LinkedIn

"So is the open web f**ked?"

Was what I asked at the NVIDIA Open Season Part 2: Building in the Open event I visited last night at Cremorne Digital Hub.

ToothFairyAI's Gabriele Sanguigno, Lukas Wesemann (Base Compute), and Simon Xing Zhao (Heidi) all answered questions from Alan Tsen about building and running businesses with open-source models.

Some key points:

>> 99% of the time you don't need frontier. There's a heavy incentive for the company to continue pushing the latest and greatest (and charge handsomely for it) but the reality is most businesses could work with current gen for the next few years and be in a great position.

>> The frontier AI safeguards are a myth. If a bad actor wanted to use AI to produce illegal resources, instructions, or anything else that the Federal Police would take an interest in - they can. It can be done with materials available today and no amount of posturing from Altman et al. changes that. The people with heavy financial incentives to guard against are not guarding against this and an alternative solution is to make open-source available to all as the technology continues to get better.

>> If you're using any LLM for a solution and it gets it right "some" of the time, that's enough. With the right fine-tuning and weights accuracy can be improved and the self-hosted/open-source solution will deliver orders of magnitude more cheaply than frontier.

We see this as Your Property Pilot.

Our free samples to customers were expensive.

Our engineer reworked things with open-source models and we're paying 99.3% less for the same thing.

So back to my question - it got some shocked hushing in the room but it's a rational question:

if access to AI continues to increase in ubiquity, what happens to the web as we know it when there's 10-1,000X the amount of agent activity?

It doesn't work.

We're already seeing people having tantrums when their bot-orchestrated ecommerce orders are getting blocked - as they should be! - it looks like a fraudulent and machine-led transaction.

But that's not what people want.

I agree with one of the answers I received - I think eventually the web is going to be divided up into sections that are agent-first (like moltbook) and whatever happens to the web as we know it (I don't think LinkedIn and Reddit are necessarily the answers here either).

I've only got a few Wednesdays left where I'll be doing my coffee catch-ups for the year.

I live a wonderful life on the edge of the Yarra Valley surrounded by green and raising our twin boys alongside my wonderful partner Georgie.

I also work remotely.

So stretching myself to grab some F2Fs with people in the Melbourne CBD has helped me stay out of hermit-mode, exercise my vocal chords, and learn from a wider range of people.

I'm working on two startups and advising another.

I'm not after any business but happy to catch-up with anyone who:

> is after some career advice
> wants to swap notes on growth
> wants feedback on their pitch

I've found they're the 3 areas I tend to add the most value in.

I have a booking link to make both of our lives easier and I hate it when someone makes a point of saying "I do it old-school" and then wastes both of our times trying to coordinate.

Just use the link FFS.

I'm planning a bit of down-time over Chrissy (as much as one can in startup mode) and recharging the batteries.

If something is low-lift for me and high-impact for you I will do it - my only ask is you respect any help I give you by not returning for similar advice when you haven't applied it previously.

Enjoy the descent into silly season 🧑🏻‍🎄

Happy Friday No. 18, read the text for my weekly reflections, or enjoy a special jam.

HOOK

We're back! Our engineering team did a humungous job of bringing back scale, stability, and cost effectiveness to our free samples and product delivery and we've been turning up the jets again. Our customer count sits at 13 or 14 and we have another 4-5 verbal yeses. With the sample sizes we have, we now have a pretty good sense of lead-to-sample-to-paying-customer-ratio, and while there's always surprises in startup land - that's a very powerful model to be cooking with in the hands of someone like me.

CROOK

We had an amusing incident where an email exchange led to a question re: use of AI, and the AI was too zealous in its responses. The prospect explained to the AI that Luke had already answered their question, and that they're ready to sign-up. We're still working out the right balance between responsiveness, answering common questions, and escalating edge cases.

LOOK

If you've got friends working in tech companies it might be worth sending a kind note and checking up on them. There's a lot of nervous people in the channels I'm rolling in.

--

I messed up my recording of my Happy Friday and had to do a redo - it's a great thing I love this jam: Enveloper by Thankyou City (Melbourne boys too).

Enjoy.

Me - 10 years ago on Friday at 5:46pm: "Chuck me another, we're not here to intermingle with arachnids, it's a fkn Friday night bee-atches - yeeeowww!" 🍻


(also) Me - today on Friday at 5:46pm: *posting in our marketing discord in wonder at our newfound attribution capabilities with Claude Code + posthog + GA etc*



What a time to be alive 😃

3 conversations about growth I've had this week, featuring problem + my speedy solution:

1) I can't grow my B2B health-tech while working full-time

Stop trying to. Get a fractional who knows this better than you do and run a 6 month engagement. You'll pay a premium, but also get someone good. Put a carrot on the end of the stick for if X happens you get Y% of the business.

(They did that and are talking to 2 jets now).

2) I need to sell into more GP medical centres.

(Some back and forth about the problem, where the pain is, and how they solve it)

Churn in these places is high with the average staff member lasting 6-9 months. Scrape job ads as far back as the data will allow you and identify centres hiring receptionists. Direct outreach with receiptionist pain front and centre and mentioning the churn number. Offer some information/value add about your solution in an esy to yes/no way.

Boom - more top of funnel.

3) I need more parents to pilot our first smart-phone solutions for kids.

(You're funding this yourself and paying for ads? GTF out of here).

Authentic photo of you in-situ and looking like a parent. Write a post like you're talking to a mum in a WhatsApp chat. Drop it and the link in as many suburban Facebook groups as you can, with a polite "admins delete if not allowed, I'm just building something I believe in as a parent and looking for some help".

Boom - leads that aren't $20 CPL ouch.

