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Joined December 2013
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writing is so important because 99.99% of the time you need to pitch something, you will not be in the actual room to sell it
clarity is at an extreme premium now
bots won't kill email
only bad emails will kill email
email was always an externally writable database that masqueraded as a communication tool. this is why spam was such a huge problem because anyone with your address could insert a record & potentially demand your attention.
agents break this relationship.
this is lots of implications for the attention economy. one of the obvious being that your 100k subscriber newsletter or any other form writing you send to it, or any other form of email marketing is worth less than ever before.
I meet very few founders who planned their way into an audience.
I meet a lot who just refused to stop posting.
Just opened up wayyy more availability on my calendar.
Book your chat now ↓
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I write content for ~20 founders every week.
my observations:
1. the posts founders are proudest of rarely perform. the polished announcement, the big vision post. the one they almost didn't publish, a small honest lesson, usually wins.
2. the best ideas come out sideways. nobody has good content when you ask "what should we post?" they have it 20 minutes into a call when they get annoyed about something.
3. specifics beat credentials. a founder saying "we lost 3 deals last month because of onboarding" gets more trust than any bio line.
4. most founders over-explain. the first draft is almost always twice as long as it needs to be. the cut version is the one people share.
5. consistency is a scheduling problem, not a motivation problem. the founders who post every week have a fixed time to talk it through. the ones who wait for inspiration go quiet for a month.
6. buyers read more than they engage. a post with 12 likes can still be the reason a deal closes. founders who only watch likes quit too early.
7. opinions travel. "here are 5 trends" gets scrolled past. "I think this trend is overrated" gets replies.
8. the voice is in the edits. AI can draft. the founder's job is cutting what they'd never say out loud.
9. the best posts answer a question someone actually asked. when a founder says "a customer asked me this yesterday," the post almost writes itself, and the right people recognize their own problem in it.
if I had to boil it all down:
the founders who crush are willing to say what they actually think, every week, for long enough that people start repeating it.
if you’re a founder and wanna chat, book a discovery:
cal.com/heyblake
Hard agree - any added engagement from bots is not remotely worth it
Just makes the app feel like dead internet theory incarnate
X should have a zero tolerance policy for AI replies
Like you do one and your account is suspended for life
Replies are a nightmare now and it's never ever been this bad
AI replies are an an existential threat to the future of this platform, because people will simply stop using it if the vast majority of replies are AI bots
Junior marketer vs senior marketer:
I've led marketing at 3 multimillion-dollar companies. the gap shows up fast.
junior: "what should we post?"
senior: "who should read it?"
junior: launches a new channel
senior: fixes the message on the old one
junior: reports impressions
senior: reports which posts started sales calls
My first 14 days as a startup's first marketer:
I've led marketing at 3 multimillion-dollar companies. this is the order I'd go in.
days 1-3: listen to 20 sales calls, write down every phrase buyers repeat
days 4-5: interview the 5 happiest customers and 3 who churned
day 6: write who we're for in one sentence, get the founder to sign off
days 7-8: rewrite the homepage headline and subhead in buyer words
day 9: list where the last 20 customers came from
day 10: pause every channel that brought in zero of them
days 11-12: set up one founder post a day from call questions
day 13: write a "why we lose" list with sales
day 14: pick one number to move by day 90
AI is splitting marketers into two groups
the ones who decide what's worth doing are getting promoted and making 10x
the ones who wait for a brief are getting replaced
what the first group does differently:
1. talks to buyers before opening a tool
2. picks the one message before making assets
3. uses AI for volume, keeps the taste
4. kills weak ideas fast instead of polishing them
5. measures booked calls, not output
I'm starting to sense a divide in the tech industry:
- People thriving on autonomy who are reinventing how they work and what tools they use with AI: LOTS of work, but they're enjoying it and getting very efficient
- People used to being mentored / trained / or simply told what to do and how. Frustrated with the lack of guidance from management on what to do with AI; also frustrated by seeing some of their peers thriving; increasingly bitter about AI and the state of the industry, as a whole
Neither group seems to be aware that there's another group, or have empathy for the other group
Marketing beliefs that got stronger after AI:
1. a clear sentence beats a clever campaign
2. buyers trust people over logos
3. the founder is the best channel for year one
4. taste decides who stands out
5. customer calls beat any AI research tool
6. one message for a year beats ten launches
7. proof from a peer beats a feature list
8. pricing is part of the positioning
Every case study MUST answer 4 questions:
→ what was breaking before
→ what they tried first
→ what changed in the first 30 days
→ who else should care