Tim Doyle

@omooretweets this definition of paid ads belongs in the hall of fame of dumb VC takes.

Wow, lots of discourse on this one! A few things I want to point out from the original post: 1. I am talking about generational consumer companies. In my mind these are $10 B - $20 B+ outcomes. There are many other AMAZING consumer businesses that have gotten big with paid ads. 2. I’m not saying all growth has to be 100% organic. I’m referring specifically to paid ads which I’ve seen to be nearly always inflationary over time (cost increases at scale). This doesn’t include creator marketing, brand marketing, referral programs, etc. 3. Historically the biggest consumer outcomes are network effects businesses (social apps and marketplaces). In these cases, unless the network is growing itself pretty organically, usually the product value proposition is not strong enough. 4. Note that I say it’s a problem to grow “largely” with paid ads. I have seen companies use ads to kickstart a flywheel that then grows more organically. But if you’re 50%+ paid ads for a significant period of time starting in the early days, I think it’s tougher. This is why a lot of the consumer subscription businesses (physical and digital) that are ad-dependent have grown to be $1 B+ businesses but aren’t the biggest consumer businesses in the world. This could change with AI as the true mainstream user is willing to directly pay for software! And, lots of counter examples that people have pointed out - in my mind TikTok is probably the biggest one. That uniquely required a large content graph to start hooking users.

@jaelubberink_ Slop^

We are amidst the next labour bubble in tech: storytelling. Romanticised, whimsical and gentrified refurbishments to marketing and comms. Exotic and creative enough to lure in the hubristic and narcissistic strivers who think they are above those titles (like me). Again, you can’t just say you do this - to sift through the mire, you must find those with the best craft, the most reps, and the deepest public opus of quality and novelty under their own name. Most trying to grift into this labour bubble lack any fundamental skill to tell stories, they just desire a cushy and romanticised job to continue their rent seeking. They likely do not read, nor write. Any ‘AI driven’ storyteller should be shorted immediately, they are confessing out loud that they lack both the skill to do it, and the depth to understand that you need it, and that lobotomising the creative process altogether is the antithesis to good storytelling. Don’t blend AI with storytelling, mediocrity is the prize. Narrative craft takes decades. If you’re starting now, you’re too late. Huge bull market inbound for good writers (not you)

@Ashwinreads That’s surely close to wrong now?

ubs estimates 40million people on a GLP-1 by 2030, which works out to be only 0.5% of the worlds population - we’re so damn early

@nikiscevak Was wondering who would post this.

This photo in 2022 proved to be a strong buy signal

At Eucalyptus we've learned this lesson every day for seven years, and I expect to continue to learn it every day for the next decade as Hims&Hers makes it simple for hundreds of millions of people around the world to improve their health.

The average person wants simplicity. Make it simple for them to understand their health, provide simple, empathetic advice and make it easy to take action. If you can do that, patients will stick around, and their health will improve.

We're joining @wearehims to build the world's great preventative health business. What I think separates @AndrewDudum and his team from the endless list of businesses pursuing this, is the understanding and ability to serve the average person.

Today, we’re on the fast track to becoming the leading global consumer health platform: we’ve agreed to acquire Eucalyptus, an international innovator in digital health. We’ve spent several years investing in our international footprint because we know that the status quo in healthcare across the world still doesn’t put the individual at the center. When I met @_Timdoyle many years ago, I knew immediately that we shared a similar perspective on how to change the status quo. Helping people feel great means tackling multiple conditions and recognizing that one size doesn’t fit all. It requires a diversified platform that can meet almost anyone where they are with care that is built for them. It’s what makes Tim and his team leaders outside the US, and it’s why we’ve made the decision to welcome them to Hims & Hers after closing. Their dedication to consumers has resulted in an incredible business with an ARR north of $450 million USD that delivered triple-digit year-over-year ARR growth every quarter last year. Together, we’re going to push the industry to put people at the center of healthcare and help more people experience care that feels like a luxury without costing like one. I have always known the value of what we’re building for customers at Hims & Hers isn’t restricted to borders. That’s even more true today. Read more here, including important footnotes and disclaimers: investors.hims.com/news/news-deta…

@DavidLWhiteman Really, i think personalised is a fair call, but I think they get the contextual bit pretty right. I'm no fan of the product but the results for advertisers are pretty strong.