Get your friends to do similar. Now turn that post into something that looks transmissible on WhatsApp (short, and against that ugly green - test it on a message to yourself). Get your Mum friends to share it in their channels.

Boom - even more leads.

--

No I'm not available.

Did you know you can link to your own Linkedin posts and pin them now?

I call this the human linkipede.

You’re welcome 😇

So what does a growth system look like? It's messy, powered by code, and you're constantly reviewing data.

But that doesn't tell you much, so I thought we'd share what it looks like "under the kimono" for Tuesday Demo Day.

Our main workflow runs:

- cold outreach
- an easy-to-say-yes-to offer
- aggressive follow-up - encouraging them to say no as actively as we can
- some cheeky nudging (oh btw did you know your competitors are doing this?)
- sign-ups

We couldn't have stood this up so effectively without AI.

It also enables us to improve at a very fast rate and iterate based on the feedback we're getting.

For example, part of our offer is creating social media content from their own listings. Sometimes the listings we mention have sold and our prospects would ghost or tell us no thanks.

We amended our copy to make the same offer and encourage them to provide an alternative.

From today:

"This one is under contract. Keen to see what you can do with xxxxxxx. There should be both a lifestyle and property video on the REA website. Let me know if you need any other assets. Thanks buddy!!"

I don't know about you but that's not how I'm replying to cold outreach targeted at me (I've started replying to the gormless LinkedIn DMs with GIFs).

Obvs have to be careful about what I share/don't share but happy to answer Q's and felt like I walked the right line here.

Shipping every Tuesday. That's what we do. Get some. Pew pew pew ⚡️

Your LinkedIn reach just got nerfed. Post anyway.

Here's some reasons why it still matters:

Beating a blank page is a win.
You can win every day.

You're practicing persuading.
This comes in handy regardless of who sees this one.

You're taking action.
Most people don't.

It's a vanity metric.
Creating momentum on anything helps.

You're exercising the creative part of your brain.
This seems more important than ever.

You're the boss.
Not the numbers.

If you do one and it pops off post-nerf.
You'll feel extra special knowing how hard it is now.

--

Plus you get to showcase random photos and videos for the fun of it.

And it's important to have fun sometimes.

Now go get it 💪

Happy Friday No.17, you get me in my pyjamas today because I'm having a sick day (boy lurgers). If you want to enjoy some slower groovy jams be my guest, and my weekly update is below because I feel even more off if I don't do it.

TOP

Turning off the lead gen last week meant our team had time to focus on other problems. Engineering focused on scale and stability, and my focus on other parts of the funnel. There's leaks everywhere (of course). But it's been fun figuring out ways to plug them while still focusing on bringing value to prospects and potential customers. Some of this has been good old fashioned grunt follow-up, and other parts have been using our capabilities very creatively to showcase the value - another 3 (possibly 4) customers this week and the change of focus was welcome.

FLOP

We've had to keep the lead generation off this week because the stability has taken longer to set up. It's felt weird not chasing that dopamine high of new ones coming in but it's for the best.

ASK

Here's a detailed ask for a fractional - and kudos for reading if you're the person:
Sounding out my network for a fractional one:

My friend is an old client and very senior.

He's been running a health-tech initiative for blue-collar/office + corporate workers, which has really been a passion project over the last 5-10 years.

There's a doctor as a figure-head.

Their methodology is robust. The preventative information they've shared with blue-collar workers in factories and industrial sites has been life-changing in some cases.

They've got a couple of good case studies with a presence in about 15-20 different sites.

I can give more detail about the brief and particulars, but basically they're looking for someone who can do a fractional six-month engagement, happy to roll their sleeves up and do a mix of GTM and sales. They should be happy working towards a target. And to make it worth their while, there would be some sort of percentage unlock post-engagement and with the milestones hit, because they understand something has to be in it for the kind of senior practitioner they're looking for.

I've got no capacity to help with this, but can absolutely do a warm intro and even help you on how I would think about the lead generation based on the brief.

But this is a roll-up-your-sleeves-and-get-it-done kind of role, and will suit a commercial-savvy marketing/sales generalist more than someone with a "pure" skill-set.

If there's anyone that fits that brief, I'd really appreciate it if you can DM me on LinkedIn with a quick blurb on why you're a great fit (if I don't know you already).

--

Alright back to some bed rest, the tune is Groove Armada's Chicago and I used to play it as my warm-up and test the bass track while I was setting up gigs during my short uni stint as a party DJ.

Absolutely no one: … Me: Here’s my 10 mins on the Anthropic IPO

It’s important to keep challenging yourself and your own thinking.

I love the added challenge of doing it In front of a camera.

2 ago we called this out with me goofing around with some toilet paper and pointing out that this stuff isn't okay - it's stigmatising. It should be common sense - but people living with complex mental health "look" like you, me, or our CEO Rachel here.

(Original post: https://lnkd.in/eun8eCA8)

From memory there were quick takedowns and a promise not to do it again.

It looks like some companies haven't learned their lesson (I'm blocked too lol).

I can napkin math the revenue they get from putting something like this up - and trust me it's not worth it guys.

Let alone the devastating perpetuation of ridiculous portrayals of mental health like this.

Why work on an AI startup when AI can take over what you do? Also no moats.

Well apart from that being an extremely black and white POV on how things actually work between technology, commercials, business challenges, communicating value, product, and intersections between sales, marketing, and relationship-building...

I also believe that doom-mongering is unfounded when you're an AI-first team that moves with the agility we do.

So check out our Tuesday Demo.

An influencer in the space shared how he can generate a website and promotional videos for selling his expensive, beach-side apartment and conflated that with RealEstate [dot] com au being cooked.

Nah man - to do such things costs $100s of dollars and that's not the game we're in.

