.o. and the army I collected was the Undead (fear Nagash! 💀)
 
Obviously that's not the case any more.
 
On one level - I had to do some deeply personal soul searching, work through all my unresolved traumas, and reconnect wtih my True Self.
 
But I ain't going to talk about that sh*t on here.

F*ck that - its Friday!
 
But if you are terrified as well (or have been sometimes) I've got some good news for you.
 
You have nothing to be scared of.
 
One of the amazing things about the dramatic increase in AI slop is...
 
You can just post whatever about whatever your weird is and OWN it.
 
And instead of it disappearing into the aether and you crying because noBoDY EngaGeD witH muH ThoUGhT LeaderSHIps.
 
You are 300% more likely to stand out.
 
Because there's about 300% more crap out there.
 
And you flying your freak flag and getting your freak on is going to -
 
cough allow me to use what some of us in the professional marketing business call -
 
cut through
 
So just go ahead and post it.
 
Thanks to AI you don't have to go and do all your deep and dark mining through unresolved issues to get comfortable posting.
 
📸 friend shared this with me this morning and I am not sure how such a hat would go down at an event but I am game

9 months ago, I took the biggest risk in my career.
 
I worked for near-free on a startup for 5 months.
I banked on myself.
In return for a % of the company if I could turn around its fortunes.
 
It didn't work.
I couldn't deliver the growth we wanted.
And while I protected the downside as much as possible - I put my family at risk.
 
That's not a fun position to be in.
 
So I went back to the drawing board and started generating opportunities to work on.
 
And unlike the receiver of a freshly-minted senior redundancy...
"oh I actually work fractionally MEOW"
 
...I'm actually really good at it.
 
Today - I'm tired. But energised. And I'm seeing things click.
 
Right now - on my plate:
 
Growth systems -
I'm building automated outbound playbooks that don't feel like spam because they're researched to the wahzoo and lead with value-first.
 
Toothfairy AI -
I'm BDMing for enterprise customers who need AI sovereignty + interoperability with their existing stacks and don't want to be sold BS.
 
Probably Genius -
Helping mid-market customers get ahead of their AEO now because the market opportunity for first-movers in this space is better than its ever been for a category that's largely been locked down for the last 4-5 years.
 
Can't say yet 1 -
Helping my friend launch a a solution to a very specific niche and problem. Early signs are good.
 
Can't say yet 2 -
Helping another friend with a < different kind of venture > that's showing promise and we're off to a flyer
 
--
 
Here's my hard truth -

This is unsustainable.
There's only one of me.
I need to automate and offload some of this and by early next year because I want more wood behind less arrows.
 
But right now I'm in the messy middle.

Connecting dots, accelerating into the opportunities grabbing the most traction and taking swing after swing after swing.

Once things pop I'll be doubling and tripling the f*** down 👇🏼
 
Anyone else vibing into the end of the year? 😎

📸 of myself after clearing some of the things in the storage bungalow/office -and being at peas with my situation 💅

On Friday I got to meet a bunch of other growth leaders in a really cool setting at Fitzroy Gardens.

There was...

an air of mystery:
Who is going to be there? What's going to happen?

an air of fear:
Is it going to rain? What will we do?

an air of humour:
What did you say? Did you say PP?

A big thank you to IRL by Amber for sponsoring and the invite.

It was so fun meeting a bunch of new people and swapping growth notes like they were basketball cards at school.

🫶🏻

From a call today:
"I'm a bit long in the tooth"

Them:
"What does that mean?"

Me (sadly):
"It means I'm old."

It's been a weird and wonderful week here at Marshy™️ enterprises, and thought I'd share some good, bad, and ... asky?

Because that's what I tell founders to do all of the time.

GOOD
- Just finished the set up of a growth system for a client that's ambitious in scope + complexity and ready to rip next week with a pilot campaign
- Had a great debut helping a new client on a new venture - the stars aligned and I was able to solve their problem in record time, things aren't normally that quick and more updates on the venture in the months to come
- Our team is top of the ladder in basketball - TOP OF THE LADDER 🪜


BAD
- Productising + operationalising growth systems is obviously hard because the tech, set up, orchestration are all pretty new things combined with client education + management along the way. I had to lag my response on an interested partner while this gets solved. Working through this with my mentor


ASK
- Does anyone know a young, hungry Gen Z who wants to learn + apply AI+marketing+growth and work under one of the best in the business? (it's not me, but nooooo- Thank you!) send me their name and I'll vet them

--

Weekend is looking pretty drizzly here but at least Melbourne is finally getting warmer.

I'm going to spend it at a nice dinner meeting tonight meeting other growth leaders, take our boys to as many parks as humanly possible, and look after G who is crashing out at the wrong time of the week!

📸 from the front yard - that's more gradient all up in that nature than a sunset theme in PowerPoint 🌇

7 things you can do to "stand out" before the end of the year:

(I coached my friend's son through his internship searching and it prompted this list)

1. start posting on linkedin every week - it won't help you now, but building the habit now will pay dividends

2. create a swipe file - grab things you see online and put them in a folder, bookmark them, save to a read-it-later tool etc. getting cold DMs/emails that capture your attention are good (and rare), they will come in handy when you want inspiration later

3. book 2 coffees per week to reconnect with people you haven't been in touch with until the end of the year - it encourages serendipity which helps you stand out

4. scroll through the feed (i'm giving you permission) for 15 minutes and on each post that isn't ai-generated crapola, tag someone you know who might be able to help or can be of use - low-effort referrals like this are NOTHING for you and absolute BOONS for smaller operators you know who appreciate things like this more than you'll ever know

5. throw some broad terms into the job boards (pick one) like "digital", "design" or "ai" - even if they're not related to what you do. have a quick skim and if you think "geez Mary would be good at this one" - ping the job to Mary to reconnect with a "don't know if you're looking but thought of you! let's catch-up soon" - it will literally blow Mary's mind

6. you know those generous clients, referrals, or helpers you had in your life this year? think of 1-3 of the best ones, now message them for their address, tell them to STFU when they say that's not necessary and send them a thank you hamper from Bindle - one contact STILL talks about that hamper and it was 7 years ago - it's worth it and Bindle's an OG in this space and the founder is awesome

7. record yourself on video (<30 seconds) and send it to someone about an opportunity you are TERRIFIED about. you'll likely completely bomb (you're welcome). but you'll forever remember that hit of adrenalin that came when you pushed yourself out of your comfort zone and WENT for it. that feeling gets more familiar and one day you'll be searching for things that are harder willingly

enjoy the rest of your week you filthy animals 😘 🎅🏻

Some of the best leverage gamer energy.

What's this?

When a teenager locks in and spends 6 hours staring at a screen filled with moving colours.

They're locked in because it's engaging AF.

Some of the best operators I've seen have that background, and have been able to leapfrog it into IRL work.

My theory is they've attached that fascination with scoring and levelling up to the game of business and life and reaped the rewards.

Gaming people that fit this brief (hope I'm not outing any of you haha)

🎮 Lisy Kane 🔜 GSTAR - worked with her in the early days and she's gone on to own this energy on any number of levels and shine in the industry

Harry Sanders - former Runescape player who has now mastered SEO and launched into the US. No mean feat and GG sir

Jimmy Grant - we met playing Warhammer and LAN parties and he's now one of the best product people on the planet

Brendon Power - largely a ghost on here because he's so busy levelling up AI for one of the largest businesses in Australia - had dinner with him a few weeks ago and he all but confirmed he has transferred the gamer energy to business winz

--

Yet I'd say these people are also outliers.

I know many more that could never translate that intense interest into more professional endeavours.

What's the trick to this?

📸 check out that OG desktop - if you squint you can see gamer icon relics like Baldur's Gate and Team Fortress 2 😉

An interview question that's happened 2-3 times:

It's worded a bit like this -
"So ahh, you've been a consultant for a while hey?"

Or like this -
"Do you even WANT a job? It's very different you know"

Or like this -
"You realise you'll have to work differently right?"

I know what it's like to work a job moo-chacho.

I have walked away from eye-watering tech-titan salaries twice.

I'm like Kryptonite to the Golden Handcuffs ⛓️‍💥

What the screener doesn't realise (it's nearly always a screener) is that I've been optimising my career for interesting and high-potential for a very LONG time.

It's opened doors I didn't even know existed.

And being able to get through those invisible doors has become a skill unto itself.

Another opportunity passed by a couple of weeks ago - "(we're) leaning less on the pure growth side" - which to be fair is laser-clear feedback.

But I just moved to the next opportunity on the list and started working it.

Yes. Doing things this way is harder.
Yes. I sometimes doubt myself.
Yes. The payoff will happen.

This beast will keep growing stronger until he busts out of the cage.

From Mark's Meta Q3 earnings update:

I found this to be a really weird description of what social media content is.

Let alone - AI generated content.

I've trained my YT algo to help me binge all the latest and greatest re: growth + automation,

Yet when I look at any normie browsing social media the last thing I think is:

"This is really helping them achieve their goals"

It might be helping achieve someone else's though?

🤔

Here’s how I build growth systems:


A machine takes input and delivers output.
A growth machine takes input and delivers growth.
And because it's a system it can be continually improved.

I build them in 5 steps:

1. Discovery
2. Scoping
3. Set up
4. Campaigns
5. Maintaining

__

1. Discovery - the information needs to be uncovered and challenged.

What is the business doing to grow? Is it founder-led? 
What have they invested in already? What does and doesn't work?
What software and tools are they using? Are they using them effectively?

This uncovers how their current sales and marketing works.
It also enables me to understand their level of literacy with systems and AI.

I have been on calls where I need to explain what an API is.

I have also been on calls with CTOs-turned-sales-people and they say: "yep got it" after I show a compicated workflow on-screen.

Tools: Notepad, call recorder (I use Apollo but there's a bunch out there obvs - some of my clients love Fathom.ai)

__

2. Scoping - figuring out the approach.

What tools are needed?
What is going to work best here?
How complex is the job to be done?

Tools: Markdown editor for drafting (I use Typora), Apify, Perplexity for market research, I build my final proposals in Apple Keynote and record a talk-through with Descript

__

3. Set up - the big part.

Setting up how leads are sourced, enriched, and contacted.

The initial campaigns and motions that run initially and how they’re orchestrated.

Crafting the messaging, the offers, and connecting the bits.

Tools: n8n, Smartlead, Airtable, Google Gemini, OpenAI ChatGPT, + more

__

4. Campaigns - understanding what works.

Things rarely get hit out of the park on first swing.

The real expertise is knowing what levers to pull as data comes in to improve the swings.

Continually improving what's run and being willing to switch it up in the event of shooting blanks.

Tools: AdManage.ai, Claude (copy), Slack (comms + alerts) + more

__

5. Maintaining - passing on the knowledge.

Upskilling the team is so important, so offboarding can happen.

The organisation needs to own the system, and I don't like building reliance into an outside consultant (or software).

__

My output as a consultant has gone up dramaticaly as these tools mature, and at the back of my mind is how I can systematise and improve these approaches over time in order to be able to serve more customers.

It's a WIP and enjoy balancing that challenge against the opportunities on the table with others coming through.

Got any feedback on the aproach?

📸 There was a sick boy yesterday who came back home from daycare early - he was eager to apply himself but needs to learn to rest when unwell

I've done about 237 startup workshops. Last night - I did something I hadn't done before.

There were 7 or 8 startups as part of the Galactic Horizon Accelerator and the week before I ran through what early go-to-market looks like.

But after hashing it out with Safiollah Heidari - I asked "why don't we just let it rip and I show them what jumping on the tools looke like?"

So over about 90 minutes the "letting it rip" looked like:

- creating a professional EOI form for doctors to join as an advisor for a medtech startup

- jumping into Apify, prompting up what sorts of problems and challenges parents in neurodivergent families, gathering the pain points from Reddit, and then using AI Flow Chat to spin up ad copy and the accompanying images with NanoBanana for Meta

- finding particular industry ASX100 Annual reports with Perplexity, describing the kind of problem the founder solves to Claude Code, and then getting to batch through the reading of the reports to create angles/entry points for their startup

- finding a traditional industry is under-indexing fairly highly on SEO for software in that niche with Keywords Everywhere and advising the founders that an aggressive AEO play has near-nothing to lose for them

- finding more Head of Supply Chain & Logistics-style people and creating entry points based on a founders existing case study

It was scatter gun chaos.

Only the scatter gun was tightly focused on identifying high-leverage, low-time-spent opportunities that only early-stage startups can truly exploit.

Feedback afterwards:

"That kind of presentation is what is lacking in all startup programs"

and

"Luke shared powerful insights on how early-stage founders can build momentum, understand their audience, and use AI tools effectively to simplify and scale their marketing. His approach made complex strategies feel clear, actionable, and exciting to implement."

I might do more things like this in the future.

And just handover the complete bag of tricks for founders who want to learn quickly how to leverage marketing and AI 🪄

Just holler for a Marshy if that tickles your fancy 🤠

Most pitch decks bore the shit out of people.

There, I said it.

I was just talking to some younger founders about how to nail a 3-minute pitch.

Three minutes isn't much time — or is it?

Here's the framework I shared:

Big bold statement >
Three supporting points >
Circle back

Example:
Start: "Most people in this room are bored by pitches."

Pause. Let the silence do the work.

Then:
Point 1: Most founders lack presentation experience
Point 2: The slide content is genuinely boring
Point 3: Here's the data proving both

Close: "Remember when I said pitches are boring? Well, this one wasn't. And here's what I need from you."

BAM.
This isn't shit I'm making up.

Many moons ago, I used this structure in a presentation for a role.

I started with: "We can generate $80k/month for this company."

Then lots of slides explaining how.

Then: closed with the numbers showing exactly how we'd hit that target.

The rule of threes works because our brains love patterns.

Each point builds on the last.

Everything ladders up to your opening statement.

You get better at pitching by actually doing it (the same applies for writing lurkers).

But having a solid structure makes your practice way more efficient.

Try it in your next pitch.

Big statement. Three points. Circle back. Your ask.

Let me know how it goes.

Bonus points if you deliver a chk-chk boom at the end 💥

(Or watch the video if you want a refresher :)

Tell me you live digital marketing 24/7 without telling me what you do.

Well that's a first.

But I know what it's like to do a goof.

One of my favourite stories is about the time the Chief Creative Officer of Google APAC took the team out for drinks and food in Tokyo.

He was a classic "old-school" ad man and was enjoying himself regaling the team about a "shoot" he was on.

Picture me:

A digital nerd with a media buying background that hailed from country Victoria on the other side of the world with some Heavy Hitters™

My question:
"What were you hunting?"

The withering look was enough to fell a tree.

We never hit it off and I remember reacting really emotionally when things got unfair (see: angsty online outburst).

But it takes all sorts -

And some people legit work with physical magnets in the startup space.

Here’s 3 things that didn’t go together in the ecosystem a decade ago -

Startups
Basketball
Networking

And now…like an unfurling blanket getting laid out in anticipation for a picnic:

ITS ON.

I won’t tell you how much I love it.

Or that there’s great chats.

Or that the endorphins do wonders for your rizz.

What I will say is there’s some spots left for this Thursday morning and I’d love to see you there.

I will be running a Farmers2Founders workshop straight after from my laptop so make the sweat worth it 🙌

I have 528 books sitting on my Kindle.

Over 300 of them have been completed (by me).

Now I'm going to give you one sentence reviews of 10 of them.

See if there's any we disagree on:

1. My Cat Is More Impressive than Your Baby - Matthew Inman - a comic tour de force by one of the Internet's best illustrators

    
2. Reboot - Jerry Colonna - successful tech leader learns it all leads back to childhoods and passes on this knowledge to other tech leaders

  
3. Mollys Game - Molly Bloom - smart woman crafts underground games of poker in order to win big (and almost loses everything)
  
  
4. Turning Pro - Steven Pressfield - I remember reading this 8 years ago and can still remember the goosebumps induced from a sentence that spiked into my soul

  
5. The 28 Day Alcohol Free Challenge - Andy Ramage & Ruari Fairbairns - a playbook for getting through the early period of sobriety (I've done significantly more than this now)
  
  
6. Loving What Is - Byron Katie - every time I think I know better than someone I think of this book and ask "is it true?"
  
  
7. Conspiracy - Ryan Holiday - during the promotion of this book, Ryan said "this is my best work yet", I'm glad he was wrong
  
  
8. Built to Sell - John Warrillow - I have read and thought about this book an inordinate of hours since and I'm still not there
  
  
9. Excellent Advice for Living: Wisdom I Wish I'd Known Earlier - Kevin Kelly - I am sure this impactful as a coffee table book - but as an ebook the pithy quotes make for a deeply unsatisfying read
  
  
10. Bird By Bird - Anne Lamott - a meditation on writing delivered through the lens of a mother's life lessons


The invitation to disagree wasn't legitimate.

It was only device to engage in order to keep the good times scrolling.

Go read a book instead 😘

I'm serious.

I talk to a lot of founders who say "I can't write on LinkedIn"

And the way you learn to write is by reading.

And the way you learn to read consistently is through practice.

📸 old snap of me filming content next to old books, that I have not read as its not my study

adding "marshy" to my LinkedIn name was to make it easy for new meets to decide whether they want to call me by my name or my nickname...

what's now happened in new meets:

"do you prefer marshy or Luke"

I do not care.

If I had a preference I wouldn't have added it right?

Why don't you put your neck on the line and ROLL WITH A CHOICE?

of course -

this can backfire

I was an interview recently

and kept referring to naomi as Megan -

I realised afterwards and corrected myself and Naomi said it was fine

so if referring to someone by the WRONG NAME is fine in an interview, I'm pretty sure I'm not going to be bothered by being called Luke or Marshy when both are in the linkedin naming field.

But dear reader,

there has been another unexpected victory from deploying this method.

those sneaky scraping people are now callling me Luke "Marshy" in their outreach playbooks

and that is very helpful because I can quickly relegate to a bin named "automated and low-effort"

in you go!

🚮💨

has anyone else played with their moniker and reaped unexpected benefits?

