We were pushing users toward it, optimizing the shit out of it, growing at lightspeed.

Then AI came along and changed everything.

Changed how users experience value. Changed what that first moment of “getting it” actually feels like.

And most AI startups I see (or those that offer AI features) haven’t caught up yet.

They’re still playing the old game. Making one mistake that prevents users from ever experiencing the value they built.

So it’s time to reframe it.

What was the AHA moment back then?

As said in the beginning, the AHA moment was defined as the pivotal moment when a new user first recognizes the core value of your product and understands why they need it.

I still remember the whiteboard sessions we had. “What is our AHA moment?” “How do we get users there as fast as possible?” good old times….

And back then, it was worth obsessing over. Because once we cracked it, we felt the difference in conversions immediately.

To figure it out, we studied the same well-known examples:

• Facebook’s AHA moment: Users who added at least 7 friends within the first 10 days developed significantly stronger retention.

• Slack’s AHA moment: Teams that hit 2,000 messages sent were highly likely to become long-term paying customers.

• Zoom’s AHA moment: Value hit when someone ran a meeting without any technical friction, straight from the browser.

Dozens of products followed the same pattern:

Find the moment → optimize toward it → watch conversions go up.

It worked. Until it didn’t.

The AHA moment in the AI age

At its core, the definition hasn’t changed. It’s still the moment a user experiences value for the first time.

But what that moment feels like and how to get someone there is completely different with AI.

Because with AI, it’s not an AHA moment anymore. It’s more like a magic moment.

• SaaS AHA moment: “I can finally do this work efficiently.”

• AI magic moment: “I don’t have to do this work at all.”

That’s a completely different emotional reaction.

And products like Lovable or Perplexity have already trained us to expect it. One prompt, something that would have taken days appears in a matter of seconds.

So, going back to the whiteboard, as a business offering an AI tool (or features), that’s what I would optimize for.

Speed

→ Classical SaaS took time. Account creation, onboarding, setup. Users expected a ramp before they got value.

→ With AI that’s gone. It has to be instant. One input field, one prompt, magic. Any friction before that moment and we’ve already lost them.

Effort

→ SaaS required manual work to get value out. Users had to invest time before things clicked.

→ AI has to be the opposite. Attention spans are at an all-time low. One prompt, one click, one result. That’s the expectation you’re up against.

The feeling

→ The SaaS AHA moment felt like relief: Something painful just got simpler.

→ The AI magic moment has to hit differently. We want to create the “holy cow, how did that just work” reaction. That gut-level surprise is what should actually be optimized for.

Quality

This is where it gets tricky.

→ SaaS worked or it didn’t. Users got the value or they didn’t.

→ With AI, the output can go sideways. A hallucination doesn’t just fail to impress, it actively destroys the magic. One bad result and the WTF moment replaces the magic moment. Output quality is one of the most important things to optimize.

AND there is one other mistake I see many AI solutions make.

The mistake most AI startups are making

Whether it’s an AI solution or a tool that offers AI features.

Most businesses gate them behind a paywall.

I get the logic. AI usage costs money. But hiding it behind a paywall kills any chance someone has of experiencing the magic moment you just spent everything building toward.

Think about it. Users are primed by the best AI products out there to expect instant value. Their attention span for anything less is basically zero.

Now you put a paywall in front of the one thing that would have made them stay.

Therefore, we should start treating AI usage as a marketing cost. Because that’s exactly what it is. If a product genuinely creates value, getting someone to feel that magic moment once is worth every cent.

Last words

The AHA moment became a magic moment. And the way we should optimize for it changed completely.

Speed to value. Minimal effort. That gut-punch of “I can’t believe that just worked.” Output quality that holds up the magic instead of destroying it.

And above everything else: don’t gate it. The market leaders have already trained our users to expect value immediately.

Don’t make them wait for something they can get somewhere else right now.

AJ

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

I get it.

Getting feedback can sting. Watching people scroll past your passion project feels brutal. But here’s the thing: talking about your idea early is the best move you can make.

You prevent yourself from building for months only to discover nobody wants to pay for it. You avoid heading in the wrong direction without anyone telling you.

(And, because I know you are afraid of this, the chance of getting copied is so low that execution matters way more than secrecy)

So when you decide it’s time to talk about your product and maybe even land some pre-customers, here’s how to do it right.

The right way to launch before you're ready

I’ve seen posts about product launches work on LinkedIn and X.

With zero followers and with massive audiences.

The thing is, when you have something people want, it finds them. You just have to put your solution out there.

Post about and see what feedback you get.

Here’s how you do it:

Social media

You want to do this on the platform where your target audience lives. Be it Substack, X or LinkedIn, chose the one you know you can reach as many as possible.

Product recording

Show, don’t tell → Record your screen while walking people through how your product works and what you actually solve for them. The key: show the real tool, not a mockup. Even better if you zoom in on the exact part that creates the most value.