But one of the advantages we do have is an engineering team that can build that magic that the influencer demo'd for cents on the dollar, and then pass that on to the customers we're pursuing with unassailable value relative to what the market is currently offering.

But iS it a mOaT?

I don't think it matters when we're going this fast and netting happy customers but happy to be proven wrong (it's important to stay curious and humble about this stuff after all).

There's no moat. A'ight - hold my tokens...

you left recruitment? how's it going?

Happy Friday No. 16. If you're seeing this post-LinkedIn reach nerf, welcome! I have people verbally telling me they can't see them any more despite me shipping every Friday. So enjoy this rare disruption to your feed and you can read my weekly reflections below.

GRINNING
- We're killing it at YPP. We really are. Leads have grown week on week on week and keep going. Our offer is solid and agents are snapping it up. Weekly counts over the last month - 26, 43, 47, 50, and 85 so far this week. Did I mention 10 of those are from the US? We launched 2 days ago. Oh Lordy we're having fun.

SHINNING
- We have had to pause our marketing for a day or two. The tech wasn't built to handle this volume of demand so fast. All sorts of random things have emerged. Our free samples has a backlog. I had to update my PC's BIOS as it crashed last night. We're burning through tokens with a super-user/influencer who is using the product multiple, multiple times per day that we didn't expect but are obviously solving for.

THINKING?
- I don't have an ask for me this week. If you've got an ask that I can answer with a quick note, voice, or response I'm happy to help you - just DM me and ask!

--

Tune this week is Bicep - Just. A classic from 11 years ago now. Huge tune and was enthusing with another head a couple of weeks ago about just how GOOD the new music coming out is at the moment. We're in a golden age of mixes to listen to because I've been doing that for 25 years and it has never been this good. This is partly due to YouTube mixes becoming more of a thing, electronic artists continuing to pursue new sounds, and for progressive house (my #1) you are absolutely spoiled for choice (both locally - rare! and internationally - oh my!)

Alright that's enough - this is a PROFESSIONAL NETWORKING platform.

Have a great weekend 🎧

Ship. Ship. Ship. That's what we do. We ship, ship, ship it's good for you. Here's another Tuesday Demo and we've added voice cloning for our customers to make their lives (and content creation) easier and easier.

This is how you do it.

Hey corporate denizens - just wanted to leave you with a thought while you're trying to extract value from your company's mandated Copilot sub. I registered "hackdigital" approximately 12 years ago after quitting my job at Google.

That's how far ahead I am from you in the "go fast starring me" race.

Enjoy debating whether you can discontinue using Lotus Notes while you receive an all-office asking people not to reply-all on the company holiday party email.

Love you and don't miss you 🥰

Happy Friday No. 15! You can see my weekly reflections underneath or just enjoy the epic building deep house jam.

GROWING 📈
- Leads up again week on week and should hit our first milestone (10 paying customers on the new product) in the next day or so. This is fast. So we're strapping in.
- Stripe set up this week, this means we can expand to other markets and will.

THROWING 🛘
- We had some big conversations around GradEngage this week which once it was out we realised it was overdue. It feels like we'll be ready to go to the next stage very soon but it required some honesty about resourcing and what we do with it.

KNOWING ❓
- Do I know anyone who needs podcast editing and shorts in my network that's open to having them done in exchange for mentions/sponsorship/contra? I'm going to be pitching this to some low-level real estate podcasters as a test but I'm open to sharing our tech with other markets. We would demo/test our product on existing recordings first and can do this on the house.

--

It's still hard at home on the fam with sickness and another funeral this week, but things are steadying back down and we've had a few nights of good sleep with the toddlers.

Hug your loved ones and enjoy your weekend!

I know I'm a canary down a coal-mine here, but if you're a knowledge worker and not actively planning for "how do I make myself not redundant" then here's your shot across the bow.

I'm wondering this for myself and I look forward to you remembering this thought 2 years down the road.

I made our founder stop what he was doing so I could demo the Stripe functionality. Or how I like to say: IMPORTANT BUSINESS CONTENT.

I do these Tuesday Demos every week not for the likes, engagement, view counts, or praise, but to get into the habit of SHIPPING which I know leads to WINNING.

So YPP now accepts Stripe, and this is awesome for us because we've been manually invoicing to date.

It's also awesome for us because this (along with some other magic automation sauce) means we can go after the US next week and start trying to sell them.

I also delegated my Tuesday Demo post to our tech for next week so I hope it works.

Enjoy the video (or don't) but there's some mad editing in it FYI.

17 things that improve my wellbeing as a founder:

1. Exercise every day in a sustainable way. I do this with light stretches/weights, heavy weights, basketball, or running - I can cycle through these every day of the week without fail.

2. Talking to new people every day.

3. Eat healthy repeatable foods I can fall back on. Porridge with a bit of peanut butter is one of my staples. As are sardines on toast. Or frozen veggies nuked and mixed through with rice, tuna, and seasoning. I can eat these all week and be fine.

4. Have a tools down time. I get excited, but know I'm better stopping by 9.30pm and going back to it the next day. There's always more to do, but adequate rest is always more important.

5. Staying in touch with startup friends. These are people I've simply networked with over a long career and one of them was in town last night. It was a pain in the butt getting home from the city, doing some quick jobs, briefly seeing my family, getting into my basketball gear, then meeting one of them in Ringwood. But it was awesome to meet my friend in person after years of staying in touch over the phone.

6. Not being precious about the pitch to every person and dog. I love the chance to try and break things down and explain what I'm doing succinctly to someone outside of this world. But I don't pull my hair out if they don't get it. It's novel, innovative, and hard-to-solve work - it doesn't matter if my Mum blanks.