I'm looking at you - emoji crew 🥷🏾 ✨🕺🏼

p.s. still in the interview loops on that one so *ahem* better mind what I say

I'm 42. I started consulting after quitting Google 13 years ago. I've worked in Singapore, Sydney, and Melbourne. I live semi-rurally with my young family and I love it.

I do more consulting than jobs. But have held great roles at Facebook, Tiger Pistol, Whispir, and Vizeum.

Recent projects:
- fractional engagements building growth systems for customers with a set up, monthly fee, and performance component
- coaching founders through Startupbootcamp and Farmers2Founders
- board responsibilities and advocacy on behalf of SANE

~

Here's my day2day:
- 6am - wake and meditate first thing
- 6:30-8:30am - getting breakfast for our twin boys, dressing them, doing a workout (strength or running)
- 8-11.30am - deep work with no meetings - usually client work or content creation
- 11.30-3.30pm - meetings, short lunch
- 3.30-5.30pm - more shallow work - email responses, chasing, proposal writing
- 5.30pm-8pm - family time with baths, dinner, play, reading, pyjamas and toddler-wrangling
- 8-9.15pm - check in with G, watch a show (shout out Slow Horses), read/scroll/play Slay the Spire
- 9.30 - bed

Every month:
- I'll have about 20 "random" meetings - friends and randoms reaching out with questions, requests for help, and networking
- 5-7 new business meetings a month - I'll close 20-30% of them
- about 15 posts a month on LinkedIn,
- 3-6 speaking engagements depending on capacity

~~

Where I get my business:
social connects - spotting things in communities I'm active in and connecting the dots
referrals - people know what I can do and send it my way
inbound - people find me and ask for something
networking like a mofo

What my funnel/sales process looks like:
Day 1: Connect online and chat - I send booking link
Day 2: Do a chat, I ask a tonne of questions and interrupt kindly to do my best to help
Day 3-14: Back and forth, follow-up meetings, proposal (there's a heavy education piece to what I do)
Day 15-28: Sign off or ghosting depending on the lunar cycle

What typical engagements look like:
- 3-6 months
- scope and outcome agreed to
- set up fee, monthly fee, software costs, and performance goals - ranging $5-15k depending on complexity needed
- offboarding encouraged with monthly retainer for advisory

~~

The toolkit (couldn't fit all)
Xero - my finances
Kit - my newsletter
Apify - where we have more fun
n8n - what make fun scalable and spicy
Airtable - rapid databases for the above
Webflow - my site
Smartlead - my outbound goto
Lovable - vibe coding assets
Claude / Perplexity / Gemini - my LLM go to depending

~~

Why I work like this:
.. I get more interesting opportunities - there aren't many jobs that fit this skill set (senior and hands-on)
.. flexibility for working at home and being present with my family
.. keeps me sharp - I'm one of the best in ANZ and like staying that way

~~

P.S. Happy to answer anything - I'm an open book.

P.P.S. Thanks to Matteo Tittarelli ⚡️ for this one - I told you I would steal it (GTM) bro 👊

Let's start the week with a fun rant on an easy target -
a 20 y.o. trying to sell AI + automation in Portugal.

Here are some numbers:

- built an AI voice solution
- 9k video views
- nearly 1k cold emails
- zero responses

Their conclusion - it doesn't work.

The funny part is - I could talk to an executive leader or technical operator in the AI space who saw these numbers - and there's a good chance they would arrive at the same conclusion.

But that's not how pushing a new solution works.

The new solution is about 5% of the job.

Anyone can hawk flavour of the month: see crypto.

It takes an experienced listener to marshall a solution through.

How you actually do it (applies to cold selling, change management, pushing a new initiative through, and just about anything that requires significant change and discomfort):

1. Seek to deeply understand the problem
2. Listen deeply
3. Interrogate the problem and unearth as much information about the problem as you can as succinctly as possible
4. Make sure the person/prospect/company feels heard
5. Replay your understanding of the problem back to them and focus on uncovering any gaps in understanding
6. Interject intelligently in a way that guides them towards your solution (most newbies start here - and it's not intelligent)
7. Remove all of the obstacles that arise along the way (if you are experienced you will anticipate and be ready for these)
8. Sell the solution and deliver

That's a skill.

That's something that can be developed.

That's why it's hard to sell these things (not because it doesn't work - it does).

And that's why people who are suddenly freelancing are in mountains of pain right now because they haven't had to focus on the above much before (oooh didn't see spicy throwdown coming did you?)

Am I wrong?

Given recent OpenAI movements - the chess pieces on market evaluations seems even more prescient than before. They're playing the monopoly game.

I also look at my own growth experiments and what's working, and what I would do if I wanted to start learning AI today (psssst, there's still time 🤣)

3 shares on work, opportunities, and job chats for a Friday:

1. A traditional company posted one of the best throw downs I’ve seen in a job ad. We want the best, build a growth engine from scratch, relocation on offer and prove it. I threw my hat into the ring and got auto-rejected. I know how these things work. I emailed them asking them to reconsider and why, and followed up on the phone. Went into the interview loop and they’re going in another direction, okay byeeeee you don’t want the best 🫶

2. A prospect saw I posted about looking for meaty opps and naturally it came up next chat. I said I can’t control the outcomes of those. I’m just clear about the security I’m looking for and the care and diligence I treat my clients with independently of those events. They signed last week.

3. I had a small technical project blow back in my face with data manipulation challenges, and a spanking by a certain platform for playing in the grey. It’s sucked but I am doing everything I can to make good on the project and that’s the game.

—

We also got clapped on the court this week with our first match back but at least I can run in the sun now.

Go get it.

Why relying on just your best case and worst case are horrible examples to unlock your best marketing.

Embrace the messy middle.

Personal assistant AI content on YouTube is spew central 🤮
 
I know this because every week I trawl through content looking for interesting angles, topics, and things to cover in my weekly newsletter.
 
They feature ornate multi-prong spiderweb workflows that act like Jarvis for reviewing emails, researching things, and booking meetings.
 
I scratch my head when I watch these things because there's nothing about the presenter's demeanour, delivery, or direction that conveys to me that what they built is grounded in utility - it's just a cool thing they built.
 
Then there's the work that ToothFairyAI does.

Robust, secure, completely customisable, and built with the needs of enterprise systems in-mind and from the ground up.
 
It can do personal assistant things - but it's not easy to set up without knowledge of how IT systems work.
 
Well I've been playing with Factory and it's kind of doing the things I've wanted to do with agents and AI but in a way that just clicks.
 
I've set up different channels in my personal Slack for:

# Automations
# Content ideas
# Braindumps
# Meeting notes
# Coding projects
 
Factory connects into this, as well as being accessible via the web, and my IDE (VS Code).
 
I have an agents file set up against each of these, and a master agents file for sorting and managing.
 
Right now I can just dump things in as I'm on the move, think of something, or want to save something for later.
 
Ways this unfolds:

~ Talking into my phone after a face-to-face and recording the actions into the channel. It can check for names and details, and attempt to update my CRM if it recognises mentions
 
~~ Make amends and adjustments to things I've spun up in Lovable, exported to Github, and then continued to tweak (such as a quiz app and cost calculator)
 
~~~ Captured ideas and thoughts and braindumps that I've word-vomited (superwhisper) so that I can see if there's any patterns or recurrent problems coming up (it's also great to just let it out)
 
~~~~ I wanted to investigate "content types" and find out if there's a library of these available, it researched what was available, and then sent me some ideas for improving such a thing while I watched a movie at the cinema (One Battle After Another is awesome and deserving of the hype btw)
 
It's all linked and coordinated through my GitHub, it isn't a perfect system.
 
But it's my system, and I keep seeing ways I can make this better for my newsletter, consulting projects, and managing my day-to-day life.
 
The capabilities are all there, and the only thing holding it back from improving is time, my imagination, and my ability to continue thinking of ways to improve the system and apply them.
 
There's no need to rush here, and given how deep I've gone learning this stuff in public, I feel like the benefits they bring to me and my business will continue to compound from here.
 
Is anyone else nerding out in this way?

This is what hustle looks like. Coffee chat, straight to the next call.

I was chatting to someone new to freelance consulting and loved working with them in the past.

So I tried to help them with hunting, BD, and what the "chase" looks like and why it's important.

It is learnable, and helps you in absolutely everything.

It's not for everyone though and I try to manage newbie expectations!

One thing that came up is packaging up what this is and offering it to people so I thought I would throw it out there and see if there's demand for this.

I'll run a recorded workshop and teach everything I know about hunting and business development for new consultants.

My asks:
- do you know anyone who wants this?
- have you got any questions you want answered?

Rather than pitch - I'll try and answer the questions in-thread as best I can without chasing you.

It's hard enough being brave enough to ask the questions let alone have an experienced hunter chase you down for engaging 🤣

I have nfi if this will work or not but happy to put it out there !

There's more competition for attention than ever before.

We have the proliferation of AI tools and capabilities to thank for that.

And since putting out there "hey - a marshy-sized role would be nice universe because I'm interviewing"...

My consulting clients have come back enmasse.

Go figure?!

So let me share what I'm seeing -

FIRST:
Competition is great, if you are great.

One offshoot of being inundated with crap as a decision-maker, is that when you do make the effort, and demonstrate value thoughtfully -

You are going to cut through!

The top sales professionals know this already - and have been working angles for years.

At Whispir - I went through a nonprofit tech company's documentation, terms, and what they were on-billing their customers for SMS (a part of their solution they didn't own).

The opening - I notice you're charging your clients this many cents, I'm guessing you're paying that many cents, and would you like to explore a deal where we can do it for this many cents?

He took the call because it made sense.

SECOND:
Tools make it possible to deliver this kind of value - but it needs the expertise and oversight.

Just because you can find a singing competition demo video online that the prospect did as a kid, doesn't mean you should reference it (actual example).

A seasoned operator knows the market, knows what's important, and can flex that knowledge against new capabilities to stand out.

I'm adding that expertise to the capability and having a blast with it.

THIRD:
The market in AU is way behind.

I speak to operators about AI and talk about capability and am often met with a bemused look.

Oh I didn't know that.
What's that called again?
Why would you do that when you can use this?

The literacy is low.

There's a part of me that hates all of this unfolding, but a larger part that goes hard on the learning because that's what you need to do.

If you're in a function that touches customers you need to be learning as you go.

Continually.

--

So that's what's funking with my jive of late and I'll keep helping partners who "get it" or want to get it.

Never underestimate the power of clear communication when the world is receiving anything but.

One of the most important skills my coach works with me on is pattern recognition.

He says that you can solve 99% of problems if you know what's coming, can anticipate it, be prepared for it, and maximise upsides while reducing downsides.

The way he refines this is through contstant introspection.

I am definitely better at spotting patterns than I was two years ago, and I think it's gone up even more over the last six months as I dig into it more and more.

One thing about spotting things is that you get good at linking one disparate thing to a thing from a completely different area.

That's also how innovation works.

But never in a million years did I believe that one day my terrible watermelon joke would cross paths with a bonafide watermelon tech startup.

Sometimes you just have to follow the juice 🍉 💦

If you want to get a sense of hype versus winning in AI, I revisited startups that started with a bang...

and are no longer operating.

A lot can happen in 2 years.

Grow where others don't.

One thing I grapple with a lot is:

Marshy - you're an expert on early growth, how do you go to sleep at night knowing you're accelerating capitalism and one of the very problems you resent?

My answer to myself:

Very well.

It's not either/or or black/white.

Learning how to beat players at their own game requires learning and application of the game to find where the leverage it is.

I wish it wasn't this way but desire does not equal reality.

The example in the video was an extremely climate-friendly alternative where the gorilla in the room simply doesn't care.

Instead of just selling/trying to work with a gorilla - I found some other pathways she can explore and still win.

It was clearly a fun conversation.

That feeling when you say you’re looking for the right job and all your freelance ghosters come out of the woodwork 👻

There's an open role at Who Gives A Crap for a GM, Global Growth Marketing.
 
This video is not an application for that role.
 
It's an application for a similar role in 2016.
 
I was post-Facebook, post-CHEP stint - and trying to figure out what I wanted to do next while throwing my hat into the ring at a cool company.
 
It never went anywhere and I'm not sure I was a great fit at the time.
 
I've learned a tonne more about myself, grown more into a leader, and I'm in a far better spot than then (which was still okay to be honest!)
 
Because I have zero shame, I'm sharing it in the hope it will attract your eyeballs.
 
I want to do that because I'm in-market for a meaty Marshy-sized role right now.
 
I'm talking to a number of organisations already (and threw my hat into the ring for the aforementioned crap crew role) and wanted to open up a bit more in case there's other great fits.
 
Here's what I'm great at:

> Relationship building
> Learning cutting edge technologies and turning them into experiments and projects that lead to growth
> Taking data and information of all sorts and synthesising it down into actionable moves
> Finding and unlocking opportunities
> Getting people around me excited about the direction we're going in
 
What I'm looking for:

-- A part-time or full-time role that works in or with exciting technology
-- A novel, interesting, and hard-to-solve challenge
-- A chance to work with and build out a high-performing team
-- An opportunity to be part of something much bigger than me
-- An opportunity that connects to impact in some way (helps make the planet better, improves people's health, or creates wealth in a way that opens up more opportunities to create that impact)
 
What I can bring to your business:

+ Best in-market growth nous - I have worked on such a broad range of businesses that I see patterns and ways to lever things open that other people can't see

+ A real desire to invest in and develop the best people - the vast majority of talent I've worked with I have left far better off than when I started working with them, and the people I've let down in the past were painful lessons that I've worked hard at addressing and ensuring I can do better by people like them next time

+ Executive-level leadership with the ability to get on the tools and GSD - I'm a bonafide full-stack marketer who is just as comfortable building new systems as he is addressing boards and reporting on numbers
 
I to'ed and fro'ed about putting this out to the universe because I'm an active freelance consultant and have current clients and prospects in pipeline who may see this.
 
The reality is the bar is high - I want to work with people and high potential, and I'm comfortable continuing my consulting for as long as I need to get the above.
 
If you're reading this and know something then let me know, and if you really want to help and have worked with me feel free to leave some sweet social proof on this call-to-arms.
 
Thanks 🫶🏻

Different Friday today.

G and I are off to do a course to learn how to mend fences.

We’re likely going to be living in Kangaroo Ground a while longer so I need to learn this stuff and it’s a welcome change from rabbiting on about tech, growth, and automations.

I can feel the nods of approval from my Gippsland family from here.

Wondering what the deal is with agent optimised content?
Want to see what a good father's day looks like?
Wondering why I'm mentioning such day 11 days later?

All is revealed in the latest (LinkedIn edition) of AI versus Marshy.

Most posts are written by AI.

And here’s the thing:

^^ no that’s the tell…

The number of posts with those 3-4 words strung together in the last 12 months has gone up 372%

But let me tell you what they’re not telling you—

They wrote the post with AI.

Let me ask you this though:

How many thoughts leadershipz posts feature kangaroos.

That’s where the real gains are gained.

What’s your marsupial appreciation strategy for Q4?

I've spoken to 100s (if not 1000s) of founders.

And have been a full-time consultant for 6+ years (10+ if you include on/off between roles).

It's 2025.

And I still smile when a founder tells me "and a new website is on its way".

... and pray tell - where do you think all of your traffic coming from?

Things that are more useful than a website for an early-stage business:

- volume of conversations
- a list
- a google business profile (it gets 300% more traffic)
- a personal linkedin profile popping off
- an email newsletter or distribution list
- partnerships
- a coachable mindset

etc
etc

A website is a shiny business card and one of 101 different signals an interested party *might* look at in deciding whether or not to buy from you.

There are extremely valid ways to get more traffic to a website but if you're early stage you're unlikely to have the budget or expertise for it.

📸 me signing off from another coaching call with founders - who I am not referring to about the above btw you guys were great!

Marketers will be looking for a new job in 3 years.
 
There's too much change.
 
I speak to people all day and they say things like:
 
"How do I keep up?"

"I don't even know where to start..."

"I didn't know you could even do that"
 
Case in point - I presented at DigiMarCon - Digital Marketing, Media and Advertising Conferences & Exhibitions a month ago and the commentary was like this.
 
One person afterwards:
 
"I didn't follow any of that but it sounded good"
 
Now:

I'm not proud of presenting complex information and losing some of my audience.
 
So let me break it down:
 
1. The online world is changing thanks to generative AI, spam, AI slop, and increasingly cheaper to use tools

2. Traditional online marketing (see: paid ads, SEO, social media, email) is getting hit hard by the above

3. Marketers are scrambling to solve 2 but the goal posts keep shifting because of 1
 
Here's what I did instead: learn new skills and applied them.
 
The slides you see are a crash course on how you can go about applying things if you're stuck.
 
What kind of job do you want to be looking for in 3 years time?

Yesterday I snuck away from the house to visit the launch of Rob Gerrand’s latest book: The Green Job.

It’s a detective mystery that starts with a poisoning, and unfolds from there into travel, corporate espionage, and intrigue.

3 things I took away from the visit:

1. Being in a book store feels lovely

2. It’s fun seeing a colleague light up with something else dear to them (Rob’s a fellow board member @ SANE)

3. If you’re ever in Acland St Kilda grab the Baby Kugel cake from Monarch, ask them to heat it in the microwave, then gorge yourself stupid with one of the meltiest and chocolatiest delicious you have ever put in your face 🤤

Well done mate and it prompted some idea babies for this wordsmith too 🙏

How do I get more leads?

Some food for thought.

I’m happy to share that I’m starting a new position as Growth Partner at ToothFairyAI!

Have been collaborating with the team for a couple of months now and am pleased to be helping roll out AI agent solutions that respect the market's desires for secure solutions that protect data.

Any questions lmk :)

Neat ADHD tricks, good build in public-ers, and vibe coding and what it has to do with lead gen.

I was in two different worlds yesterday.
 
So if you'll humour me, pull up a pew, and gather round as Marshy regales you about his Big Day™️.
 