@_Timdoyle I have never seen an actual personalised or contextual post-purchase offer from ROKT, just a carousel of mostly random coupons and offers, how would this solve their problem?

OpenAI should buy ROKT imo, feels like the right ad unit + a mostly functioning buying platform, would solve a big problem.

@amasad Manus bidding into your brand in Australia with your company name in the ad. Google will block this if you register it with them and this would cause heaps of bleed.

@stevehind @HarryStebbings Indistinguishable from the actual podcast.

Podcast ads are actually wild. You can spend $ and get people like @HarryStebbings to say in their voice (and implicitly thereby lend their credibility) to shit that is like fully provably not true.

@tsdheo @MarkDiStef @dannolan you still got any of the shirts?

@MarkDiStef @_Timdoyle @dannolan Probably for the best it was the pre social media era

Journos reading yud in Australia is going to end up with some cockeyed ai safety institute being set up here - count on it

@MarkDiStef @dannolan Doug Thompson

@dannolan You’re surprised? We are led by the biggest idiot student politicians we went to uni with

@sandykory @jaelubberink_

Roy Lee and Cluely showed that an engagement-first approach can get you funded. But a recent headline suggests Roy may be reconsidering this path, which got me thinking about why this approach is so problematic. Don't get me wrong, I understand the appeal. Roy did some unconventional things, got funded by a16z, and generated a massive amount of attention. He's just the latest founder to subscribe to the mindset that engagement should be a top priority for a tech startup. The argument goes that you play the algorithms, post outlandish content, get eyeballs, and then figure out the product stuff later. Given I'm not an investor, I only have a superficial understanding of Cluely, so I don't want to rush to judgment. But it seems to me like this is a dead-end approach that I would feel sad if other founders wanted to emulate. If you want to be the next Kim Kardashian or Mr. Beast, sure, attention is your game. But building a great technology company is fundamentally different. It's predicated on being obsessed with building a great product that solves real customer needs—no part of which fits into the attention hound playbook. Mr. Beast could launch Mr. Beast Pizza and get tons of people to try it because of his attention. But if it's crappy pizza, it's not going to be a good business. Same with software. You can get people to try your product through viral engagement, but that doesn't make it a good product. The particularly dangerous thing is the psychological trap baked into this. When you're nailing social media engagement, you get intense gratification from that fast feedback—you're getting dopamine from your audience. But building a truly great product—the kind that creates lasting companies—requires a completely different form of satisfaction. It's slower, harder to measure, and demands relentless focus over months and years. And this is why sequencing matters so much. You can build great product culture first, develop that discipline and craft, and then layer on marketing and sales excellence later. I think it's very possible to do the right things early on to build the product culture and the innovation factory. And then later you can evolve the marketing and the sales—that can work. But if you start with viral social media success and try to build product discipline after? You've already trained yourself to optimize for the wrong metrics. The psychological patterns are set, and they're very difficult to break.

@LipmanJustin Think golf fashion is derivative of golf

@_Timdoyle golf trend is partly a fashion related thing no? anyway, camping fits your ask

Running and golf two resurgent activities among younger people. Social, time spent outside, long duration? Anything other examples?

@SardineTruther Good shout, very similar dynamic.

@_Timdoyle Fishing! I've seen a ton of young blokes at every marina when docking, having a flick. Turns out its huge on local TikTok, with a bunch of influencers in the space.

@andrew__reed @TrustVanta Best B2B marketers anywhere atm.

14,000 companies choose @TrustVanta

@StuartBlitz Big opportunity for the Hone Mango collab though

Eli Lilly PR when they have to write another press release clarifying other companies are "partnering with them"