7. Keeping my phone on monochrome mode.

8. Being honest about my capacity. I've been BDing in this space for over a decade. Things come through (yay) but I can't help you today (nay).

9. Deep meditation. I love my practice, and what I notice in my life because of it is the gift that keeps giving.

10. Competition. I'm competitive. I have sized up people that have crossed my path and know I can do better. I continue the study competition and know we can do better. I'm an animal when I want something and I wish them well (because they're going to need all the help they can get and even just thinking this energises the out of me).

11. Continually investing in my family. I love my partner. I love my boys. I love my cat. I love our home. Time with them is the best. I drove in yesterday afternoon and looked at them through my car window as their expressions changed. Their faces moved from curiosity to recognition to positively beaming at me. I wish I could I permanently etch that feeling into my soul. I'm so grateful for this.

12. I write. I just do. It will go here. It will go there. It might be saved to a folder or even a drafted email. It doesn't matter. Writing continues to fuel me. I don't know why anyone would generate when you can have this and its free and helps in magnitudes.

13. I do coffee meets. Meet someone new every week. More if possible. Help down if I can. Lead with curiosity. Be kind, generous, or helpful when its within my means. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

(continued in comments)

I love clear thinking. Penning my thoughts out helps this. I've done this with a keyboard since late teenage years, but I'm thinking I want to go back to ye olde pen.

There's mountains of evidence that writing with a pen helps recall.

But I'm also witnessing knowledge work changing as we know it.

A challenge I have is that my hand literally aches after writing a few sentences.

But I usually want to write more than that.

Increasing legibility would be nice too.

Has anyone thought about this? Have you solved it? Or are you happy punching out hieroglyphics that only you can read?

Happy Friday No. 14 - I'm glad my working life has been fun lately because our family has been beset by unfortunate things :( See my updates below ⬇️

GRINNER :D

- Biggest week yet of leads for YPP. I'm having a blast seeing what works, analysing the data, and being ready to discard things that aren't working quickly. We've found some compelling entry points and hooks, and am now thinking about what we can do to both increase top of funnel and accelerate conversions. I had an old funnel simulator that was janky AF and recorded what I wanted and sent it to Claude Code, and now have a visual way to plot, plan, and improve. I think we're going to beat things again this week as its tracking but there's always more to solve!


- GradEngage is a Finalist for the AAGE AGRIA's for Innovation. For those of you outside the acronyms - the Australian Association of Graduate Employers has their annual industry night in November and our startup is right up there and competing. A big thanks to our team and the clients we serve who can see there's a better way to prepare their graduate talent for the workforce!

DIMMER 🌅

- We celebrated G's Dad's life on Sunday and we're all sadder for having lost him. Then one of our boys has been having seizures and he went to RCH and getting scans today, so we're all smashed. I'm looking forward to the weekend.

SHIMMER? 🌠

- A funny thing happened last week, I was speaking with a founder who just sold and bought his next house. I said: "give me names!" and he was happy for me to reach out and name drop - so I did. His real estate agent replied with: "I appreciate you reaching out. I’m very impressed with the level of detail that you went through with your proposal. "

So when I'm asking you to send me real estate agents - its not so I can make you look like a spanner, our product is so good and problem we solve is so good that they want it - it's just they're so darn busy with a million other things I have to do all sorts of fun things to capture their attention and hold it - so send me names?

--

These Friday mornings are going pretty well hey - might have to do a coffee rave soon? :D

A lot of senior leaders have NFI how to use online communities.

Yet when they are made redundant, start fractional work, or go founder mode, they expect leads to fall into their lap after an announcement.

That’s not how communities work, and while they can be a source of leads, if that’s the only reason you’re using them then you’re going to have a wretched time.

Here’s some things I’ve picked up over time:

> participate BEFORE you need something. This means introducing yourself, commenting thoughtfully, and helping before you need to (promote your link/ask for something). Help can take many forms - identifying with the problem, engaging, offering an alternative view, referring help or resources that have helped and more - it’s not pitching. And if you bonafide have a straight up bullseye for them you flag and state the obvious breach only because it’s a bullseye.

> find your tribe and channels. Some people love Skool or Circle - I’d rather set my keyboard on fire. Others like Slack or FB groups. You can try and leave its okay. Unless you’ve paid, then I would evaluate if your decision criteria is sound for paid communities and/or pass what doesn’t work for you onto their community lead/helpers

> Don’t linkdrop or post AI-generated content. Both are super obvious.

I like to think of them as intelligence-gathering, keeping your finger on the pulse of trends, helping up and comers, and building new (or reinforcing) relationships.

This is all fancier wording for business development (BD).

If you're a senior person looking for a job, a founder, or a fractional - that's what you need to do.

It's less:
HURR-post-get-LEADS

And more:
Hmm, if I connect the dots here I can get to know this person better there and ohhh look at this new aperture from that catch-up if I just do a little nudge here I gots me some OPPORTUNITY SOUP 🍜

Some communities I'm active in:
- Generate
- Sydney Startups
- GTM ANZ
- Aussie Founders Club
- IRL By Amber

Ciao!

We used to joke at YouTube that if you "just add cats" your videos will pop off.


Well now you can watch my Tuesday Demo for this week and tell me if that advice still holds (checks age) 15 years later 🤣

So here's what our customers are seeing:

> easy social sign-in (I accidentally flashed my pass in the original recording so accept the edit!)

> content calendar

> post approvals via swiping or auto-mode (our customers say they want approval-based then just go auto when their confidence grows)

> content idea creator - they just upload a video or idea and we take care of the rest for them

See ya next week 😘

(...or look up the YouTube video "catvertising" if you're after one of the classics!)

Does this mean I'll be able to play piano now? ...no.

I'm not saying they're flat out lying buuuuuuut...

