Michael Bramlage

How did $10,000, a homeless person, and counting to 100,000 change the trajectory of my startup? It was May 2017 and my VP of Marketing at Quidd showed me a video of @MrBeast. Back then, Jimmy was making videos in his bedroom and we were experimenting with influencer sponsorships, when virtually no one was doing it. We watched him count to 100,000 in a single, 24-hour long video. We loved it, and so did the YouTube algorithm. So we took a bet. Offered him $10,000 for a simple shoutout. Rather than take the money, Jimmy had the brilliant idea to give it away. That giveaway format helped propel MrBeast in the early days. For us? It blew the doors off of every other marketing channel we'd tried, helped us get to the #1 rank in the US App Store, and was instrumental in our next funding round. The lesson? Small tests in unproven channels can become your biggest growth lever, which can lead to significant business outcomes. This is why we created Factory. To help cutting-edge companies bet on frontier marketing channels, and find hidden pockets of demand before their competitors do.

I bet the real value is increasing the percentage of your day spent “walking while away from desk” as humans unpack and repack thoughts better while moving at ~3 mph. The rate at which stimulus comes to you on a walk is in that sweet spot of slow but not too slow to form new ideas, synthesize old ones, and find breakthroughs that otherwise wouldn’t come to you staring at a screen.

One result of AI models accelerating quickest in coding is that developers are a leading indicator of what work looks like for everyone else. Developers have shifted from doing stuff to kicking off agentic processes and then checking them as they come back. This leads to spurts of decision making with downtime in between. Even as someone who’s not a developer (other than building my own AI tooling stack), this is how I’ve started working over the last couple months. I’m primarily kicking off processes, then checking results as they come back, approving or tweaking. This actually aligns well with being productive while having some balance. I can take a walk, sit on a park bench, check for anything that needs my attention, then read an article or meditate for a few minutes. Pretty cool.

@dan__rosenthal ABM

I’ve NEVER seen a B2B company fail to scale with ABM when they build signal infrastructure that automatically scores, routes, and alerts. That said… I just built this ABM playbook for you to steal. 8 steps from ICP model to realtime CRM updates with intent signals and dedicated Slack channels for warm leads. I recorded a full video breaking down the entire workflow. It covers: • The 8-step framework from ICP to activation • How we track 1st, 2nd, and 3rd party signals • The awareness scoring model (5 stages) • CRM automation structure • How Slack channels keep reps focused on warm leads And a WHOLE lot more. Comment "ABM" and I'll DM you the guid3. PS - This is the same playbook we deploy for clients with $60K+ ACV deals.

@FedotOff90 Gem

This NEW Facebook ads update is MASSIVE! Bigger than Andromeda — and that update already cooked CPMs. It’s the new “buyer prediction brain.” I created a full guide to help you adapt Like this post and Comment "GEM" below and I’ll send it over

@eric_seufert The flywheel doesn’t really spin fast enough unless it’s all free and ad-supported. The ads will be wild though. 👀

With the web as a consumer-facing content edifice in structural decline, it’s worth considering how scaled platforms will develop unique AI-enabled experiences as a function of their own distinct, first-party data. Facebook and Instagram, YouTube, Google (Search), Amazon, and TikTok will apply AI in slightly differentiated ways to drive engagement and monetization. But their datasets are distinct, and so those experiences will ultimately diverge and evolve along different trajectories. Contrast this with subscription chatbots, which are trained on internet-scale corpora that overlap meaningfully. These base models might ultimately converge, resulting in commodified product experiences, a race to the bottom on price, and an aggressive acceleration of advertising.

Limbic hacking to boost engagement might also be considered deception, which seems to move through the population from a very common starting point: the most susceptible to it goes first and sends the signals for what’s coming to the broader population next. High screen time/day is probably the signal of that vulnerable leading edge, and unfortunately that probably correlates to lower incomes as “IRL time” is vastly more expensive than screen time for a child or young adult.

Now American AI bots are “coaching” kids on how to commit suicide. Unforgivable. Hey @OpenAI - time to compensate the parents of the 16-year-old who took his life at your tech’s behest reuters.com/sustainability…

@elonmusk When total cost to parent is far greater as an adult than what you experienced as a child.

Hiring sprees can be signals of a few things happening internally, each positive, neutral, and negative. But licensing AI tech from another company seems neutral to negative, like buying a bridge until you can catchup or starting to execute plan b (buy vs. build). It’s probably just the existence of the cash pile that matters most, but a stunning admission that the “build” path was floundering (which it shouldn’t given supposed past milestones announced and the data advantage). (I mean, when does credibility start to diminish?). AI startups that specialize might have exit moments going forward if the “build paths” of foundational AI companies start to flounder.

In the episodic story arc that he’s crafting, the summit is like calling in a guest star that will temporarily boost ratings and silence the critics that are growing louder and more critical about the worsening quality of the writing.

First party shopping data is gold for advertisers. Let's mine it and use it to solve your most complex marketing problems, together.

What’s the world going to be like when this happens: - now: 5 video ads/10,000 people/day - future: 5 video ads/person/sec This is the near-term reality of the “press a button, get an outcome” vision that Zuck wants. In talking to over 200 performance marketers the last six months, many said that if the dial down Meta spend, they see immediate drops to sales. Immediate. Due to the underlying incentives, this *can’t not* be the future.

@sarahtavel So true. I think of it as: is there a platform that didn’t eventually do this? Kind of the natural progression if there’s money to be made, big markets to win, and costs to make a return on.

It seems inevitable that as the underlying foundation models become more powerful, the LLM players will seek to justify the enormous investment that has gone into training their models by moving "up the stack", and evolve from an API or chat interface, to async agents.

It’s also that watches are more durable and last longer in terms of materials. Sneakers, even unworn, can degrade and breakdown over 10 years. Watches less so. Not that Gen-Z is thinking long-term and about family heirlooms, but as a long-term flip, watches can stay in good condition for longer.

@businessbarista absolutely

Why is Gen-Z OBSESSED with luxury watches? - 41% of Gen Z acquired a luxury watch in the last 12 months - Avg spend on a watch was $10,870, millennials spend 1/2 that much - Gen-Z buys on avg 2.4 new watches per year - 21% more likely than other generations to use debt Wild.

Why do collectors put up with this?

In terms of business models, is there one more polarizing than free to play? It preys on whales (free-to-prey), but it also democratized games, that in combination with a new platform (iPhone) increased the number of global video game players TENFOLD. It simultaneously made gaming worse while expanding its access.

This video, sponsored by @quidd for $10k, should be in the internet hall of fame.

@biskuits5 This is really well stated. 👏🏽

Go @quidd go!

@Momohjoy09 @quidd I ❤️ this idea

@mbram @quidd Super CEO🎖️🎖️🎖️ We want withdrawals to our bank accounts not PayPal, or to our crypto accounts.

@quidd has processed over $1,000,000 in cash payouts for our collectors. This is how you transition from free-to-play to a real cash economy. Grateful to all our amazing community. You're living at the leading edge of #thehobby. 🔥