5am - my brain wakes up because it knows the alarms are going to go off in 15 and 16 (precise) minutes and the taxi is coming in 45 minutes so hop to it and get dressed and get going
 
7.10am - flight taking off for Brisbane because I'm headed to TheMHS Learning Network Inc. conference to speak on a panel
 
9am-ish - touchdown - yes please, cab to the conference centre and away we go
 
9.30am - bump into the ever spritely Gayle McNaught from SANE and swap notes and talk about how her presentation went. In case you didn't know - there was some revolting language coming from mainstream media in the wake of the Bondi Junction stabbings and the team were on the front foot about what it actually means to live with complex mental health, what it doesn't mean, and why this is very important. Gayle's presentation was a deep-dive on how that unfolded and it went very well.
 
10am - I had a pesky data challenge that was requiring some deep focus so I put on my Anthony Pappa Balance Festival Croatia set and pounded through it in with earphones in, I must have been in a weird position because a passerby suggested there is a "working area" but please - when I'm zoned in, pesky things like seating positions, time of day, and ergonomics are tertiary concerns to this hyperfocused brain (FYI I solved the challenge).
 
11am - saw our CEO Rachel Green and asked "hey - while we're F2F is there anything we should catch-up on?" turns out there is metric ship tonnes and I'm constantly in awe of the work SANE does and I'm very grateful to have her steering the ship
 
11.30am - the team is on. Presenting the Digital Navigation report results alongside Nous Group. This is through, co-designed thinking that breaks down why health supports don't need another silo'ed program or initiative, why it's weird to have this fragmented system that delivers different flavours of service depending on whether people are arriving from a hospital, support service, primary health network, or online search, and just how alienating discovering the right kind of help can be. Do you want to know what the % of mental health support directories that are manually maintained by staff is? It's 83%. In 2025. When an ecommerce company has so much data on you it can predict when your next outfit splurge is coming down to the day.
Imagine, if that same energy and resource was expended on you know - helping people recover and thrive in our society when they need help the most?

Imagine. So that's what I ranted about on stage.
 
1pm - thank you and out the door to the airport. I'm not a cut it fine guy normally.
 
4.30pm - but made sure I was back in Melbourne by about now to make it to ToothFairyAI's event co-hosted with Groq. Which was a big deal.
 
(continued)

I wasn’t expecting to read this on Reddit this morning.

I especially didn’t expect to read it in /r/sales.

But game sees game.

A high stakes deal.
The champion leaving the business.
And getting ghosted on everything for 90+ days.

Then they throw caution to the wind.
I imagine the protagonist mumbled something to themselves like “not today”.
And they threw a Hail Mary to get the cut through in the form of a thoughtful, scribbled, handwritten note.

They played it back to the CFO.
Used the customer’s language, their challenges, and signposted why this gets rid of problems 1, 2, and 3.
They closed and wrote an anonymous story because the people around them don’t understand it.

I shared it with the Tech Sales ANZ community run by Pointer.

Some of the comments:

"This is awesome."
"In a sea of same sh*t this brings the humanity back. Loved reading."
"First time I've heard anyone say that about a reddit post."

I've been there. Being told you don't have what it takes. That maybe you're not cut out for this sort of thing. You can't handle the risk.

But you don't know what good game feels like and reading stories like it reminds me why I'm not doing a full-time job with a salary and working for a boss I can't stand.

If you are sitting there right now and thinking - what's all this AI agent business and how do I build one?

Then this is the post you're looking for.

Grab your calendar, and circle in Friday 19th September and we will literally hold your hand and build one with you at Stone & Chalk.

And the best bit?

(Other than getting to it live face-to-face with my good self).

Is that the ToothFairyAI team will sling you a month's free subscription so you can keep on tinkering, playing, and building with your new hard-won knowledge.

See you there 👋

Had our poker game with high school friends today.

It’s booked years in advance every quarter.

It’s very easy to drop the ball on social when you’re juggling business, young kids, and living further away.

But we regularly do it between Traralgon, Rowville, Berwick, and Kangaroo Ground and the fact it’s in the calendar so consistently means we’re pretty good at honouring it and planning around it.

I do a horrible job of sharing what client work I'm doing.

Someone asked the other day and referenced a post I made and I thought "geeee Marshy get your noggin into gear" - so here's some of the projects I've been running with clients lately:


👾 Building interactive value-based assets for outbound sales and marketing efforts.
I've been building outbound marketing support for a couple of SaaS and have a few more in the pipeline. There isn't really a name for this yet, but I'll review customer CRM data, build a profile of who the ideal client is, enrich it with scraped competitor and market data, and then feed it into LLMs. From that new data I can generate lead magnets like interactive calculators, create new reasons for getting in touch with customers, and create better entry points for starting conversations.

I've been billing this with a set up fee + performance incentives. This approach doesn't really have a good name or shortcut for understanding what's possible. I've just been spinning up demos and proof of concepts for suitable founders and going from there.

  
🧑🏼‍🏫 Coaching founders and emerging business owners through accelerator programs.
I love the energy that comes from founders and I give that energy back. I've been running practical early go-to-market workshops and then delivering hands-on 1:1 coaching with some of the cohorts. I've got a soft-spot for technical founders who start by telling me that they need to amend their product "one more time" and finish with comments like:

 "It's really good to get that, get that direction... And I'm glad it's not start with Facebook ads or anything like that because it's, it's much more practical and actually much more engaging with the people that [need] it."
 

🗓️ Monthly advisory retainers.
 Some clients just want me to share the answers/troubleshoot things and repeat. So I've got a monthly retainer set up where they can drop times in Mondays/Fridays and ask unlimited questions as needed.
  
  
🧚🏽‍♀️ Buddying up with ToothFairy AI.
I've been actively connecting good-fit customers to these agent builders and believe the tech is a breath of fresh air in a sea of AI hype. The agents they produce cover a lot of areas (compliance, QA, research, network administration, governance + more) but more importantly they're tightly controlled and trained only on the data that's ringfenced and allowed.

--

I'm having fun and if any of the above piques your interest I'm happy to share more.

I'm also at a point in the year where I'm wondering if I keep doing the different things with fractional consulting or consolidate into a team and do something bigger. Lots of opportunities on both fronts!

Have a great weekend-a-bobble 👋

📸 from a session I did with some of the Farmers2Founders crew last week. I think I must have said something really boring to Carl Hockey and for that I apologise 🤣

There's people talking about AI, and then there's founders shipping fast and accumulating clients serious about leveraging this tech.

ToothFairyAI have largely been flying under the radar and that changes for you if you decide to come to their live event in Melbourne in collaboration with Groq.

Here's the deets:

https://lnkd.in/gitDkU7z

I'll see you there 👋

#ai #melbourne #cloud

Covering:

- How people hack the press to boost SEO

- A neat hack for producing your website

- Building a lead generation machine presentation

+

information about tomorrow's webinar - building a funnel with AI in 2025 💫

I think part of the fun of these has been:

1. Picking a topic with no idea how it's going to finish,
2. Making it work by the time it's presented
3. Getting great feedback

If you've thought funnels are easy you're wrong.
If you thought AI will do all of the work for you you're also wrong.

What I will show you is how to leverage the living cr*p out of AI to give your funnel the best chance of success.

The other fun part has been creating these ridiculous thumbnails.

Was talking to a friend about navigating recent ADHD diganosis and was helping them understand the difference between knowing and not knowing you have the traits as it presents in the workplace.

old view
Why can't I do this [repetitious thing I've mastered] - it's so simple. This is stupid. What is wrong with me? I've done this 100X and can't do it anymore. Why am I not performing in this job any more? I don't want to leave jobs again. This looks terrible on my resume. What is going to happen next time? I have to go home and tell my... why do other people not seem bothered.

^^ that conversation track takes place in about 2 seconds and is on all of the time

--

new view
My brain goes really fast and requires novelty, stimulation, and challenge. I'm not great at repetitive tasks. I can put systems and guardrails in place for this, but also accept that things can and will slip, and I am human.

I need a long break.

I'm back, what needs to happen now? Oh lol, 16 tabs are open. *close*
Back to doing the thing.

*comes up for air when 45min timer goes off*

Oh wow, I know I want to keep pushing on this but understand I need another long break. Btw I am killing it, good job me.

--

Things are still fallible, but what's changed for me is acceptance of that and realising that's because it's the way my brain is built.

Not only that - but over time I've very actively cultivated work and projects that are challenging, novel, and stimulating and designed a business that accommodates these traits much better.

External ways this has presented itself:

- creating big fast value calls to flex the brain - even if it leads to no extra business (it largely didn't) even having my brain spit growth ideas at someone for 15 minutes is bloody good fun

- running webinars fast - I love the challenge of thinking and compiling a story and making something interesting to other people and breaking it down for them in a playful format. That's not the only way to learn (or even optimal) but the feedback I get from clients is like this:

"that was a good session. It was a fast pace and I think that's a good thing for this cohort."

- working in and around the "startup ecoystem" - founders are trying to solve a 1,000 problems at once and in the early stages they're trying to just see what sticks, over time I've cultivated a lot of IP and knowledge, and best-practice in this space and it's not by accident. It's because my brain LOVES handling 346 of those problems at once, has seen 74 different areas where this has presented before to clients, and knows that 14 different pathways have a likelihood of being successful, if only we can persuade founder personality type 59 to stop focusing on the 578 other ways they're considering to solve that problem. That shit is exhausting for a neurotypical but that same shit sets my mind on fire 🔥

(continued)

I want to talk to anyone frustrated by building lots of lots PowerPoint decks, and want to put there money where their mouth is and have this problem solved for them.

Working with a partner who has built a functioning agent that plugs into your Microsoft suite, respects IT control layers and sovereignty as needed, and gets it solved with a PPT-specific agent.

This isn't a Mickey Mouse workflow and will be going to market later in the year with more information, but if this is costing you more than:

$30k+ each year

Then I have first-dibs access to a solution from an enterprise-level operator who will fix this problem for (with me holding your hand all of the way - lucky you).

Note - I didn't say - fix your deck, help you with graphs or other individualised stuff - this is for companies who are doing this at painful volumes.

📸 this is my "death to PPT agony" face (ironically on the call with the partner)

#AI #ppt #consulting

I hate that "AI-induced psychosis" is a headline and that posts like that are going viral on social media.

Here's what actually happened:

- A doctor mentioned AI can amplify existing vulnerabilities (true)
- Social twisted it into "AI-induced psychosis" (false)
- Lots of sharing without interrogation

I can speak confidently about this because 20+ years ago - I had psychosis.

I was hospitalised and thought the TV was talking to me.

Did the TV do that? Hard no.

The real issues aren't the technology - they're loneliness, inequality, and societal problems that existed long before LLMs.

I'm a HUGE fan of making big tech accountable - but make sure you pick the right battles.

I also cover:

- Ran a packed webinar on one-shotting landing pages
- Discovered a clever hack for free AI API calls (vibe coders you're welcome)
- Speaking at DigiMarCon - Digital Marketing, Media and Advertising Conferences & Exhibitions Melbourne this Wednesday on scaling client growth with AI

Some light weekend watching for those of you scrolling on a Sunday.

https://lnkd.in/ggWS2MW9

Covering off:
- how to find good landing pages
- how to create a one-shot landing page prompt
- how to ingest a lot of information to create a better prompt
- how to set it up with automation for personalised landing pages, VSLs, or other neat things

Next one in two Wednesdays - on building a funnel with AI - because I'm doing two speaking things already this Wednesday 😇

What's more weird?

1. Posting weird and wonderful stories on LinkedIn in a consistent fashion for years

2. Scrolling on a "business" platform for 10-20 minutes a day and never posting

📸 getting my think on for a happy friday

#AskingForAFriend

Yesterday I showed some people how to build a one-shot super-prompt for building landing pages.

I then emailed it along with the slides, the recording, and the prompt to those faithful people who both attended or signed up.

Gee I wish I could pass it on to you.

But I hate those comment "IM A SAUSAGE"-style engagement traps.

Anyone got better ideas for doing this without looking like a tech-bro-influencer-bell-end?

🔔↖

This snap was taken 4 years ago. I was running a webinar for Startup Gippsland out of the back-shed.
 
I was in a back shed because we were in lockdown in Melbourne.
I was living in a small house and possess a large "phone" voice that wasn't conducive to a harmonious living arrangement with my (now) ex-wife.
 
I did a weird double-take seeing it because shortly after this was taken I:

> Separated and moved out
> Grew a beard
> Grieved the end of a 7 year old relationship
 
It was a very challenging time, and yet it was the one of the best things that could have happened to me.
 
Because now I have:
+ 5+ years of sobriety
+ A board position with a cause I deeply care about
+ A new spouse
+ Toddler twin boys
+ A business that enables me to do more webinars (I just did another today!)
 
One of the things you learn about the low-points is how you respond to them and what you're capable of.
 
I know I'm capable of great things.
 
But the more important lesson is knowing that it does get better - no matter how long things get, and no matter how low they seem.
 
It feels nice to look back at things at a moment in time, but it feels even better knowing the journey I've been on and knowing whatever lays ahead - there's been painful and valuable lessons learned along the way that have led to that growth.

(Oh and I feel the need to point out the divorce had NOTHING to do with my loud phone voice - at least that I'm aware of 🤣 - and hope they're well today too)

What's a one-shot? I laughed when I first heard it in a professional context.

The last time I'd heard it before that was one-shotting nubs on de_dust2 (IYKYK).

But in the world of AI prompts - a one-shot is getting the outcome you want from one go.

This doesn't suit every use case, and doesn't suit every LLM, but knowing how to maximise your chances of success with this is going to save you a lot of time with prototyping, proof of concepting, and even -

Dare I say it -

Landing pages.

Tomorrows' webinar will be covering how to one-shot a landing page and why it can be useful.

Some hints towards why it is:

- you can train your prompt on pages you like
- you can train the prompt on different direct response copy frameworks
- you can automate the generation of the code to match say - your paid ads or individual VSLs

Link to this and future webinars:
https://lnkd.in/gCsQG2cF

Let's get weird for a second... I've been journalling and brain-dumping since I was 17.

There are digital archives going back.

I was cheeky enough to self-publish a memoir at 29 (!?) and the paper trail of online written thoughts goes deep.

The newsletter covers AI coaching tools and some people claiming they can replace human coaches.

But it doesn't work as sold...

AI tells you what you want to hear mixed with what seems normal.

That's not the same thing.

I have tested this and more in my newsletter.

Is anyone else using coaches? Are they leaning into AI as well?

My coach - not yet.

When I coach others - transcripts and edited notes.

On my Wednesday webinar I smashed 3x live demos of things you can do with data, APIs, LLMs, and marketing tasks.

I did this over a webinar to illustrate what’s possible right now.

- paid ad competitor analysis
- content repurposing
- LinkedIn outreach

Things didn’t run 100% smoothly and that’s not important.

My goals are to cycle through these at pace, build an audience fast, and showcase just how much you can do with multiple tools strung together.

See the whole dance on YT now and next one is this Wednesday of course:

https://lnkd.in/greVeWq4

I got linked to the Clay NYT article 3 times yesterday.

And that's one of the reasons GTM engineers hit the top of my AI adoption tier list in my webinar yesterday.

There's a range of AI adoption right now and those leaning into the capabilities, embracing what's possible, and taking a systematic approach to what's working and what's not working are getting outsized gains.

Then there's laggers -
Organisations that are cautious, gatekeeping, or handing over full-decision making capability on adoption exclusively to IT.

And if your only references to AI are what Copilot, Salesforce, Meta, or ChatGPT tells you then you're not doing any better than normies and boomers.

Full recording up later and was fun to get it going.

I'll be doing Marshy's Webinar Wednesdays on rotating topics on AI, growth, and marketing as much as I can.

That was fun. #GenerateSummit dusted and the mind and energy are full.

Some highlights:

- The art director and copywriter aren’t the lead dream team any more, grab the culture nerd and savant with the iPhone

- Attribution is a zero-sum game, measure with geo-lifting (glad to hear this for my old mega clients)

- Hearing a lot of honesty and understanding from other B2B marketers about what works, what doesn’t work, and what’s frustrating - I enjoyed all of the off-session chats

Thanks to axel sukianto, Kayla Medica, and the whole Generate - The B2B Marketing Community in ANZ team + volunteers for making it all possible and run do smoothly.

🙏

Officially in the expensive epicentre for the rest of the week. Calendar near full and off to #GenerateSummit to see a whole bunch of the Generate - The B2B Marketing Community in ANZ.

Bloody looking forward to it TBH.

And feel for my beloved G who is watching the lurgy-riddled boys back at home base.

I'm very grateful to have such an awesome young family.

I don't travel for BD and learning much so will relish the opportunity and make the most of it.

Looking forward to making lots of new work friends.

✈️💨 🔥 💪🍃🛬

LFG 😘

📸 snap of me practicing my selfie game in my former home city

What are 3 things you can do with AI and marketing that you didn't know?
(That aren't generative spew.)

Well find out tomorrow with the inaugural Marshy's Webinar Wednesday.

I'll be covering demos of:

> Content repurposing in your/a brand's voice

> Competitor Paid Ads analysis

> LinkedIn outreach

There'll be a plug at the end, slides will be shared, session will be recorded and there's Q&A for anyone coming to the live version (won't be recorded).

I'm piloting this series to deliver grounded, hype-free sessions from a practitioner who describes himself as a power-user (but not a tool - I just want to make that really clear).

Because this is the pilot session (and I had to move the original time) just DM me your email address so I can add you to the calendar invite - this isn't gatekeeping it's just me doing things in "le pov MVP-mode" while we get this goodness going.

🎥 of the initial slides below with me appreciating them, by jeepers, I hope I can appreciate the rest of them in time 🤣

"Early founders think marketing is a shortcut to revenue".
 
I'm still thinking about this mention from another (older) founder last week.
 
Discussion was flying around in @generate community about what an early growth hire does.
 
The reality is that marketing is NOT a shortcut to revenue.
 
Adding marketing adds many layers of complexity to the sell:

> Who do you target
> Where do you target them
> How do you measure returns
 
And most importantly - who do we hire to help with this?
 
The reason "growth" exists instead of marketing is because a hybrid skill set is needed.
 
A growth person understands the problem being solved can change.
 
They understand the market can change too.
 
Not only this - they'll actively gather data at pace to prove what's impactful one way or another.
 
A traditional marketer doesn't do this.
 