Last weekend I griped about signal bros meanwhile we're getting pleasantries and manners back on our cold email campaigns.

Please.

Happy Friday No .13! Enjoy the trance or tap and view my copy to find my reflections on the week.


BANGING

Hmm, how do I put this... We're KILLING IT on cold outreach. The messaging, how we do it, what we offer, the uptake and conversion are the best I've been able to pull off on any scaled campaigns I've run to date. The offer is relevant, it hits on a problem most agents haven't solved, it's niggled at them, and is positioned very much as a try before you buy no-brainer. There's some old-school agents who are just flat no, but the ones that say "yes" to the freebie are frequently saying "is that all?" when we follow-up with the price.

CLANGING

We've killed Meta ads. My ego wants to keep going and crack it, but the data is saying otherwise. We had some false positives where we creamed it on a financial services campaign (50+ bums on seats) and an instantaneous customer with our first ads, and since then has been very cost inefficient relative to the above. I know we can crack it but may as well wait and continue to make hay with the above to finance that. I coach nearly all early-stage founders (especially ones without capital) to do the same and it turns out I'm no different haha.

HANGING?

My ask has been the same for several weeks now - if you know or are friendly with a real estate agent, just send me their name. I can name-drop or not (whatever you're comfortable with) and send them a sample to get their feedback. The sample is 10 social posts put together including videos of their recent listings, carousels, and motion-video reviews. Their obligations are zero. Thanks!

--

It's been really gloomy around the house the last few weeks with G's father passing. The memorial is this Sunday and our whole family is taking it hard, grieving, and our beloved toddler twin boys have been acting out even more than usual. I've been through grief and we just have to accept it, let it wash over us, feel it, and accept that it's going to be messy for a while.

We lived with him for 2 years before we bought this house which makes the whole thing hurt even more.

I'm so glad our boys got to bond with you over that time K and hope you're at peace now ❤️

There's a new way to test and build email sequences.

I don't need to be sold on the value of email. It's the best converting channel for every online business over the last 3 decades and it's not even close.

Businesses that disagree are doing email wrong - it's not a channel issue.

But setting this stuff up is nightmare fuel.

Drips, sequences, convoluted maps that look like wireboard circuitry or neural maps.
Stupid tech bro names like: marcheto, symposio, and convolutsio that are so bad that you're not sure if you're at a Saleforce evangelist pep-talk or a bad pasta joint.

And you used to need experts, who could scry the hieroglyphics to try and extract a droplet of ROI from a startup sold the dream for $2m (true story).

I'm already running our startups from the CLI.

Up until recently I was porting things through HubSpot or beehiiv and the jank ranged from awful to okay I guess.

We've got a bottleneck in one of the businesses where we have lots of leads (good) who accept our free offer (great) and then play games as our sales-lead tries to chase them down (bad).

We don't care if they just wanted the freebie, they can simply say "not interested".

But having a salesperson do this is inefficient.

Enter Nitrosend.

We set up a 5-day sequence with the paid offer, the value they get, how easy it is, a testimonial, another reason why its easy, and a break-up email with a nudge towards our newsletter.

That used to take a long time.

I had our first drafts done in about 20 minutes.

From sign-up (bing in you go to Claude Code) to evaluation (here team what do we need to change about these check yo' inboxes).

I've used this earlier in beta and was blown away by (but not surprised) by how much its improved since then.

I don't think you're fully appreciating how hard this used to be.

So I'm going to take a moment and tell you with more examples again -

I've had global companies struggle to set up auto-responders to free samples,

I've sat in on PII debates that have raged for 15 months without testing a single email blast,

I've had tired and forlorn founders point me to their sad and pathetic Mailchimp that's struggled to receive new subscribers because their WordPress plugin expired and there was a security vulnerability.

Those days are cooked.

COOKED I tell you.

p.s. I was not paid for this endorsement - Nathan Clark told me that George Hartley☄️ would love it if I posted something like this and I said I had already DM'd him but he's too busy to reply to praise from one of his beta testers.

If I was going to switch out of a marketing career, here's what I'd do:

1. Scout other departments/categories that are marketing adjacent:
- partnerships
- program delivery
- L&D
- people ops
etc

2. Scan the job market and pay attention to what they're asking for at your level, a level-down (you'll probably need to drop). Note what the asks are, what jargon don't you understand? What would you need to understand to succeed? (You can't AI this)

3. Now apply (you probably won't go very far but try) and take note of the process, but more importantly who else is connected to the department you're trying to penetrate - find 2-5 people per company.

4. Reach out to those people once you have at least 5 companies, that's 10-50+ people you can reach out to.

5. Now do non-AI written, genuinely interested to get to know them over coffee outreach. A good strike rate on this for a newbie on something like this is 1 out of 10. So shut the fuck up with "I did cold outreach and it didn't work".

6. When you meet them, learn about what makes them tick, how they're enjoying life, what they're focused on, and ask follow-up questions around this to learn how you can help them either now or in the future. THEN share what you're trying to do and are seeking advice on where to focus.

7. This is the most important bit - so it gets its own numbered bullet. Now write down all of the advice you get from the valuable people's time and learn and do them. This will take 2-3 months minimum.

8. Now apply for a fresh round of jobs with your newly acquired skills and let the people who helped you know that you appreciated their advice and what you've done to action it. You appreciate it, have applied for XYZ at ABC and hope to stay in touch.

That's it, that's the game.

The unlock was the hidden-industry insider knowledge that's required to enter into a category.

You can't fake it, you need to learn it.

Good luck.

(Hot reverse take though: why would you want to leave marketing now though?

There's so much reward out there for people who want to lean into the technical and learn with AI - you can do the work of 5-10 people now ngl)

Or become a founder, but if you're asking questions like the top I suspect you're not cut out for it!

Best way to film an apartment walkthrough as a real estate agent?

One take, on your phone, talking as you walk. That's the filming sorted.

The hard bit has always been the edit. It eats hours, it isn't what agents are good at, and the effort never feels worth what you get back.

So most walkthroughs sit on a phone doing nothing or in a message sent to a few people and left alone.

Here's what happened with one this week.

Timothy Bosshard at Ray White Brisbane City filmed a walkthrough of an apartment he's selling in Aurora Tower.

One go, on his phone, talking the whole way through.

He didn't script it and he didn't do a second take.

He uploaded the file to Your Property Pilot and our tech did the rest:

> captions on everything he says
> the view slides in when he talks about the river and the Story Bridge
> the building's facilities, shown as he mentions them
> what's local, dropped in underneath
> a checklist of what you get for the price
> an end card with how to get in touch with Tim

Agency-level editing for a fraction of the price, and all Tim has to do is upload a file.

If you're filming your own, this is what makes the edit easy (for us or for anyone):

> Shoot vertical. Most people watch on their phone.
> Start at the front door and walk the way a buyer would.
> Talk to one buyer, not the camera. Say what you'd say at the open home.
> Name the good stuff out loud: the view, the pool, the storage. It gives the edit something to cut to.
> Walk slower than feels natural and give each room a few seconds.
> Film in daylight with the blinds open.
> If you stumble, keep going. The umms get cut.
> Finish with the local area and how to reach you.

The questions agents ask us the most:

How long should it be?
As long as the apartment needs. The edit cuts it down into shorter versions for each feed.

Do I need a gimbal or a camera crew?
No. A recent phone is fine. Just hold it steady.

Should I script it?
No. You know the property better than anyone. Talking off the cuff is what makes it sound like you.

Where does it end up?
Reels, Shorts and your socials, all in your agency's brand.

That's another Tuesday Demo Day in the bank!

Because I'm a psycho: I got AI to analyse all my journalling over the last decade.

There's all sorts of dark and disturbing shit in there.

But don't worry - that's not what this post is about.

It's about one of the nuggets extracted from 100k+ words of self-reflection.

One of those extracts was: THE CONTAINER BEATS THE VOW.

What that meant in practice:

When I declared to myself I'm going to do the thing 🙋‍♂️

I was setting to fire any hopes I had of achieving that thing.

Yet when I create a container for doing the thing (something external I just follow) - the thing gets done.

I'm sure I could throw in some opining about ADHD here but I'd rather share a recent win with this system.

I love running.
Since the twins got too big for the running pram its suffered.
So I brought a program back - 5 days a week, but to very easy and manageable levels.
3 weeks down, 15 runs logged, and it gets done.

Some people call this systems.
My AI chose to call it a container.

I think systems is better and this is why you don't get AI to name everything.

📸 there's a lot going on here

One of the shit parts of LinkedIn is interacting with technical GTM posts.

Not because that in itself is shit (it’s important to have hobbies).

But because then the signal-scraping bros raid your inbox like it’s loot farming time

Happy Friday No. 12! And it's becoming shorts weather ☀️ ⬇️

STEAMING 🚂

The growth engine is building on Your Property Pilot. Tweaking a few more levers and sitting at 6 happy recurring customers. Our first stretch goal is 50, and we had an enquiry from Fiji yesterday. Things are looking pretty darn good.

STEAMING 😤

I get some monthly skin prick desensitisation injections via my GP each month for grass and dust. I'm into the 3rd year of the treatment and there's no doubt its worked. Unfortunately on Monday my specialist had ordered the wrong kits, and because I was moving GPs as well (local vs where I used to live) it meant I lost half a day for nothing. I spent the week catching up on that lost time which was frustrating. It's not the first time I've had issues with this monthly recurrence.

STEAMING? ☕️

Real estate agents are a broad bunch - some are old, some are young, and obviously the problem we present to one isn't always going to be the same resonance as when its presented to another. Where we seem to be getting the most traction is from agents who have had this on again/off again relationship with social media. They've done stints when its quiet, then stopped, then tried again and never really got it going satisfactorily. They seem to be the ones that value our social media product the most, and messaging related to exposure, reach, and building a personal brand seems to work better than "done-for-you on autopilot" - if any of that is triggering idea berries I want to hear from you 🙏

--

No, Dom Dolla isn't in my usual track rotation, but thought I'd play one in honour of the dude filling Marvel Stadium last night. 60,000 people grooving to a local DJ. That's crazy good regardless of where my music taste sits!

What does AI actually do in a real estate agency day to day?

Mostly, it does the jobs agents know matter but never get around to.

I look after growth at Your Property Pilot. We're a marketing agency built for real estate agencies from the ground up, and we lean on AI so our customers get better service at a better cost. Ray White Brisbane City is our lead customer, and we're signing agencies across NSW, VIC and QLD.

So I get to see this up close.

Take social media.

Every agent knows they should be posting. It builds a personal brand, it gives a vendor something to look at before the appraisal, and it keeps you in front of the people in the suburbs you work in so they can decide if they want to work with you.

But that's not what agents are good at. They're good at knowing the market and talking to people, bringing a vendor along on the journey and doing the work that sells the home.

So we take it off their plate. AI turns what they've already got into content, with no extra work from them:
>> their reviews
>> their listings
>> what's happening with the homes they've sold

And if they've got a creative bone in their body, we build on that too.

My favourite example is the walkthrough video. Timothy Bosshard and Kirsten Walsh at Ray White Brisbane City each shoot one narrated walkthrough of an apartment they're selling, on their phone, in one take, and upload it. We cut it into reels and short edits that suit each feed, with captions, labels and an end card, all in the agency's brand. Their job ends at the upload.