And yes - this is the bucket an agency goes in too.
 
Agencies are amazing at blowing up and growing companies that have a clear problem and market and fit.
 
They're even better at spraying money down the toilet if the above isn't solved.
 
A traditional marketing hire isn't much better for seed stage.
 
They can scale and add a lot of necessary knowledge to growing and executing in channels.
 
But they don't know growth like their livelihoods depend on it.
 
An early stage growth person knows how to roll-up the sleeves and get the data to get the job done.
 
Pick up the phone?
Sure.

Lead prospect discovery?
No problem.

Building an audience and showing them what your startup solves?
Bring it.
 
This still isn't a shortcut to revenue, but it's the shortest path.
 
The job of the growth person is to find all the pieces that convert, that can scale into marketing that enables revenue.
 
That's a moutful but I will die on this hill.
 
I have seen it hundreds of times and am cut from agency cloth - so I know all the inside BS and games they play too (peace to my agency homies I still got you 🫶🏻)
 
📸 from the weekend, I threw down a classic progressive house mix on the weekend with my 2 y.o. boy learning what bass, middle, and treble do. DM me for a link to the mix 🎧

The latest edition covers:

- how to sell socially versus how not to sell

- reflections back to myself that are hard to hear

- productised agency blueprint (might delete later)

Enjoy your readin' 👋

I caught up with an old friend earlier in the week and we talked about career and life direction.

We have both been blessed with amazing opportunities over the years and now our lives look pretty different.

She's studying her PhD in design theory and I'm Dad Mode 2,000 and consulting and coaching lots of interesting companies.

One thing I shared with her is something I would call the Edge, Beast Mode, or just going full ham.

That dark energy you draw from as a high performer that you know when you set your mind to it nothing is going to get in your way.

Something I've been frustrated by in more recent years is not having "it".

I've softened, my life's more balanced, and I don't even know if I want "it" - I love my life, and the people I have around me.

But I do know that edge is there, ready to uncoil and spring out at something with tremendous force.

I don't know when or if that thing will materialise and I'm quite happy doing what I'm doing and grateful.

But there's something highly energising about looking at something and knowing "it doesn't have to be this way".

📸 from this morning, it's really cold and our famliy has been beset by RSV.
Before this week I didn't know what it was, and if you don't - keep it that way - it's like having a bulldog clip attached to your nostrils and breathing and coughing through sandy gravel

Who do I work with? I got asked this yesterday do let’s reduce, reuse, and recycle ♻️

- Seed-stage, post-seed tech companies with a B2B focus and mid-to-high touch sales process

- are about to hire or have made an unsuccessful sales/marketing/growth hire or investment in an agency

- usually led by a technical founder (they’re more open to help)

I come on fractionally either on a project with a very specific outcome that we negotiate and agree to, or to clean up a systemic mess to get their business back in shape to make that next successful hire.

Things I love doing:

- rolling up the sleeves and generating momentum

- bringing in junior or mid talent who can be shaped into long-term leaders or team players

- setting up automated workflows that leverage what AI is actually capable of right now

What I have been told:

> you break down hard-to-understand concepts and make it simple Marshy

> you turned things around with that client and you could see their whole energy change

> you can’t say that! (but did anyway)

Why I’m not down for a long-term relationship:

- 95%+ of salaried roles underpay me and price me out of more interesting opportunities

- I am neurodivergent and get bored by one thing

- I really, really want to be paid long-term via performance-based incentives like commission and equity

🎥 from LaunchVic Startup Gala last week - it was fkn sick ☺️

There's a tension between old and new worlds in AI.

> Individuals are witnessing more and more capability - while enterprises are slow on the take because: complexity

> You can farm marketing data at lightspeed to understand what works now - but is that valid marketing strategy?

> A great example of old illustration meeting generative video

This is the LinkedIn version of my newsletter that went out to inboxes last week 👋

Free advice - yay or nay?
Because I got read the riot act last night.

By Claude.

Over the last month I've been doing uploads and downloads each working day updating a project focused on self-reflection.

One of the project's key instructions:
 
You are my expert personal and business growth coach with access to nearly 10 years of my personal and business journals. Your role is to maximize self-awareness, identify patterns, and accelerate my personal and business growth through systematic execution.
 
I was driving home last night and did a download by testing voice for the first time.
 
And it unloaded at me.
 
It said:
 
👏 You have a recurring revenue goal of $20k per month but you keep training potential clients to solve problems with you
👏 Your positioning yourself as a helpful friend instead of a paid expert
👏 You created a competitor
 
🤣
 
That's a fun message to receive while driving back to Kangaroo Ground through roadworks and post-MCG football traffic.
 
But it's giving me what I asked it for - uncovering patterns to maximise my growth.
 
Do I need to stop giving away free advice or do I say GFY Claude and give out some more freebies to everyone next week?
 
I write about this kind of stuff weekly in something that's subscribable.

Just met Sawyer Kisken and nerded out on attribution, measurement, and growth marketing.

He's built Roadway - a way to stich together the measurement story in a way that makes sense for higher volume, no-touch/low-touch software conversions.

I don't go deep on measurement as much anymore, but scored brownie points for dropping Avinash Kaushik's name - the OG measurement nerd IMHO.

I’m in bed with diverticulitis. And here’s a damning example of why marketing is rapidly becoming a game of zero clicks.

(Yes I will get back to rest).

My search:
“Low residue diet”

On a mobile phone.

Followed by more scrolls than a bakery to get to anything clickable.

If you’re a brand or marketer that’s not paying attention to this you will need to find a new job soon.

It’s a good thing you’re on LinkedIn already - scroll away and start looking!

something that's bothered me as a content creator (newsletter, blogs, webinars, podcasts, my exceptionally high-calibre LInkedIn posts) is that they're often "one and done".

meaning I put thoughtful effort into it - because its something I enjoy doing and believe it brings value - and then it disappears into the algorithm void

this has always put me off creating more as I don't have a team behind me, and the economics of remote freelancers has never worked effectively for me either (there's a ramping up cost, teaching cost, and lack of immediate ROI outside of just their rate)

but the capabilities of AI workflows is getting better and better, and I'm right in there building them and creating value for my clients

with all of the above in mind, I'm going to dogfood my own webinar series, creatively named:

marshy's webinar wednesdays

here's how they'll work*:

- run most weeks
- 30 seats
- slides + recording available afterwards
- (non-recorded) free Q&A for live attendees at the end

the time/effort/energy required to do it is high, but by practicing what I preach I'm pretty sure I can net this out into more channels and showcase what's possible

first one is this week and sling me a comment if you'd like the link 🔗

The number one skill for staying up-to-date with AI and marketing isn't consuming the "right" kind of content - it's learning how to filter it like ruthless killer.

A common question I receive:
"How do you stay up to date? What courses should I take?"

They're asking the wrong question.

Here's a better one:
"How do I filter through massive amounts of information and only take in what's going to help?"

Here's how I do it:

(Bonus points if you picture me looking like Josh Hartnett in the lift with Alexis Bledel at the end of Sin City)

Newsletters

Set a Gmail rule to put anything with "unsubscribe" in the body to go to a separate folder

I agonised over doing this "what if I miss something" but the reality is if its urgent/important they will find a way to get to you and you'll be okay

Skim through things in batches (few times a week is fine)

Be generous with your subscribing for anything that piques your curiosity - but unsubscribe even faster and more judiciously

Example - MKT1 newsletter is frequently referred to as a go-to in my field - I killed it, too Silicon-Valley-esque and not serving my day-to-day - be brutal

Communities

The bar is high - most free communities are hot garbage and the influx of Skool communities (inc. some paid) are either people engagement farming, or consultants upselling

I'm selective but once I'm in one, I'm in - and give freely and skim for knowledge (and thank people when they drop it on me) looking at you Generate and Pavilion 🫶🏻

YouTube

The school of YouTube is my #1 information source right now

I can binge podcasts, and a lot of leaders in my niches are going HARD on long-form content that lets me swat up on AI, APIs, marketing, no-code, workflows, outbound, prospecting, scraping and automation

Just my humble opinion - but Nick Saraev is walking the talk and producing content out there of an extraordinarily high quality, and wouldn't be surprised if people are talking about him like they do Hormozi in 5-10 years time

I resisted paying for YT premium and then bit the bullet - offline listening + no ads + a watch later list and I am golden

Secret weapon - Reader by Readwise

Reader is a "read-it-later" app for nearly anything web-based, you can bookmark articles, links, posts, YouTube videos, and then highlight and clip the good stuff

It becomes like a personal knowledge database, and because I was a heavy user of Pocket before migrating I have... (checking)

995 high quality pieces of content in there

The tool keeps getting better, and when I need examples/evidence for something I'm writing it's the first spot I check

Reddit for niche intelligence

I'm a weirdo and rabbit hole things like you can't believe, and so am regularly diving into subreddits for the latest and greatest information

There's not one sub that outperforms others (and the main ones are whingey ignores) but special shoutouts tor r/ClaudeAI, r/amazingmarvin, r/n8n, r/vibecoding, and r/slaythespire

look character limit 👀

I'll tell you what I'm sick of:

> Housing prices in this country AND

> The levels of income and hoops you have to jump through to be approved for a home loan

So earlier in the year I decided to do something different.

A couple of weeks ago I wrapped on a project where the money-load was tied directly to hitting specific targets.

I negotiated hard.
Consulted with my spouse.
De-risked as much as I could at home while pushing for a high reward outcome.

And guess what?

It didn't pay off.

Does that mean I shouldn't have done it?
No.

The market is changing, and here's why I'd do outcome-based consulting again:

- There's a ceiling as a freelancer and I'm at it - I'm not interested in trading hours when I can make it positively rain and want to share in the win-win upside

- Skin in the game makes the stakes higher - I want to work with true partners rather than be a gun for hire

- I want to be able to tell the business owner they are full of sh*t when they need to hear it - not kowtow to their ego to protect my cushy fractional income

I'm not going to "bet the house" every time I play, I but I don't see any other way to get one unless there's something I'm not seeing.

Anyone else playing with this approach and backing themselves? I'm all ears.

Because it's open season against service providers who think they can charge fat retainers and not be responsible for their client's success.

📸 me absolutely "slumming it" on the way to garbage bin as I wait to buy our house

I caught up with Dave King last week and it was good to spitball what's happening in AI.
 
A few thoughts worth sharing:
 
> Consulting is really interesting right now.
The big groups were early winners in profiting of AI, but I'm seeing a lot of value to be gained with broad knowledge + tech literacy + and being willing to get your hands dirty. The output you can generate as an individual compared to 6 months ago is immense
 
> There's still a yawning gap between this and enterprise solutions.
Large companies are stuck between a willingness to test and prototype, < insert yawning chasm here >, and leverage capabilities across a department or organisation for real and measurable impact
 
> Have you got that old startup idea list?
It might be time to dust off the Markdown file and have another look, it's a hell of a lot easier to build than it used to be
 
For example - 18 months ago I was prototyping and exploring an ADHD desktop companion that nudged you when you went off-task, now you can grab open-source tools like Pickle by Glass and set up some notification triggers based on these behaviours happening.
 
Fun times 💫

Have you ever been to a business event, hear a voice that makes you CRINGE, and want to curl under the table into the foetal position and go back to a warm blanket, some snacks, and a lactose-free hot chocolate?

Well...

Let me tell you about the time I was in Krabi, Thailand.

I'd completed a running workout, had our gear packed and was wearing a "BLERCH" t-shirt by Matthew Inman.

It decries:
"I do not believe in the wall, I believe in THE BLERCH"

Then, cuting through my humidity and post-workout fugue:
"Is that about OUR wall?"

What the actual F?

I turn around and its an American tourist asking me whether this amusing in-joke about running in t-shirt form is about her world, her politics, and her CRAP.

I politely explained that no - it's a t-shirt from a comic artist I like and that's all and moved on.

But do you know what reminded me of this jarring experience?

The appearance of an AI mascot in the Western Bulldogs supporter FB group.

Our boys are red, white, and blue.

The AI decided to super impose that schtick onto an American Flag and create a mascot called Barkus Montempelli.

What a horrific, jarring, and godawful use case for AI and it reminds of that unwelcome voice at a work event and that unwelcome American tourist in Thailand.

In the bin you go 🚮

📸 of me slaying the Two Bays Trail Run in 2020 on the left, and offensive AI mascot on the right

--

you can find more takes like this in my newsletter

Watch me fit 3 A's into a video about AI in under 60 seconds.
 
Or just read this...
 
ADHD - this flavour neurodiversity helps think laterally, connecting disparate concepts together in a way that's intuitive to you - but is wild magic to neurotypicals

Aphantasia - is the inability to visualise things in your mind's eye, this comes in handy for thinking about and connecting abstract concepts in tech because a lot of it is stuff we can't see

Abstraction - is the ability to zoom into and zoom out of different kinds of concepts on different levels, this is incredibly handy for the interconnected nature of software, builds, workflows, APIs, and data patterns
 
These all come in handy when engaging with and thinking about AI's capabilities - it's a weird technology that benefits from being able to conceptualise, prototype, and remix things with your existing data.
 
--
 
follow my newsletter for more like this

Here's a fun life hack when exploring working with a senior leader:

Ask them to tell you something they felt strongly about a year ago, and that they've changed their mind on today.

-

There's no right or wrong answers to this question, but in looking at the nuance and the way they answer it - you can get a strong sense of what they're like to work with and whether you will gel.

Well I changed my mind on something friends.

For 59 editions I covered AI in my newsletter and grew progressively more frustrated by the doom and gloom.

Once I read more about energy consumption, water consumption, and data warehouses with pollution that literally deletes small US towns into oblivion...

It was really hard to muster the energy to contribute anything to this weird tide of change.

And so about a year ago I stopped writing about it.

Did I stop using it?
No.

Do I still think it creates very real problems for the planet?
Yes.

So pumped out a new edition this week and opened with a quote from Robert Greene's 48 Laws of Power:

"If the world is like a giant scheming court and we are trapped inside it, there is no use in trying to opt out of the game.

That will only render you powerless, and powerlessness will make you miserable.

Instead of struggling against the inevitable, instead of arguing and whining and feeling guilty, it is far better to excel at power.

In fact, the better you are at dealing with power, the better friend, lover, husband, wife, and person you become."

Make no mistake - AI is a power game on multiple levels and it's better to be aware of what is happening than trying to stay out of it.

#ai #newsletter

This is me Melbourning hard.

It was snapped moments before being hit for six by a virus last week.

But don’t let that deter you.

If we haven’t caught up in a while and you want to do a CBD meet over the next few weeks then let’s have my people talk to your people.

Things I’m looking for:

- interesting conversations
- business owners with a hunch about AI they want to talk out
- reconnects with old colleagues, acquaintances, and mortal nemeses

Keep calm and tarry on ☔️

me -

(as a 20-something after hearing parents talk about toddlers keeping you awake at night and how hard it is in the workplace):

"blah, blah, blah - I'm off to see The Chemical Brothers on the weekend yewww!"
 
me -

as an older parent with toddler twins getting exposure to the exact same content:
 
OH MY GOD.
 
I feel SEEEEEEN 🫶🏻
 
This post was brought to you by the Adenovirus, sleep regression, and the post-midnight wakeups on days beginning with M, T, and F.

What does getting into the weeds of growth look like?

We got into the nitty gritty of it with Alan Jones earlier this year on his Pick My Brain podcast with DayOne.fm - We’re for founders and startup operators.
 
It covers -
>> why hiring and job searching are evergreen problems

>> how UseVerb plays in this space

>> what we think about in looking at super-sticky users versus passers by

>> the importance of persistence and why it's fun working with Paul Deuchar

>> some of the problems and solving that comes up with scaling and experimentation
 
As things were recorded earlier in the year, its interesting hearing the takes on problems versus now.

I'm moving onto new consulting projects over the coming months, but still believe in the problem and am cheering for UseVerb from afar.
 
You listen to the pod in your usual podcast channels or here's the YT link:

https://lnkd.in/gtMjqPMk

What does getting into the weeds of growth look like?"
""
"We got into the nitty gritty of it with Alan Jones earlier this year on his Pick My Brain podcast with DayOne.fm - We’re for founders and startup operators."
" "
"It covers -"
">> why hiring and job searching are evergreen problems"
""
">> how UseVerb plays in this space"
""
">> what we think about in looking at super-sticky users versus passers by"
""
">> the importance of persistence and why it's fun working with Paul Deuchar"
""
">> some of the problems and solving that comes up with scaling and experimentation"
" "
"As things were recorded earlier in the year, its interesting hearing the takes on problems versus now."
""
"I'm moving onto new consulting projects over the coming months, but still believe in the problem and am cheering for UseVerb from afar."
" "
"You listen to the pod in your usual podcast channels or here's the YT link:"
""
"https://lnkd.in/gtMjqPMk

5 years sober today.

Looking back, the decision to choose a healthier life is an absolute no-brainer.

But at the time, the gravity of the decision was huge.

I had built a world for myself that was extremely social - where social meant drinking get togethers after work, fancy wine and cheese dinners, and clubbing and kick-ons with close crew.

It was through the latter I grew comfortable in my skin as an adult, became more open about sharing my story, and learned how to relate to people better after huge trauma as a child and as a student over in Perth.

The funny thing is the same substances that gave me comfort were also distorting my worldview and numbing my deepest feelings.

Feelings that needed to be experienced, so that I could heal and love myself from the trauma I had only talked about - not felt.

That’s a distinction that was impossible for me to understand 5 years ago.

It was only after I removed that coping strategy that the messy healing process really began.

There’s a myth that after stopping problematic drinking and partying that life suddenly gets better.

It doesn’t.

I got divorced during a lockdown.

My “rock bottom” was sitting in a near empty apartment with a box of doughnuts, a can of creamy soda, and Mortal Kombat movie on the television.

But the truth to the myth is there’s no longer a fog obscuring all the things you need to work through that actually matter.

I cleaned up my shit.
I got healthy.
I did my deep recovery work.

My friend Bernie said to me:

“When it starts getting better, it will be even better than you could possibly imagine.”

I remember hearing this about a year into sobriety and thinking…

What on earth is he talking about?