That's the stuff agents are asking for right now.

The more exciting part is what sits behind it.

We've run an AI receptionist. We've had AI agents sell properties, with the agent getting the contract in their inbox. Our AI voice agents work through lapsed leads, update the CRM, send texts, make follow-up calls and touch everyone who came through an open home.

No agent could do that heavy lifting at pace, even if they spent every minute of their day on it.

So why don't we lead with it? Because the market's still early. We're focused on what agents want today, and we'll be ready for the ones who want that extra edge as AI fluency grows.

This is what I've learned so far but I'm keen to hear from agents and principals (all of you in feed - haha): what's the job you know matters but never gets done?

p.s. got a walkthrough video sitting on your phone doing nothing? That's usually where we get started.

5 ways I keep my marketing skills sharp (without using AI)

1. I write every day.
Yes, the manual way. It's scientifically proven to make your thinking clearer. It extracts mind debris. It makes me smarter. It forces me to think about what words go with what in order to be persuasive, interesting, or engaging.

2. I test angles on normies.
I talk to people every day. Believe it or not, the majority of them aren't marketers. I'll share something I'm working on. I make it interesting. Then I pay careful attention to their level of interest. I'm looking for things like: how did they react? Was it clear to them? Where did their attention wane? What would make this more captivating? What could I remove? This happens on autopilot because its habitual and I'm a weirdo who loves this shit.

3. I film videos.
It's painful. Editing is a bitch. It feels awkward after 100s of times. It's also incredibly powerful. When we were helping launch YouTube's advertising capability across APAC - we'd present the power of "sight, sound, and motion" to some of the world's biggest brands. Unilever's and P&G's would lean forward as we showed them. They understood the power of this medium at a visceral level. It's just as powerful today. Less people do it. It's harder. And in a world filled with slop it's more real.

4. I look at trends.
I keep a "swipe file" and save articles and clips that interest me. Two words. Interest and me. That's the bar. I don't question whether I clip it or not. It's a yes or no question. If I need inspiration or a reference this is where I will visit first. This works. Anyone can do it. Most don't.

5. I lead with curiosity.
When I meet someone new I want to know what drives them. I don't mean their life purpose. I mean what is getting them going right now. If they're pissed off about something I ask why. Then I try to get more detail on that why and play it back to them. This is how research and depth works. You want a surface-level answer you can search or prompt for it. You want a deeper answer you have to dig and enquire more deeply about the person in front of you and that takes conscious work and effort.

--

AI is a very disruptive technology. It's impact is over-stated in the short-term and and still under-estimated over the long-term. My craft will look extremely different in the years to come.

Yet that's not what makes me a top performer.

It's conscious, continuous, career-enhancing traits like the above.

Anyone can do them, but most won't.

So we got our man Tim to do a single point and shoot around an apartment he was doing a walkthrough for, and...

it's Tuesday Demo Day! 🥳

One of the things we've been focusing on is making it easier for customers to just film content and dump it on us - we'll take care of the rest.

This is working.

Tim did a point and shoot and we had to *check* that he didn't edit it himself.

Because it *knew* to splice in cuts of the apartment's view, and laundry - because that is what a buyer cares about.

The funny thing is we didn't tell the AI to do this.

It had referenced the *intent* documentation that had been prepared, and then went and answered the request based on that intent without an explicit goal.

It's not often a technical founder is impressed - but yes, he was impressed.

We've got 6 customers for this now and triple that in pipeline 💫

If you've got a (real estate) agent friend I'm happy to ship them some freebies so they get a taste too.

LFG 💪

Pro-tip: when they offer you Transitions lenses and you remember the ad where they go back to clear inside…


Delete your memory off that TVC abort and reject the upsell, is not worth it and you’ll look like a massive goofer every time you step inside for about 20 minutes any time there’s even a hint of sun.

You can thank me later

When your basketball team and work collide 💥

Happy Friday No. 11 - back to some regular jamming!

GRAND 🍦
The product is working quite well with the handful of customers we've got. We're noticing extra organic views, happy agents, and quality output. I'm pretty sure we'll be able to transition this tech into paid ads, and will be piloting it over the next few weeks for both our testers and alpha customers.

BLAND 📉
We lost my spouse's Dad over the weekend. Telling our boys was brutal. It's awful. Grief hits hard. I'm not 100% and we're all just helping each other and letting it hit as it needs to.

STAND 🙏
Still loving warm referrals into real estate agents, we generate a sample of what we can do (they don't do anything) and then send it to them for feedback - LMK if you're warm with anyone.

Have a great weekend and hug your loved ones 🫶🏻

I love basketball, startups, and networking (when it's done well) and Brandon Burns keeps the fire burning with his regular basketball networking (and lunch)!

I was gutted to miss the last one so despite some recent sad news I was very pleased to suit up and run around.

Awesome to connect with some new faces - Marcus and PropertyLaddr sounds innovative as!

And reconnect with old ones (that's you Scott Handsaker and I'll keep finding you when you're open 🫶🏻)

Mad props for keeping this going over the years and even my spouse knows how much I enjoy making the trek over to MSAC.

If you're on the fence about these events let me know and I'll bring you along to the next one like a diligent buddy.

I then played last night in our local league Grand Final and...

We won! Got the chocolates and shot the lights out, despite it being a very rough game (it was 3v3 at the end as 5 players fouled out!)

I take being a Dad very seriously and staying active as a later-stage Dad even more seriously - I've got a lot of living left to do and want to be around while our young'uns grow into adults.

It's Tuesday Demo day!

So we're getting customers and shipping posts on autopilot for customers.

So I thought I'd just show you.

I had a funny chat at the networking basketball lunch with an awesome founder named Marcus:

"What's your value prop? Yeah but what's the use case?"

I couldn't answer in any smooth way because the honest answer is we don't know - we're just following where the traction is going and selling MRR deals for a product we invented 2 weeks ago lmfao.

Enjoy Tuesday Demo minutes.

(p.s absolutely wild how fast this stuff edits now - that's something we built too)

One of the things I don't have to worry about when talking about AI is that I can be extremely generous about what I share.

My default is already: share, share, SHARE

So for my chat with Zachary King on his new Operator AI pod, I just saddled up and opened the kimono 👘

I cover:

- what we're doing with GradEngage to map TAM and touch every valid prospect

- how I operate my workflows and why I'm hosting Claude Code on a virtual machine (pictured)

- how we were able to turn our landing page design into a WordPress theme

and much more

I listened to it over the weekend and what I liked about talking through it with Zach is that he could zoom in and clarify things as we talked through it.

It's hard to know what level to explain things from and he did great.

I also mention a "new project" at the end - which I can now reveal is Your Property Pilot where we're going even faster.

A month is a long time in AI.

Happy Friday No. 10 (for yesterday)!

Have been doing these run downs each week for my own momentum, a lot has changed in a few months lol.

TOP 💫
- Dozens of leads and multiple sales coming through for Your Property Pilot now. The messaging and conversations are smoothing and it’s bloody addictive watching them ping through the channel on our Discord. Even though our tech is far more sophisticated than social media posting, we’re simply meeting the market where it’s at instead of fighting/educating them where the higher value corridors are (we can always offer it later)

FLOP 📉
- Another fresh problem that only happens because it’s AI is load. Our video remixing was taking a couple of hours. Fine when we were testing, but it’s holding things up when there’s 5+ leads per day. The workaround for now is to port that work away from my virtual machine onto my gaming PC for a speed boost.

CROP 🚜
- Real Estate Agents are still our core focus, but have been taking pot shots at other categories who can also benefit from video remixing/social media repurposing. I’ve tried coding educators, investor updates, and sales trainers. If you’ve got a bunch of longform content and you think it’s under-leveraged - DM me and we might be able to cook something in exchange for feedback.


—

No DJing this week.

We’re right in the middle of some challenging family news and it felt inappropriate to boogie, but then it felt even more weird to break the chain.

You can have an old snap of my set up from my studio in the Newtown days.

See ya next week 🎧

11 things I hate doing as a digital marketer that I now delegate to AI



- setting up google tag manager
- setting up google analytics 4
- setting up posthog or clarity
- setting up conversion tracking
- setting up google search console
- getting all of these talking to each other and weaving a consistent story across all
- writing digital ad copy
- setting up ads in (ad platform here)
- mapping the conversion tracking back to the above
- disaggregating traffic from bots
- setting up server-side tagging to beat bots



This can all be done from an LLM command line, and



if you know what you're doing re: the above, and



if you understand why you need to do all of the above (as a digital marketer who existed at a high-level before all of this capability arrived), then



working life is pretty darn good right now.



People who say AI isn't replacing marketing are putting their heads in clouds, and


I'm seeing a lot of cloud and while I'm early this is a hill I'll die on - come get it I will cut you 🤺

An escalating breakdown of what personal branding is, why it’s relevant for nearly everyone today, and 3 examples within a 3 minute trip 🕚

Do you know what floats my plane? Mixing boats with my metaphors ✈️

It's Tuesday Demo days.

I'm trying to show and tell each week as we go - mainly because the tech is so adaptable to what we're trying to impact and grow - and it's quite easy to spin up visuals about what we're doing.

So we invented the social remixer and have been pushing 10 post samples to leads and then asking them if they'd like to work together.

And it's working yewwwww - we closed a sale last week and think we've had another come through today.

We're building a tonne of skills and "up-skill" mechanics with Intent architecture which is fun and the process so far has been:

1. Run channel
2. Can we improve channel
3. Can we automate the improvement and the running of the channel
4. How much can we comfortably let go of and still improve the result (<-- we're here)
5. Can we automate the whole thing

We've been running cold email, ads, and warm referrals so far and experimenting with non-ICP customers too (seeing a lot of requests for social video editing).

We've also added social sign-in for YouTube, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and TikTok is the last piece of that ah-pizza pie!

LFG 🚀

Not everyone can be saved 🙏

I used to absolutely smash myself fixing things for clients (and leaders) in my agency days.

To really unhealthy levels.

The social media lead quit. I took over and started running the campaigns in Ads Manager.

The client needed changes on 23rd December, I worked into Christmas Eve making them happen in an empty office.

I really pushed the envelope at pitch time.

I have no doubt that by doing this in my 20s I learned skills that are incomparable to the market.

I also don't recommend everyone do this.

I crashed and learned the lessons I needed to learn.

One of those lessons is boundaries.

It turns out this is really, really handy to have as a founder.

I met one I liked and helped them with investor connections, where to find one of their target segments, multiple meetings, and even built a list and reached out to 10 of the targets because I had that much belief in them (1 connect, still got it).

But then they kept asking - and burned one of my intros thoroughly by not respecting what they'd set up.

The equation changes, where I no longer hold belief or interest, and it's done.

These lessons transfer well today:

With YPP we tested another segment through an existing connection.

The target was receiving 40+ YT shorts over 2 weeks, wasn't already using the channel for impact, and kept telling us to do the shorts in a different way.

I educated them on the thinking, how the channel works, and how it will literally increase their subscriber growth (provably).

They still demurred, and we ended the investigation there.

I have no doubt we could have helped but not everybody can be saved.

You have to choose where to place your energy and make those guardrails REALLY clear.

LFG 💪