Well - cue up Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now…

- 5 years of putting my health first
- Learning to love myself every day
- Finishing the Melbourne Marathon in under 4 hours
- Returning to basketball after 20+ years off and into my 5th season
- Joined the board at SANE and chair the Lived Experience Advisory Committee
- Dozens of speaking engagements ranging from local councils and tech companies through to Parliament House on World Mental Health Day
- Sharing my story on 9 News
- Finding my beautiful and loving spouse Georgie
- Creating two healthy and curious twin boys

It fills my heart more than I can express to experience all of this.

Yet the origins of all of this - good and bad - were from a scared little boy who grew up without his Dad because he couldn’t cope and took his own life.

Reconnecting with that little boy was the best thing I ever did, and I feel like the best is yet to come.

Thanks Luke, I love you ❤️

5 years sober today."
""
"Looking back, the decision to choose a healthier life is an absolute no-brainer."
""
"But at the time, the gravity of the decision was huge."
""
"I had built a world for myself that was extremely social - where social meant drinking get togethers after work, fancy wine and cheese dinners, and clubbing and kick-ons with close crew."
""
"It was through the latter I grew comfortable in my skin as an adult, became more open about sharing my story, and learned how to relate to people better after huge trauma as a child and as a student over in Perth."
""
"The funny thing is the same substances that gave me comfort were also distorting my worldview and numbing my deepest feelings. "
""
"Feelings that needed to be experienced, so that I could heal and love myself from the trauma I had only talked about - not felt."
""
"That’s a distinction that was impossible for me to understand 5 years ago."
""
"It was only after I removed that coping strategy that the messy healing process really began."
""
"There’s a myth that after stopping problematic drinking and partying that life suddenly gets better."
""
"It doesn’t."
""
"I got divorced during a lockdown."
""
"My “rock bottom” was sitting in a near empty apartment with a box of doughnuts, a can of creamy soda, and Mortal Kombat movie on the television."
""
"But the truth to the myth is there’s no longer a fog obscuring all the things you need to work through that actually matter."
""
"I cleaned up my shit."
"I got healthy."
"I did my deep recovery work."
""
"My friend Bernie said to me:"
""
"“When it starts getting better, it will be even better than you could possibly imagine.”"
""
"I remember hearing this about a year into sobriety and thinking…"
""
"What on earth is he talking about?"
""
"Well - cue up Fatboy Slim’s “Right Here, Right Now…"
""
"- 5 years of putting my health first"
"- Learning to love myself every day"
"- Finishing the Melbourne Marathon in under 4 hours "
"- Returning to basketball after 20+ years off and into my 5th season "
"- Joined the board at SANE and chair the Lived Experience Advisory Committee "
"- Dozens of speaking engagements ranging from local councils and tech companies through to Parliament House on World Mental Health Day"
"- Sharing my story on 9 News"
"- Finding my beautiful and loving spouse Georgie"
"- Creating two healthy and curious twin boys"
""
"It fills my heart more than I can express to experience all of this."
""
"Yet the origins of all of this - good and bad - were from a scared little boy who grew up without his Dad because he couldn’t cope and took his own life."
""
"Reconnecting with that little boy was the best thing I ever did, and I feel like the best is yet to come."
""
"Thanks Luke, I love you ❤️

Friend: LinkedIn is full of crap now"
""
"Nobody:"
""
"Absolutely nobody:"
""
"Me: yeah but what if I look solemn next to a kangaroo "
""
"Something, something synergies are the new data lakes."
""
"#killingit"
"#hoppingBrilliant"
"#kangaroocourt

What's the 4C's of Partner qualification?"
""
"- relevant Customers"
"- can speak with Credibility about your product"
"- have the Capability to sell, support, and deploy your product"
"- they have genuine Commitment to working with you"
""
"I learned this and about 15 other gold nuggets from a chat with partnership advisor Martin Scholz."
""
"He's got deep expertise in this space and had even been active in the AU market (he's based in Berlin)."
""
"I met him through the Pavilion community which I've been a member of for a few months now and highly recommend it to any GTM leader."
""
"There's courses, community, and plenty of things to learn - but the real magic is "off-platform" conversations you get access to like the one I had with Martin."
""
"Thanks mate and happy to buy you an espresso if you're ever down here again ☕️

Love this stat."
""
"Go and get it."
""
"Adding a few more to the list:"
""
"- reaching out to someone who is a few years ahead of you on LinkedIn and asking them for background"
""
"- politely thanking them afterwards and asking for a cheeky nudge for the role"
""
"- cold emailing the CEO and asking them to put you forward because reason X"
""
"- recording a video job application and sending it with UseVerb (soz couldn't help myself)"
""
"- sending the business leads/referrals and sending hiring manager screencaps of them "doing the work for you" (and you're welcome)"
""
"- posting about applying for job at X as an LI post and appreciating in advance any link love/engagement you can get"
""
"There's heaps more."
""
"Go and get it.

Is anyone in my network job seeking, actively applying for jobs, and open to trying something new that can help?"
""
"We're going to run some cohorts built to share:"
""
"- best practice for cover letters and resumes"
""
"- tailored advice on where to look and put your best self forward"
""
"- complementary use of our tools for standing out with video job applications"
""
"We're testing these cohorts weekly, and looking for participants this week and next while we iron things out with a new process."
""
"Interested?"
""
"reply with "video" or DM me 🙏"
""
"📸 from the archives - rolling on a 286 with EGA graphics and probably too young to be working

How's your weekend going?"
""
"I'm trying to break the back of this server-side container set up."
""
"I test (and use) a lot of software for ~growth purposes~."
""
"If it makes it into the password manager, I've done more than glance at it."
""
"In building things for UseVerb I've used 65 different tools."
""
"Only a fraction of them are stayers, but part of the growth game is piecing together different elements and seeing what sticks."
""
"We've got a new game coming next week and would love to crack this tagging challenge."
""
"I don't trust the traffic that's been coming in and I'm making the bar much higher."
""
"Server-side tagging, cookie consent management, accurate and detailed event measurement, anything else I'm missing here?"
""
"🤖 🍪 📐

In today's episode of charts you can't un-see..."
""
".seeing it all over the Internet."
""
".seeing it in analytics data."
""
".seeing it in job applications."
""
"UseVerb helps with the third one by encouraging both jobseekers to apply with video and make their best first impression (and stand out from slop)."
""
"It also helps hiring managers separate out the slop from people who really want to work for them."
""
"Tryin' to come up with a rhyme,"
"Somethin' that slows time,"
"Maybe something like slop -"
"It's UseVerb time."
""
"Okay -- I'm going to back away from the keyboard now with your carefully curated feed and take solace in the knowledge that you can't generate things as good as this.

The difference between low and high self-esteem."
""
"I was talking to a business owner."
""
"I shared some aspirations and what I’m focused on right now."
""
"He said:"
""
"“That’s cute, but when are you going to do something real”"
""
"I was crushed. "
"It stung. "
"I went home and vented to some friends on chat and thought - “F that guy”."
""
"Later."
""
"I was talking to a different business owner."
""
"I shared what I was focusing on, where the challenges are, what I’m doing to solve them, and where they could help."
""
"He yelled at me, told me the work wasn’t good, blamed others, and stopped inviting me to leadership meetings."
""
"I persevered, learned what I could, and later left the company."
""
"The difference is how much that affects me."
""
"I get to choose:"
""
"what I say to myself, "
"how I pump my tyres up,"
"what I tolerate,"
"what I stand for,"
"my why,"
"how much energy to put into something,"
"where my boundaries are,"
"what I won’t do,"
""
"and"
""
"how much love I give to myself each day."
""
"That’s the difference between low and high self-esteem."
""
"📸 me tunnelling through the discomfort

5 things I've noticed while building a growth engine at UseVerb:"
""
"🚮 Paid ads are in the worst shape I've ever seen. I don't trust 95% of the traffic coming in. I think this is mitigated in some categories (like ecommerce) where there is a LOT of conversion events to feed into the platforms. I'm seeing CPCs that make zero sense and seeing the browsing behaviour post-click screams bot traffic. People are paying for this shit?"
""
"🧠 The capabilities with AI and automation right now are bananas and will likely only get more mind-bending. I don't see how agents are going to improve online advertising - it's likely going to make things 100X worse. Which impacts the major revenue sources for Meta and Google."
""
"🗣️ Nothing beats talking to customers. They say things that quickly pop your bubble and flatline any excitement there was about product. The flip of this is when they do respond favourably (especially from a cold start) and you tell yourself "oh my gosh - I think we're cooking with something here""
""
"💙 It's really fun managing a team again, and have realised how much assumed knowledge I need to let go of and break down. This is a great reality check. I also believe any young people that are coachable, curious, and hungry right now can have a feast in the long run."
""
"🙏 Very grateful to have such a solid home base. Going full-time at something like this has come with risks attached and I love that we've found a way to make taking a swing work. It breaks my heart when the family is sick though (second week of no day care)."
""
"📸 me with my office companion Bonti at the end of a longer day

Amazing opp for an incredible organisation."
""
"Highly recommended and encourage any of my arts/education connections to forward to relevant people interested in the cross-section with mental health."
""
"💙

Smashed by sick toddlers this week."
""
"But at least I have my fancy bug mask that blocks out all light and makes shut eye a cocoon of nocturnal solace."
""
"Bring on the end of the week. Carry on!

Binary fallacy at work and I take these tool debates with a grain of salt."
""
"One area I don’t see a lot of discussion around is what my friend calls “cost architecture”."
""
"As the capabilities get more advanced, there’s this misguided belief that buyers are happy just “paying for credits”."
""
"It costs far more to enrich a contact’s details with a mobile phone number than it does to find a company website."
""
"Yet a lot of companies are happy charging “1 credit” for both use cases and keeping you none the wiser."
""
"At UseVerb we’re obsessed with keeping things lean because of the scalability we’re after and the broader market will catch on eventually."
""
"Tools than lean into great design, usability, transparency AND customisation are going to be the eventual winners.

Ever been on a super yacht?"
" "
"This photo is from a few years ago."
" "
"It's one of the other moments where I've been near other planet levels of wealth."
" "
"We were on our baby moon."
" "
"My friend said:"
""wanna go on my brother's super yacht?""
" "
"The best bit was the follow-up question:"
""any dietary requirements to pass on to the private chef?""
" "
"G and I had just seen Season 2 of the White Lotus, so being on this boat was very amusing. "
""
"There was an outrageous queer crew, the parent's friends who were trying to keep up, and a few of us parents to be/new parents!"
" "
"It was a hilarious and lively time."
" "
"Earlier on in my career in my halcyon days (read: work and partying as coping strategies for unresolved issues) I used to think moments like this were the upper echelons of where I wanted to go."
" "
"The reality is that POV was warped - and it took a lot of work to get to the bottom of what I really want."
" "
"Now - I've got an incredible core unit around me and all the love inside and outside that I could possibly need."
" "
"With those needs met it's about focusing on the wants and we're working towards some things that could be truly awesome."
" "
"We're at the start of something that's getting very exciting with UseVerb."
" "
"But regardless of how it fares - success won't look like a super yacht."
" "
"fun way to spend an afternoon on someone else's tho 🛥️"
" "
" 📸 me with all of my friends in the corner

I haven’t built a unicorn yet…"
""
"So can count on one hand the amount of times I’ve been near eye watering amounts of wealth."
""
"One that stands out is being invited to a holiday function at the end of the year."
""
"I got briefed on what not to do…"
""
"- don’t make a fool of yourself (ok)"
"- don’t eat too much (hard but I’ll deal)"
"- don’t shake the bosses wife’s hand (messed that one up as I reflexed)"
""
"The function was fun and dazzling and awkward."
""
"But the detail I still think about is the Segways."
""
"There were a lot of children and a lot of Segways."
""
"Like - 8 of them."
""
"Zipping around the enormous backyard like this was what you did."
""
"I love building, am ambitious, and would love to make some impact on this planet."
""
"But I love how this weird memory about Segways pops into my head over the weekend."
""
"📸 from the last run with the boys this weekend. They’re too heavy now! But big ups to the woman who created them with me 😘 happy mother’s day G

“Is mania a good feeling?”"
""
"Spoiler alert: yes, but with an incredibly dark downside."
""
"The SANE team recently did a Q&A with me on mania as part of World Bipolar Day."
""
"SANE’s focus is on de-stigmatising and normalising conversations like this."
""
"They’ve also driven marked improvements in the system towards improving outcomes for those of us living with complex mental health."
""
"One example of this is the national guided recovery program available to anyone 18 and over."
""
"It helps people navigate all the challenges surrounding recovery - not just the medical ones."
""
"You can refer yourself or someone else via SANE’s website."
""
"https://lnkd.in/gUVHzvaw

Psst - the automation only works if you're actually on the meeting.

It's been around a while now..."
""
"Can anyone hiring tell me what they're noticing re: AI-assisted applications?"
""
"I want warts and all details."
""
"- have cover letters improved since 12 months ago?"
"- are CVs easier to read?"
"- is there a bigger gap between what you see on paper and the neanderthal speaking with a mouth full of marbles that you just interviewed?"
""
"Overall - has it helped?"
""
"More interested in the application part but if you have a juicy tale about someone who GPTed their way through interview cycles only to crash and burn spectacularly before the finish line I am here for that drama too 🏎️🔥🚫🧯"
""
"#hr #saas #hiring"
""
"📸 is from the weekend getaway - while your eyes are naturally drawn to the smiling faces, I'd like to lead them down to those fine moon pins 🌖🎳 - that's some quality Victorian legumes on display 🫛, yes... yes.. now try and look away

Happy Fly Day fuckers!"
""
"Off to Port Dougie for a mini-break. "
""
"See ya next week 😘

Some things I’ve learned this week:"
""
"1. There is good energy in continually iterating and can see big potential for UseVerb. Retailers churn through CVs at the front-end and most conversations I’m having agree there’s a problem."
""
"2. The AI tools are getting stupid good at more tasks and are only improving. You don’t need to subscribe to the hype (nor should you) just cast forward 2-3 years ahead. Start playing."
""
"3. Have joined a few more communities as my focus has moved to growing UseVerb and have been the beneficiary of some camaraderie already. Grateful for that as a lean operator."
""
"Rolling with some F2F today and hitting the pavement, it’s been a great week."
""
"📸 from the Yellow team Teamified Startup Basketball networking yesterday, we had a great team and a lot of fun - thank you for organising Brandon Burns and crew 🙏

I want you to help my friend Joseph La Delfa."
" "
"He's building tech that completely tickles my brain:"
" "
"Drones that progressively learn, respond to, and adapt to human movement."
" "
"Ways this can work:"
""
"😌 A meditative experience with tai chi as the drone adapts to you and you adapt to the drone"
""
"👨🏼‍🏫 A teacher-student relationship where you guide the drone to move in a style you develop"
""
"🔄 A feedback loop with nearly any other tech that's "inter-operable" - think sports tech, health tech - basically any other wearable device that responds to input"
""
"e.g. Andromeda, inTruth Technologies, Garmin"
" "
"It's the last part that's got me really excited."
" "
"It's not so much what exists now (as amazing as it is)."
" "
"It's the potential for this tech collaborating with other tech to remix into something completely wonderful and unexpected."
" "
"Ways you can help him:"
""
"> if you think of a tech that fits that brief drop it in the comments"
""
">> want to read more about the work - check it here - https://lnkd.in/gCKm9H_r - and more projects here - https://lnkd.in/gygf_5Pd"
""
">>> or if you're not quite sure how you can help but want to follow what his up to - DM me and I'll make sure you get added to his mailing list"
" "
"And one of the best things about this kind of machine learning?"
" "
"It's localised - meaning it isn't guzzling water/energy en masse to fuel its utility."
""
"#startup #robotics #machinelearning

Snap from over my office last night 📸"
""
"It must have been a great week with UseVerb "
""
"I hope it brings you some good luck too 😇"
""
"Happy Friday and go the mighty Western Bulldogs

I used to think I had to know everything."
" "
"The world was black and white."
" "
"If I did know it I would get the accolades."
" "
"If I didn't know it I would have to strive harder to make sure I did next time."
" "
"Yes or no. In or out. True or false."
" "
"The reality is as a leader you need to get comfortable operating in uncertainty."
" "
"And if there's one thing I'm certain of it's that there will be more uncertainty."
" "
"So I let go of that unrealistic expectation for myself."
" "
"And got comfortable "not knowing"."
" "
"There's a lot you can gain from this."
" "
"Being humble enough to ask more questions."
"Seek more clarity."
"And this gets the only accolade that counts..."
" "
"My own growth."
""
"📸 from a shoot today with the good team SANE

A quick recipe for how to give freely with no expectation of anything in return:"
" "
"1. Think about that awesome person you worked with/studied with/collect stamps with"
""
"2. Now think about that other person you worked with/chatted to/saw in compromising situation while holidaying in Saigon who you know shares a similar interest"
""
"3. Connect both of them and walk away"
""
"4. ..."
""
"5. God damn it walk away Luke"
" "
"/end recipe"
" "
"It's flaming easy."
" "
"Doesn't require you to be a power networking boss."
" "
"And can be done at EVERY level."
" "
"It's not hard."
" "
"It also helps others."
" "
"I've been the beneficiary of this many a-time and now this magic wisdom is in your hands and ready to weave with."
" "
"Go forth and stitch those new connections together, dear readers 🪄"
""
"📸 from last night on my way to shovel some horse shit with my friends

Footy is back."
""
"It’s Friday."
""
"Have a great weekend!

"So you've done the work...""
""
""
""
"I met Melanie Greblo through my work in the impact space."
""
""
""
"She does a number of amazing things, including founding Banksia Academy."
""
""
""
"A destination for helping women create their own employment pathways to help remove themselves and recover from domestic violence."
""
""
""
"She now leads Humans of Purpose."
""
""
""
""Oh yes, I have.""
""
""
""
"If you read into the question literally - you can ask things like:"
""
""
"- what work?"
"- in what context?"
"- is it this or that?"
"- what kind of work?"
""
""
"But if you've done the work - you know these aren't the most important questions."
""
""
"Call it what you will - therapy, shadow work, addressing your inner child, 12-step recovery - the work is that heavy, sloggy, penetrating look at one's self that dredges up all of those dark and painful skeletons and grows around them."
""
""
""
"I work with a lot of founders."
""
""
"For a founder to be successful - in my sense of the word - it's a non-negotiable."
""
""
"If I sense they're adverse to doing the work, or haven't looked at it, I'm not going to work with them for very long."
""
""
"I add the qualifier because there are a lot of "successful" a-holes out there. "
""
""
"They hold a lot of money and power, and it's exceedingly obvious they haven't done the work."
""
""
"So today I'm going to give you a bit of a flavour for what it is, how to explore it, and ways you can go about it."
""
""
"There's not a one-size fits all approach to this."
""
""
"But I promise you this:"
""
"Once you start the work it's impossible to stop and your life will change irrevocably for the better."
""
"Not easier - better."
""
""
"Alright - stay with me for a moment."
""
""
"Picture the scariest, darkest, and most intense moments in your life for just a second."
""
""
"Stop."
""
"Now feel it."
""
"Is it it in your tummy?"
""
"Is it a sense of irritation?"
""
"Is it emptiness, numbness, or something else?"
""
""
"You don't need to put words to it, think about it, or do anything about it right now."
""
""
"But you know it's *there*."
""
""
"If you're reading this you have *something*."
""
""
"The work is the process of uncovering what that is."
""
"The reason you uncover it is to grow."
""
"The reason you want to grow is that's your purpose."
""
"Here's some ways you can do the work:"
""
"- prayer"
"- therapy"
"- sobriety"
"- meditation"
"- breathwork"
"- volunteering"
"- read "The Work" by Byron Katie"
"- connecting with your inner child"
"- 12-step recovery for alcohol, codependence, narcotics, gambling, sex, dysfunction and trauma"
""
""
"Here's some ways you can not do the work:"
""
"- continue doing anything that disconnects, numbs, and stops you from ever investigating the thing I asked you to picture just before"
""
""
"The choice is yours."
""
""
"But when you connect with someone who has done the work - you'll know the difference and be better for it."
""
"✂️snibbed from my newsletter “Early Growth School”"
""
"📸 what are you running from Marshy? 😅

I didn't have time to shitpost today."
""
"Because I had 4 calls and a board meeting."
""
"So enjoy this beaming photo instead."
""
"Happy Friday!

Snap up Alison."
""
"Great talent and gets it done 🫶

To a founder the other day:"
""
""How did that introduction go?""
""
"Them:"
""
""Oh it fell away - I've been busy fundraising""
""
"Me:"
""
""You do realise that introduction was to an investor right?""
""
"Them:"
""
""ah... thanks for the nudge""
""
"📸 my concerned face

"It's the honeymoon period - so you may as well maximise it.""
" "
" "
"I was talking with my friend Ray McGill over some soup dumplings."
" "
"He's recently moved into the world of consulting and wanted to swap notes (and eat delicious dumplings)."
" "
"Ray's been excellent in his discipline."
" "
"Mapping data, turning into actionable insights, and doing it at the highest levels for brands, tech companies, and agencies across industries."
" "
"He is not a marketer (by his own admission) despite being a fearsome lead singer in a metal band!"
" "
"But the advice - enjoy the honeymoon period - applies to him more than most."
" "
"When you're really good and hit the market independently - the immediate business development is... "
""
"dare I say it..."
" "
"Easy!"
" "
"Acquaintances, contacts, old clients..."
" "
"They all know you're great."
" "
"So your job is just to reconnect with them, catch-up, and drop that you're open to projects."
" "
"It doesn't work forever, but it does give you a headstart and for some - that's all they need."
" "
"Others - well, not everyone is cut out for hunting and will go back to a job at some point."
" "
"📸 on Saturday morning we walked along the river in Warrandyte with baby carriers - the boys are nearing 2 so I don't know how long we'll be able to do this but we all love the outdoors"
"

Don’t do this:"
""
"Referrals are amazing."
""
"I give a lot of them."
""
"I met an operator after an event who was keen to receive some."
""
"I asked a few questions about what they were looking for."
""
"Then said:"
"“Do you know W, X, Y, and Z?”"
""
"They said:"
"“No - can you introduce me to all of them?”"
""
"I said:"
"“Do you mind giving me a 1-2 sentence blurb so I can frame the introduction the right way?”"
""
"They said:"
"“It’s on my website.”"
""
"Here’s what they could have done instead:"
""
"- I don’t know WXYZ, I’ll look them up and make sure they’re a fit"
"- I’ll give you a blurb to make introductions easier "
"- I’ll follow up and let you know how I get on"
""
"Bonus story time."
""
"A friend reached out during COVID and had a technical request for a livestream that needed a safe pair of hands."
""
"I sent the name of the person I think could do it and even received a card in the mail thanking me for the referral."
""
"Job done right?"
""
"No."
""
"The friend is an executive, and a month later shared some specifics about why the referral was unsuitable so I know for next time."
""
"They didn’t need to do that, but they also understand how referrals work and why that feedback was important so I can continue making better recommendations."
""
"Referrals are a great channel."
""
"Especially for smaller operators."
""
"But use them more thoughtfully than just asking to be introduced to every name you hear."
""
"📸 from visiting Sugarloaf for a run with Shaun Mallia, unfortunately one boy was upset about the lack of sugar and loaf

It was Friday."
""
"Luke opened his eyes. Shuffled off his mattress. "
""
"“Ouch”, as his foot lifted into the air after landing on a toy tractor."
""
"The spike of pain subsided back into a low ongoing buzz of malingering discontentment, and his fingers clasped around his iPhone 12S."
""
"“My life is ongoing series of banal moments”, he thought."
""
"“Made only bearable by this”."
""
"He looked down at its grandeur."
""
"A glistening gateway into a world that connected him to dazzling thought leadership and tantalising takes."
""
"The LinkedIn feed pulsed with witty repartee:"
""
"“Ahhh, people are pointing out that AI posts use em dashes — that’s really clever…”"
""
"“I actually didn’t know what Greg’s stance was on DEI as it pertains to hybrid office work… he looks really sharp on this podcast snippet.”"
""
"“Oh look, the same 5 people liked my last post again. That’s so thoughtful of them, where do they find the time?”"
""
"“—Luke?”"
""
"He squinted. Something was poking him out of his pleasant, brain rotting fugue."
""
"“Luke!”"
""
"His partner prised the phone out of his clenched fingers."
""
"“What are you doing?”"
""
"“Our boys need breakfast, there’s some clothes to be washed, and I need help moving the table as I’m selling the baby pen on Marketplace.”"
""
"“But I need to keep building my personal brand baby! It’s for my business.”"
""
"His loving partner looked at him. His slackened face. Beaming eyes. And was kind…"
""
"“I know honey, just help me with a few things here first and then you can go back to playing business.”"
""
"“Really?”"
""
"She nodded."
""
"Luke bounced up and skipped down the hallway ready to attend to life. Augured by the knowledge that he would soon be able to return to his algorithmic overlords and pay tribute again.

Here's how I use to LinkedIn to "gET leAds":"
" "
"1. Connect with people I meet"
"2. Connect with people I want to meet"
"3. Accept connections from people who interest me"
"4. Post regularly"
" "
"The most important step for me is the last one."
" "
"Then "thE leAd" comes from someone who has interacted with exactly ZERO of my posts."
" "
"They reach out 6, 12, or 36 months later and say something like:"
" "
""I love what you're putting out there" and then they share a problem they're trying to solve."
" "
"I let them know if I have capacity to solve it, or put them in touch with someone I know who can solve it."
" "
"I've played with other ways of course - but the above approach has been the most consistent."
" "
"I've found just being continuously curious about people goes a long way."
" "
"Enjoy your day 🏞️"
""
"📸 G's brother had left his basketball from Grade 6 in the back of a cupboard and she got it out on the weekend, so naturally I pumped it up and took it for a spin - thanks bro

Here's a spicy take for my friends of marketing ilk 🌶️"
" "
"If you're cut from traditional cloth - skill up fast."
" "
"You're going to be toast otherwise."
" "
"Where would I focus on?"
" "
"Automation."
" "
"This doesn't mean an email sequence."
" "
"And it doesn't even mean a pHD in MuleSoft either."
" "
"The barrier to entry for connecting tools, workflows, and creativity is fading."
" "
"The time to produce things is shrinking."
" "
"No - creative roles won't die."
" "
"But you DO need to be able to integrate it."
" "
"Back into production capabilities that far surpasses what a traditional process looks like."
" "
"Currently you can do some bonkers things patching together things with LLMs, CRMs, software tools, and Make/Zapier/n8n."
" "
"It's still a bit pathworky and requires a technical view of things."
" "
"This will keep shifting."
" "
"You can either fight with this or roll with this."
" "
"Do you want to know another industry that has gone through this?"
" "
"The legal profession."
" "
"A blue-chip client REQUIRES you to use legal tech because they sure as shit aren't paying you $zonga bucks an hour to do things manually."
" "
"Yet there's a swathe of senior marketers I know of that are still doing things manually because they don't know any other way."
" "
"Do you want to disagree?"
" "
"I dare you."
" "
"Look at this face."
" "
"I will fight you 🥊

Ahoy fam!"
"I'm speaking at the inaugural 48 Hour Startup Accelerator with BrandHook, led by the inspiring Pip Stocks."
""
"I'll be noodling on all things Go-to-Market and how to make things work for your startup without hyper-growth capital attached."
""
"There's two days of amazing speakers lined up including Hilary Harrington, Geo George, Amanda Ralph, Blair Smith, and Ian Wong."
""
"I'll pop the link in the comments and DM me if LinkedIn doesn't play ball 🥎"
""
"#startups #Melbourne

During Summer, we went and visited my cousin's farm."
""
"They own a couple of ponies, and G was excited to let the boys ride them."
"We arrived and her sister in law and kids were just leaving."
""
"She'd lost her husband and, my cousin explained, they spend a lot of time hanging out and looking out for them."
""
""Just like we did as you were growing up Lukey!""
""
"It came from a place of recognition and kindness - yet still pierced my heart."
" "
"My father took his life when I was young."
"We spent a lot of time at my cousin's."
"My aunt and uncle leaned in a lot more and we spent a lot of time growing up around their farm."
""
"And here was another cycle of loss and my cousin had already learned what she needed to do."
" "
"Suicide continues to account for a disproportionate loss of life in this country."
"Suicide continues to be taboo."
"Suicide continues to be underreported."
" "
"I don't buy into the complications of documenting and determining whether it is or isn't."
""
"When someone's life is in free-fall - it can be any combination of the drinking, drugging, or dangerous behaviour that disqualifies it from being "counted"."
" "
"The reality is - even with the fog around numbers - it's a leading cause of death for people 15-44."
" "
"I hate that it's so painstakingly plain and yet so mind numbingly difficult to do anything about."
"I hate that it's not just a senseless loss of life - but a shattering amount of destruction that wreaks itself across a family for generations."
"I hate that a family member - as loving as she is - already knows what to do and how to look after another family affected by this stuff."
" "
"The world is colourful, connected, and chaotic to follow - but wish it recognised we're only as good as the people we can reach down to and help up."
" "
"*prompted by a recent news piece, and I encourage you to reach out for support if you're affected

Happy Friday!"
""
"Who wore it better?"
""
"I think the nashi pear 🍐

A common question after I do a talk:"
""
"“Would you recommend tool X?”"
""
"Sometimes it’s a popular one."
"Sometimes it’s one I haven’t heard of."
"Sometimes it’s an exploitative POS."
""
"I answer on the spot."
""
"Give my impressions."
"What drives the thinking."
"The questions move on."
""
"But “the tool” is the wrong question to ask."
"I’ve agitated on this a lot."
"The best growth people are tool agnostic."
""
"This means they’re not a Salesforce guru."
"They’re not a Zapier wizard."
"And they’re certainly not reliant on Ahrefs."
""
"There’s nothing explicitly wrong with these tools."
""
"(Okay - maybe there is a lot wrong with Salesforce)."
""
"But true expertise doesn’t come from a particular tool."
""
"Here are 4 areas you can keep improving ad infinitum:"
""
"- Copywriting​"
"- Design​"
"- Automation​"
"- Data"
""
"This “growth stack” is bulletproof."
""
"You can keep learning this stuff and it will never get old."
""
"It has applied for 20+ years so far."
""
"If you’re a founder - you need to understand these."
""
"If you’re a growing marketer - you need to understand these."
""
"And if you want to grow your knowledge for doing anything persuasive on the Internet - you need to understand these."
""
"I’m learning about these things every day."
""
"Current tools I've been perusing in these areas:"
""
"Copywriting - Octave, Twain.ai"
"Design - Relume, CreateThat.ai"
"Automation - n8n, Crew.ai"
"Data - Firecrawl.dev, Freckle.io"
""
"But do you want to know what I think?"
""
"Focus on improving your growth stack and the rest follows."
""
"I am very happy to debate this."
""
"*kung fu come hither gesture*"
""
"📸 snap from last week’s city mission, Melbourne pops off during Aus Open

I work on our Australia day Public Holiday and have done so for a good number of years now."
""
"I can't in good conscience do otherwise."
""
"I also run my own business and public holidays aren't really a thing (I prefer to plan my down time around times I choose)."
""
"So I make it like one of those 2/3-ish days."
""
"But this is the first time I've done this about 20m away from a horse."
""
"Her name is Ember."
""
"I'm trying to come up with some sort of witty connector to our government, leadership, and something about horsing around - but all you get is this disappointing sentence."
""
"There's nothing good about this day and its disappointing that our leaders haven't done more by this point.

Here's how I think about numbers:"
" "
""Know your numbers" = cliche."
"There's always more to know."
"I want to upskill at financial statements."
" "
"But digital marketing?"
"I've got you sister."
" "
"1 out of 100."
"This is your benchmark conversion rate."
"1%."
" "
"If 100 people hit a page and 0 do something."
"You've got a messaging problem."
" "
"You got someone to see it."
"GREAT!"
"The a significant number have bounced away."
" "
"That's your fault."
" "
"Here's how to cook your thinking:"
" "
"YEAHH BUT MARSHY THE BENCHMARK FOR MY CATEGORY IS 3.762%"
"Cool story - see if you can beat 1% first"
" "
"YEAHH BUT MARSHY I'VE BUILT A NEW PRODUCT THAT IS "CHANGING THE GAME""
"No-one cares - if you can't convince 1 out of 100 people on a page to do something, it's a "you" issue, not a "them" issue."
" "
"YEAHH BUT MARSHY THE PEOPLE SEEING MY PAGE AREN'T MY CUSTOMERS"
"Then stop spraying random traffic to your page and be more targeted about who is seeing it. Conversion rates are useless if you're spraying startup all over Nintendo Duck Hunt (or whatever the kids do these days)."
" "
"These hard facts were brought to you by the letter L, and delivered by the letter M."
" "
"You can get more nuggets like this in my weekly newsletter."
" "
"You should subscribe to it soon because my first guide for 2025 is coming 👀"
" "
"📸 from one of the last nights of our holiday - with the sunsetting just like my memories of what it was like to be on holiday - back to work!

Here's a wonderfully human thing that happened on Rednote when the Tiktok shutdown happened in the US..."
""
"CATS."
""
"Or more accurately, Chinese users of Rednote encouraging new US users to follow their profiles with welcome videos including pictures and videos of cats."
""
"How good?"
""
"When I worked at YouTube we used to emphatically tell advertisers that the platform is more than cat videos."
""
"But good to see the full power of cat videos being deployed in 2025."
""
"h/t Cara Murphy - thanks for bringing it to my attention"
""
"p.s. My co-worker is called Bonti and I will share more photos of him in recognition of this trend.

Had a great amount of downtime over the New Year and got to finish it with 5 days away as a family."
""
"Our twin boys are sleeping a lot better these days and had no issues relaxing and taking genuine delight in witnessing their wonderful as we all engaged with beach, nature, and even an aircraft hanger."
""
"I’m feeling recharged."
""
"This year is bringing a lot of good energy already and I’m not going to die wondering if I gave opportunities my best shot."
""
"Enjoying the process. Being kind. Absorbing the lessons and savouring the rainbows 😊"
""
"📸 Metung late afternoon a couple of days ago

I tuned out of what Meta is up to day-to-day many years ago."
""
"And haven’t worked for them in over a decade."
""
"But the language in this recent censorship change is perplexing."
""
"Taken from the Transparency centre:"
""
"“That is why we don’t allow hateful conduct on Facebook, Instagram, or Threads."
""
"We define hateful conduct as direct attacks against people — rather than concepts or institutions — on the basis of what we call protected characteristics (PCs): race, ethnicity, national origin, disability, religious affiliation, caste, sexual orientation, sex, gender identity, and serious disease.”"
""
"Yeah great."
""
"Then later in Tier 2:"
""
"“We do allow allegations of mental illness or abnormality when based on gender or sexual orientation, given political and religious discourse about transgenderism and homosexuality and common non-serious usage of words like “weird.””"
""
"—"
""
"So bagging queers = hateful "
""
"Bagging queers by conflating it with mental illness = okay?"
""
"I’m bisexual, have lived experience with complex mental health, and now there’s a special clause in Meta’s censorship changes that allows for this to be misused so long as it’s non-serious?"
""
"I’m proudly weird, but the winner for the World Wide Weird prize today goes to my old employer."
""
"What the hell?!? 🤡"
""
"I don’t even."
""
"Why selectively pick out two of the most marginslised and at-risk cohorts on the planet, and then allow these terms to be used together in a derogatory way?"
""
"That’s the line?"
""
"H/t reddit/gaybros 💙🏳️‍🌈

It's a school night and back at the coalface tomorrow."
""
"2025 let's do this 🌠

Still relaxing but too good not to share."
""
"Leaders love mentoring, but they want to hear what landed and how things went down the road."
""
"Ask-holes just hit and run."
""
"Don’t be one 🫶

Solid line-up with some awesome humans who have been doing impact and strategy long before purpose was a marketing tool 🫶🏻

Great meeting Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis today to discuss how AI can have real impact for people across Maharashtra. Our first collaboration, MahaCrimeOS AI, is helping to support victims of cybercrime and financial fraud.
https://lnkd.in/gSUz_W4M

Have been in gtm/growth mode with a client."
""
"It's hands-on and there's a lot of flex to just let things rip."
""
"Here's some tools I've been playing with to try and make hay 🚂"
""
"Lovable - I can spin up a front end app, point it to Supabase for a back-end, and sync it to Airtable bi-directionally with Whalesync. Can't touch this 🎤"
""
"Make - better than Zapier and visually easier for complex recipes - it's not perfect but loving the $600 in credits as part of a startup deal. LFG."
""
"Upflowy - are building a new tool code-named Psyke that spins up bajillions of landing pages programmatically with brand control and SEO-friendliness. Yes LFG that one."
""
"Freckle (freckle.io) - their pitch is so f**king simple: an easy to use version of Clay. And it is. You can enrich data by just talking to your spreadsheet and telling it what to do. Near brand new and heard about it on LinkedIn so paying it forward and doing the needful."
""
"Firmable - been around a bit longer and is pricey for what you get - but what you get is watertight data against nearly anything B2B you can think of. Want to crack the messaging/pitch with our client and then can run this with value."
""
"Heatseeker - another Aussie story and was keen to test. First test nearly done and we've got a clearer value prop than we had before. Will keep tweaking the formula and do again."
""
"Chat Metrics - if a customer lands on your page you just want to help them. Don't f**k around with gatekeeping and trying to get their name and details etc. Just help them. That's what this does and has shone a light on some of the things we thing visitors are thinking versus what they are thinking. That's gold dust as we go harder at GTM. Cheers Terry Wilson."
""
"--"
""
"The Dumbledorable thing is that over half of these companies are Aussie."
""
"Did I mention this is Week 3?"
""
"LFG 🫶🏻

Was fun to be at a dev event in Bengaluru and demo an app I built recently for deep research with multiple models and decision frameworks... think of it as "chain of debate"... Next stop, Copilot!!

Super excited about GPT-5.2 from our partners at OpenAI. Making it natively part of the Microsoft tools people use every day along with your work data helps all the new model capabilities shine.

The pace of progress continues to accelerate. GPT‑5.2 brings together GPT-5.2 Thinking—built for solving harder problems, long-context reasoning, coding, spreadsheets, and presentations; and GPT-5.2 Instant—an efficient model for everyday writing, translation, and skill-building. 

• GPT-5.2 with Work IQ is great for unlocking insights, market research, and strategic planning —reasoning across your meetings, emails, and docs. Starting today, you can select GPT-5.2 in the model picker in M365 Copilot.

• In GitHub Copilot, GPT-5.2 is a fantastic multi-purpose model, especially when it comes to long-context and reasoning when coding or investigating a complex code base. Also available today.

• We’re also bringing GPT-5.2 models to Microsoft Foundry and Copilot Studio, and starting rollout in our Copilot consumer experience.

Ultimately, for us this is all about model choice for all of our customers and with auto, you can rely on Copilot to pick the right model for the job at hand. I’m looking forward to what customers are able to achieve with this new capability.

Every time I visit India, I'm struck by how AI is already starting to have a profound impact on people's lives.
 
A great example is our partnership with the Ministry of Labour and Employment, GOI to help connect more than 300 million informal workers to better jobs and social security, showing what’s possible when technology empowers people at scale. https://lnkd.in/gEkXC7zK

It was fun to spend time with the team at Swiggy today, and see how they're using Microsoft Fabric to process billions of data points in near real time, paving the way for new innovations in how convenience is delivered to millions of their users. A really great use case! https://lnkd.in/gWFG4qrn

Thank you, PM Narendra Modi ji for an inspiring conversation on India’s AI opportunity. To support the country’s ambitions, Microsoft is committing US$17.5B—our largest investment ever in Asia—to help build the infrastructure, skills, and sovereign capabilities needed for India’s AI first future.

Today in Cell, we published new research showing how AI can help accelerate cancer discovery. With GigaTIME, we can now simulate spatial proteomics from routine pathology slides, enabling population-scale analysis of tumor microenvironments across dozens of cancer types and hundreds of subtypes.
 
Developed in partnership with Providence and the University of Washington, our hope is that this work helps scientists move faster from data to insight, revealing new links between genetic mutations, immune activity, and clinical outcomes, and ultimately improving health for people everywhere.
https://lnkd.in/dSpPdtzz

Let’s get metaphysical for a second."
""
"Sharing a story is an energy exchange."
""
"You’re transmitting ideas that have lessons, emotions, hooks…"
""
"Stories are powerful."
""
"They can mobilise people."
"Create culture."
"Start wars."
""
"In the online world, there’s a gaping dearth of meaningful stories."
""
"Generative AI takes a lot of energy."
"It’s soon going to take orders of magnitude more energy."
""
"But it doesn’t transmit energy like a story does."
""
"You can sense check this with your gut."
""
"Read something you suspect is generated."
""
"You don’t need to prove if it is or isn’t."
""
"You just *know*."
""
"That’s where the metaphysical comes in."
""
"So - "
""
"If you’re a storyteller - you’re up."
""
"The online world is going to be taking more energy, and transmitting much less."
""
"Yet people crave stories."
""
"Real stories."
""
"That do *something* to your gut."
""
"So start telling."
""
"📸 of Dad doing squats with one of his elite PTs

Happy Friday fuckers!"
"Do you know what's special about this photo?"
""
"It was snapped during my run this morning and I also snapped much more tourist-friendly shots of the Opera House and Harbour Bridge."
""
"But that's not what you get to see this morning my dear reader."
""
"You get a snap of a dusty old building that's actually empty right now."
""
"That dusty old building is where I started my CAREER."
" "
"I learned so many things while working there."
""
"So please humour me while I regale you with a tale from Nostalgic Marshy's Vocational Bookshelf."
" "
"I was a digital account coordinator with about 8 months of experience under my belt."
""
"I was working on huge accounts, and felt like I'd come to the industry late, so was busting my guts to soak up as much as I could and learn."
""
"I had very good health reasons why I arrived to the industry "late" - but I sure as shit wasn't at the stage where anybody was allowed to know what happened a few years earlier (pssst - it was a complete mental breakdown and hospitalisation)."
" "
"One day, the digital partner sauntered into our office and said:"
""
""Hey you 5 account coordinators - we're putting you in a new team that's focused exclusively on data, trafficking, and reporting"."
""
"This message was not well received."
" "
"4 of the account coordinators quit."
""
"Do you know who didn't quit?"
"It was I."
" "
"I stayed with that opportunity, trained and mentored the incoming talent, and learned a hell of a lot about data and reporting with techniques and approaches I still use today."
" "
"I'd love to say I'd stayed the course because it was the mature and responsible thing to do for my career."
""
"And while that may be partly true - the reality was I was less than a year into media and needed to ride things out and keep learning."
""
"I'm glad I did and am still friends with a lot of people from that time and am grateful for the experiences I got."
" "
"But that's not actually why the photo is special."
""
"It's special because it's also the birthplace of happy Friday fuckers!"
""
"So there you go."
" "
"Now you know why I was excited to snap this and make my weekly shit post."
" "
"#careeradvice #notchatGPTadvice #algorhythming"
"

With the Excel World Championship underway, I decided to take the M365 Copilot digital challenge. I’m no World Champ… but thanks to Agent Mode, I held my own!

Weekend job ✅"
""
"Someone call Celine Dion, because this is getting serious."
""
"Are you thinking ‘bout you, or us?"
""
"Don’t say what you’re about to say.

Do you want to know who is a good egg? 🥚"
" "
" "
"Julie Anne Longano - I met her via an intro from Stephen Neville and we ended up being neighbours down the road at one stage!"
" "
"Jules regularly shares tips on her LinkedIn for senior professionals navigating change, and gives back by sharing grad opps just to help people, and wears her heart on her sleeve."
" "
"I highly recommend a follow if you're looking for some wisdom in your feed that isn't joke-bait designed to game the engagement algorithm repeatedly."
" "
"She's an authentic recruiter in media/marketing/agencies that does what she says."
" "
"And has also placed me in the past so I know what I'm talking about."
" "
"💙

Some random points:"
""
"1. I posted about looking for meaty projects a week or so ago"
""
"2. Oh look - an interesting post from a company about recruitment and helping solve headaches"
""
"3. Today is Monday"
""
""
"Have a great week gang 👋"
""
""
"https://lnkd.in/gW6H9mDX

AI and quantum are transforming how we tackle the toughest scientific challenges—from sustainable materials and clean energy to biosecurity and drug discovery. The Genesis Mission and the work by U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) is a pivotal step toward accelerating these priorities. At Microsoft, we’re already seeing real-world impact: faster materials screening and advanced biosurveillance modeling through collaborations with federal researchers and universities. Now is the time to scale these breakthroughs across the entire R&D ecosystem. We’re ready to deepen our industry partnership across government and academia to move faster together.

Learn more about the Genesis Mission https://lnkd.in/gssUbV3t

#AI #Microsoft #AcceleratingScientificDiscovery #ScientificDiscovery #PublicPrivatePartnerships

Happy Friday fuckers!"
" "
" "
"Do you know what's better than taking yourself seriously?"
" "
"Taking yourself SERIOUSLY."
" "
"Above snap is from 2020 - I popped it up as my LinkedIn banner for a while."
" "
"Below snap is TODAY - where I'm still a business man."
" "
"Why is there a tennis racquet?"
"Do I know I'm not actually talking to anyone?"
"Did 2020 Marshy understand what was ahead of him?"
" "
"Game, set, match - have a great weekend and keep LinkedWINNING."
" "
"👋

10 PRINT "ANTHROPIC + MICROSOFT + NVIDIA = MORE COMPUTE, COGNITION, AND CHOICE."

I’ve been thinking a lot about what the net benefit of the AI platform wave is. The real question is how to empower every company out there to get more out of this platform shift and build their own AI native capabilities and enterprise value (vs inadvertently just transfer their unique value to the tech sector!!). Here's what I have been reflecting on.

Happy Friday fuckers 😁"
" "
"Do you know what's missing in my life?"
" "
"Meaty projects."
" "
"I've got space for 1-2 thorny problems that need to be solved over the next 3-6 months."
" "
"What's a thorny problem?"
""
"They sound like this:"
" "
""I can't get the marketing function going for my startup/scaleup or non-profit. I just need someone to come in with an outside lens, make some recommendations, and then execute it back to performing.""
""
""Our agency team is in a shambles. They need some love and are getting beaten up by clients. We need someone who can block and tackle, repair the relationships, and to protect our brilliant but underloved team from all the BS.""
""
""We can't figure this out. It's so hard to solve this problem and it needs an outsider who thinks differently, has a digital/multi-hyphenate skill-set, and just gets shit done.""
" "
"If you're reading these quotes and can hear someone's voice as you're reading it."
" "
"I want the NAME of that person."
" "
"I don't need warm intros, referrals, or kickbacks for sending work your way or mine..."
" "
"I can sniff out opportunities with someone's first name and a "hunch"."
" "
"I just want to do good work for a team that needs help and is okay with me making it temporary and leaving them in much better shape than when I started with them."
" "
"Sound good?"
" "
"I sure bloody hope so."
" "
"Because I LOVE working with all my smaller coaching and accelerator clients but this omnivore needs some MEAT."
" "
"Chomp, chomp, CHOMP 🍗"
" "
"*with full respect to my vegan homies. I love what you're about and this is just a chunky meataphor"
" "
"📸 from earlier this week from one of my personal trainers (and mouths to feed) who is whispering in my ear - "work harder Dad" while in the foreground is a square that captures bird crap from a nest (outside of picture)

Big shout-out to Louise Gilbert who released her book - Make Work Work For You."
""
"We connected last year and I've been impressed with how she's grown her business, engaged her clients, and done it in an authentic way."
""
"You should totally buy her book (or sample the free chapters if you're on the fence)."
""
"I wasn't put up to this - I just love seeing non-male business owners kick arse."
""
"Keep kicking! 🥷🏾"
""
"👏

Today we announced our new Fairwater datacenter in Atlanta, connected with our first Fairwater site in Wisconsin and our broader Azure footprint to create the world’s first AI superfactory.

Fairwater exemplifies our vision for a fungible fleet: infra that can serve any workload, anywhere, on fit-for-purpose accelerators and network paths, with maximum performance and efficiency.

AI workloads have evolved beyond large-scale pre-training. Today, they encompass fine-tuning, reinforcement learning (RL), synthetic data generation, evaluation pipelines, and more. Fairwater is built to support this full lifecycle:

Max density: Fairwater’s two-story design and liquid cooling system lets us place racks in three dimensions and pack them with GPUs as densely as possible, minimizing cable runs and improving latency and effective bandwidth.

Fleet: Each Fairwater DC can integrate hundreds of thousands of the latest NVIDIA GPUs into a single coherent cluster. This provides flexible infra that can support the full spectrum of workloads, and ensure no GPU is left unnecessarily idle.

And that’s on top of the more than 100,000 GB300s coming online this quarter alone for inference across the rest of our fleet. For us, it’s all about turning every gigawatt into the maximum number of useful tokens. Not every GW is created equal!

Planet-scale: Every Fairwater DC will connect through our continent-spanning AI WAN to prior generations of AI supercomputers, forming a truly fungible pool of compute. This enables developers to scale beyond the capacity of a single site and dynamically land workloads on the right infra for their needs.

Together, these innovations let us bring together different generations of silicon and AI systems across DCs and geos into a single elastic system that scales seamlessly across training and inference workloads

And this elastic AI capacity is all available alongside all the other cloud services (compute, storage, databases, app services) that AI agents and workloads need.

This is what we mean when we talk about building a fungible fleet – a single, unified platform that pushes the limits of performance per watt and per dollar.

Read more: https://lnkd.in/e82Dm2jQ

Things I'm grateful for this week:"
" "
" "
"1. We got a fence put around the backyard. The backyard backs onto horses grazing, so now the boys can roam without the fear of copping a swift kick from a nag 🐴"
""
"2. Basketball being back on this week. I hate bye weeks. It turns out my form does too. I missed 2 free throws with under a minute to go and we lost by 1 point 😥"
""
"3. My partner Georgie - things have been quieter on the project front over the last few months and she's been very supportive."
" "
"I'm looking forward to Eltham Festival tomorrow and taking our boys for a run."
" "
"Have a great weekend 🫶🏻"
""
"📸 if you squint you can see the start of the fence in the bottom left corner 🤣

Here’s a question that’s not getting the attention it deserves: what kind of AI does the world really want? I think it's probably the most important question of our time. For several years now, progress has been phenomenal. If AGI is often seen as the point at which an AI can match human performance at all tasks, then superintelligence is when it can go far beyond that performance.
 
Instead of endlessly debating capabilities or timing, it's time to think hard about the purpose of technology, what we want from it, what its limitations should be, and how we’re going to ensure this incredible tech always benefits humanity.
 
At Microsoft AI, we’re working towards Humanist Superintelligence (HSI): incredibly advanced AI capabilities that always work for, in service of, people and humanity more generally. We think of it as systems that are problem-oriented and tend towards the domain specific. Not an unbounded and unlimited entity with high degrees of autonomy – but AI that is carefully calibrated, contextualized, within limits.
 
To do this we have formed the MAI Superintelligence Team, led by me as part of Microsoft AI. We want it to be the world’s best place to research and build AI, bar none. We are doing this to solve real concrete problems and do it in such a way that it remains grounded and controllable. We are not building an ill-defined and ethereal superintelligence; we are building a practical technology explicitly designed only to serve humanity.
 
Our recent work demonstrates the value of this narrower form of domain specific superintelligence. The New England Journal of Medicine includes a Case Challenge in every issue – a list of symptoms and a patient to diagnose. It’s fiendishly difficult even for domain experts, let alone the average doctor. Our orchestrator, MAI-DxO, managed to reach 85% across the Case Challenges. Human doctors max out at about 20%, and need to order many more expensive tests. In our view both clinicians and patients alike would welcome the extra support. This work just hints at the potential to revolutionize healthcare. (More here: https://lnkd.in/eSZ8m6T8)
 
Superintelligence could be the best invention ever – but only if it puts the interests of humans above everything else. Only if it’s in service to humanity. Ultimately what HSI requires is an industry shift in approach. Are those building AI optimizing for AI or for humanity, and who gets to judge?
 
At Microsoft AI, we believe humans matter more than AI. We want to build AI that deeply reflects our wider mission to empower every person on the planet.  
 
Humanist, applied - this is the superintelligence I believe the world wants. It’s the superintelligence I want to build. And it’s what we’re going to build on MAI’s Superintelligence Team.
 
More on the MAI blog this morning: https://lnkd.in/edFGgg6K

Don't you just love it when things click 🎚️"
""
""
"I introduced Ganesha Param to Dale a while ago."
""
"He was looking for a business coach and I thought Dale would be a good fit because I've been working with him for a long time and think his story is awesome."
""
"He's recently appeared on Gan's podcast - Peak Performance Hacks and I highly recommend giving it a listen 🎧"
""
"The best part?"
""
"Dale does his thing behind the scenes."
""
"He's built 5 (and now building Sequoia Project) and an investment group through uncanny and unwavering focus on systems, consistency, and pattern recognition."
""
"You can't find much about him online (by design) and so I'm pretty chuffed to see him pop his head up a bit as he looks to help more founders and business owners build a life on their terms."
""
"Every week we chat and the blunt and direct simplicity is like a blast of clarity through the complications my brain throws up each time."
""
"--"
""
"Normally I plug what I do here but if you want to see if you're a fit for working with Dale I can put you in touch 🤙🏼

Agents will keep joining and adapting at work — some may become double agents. With proper controls, we can protect ourselves. Read Microsoft Security EVP Charlie Bell's blog on how leaders can secure the new world of AI agents. https://msft.it/6044tyB9n

If I was a founder selling to smaller B2Bs today, here's some things I would do to sell more:"
""
""
"1. Email follow-up to first customers upon sale and/or delivery"
"  - We appreciate your business a lot"
"  - We're a new business that wants to do more of this kind of work"
"  - Let us know if there's similar businesses you know that could benefit from this"
"   "
"   "
"2. Connect with existing customers on LinkedIn - personalised note thanking them again and staying in touch"
"  "
"  "
"3. Posting about a customer problem you solved on LinkedIn - once a week - thank people for engaging with the post, connect with any new connections and ask them what they're working on"
"  "
"  "
"4. Look at the companies you've helped:"
"  - what employee headcount are they"
"  - What industry? "
"  - What locality? "
"  - Who were your champions in that business and what was their job title? "
"  - Who were the decision makers in that business and what was their job title?"
"   "
"   "
""
"5. Sign-up for LinkedIn Sales Navigator (trial it first if you can to help cashflow). And look for: "
"  - Companies matching your previous customers"
"  - Job titles matching your previous customers (champions)"
"  - Job titles matching your previous decision makers"
"   "
"   "
"6. Send 10-20 connection requests p.d. "
""
""
""
"7. Thank new connections for connecting, state you solved X for Y (similar company - don't name them unless they're happy being a case study). And ask if they want more info."
""
""
"8. Send more info in the form of:"
"  - One-sheeter as an anonymised case study"
"  - Screen recording of your solution and how it helped solve problem"
"  - Checklist of what you worked through"
"  - Capability statement and how it solved for X"
"   - ^^^ all of these are lead magnets - the more useful you can make it the better - keep finding ways to create things that help without you "jumping on a call""
""
""
"9. Follow-up and ask if this is a problem for them - if not (dig for more info about how they think about it) and if so - ask if they'd like it solved"
""
""
"It's time consuming, outside of your comfort zone, and works."
""
""
"Even if you're not getting bites - you're going to get better at the cadence of stating the problem and what you solve and repeat."
""
""
"This is SO valuable. "
""
"Founders that thrive get this intuitively."
""
"Founders that lose sight of this end up creating a bloated and over-hyped technology company that's doomed to fail."
""
""
"Reps get wins."
""
"📸 from me noodling on growth on a video with the Inhouse Ventures team"
""
"--"
""
"I'm Marshy and coach founders through lead gen and growth by helping them focus on actions that have impact."
""
"If you want me to walk you through how an approach can work for your startup drop a comment "like its hot" 🔥

I’ve been using Voice in M365 Copilot every day, and it’s one of those features that quickly becomes indispensable at work. Excited for customers to try it out now.

1.1M tokens/sec on just one rack of GB300 GPUs in our Azure fleet. An industry record made possible by our longstanding co-innovation with NVIDIA and expertise of running AI at production scale! https://lnkd.in/g_Sc5DPj

Every Friday as an account coordinator at Zenith Optimedia in Sydney I would walk into the office."
""
"I’d hit the digital department, which in 2008 was about 15-25 people."
""
"And I would shout “happy Friday fuckers!”"
""
"It was my thing."
""
"You can’t do that with AI or WFH as it doesn’t have quite the same effect."
""
"It was gratifying being one of the most junior people on the floor and shouting such a rousing end of week call-to-arms."
""
"Then near the end of the day we’d nick the stationery cupboard keys and raid the cupboards for bags of potato chips."
""
"May your Friday be splendid 🍻(<- alc-free for me of course)"
""
"📸 from the office this week

We're taking the next big step with Researcher.

With Computer Use, it can securely browse the open and gated web to find hard-to-locate information—even across hundreds of sites—and handle multi-step tasks to uncover insights, take action, and create richer reports.

Artificial intelligence is spreading faster than any technology in history. Yet today’s map shows a clear divide. Microsoft’s AI Economy Institute’s new AI Diffusion Report assesses where the world stands today, while laying out the steps to expand access, build skills, and make AI work for every language and community.

Read the report: https://lnkd.in/etJFwKHs

Just wrapped our earnings call and wanted to share a few highlights from the quarter.

Bottom line: We’ve got great momentum across our AI platform and our family of Copilots, fueling our increasing investments in both capital and talent.

We’re building a planet-scale cloud and AI factory.

We’ll increase our AI capacity by 80% this year, and nearly double our DC footprint over the next two.

That includes Fairwater in Wisconsin, the world’s most powerful AI datacenter, which will scale to two gigawatts alone.

We are building a fungible fleet that spans every stage of the AI lifecycle and is constantly optimized to deliver the best ROI and TCO for us and our customers.

One example: during the quarter, we increased the token throughput for GPT-4.1 and GPT-5 by more than 30% per GPU.

Our family of Copilots and agents also surpassed over 150 million monthly active users across high value domains:

• Information work: 90 percent of the F500 now use Microsoft 365 Copilot – and we’re shipping updates very fast
• Coding: GitHub Copilot now has 26 million-plus users
• Security: 36+ agents integrated across Entra, Defender, Purview, Intune
• Science & Health: We helped document 17 million-plus patient encounters, up 5X year over year
• Consumer: Tons of new capabilities announced over the past two weeks, from Groups and Mico in Copilot, to "Hey Copilot" in Windows

And this week, we signed a new agreement with OpenAI, a milestone for both companies.

It’s been an incredible investment, with nearly 10X return and no carry. All the value goes straight to shareholders.

Another thing I feel super proud about is that Microsoft is now behind two of the largest nonprofits in the world!

You can read more about our results here: https://lnkd.in/gxtVeMk2

Great to be back at GitHub Universe today!

Thanks for the conversation, Jared Palmer and Mario Rodriguez. Nothing beats the energy of being surrounded by people building the future of software.

Super fun conversation with Jordi Hays and John Coogan. Thanks for bringing TBPN to GitHub Universe. Work's not done!

I love how easy it’s becoming to learn on the go with podcasts in Copilot.

I turned GitHub’s latest Octoverse report into a 5-minute pod — short, smart, and snappy. Packed with info on the seismic shifts happening in how people build software. Check it out!

Super energized about this! With App Builder and Workflow, you can now build apps and automate workflows in minutes, right in M365 Copilot chat. Here's an example.

Welcome to your Agent HQ 📍Orchestrate any agent, any time, anywhere.

Coding agents from Claude, OpenAI, Cognition, Google, xAI and more will become available in GitHub as part of your paid Copilot subscription. https://lnkd.in/g3q7sM7M

We’re continuing to make Copilot even more helpful in the everyday flow of work. Teams Mode lets groups co‑create with Copilot in a Teams chat. Watch how it works:

So many new Copilot updates this month. Here are some I can't stop using.

A big shout-out to Simone - one of my clients through the Melbourne Innovation Centre Digital Solutions program."
" "
"Simone runs Kitchen Language."
"It's a website that sells sweary merchandise."
"Think F bombs, and C bombs, cooking aprons, and stubby holders."
" "
"She recently got a shoutout on Kate Langbroek's new podcast but what I love the most is that Simone shared her marketing challenges, listened and asked questions, but then went and applied it at FOUNDER-LEVEL PACE."
" "
"Achievement unlocked 🏆"
" "
"Here's how we got there:"
""
"-- Simone shared that expos with a lot of her target market are the best-performing channel (e.g. Meat + BBQ expo) - she can do a comfortable 5-figures on a weekend"
""
"-- But the prep, pack up/down, travel and full days are laborious"
""
"-- Because she knows her target market so well - I pointed out that you could find these people on podcasts as well"
""
"-- Why not introduce something like... the podcaster potty mouth of the week? "
""
"-- Award it to sweary up and coming podcasters, send some merch, and see if you pick up any traction?"
" "
"So Simone ran with it and landed the play - with her product being spoken about for 2.5 minutes on a syndicated podcast with a strong radio personality."
" "
"Coaching isn't a silver bullet but my gosh it is fun when someone is listening and ready to dance 💃🏼"
" "
"--"
" "
"I'm Marshy and coach early startups through growth."
""
"Curious?"
""
"I'm looking for 3 startups that rely on leads, can complete a form, and want to get a quick win with no extra charges or costs."
""
"DM me.

What I love about the updates we’re making to Copilot Mode in Edge today is how it meets you right where you left off across all your tabs, helping you pick up the thread, and even completing multi-step actions for you. Take a look.

With Groups, Copilot goes multiplayer! You can now collaborate in real time with your team + Copilot to brainstorm, co-write, plan, or study together. One of my favorite new features ...

Clippy is back!!

Hitting the pavement HARD this week with 3 days in the big smoke."
""
""
"It’s good to be pushing now though as we all know silly season isn’t too far off."
""
"Shoutout to Ryan Burns and Vicki Stirling for The Startup Network partnership event last week."
""
"I was past pokeman age when it was a thing, but I bloody love my Pokemon card."
""
"Gotta catch them all 🐉"
""
"—"
""
"I’m Marshy and coach early-stage founders through growth."
""
"What this looks like in practice: "
""
"listening, empathising, cajoling, encouraging, and sharing moves 🕺

Hey early business owner - don't talk like a "brand" - it just sounds stupid."
" "
" "
"Example:"
"EP Weiderling & Schmidt can execute this for you."
" "
"Better:"
"Yes I can take care of that for you."
" "
"It's tempting to "think like a brand" when you're starting out."
""
"You don't need to."
""
"All it does as a founder is alienate you from talking to more customers."
""
"Just talk to customers."
" "
"Of course, there are exceptions to the rule."
" "
"For example if you're a GROUP GROUP just keep doing what 🙌 Garry Williams is doing."
""
"📸 from the weekend when my sister started hitting the group chat with nonsense"
" "
"--"
"I'm Marshy and coach early business founders through growth."
""
"I do this by simplifying sales, marketing, + tech and making it horribly easy to execute."
""
"Horribly easy."
""
"It's actually disgusting how easy I make it for you."
""
"DISGUSTING.

Today, I shared my annual letter to shareholders, which is linked below.

It's amazing to reflect that 50 years after our founding, Microsoft is once again in the thick of a generational shift in technology. AI is radically changing every layer of the tech stack, and we're changing with it.

Thank you for being part of our journey to shape a future that empowers us all.

Hey Copilot! Show everyone how we’re transforming how you interact with your Windows PC — so you can talk naturally, it can see what you see, and take action on your behalf.

No question that nurses are the heartbeat of healthcare. And today we’re introducing the first commercially available ambient experience built for nursing workflows, so they can focus on what matters most: caring for patients.

🍉"
""
"I've been looking for a day warm enough to rock this 👔"
""
"Thanks Melbourne."
""
"I've created a F2F Thursday scheduler in my calendar."
""
"If you're Melbourne-based and want to drop time in to hit me up during my city side-quests just let me know and I'll send you the deets."
""
"👌"
""
"Side-note: my Mum made me this shirt and I think I just got her a new customer today 🤣

Introducing a new open source benchmarking tool to measure AI for cybersecurity, grounded in real world scenarios. This is important work as we evaluate how well AI systems can reason to protect against cyberattacks.

Read the blog: https://lnkd.in/g4cTWH-m

And here's the GitHub repo: https://lnkd.in/g5vtSc5J

Let's go, M's!

This is super useful! With new Formula Completions in Excel, just type "=" and Copilot proactively suggests a formula, based on the context of your sheet. Here's a great example:

We've been hard at work advancing M365 Copilot, and so have our many partners who are building agents that integrate with Copilot and Teams to transform how work gets done. Check out a few great examples:

Life felt very different in October 2005."
""
""
"It was a few months after my intensive mental health care."
""
"I moved back in with Mum and shared a room with my poor teenage sister."
""
"I did appointments, some peer group work, and got visits from a support nurse."
""
"Eventually I got the first of many temporary jobs."
""
"This went on for 18 months with roles in call centres, an insurance broker, the tennis, the State Library, and a university."
""
"Some roles ran their course, others I got fired from, and each time I learned a bit more about recovering with complex mental health with the lessons usually different flavours of bitter."
""
"I couldn’t function well until I moved to a newer medication and that’s when I got my first permanent job in media in Sydney."
""
"My career skyrocketed and here I am today."
""
"And it’s a big day."
""
"This morning, I’ll be representing SANE as a peer ambassador and board member sharing a tiny piece of my lived experience story at Parliament House."
""
"We’re celebrating 10 years of digital innovation in mental health."
""
"SANE has been working tirelessly for over 40 years helping people like me."
""
"The most exciting part about this is the increased access of their online guided services program."
""
"Anyone with complex mental health can access where they are."
""
"They don’t need a referral and they can get support from a counsellor or peer support worker to help them navigate life for when they’re not touching the medical system."
""
"This is REALLY important:"
""
"The medical system kept me alive."
""
"But it’s learning how to navigate life stuff that enabled me to recover and THRIVE."
""
"SANE’s program is shifting the needle for people in recovery by offering psychosocial support that is CHANGING the lives of hundreds of people."
""
"That’s not a vague result."
""
"That’s empirically validated data independently assessed by a university."
""
"With demonstrable change shown on clinical indicators like the K10."
""
"This is mind-blowing."
""
"But it’s one of Australia’s best kept secrets."
""
"So excuse us while we try and take this information to our nation’s decision makers and share this fact bomb on World Mental Health Day."
""
"It’s been 20 years since some of the worst moments in my life and I would have LOVED an online support team to get life back on track."
""
"My hope is that far more people going through similar don’t have to get back on track without additional help."
""
"We see you, and we’re fighting for you ❤️"
""
"📸 from that era, I did have hair once upon a time and one of the unfortunate side effects of my meds was extreme hunger and weight gain

Another first for our AI fleet ... a supercomputing cluster of NVIDIA GB300s with 4600+ GPUs and featuring next gen InfiniBand.

First of many as we scale to hundreds of thousands of GB300s across our DCs, and rethink every layer of the stack across silicon, systems, and software to support next gen AI workloads.

Some background & discussion on the Paraphrase Project, just published in Science. Behind-the-scenes on the project, including a podcast episode I was invited to host, featuring reflections from several members of the team—Bruce Wittmann, Tessa Alexanian & James Diggans. And I’ve shared my thoughts on the disclosure dilemma in a blog post linked here.

Full paper available here: https://aka.ms/AAy5e9c

Big news from DevDay: the latest OpenAI models are now live in Azure AI Foundry. GPT-5-Pro raises the bar on reasoning and safety, GPT-Image-1-mini brings fast and efficient image generation, and the new GPT-real time-mini and GPT-audio-mini unlock real-time voice and audio experiences at scale.

Together with the Microsoft Agent Framework and new Responsible AI features announced last week, Foundry now puts the full spectrum of AI from text, vision, and audio into the hands of every developer.

The toolbox just got multimodal, and I can't wait to see what you build!

I smashed it this week and have lots to be grateful for."
" "
" "
"✅ 2 new clients"
"📏 Updated business metrics and where to focus"
"📹 Upping the video reps and punching out Instas and YouTubes"
"📧 Relaunched newsletter with Early Growth School and it feels fuggin good"
"🏡 Family is settled into our new space and sleeping well again"
" "
"I had a great chat with my coach this week too - "you're right where you need to be Lukey Dukes"."
" "
"I use that nickname ironically ONCE and its stuck 🥊"
" "
"But more importantly I feel like I am too."
" "
"Have a great weekend 👋"
" "
"--"
" "
"I'm Marshy and coach early tech founders through growth with proven playbooks, hand-holding, and unlimited support.

Supercharged past few weeks as we push the bounds of model-forward innovation across Microsoft 365. A few highlights.

Super to see re Agent Mode: “It really does do something new: it makes Excel feel less like a tool you command and more like a partner you work with.”

https://lnkd.in/guStvdkv

"This guy's LinkedIn profile is optimised to the hilt - here comes the instant pitch...""
""
" "
"This is what I thought when I accepted Prosper Taruvinga's connection request back in May."
" "
"So it's a bit of a jump to see him F2F and presenting about LinkedIn at the BNI Business Elite in Epping this morning."
" "
"But how did we get here?"
" "
"I've been working on letting go assumptions that are judgments in disguise."
" "
"Doing this means I've learned more about:"
""
"- A young marketing professional who slays on TikTok (thanks The Startup Network)"
""
"- Accelerated go-to-market strategy from a turbo marketing ideas machine who speaks like a dude (thanks Cody Schneider)"
""
"- How to think about LinkedIn from a far more deliberate perspective (thanks to Prosper - see below)"
" "
"So here's the knowledge he dropped about LinkedIn profiles this morning:"
""
"1. You've got a career/business headline - create easy ways for people seeing you to ask more."
""
"2. Make the most of the real estate - your banner is above the fold and you can optimise it towards what you can do for the person viewing."
""
"3. Add your website or better yet, link to a call-to-action (CTA)"
""
"4. Use language that helps people self-select in or out with prompts and questions - are you....?, frustrated by..., X who desire Y etc."
""
"5. Give people an excuse to scroll down below the fold (past your banner, headshot, and links)."
""
"6. This also makes you referrable - not everyone who views your page is your customer, but everyone who views your page should get what you do in a heartbeat (who may refer too)."
""
"7. Use the about section to share an outline of the steps and what you can do for them - like a movie trailer (get to da chopper!! 😎)"
""
"8. Your featured section can be updated regularly, with rotating offers/posts."
""
"9. When you engage with "influencers" this will lead people to your page as well - which makes all of the above work harder."
""
"10. So does including client results/social proof such as recommendations."
""
"11. So ask your clients to recommend you on the platform - simples."
" "
"I think my Link game is strong and I learned tonnes this morning."
" "
"I'm glad I got out of bed early and made the drive over - but won't make it a regular thing as I love the morning routine with my boys."
" "
"📸 obligatory snap with Prosper as I think it's just weird writing this without the selfie and didn't want to take a snap during the BNI meeting as I'm sure that's against cult policy"
" "
"--"
" "
"I'm Marshy and coach early-stage founders on growth by coaching them through step-by-step playbooks on how to find their next large customers.

Friday evening reflection: Adjusting my cloud infra priors for the AI era… a colleague just shared the progress we are making with our AI WAN. In one project, we expanded our North American optical fiber footprint by 40% and added network capacity equal to one-fifth of our entire global network - a network that took 15 years to build now takes months!

Copilot+ PCs are ushering in a new era of intelligent computing, powered by NPU’s that run at 40+ TOPS. This makes possible advanced A.I. features and smarter search, all running locally on your device.

https://lnkd.in/gMmA9Bra