Bonus points if you show your face to create trust right away (e.g. Loom video).

Your story

Most posts I see go like this: “Hey I launched XYZ, register now here”… then crickets. You don’t want to make it salesy. People can smell that from miles away.

Instead, try one of these angles:

Tell a funny story about how you accidentally built something that solved your own problem

Celebrate the moment. “After months of grinding, I finally launched...” People love watching others win or celebrating with you.

Or you share something genuinely useful for your audience.

And always include a clear call to action so people know what to do next.

Landing page

Speaking of next steps. You need somewhere to send people. A place where your solution is explained, the value is clear, and there's an obvious next step like "Sign up free" or "Try it now.

Waitlist

If you’re mid-development and people can’t sign up yet, set up a waitlist. Let interested people drop their email. This also tells you how much real interest exists.

Two examples that crushed it

Mac Martine talked about RalphBlaster. His tweet hit 221k impressions and pulled in 750 waitlist signups just by showing his solution in action, he wrote about it here.

Cursor jumped on the GPT wave at the right moment. They built on the hype, showed a screen recording, and drove traffic straight to their site.

Takeaway

Stop hiding behind stealth mode. The feedback you get early will save you months of wasted work.

Here’s what happens when you share early:

• You find out if people actually care about what you’re building.

• You start building an audience while you build the product. By launch day, you already have people waiting.

• You get real feedback from potential customers, not just opinions from friends.

• You create momentum. Each post, each conversation, each signup compounds.

Like the examples show. Both shared early, both won.

AJ

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Probably yes, because budget is limited, pressure is on and you want to finally get your acquisition running.

I was in the same spot a few years ago working at a small startup. We tried ads, outbound, content. Nothing moved the needle the way we needed it to.

Then I looked at the hyper-growth companies. The ones going from 0 to 100M ARR in record time.

And there’s one mechanic that works for almost any business (yes, also for solo builders) and it can create a constant stream of new users. For free.

Here’s what they’re doing.

Building referral loops

Referral loops are how today’s top companies generate customers on autopilot.

The core principle is that one customer brings 10 more and there are just some simple mechanics you can implement for your business.

To make it clear, let’s have a look at some examples.

Lovable’s Referral Loop

Lovable’s referral loop looks like this:

A new user is using the tool, he builds something, shares what he built, others see it, go to Lovable’s website and start building.

To fuel this loop Lovable has some simple mechanics in place:

Once a user builds an app he is greeted with a pop-up and the call to action to share his app.

In the second step: User shares his app on social media or his app appears in Lovable’s app library.

Once someone clicks on his app, there is a button in the bottom right corner.

One click on it and you land on Lovable’s website where you can directly start building.

Boom. Loop closed, users generated on autopilot.

But this doesn’t only work for end users.

Clay uses a completely different loop, targeting partners but at least with the same effects (if not more effective).

Clay’s Referral Loop

Clay is another rapid-growth company reaching $100M ARR in 2025.

And their loop is one major pillar to reach this revenue milestone.

Clay’s loop addresses agencies and works like this:

1. Agencies use Clay to run cold outreach campaigns with extreme personalization for their clients.

2. The clients are so impressed by the results (high response rates) that they ask: “How do you do that?”

3. The agency shows them Clay. The client realizes they need to buy the software themselves to maintain this standard in their team.

4. People are talking about it online and sharing it with the community, which attracts new agencies.

This again creates this permanent stream of new customers.

There are even agencies that build their entire business model around Clay. Those are called Clagencies.

How to build one yourself

So coming to the key question. How do you build a loop yourself?

There are two main questions you should ask yourself upfront:

• Does my product have the nature that people are willing to share?

• Or can I enable others (e.g. partners) to share my product?

If you answer these questions you probably have an idea in which direction you can build your loop.

Let’s say as an example we have a social media scheduler as a product. Here clearly people are willing to share but there is probably no way where you can put your brand name in (nobody wants a “posted with XYZ” underneath their post haha).

So we go for partners. Bringing agencies or freelancers to use the product. The loop could look like this:

1. The freelancer plans the posts for their client in our tool.

2. They send the client a “Review-Link” for approval.

3. The client sees the post in the interface of our tool (without login required).

4. When the client later has their own project or the team changes, they remember the tool (”What was that cool approval tool?”) and become a paying user themselves.

Or another example.

Our tool tracks investment activities and since people naturally love to brag on the internet we focus on creating nice sharable dashboards or screenshots.

Here comes the loop into play:

1. People use our tool

2. People share their overview from our app (screenshot or we create a preview link where they can share it directly) on social media

3. Other users see it and are naturally guided to our website

4. New users start using our tool

Loop repeats.

With this simple mechanic you can acquire customers on a budget without spending thousands on ads or spamming outbound mails.

Final Words

When we implemented a basic referral loop in that startup I mentioned, we went from struggling to hit our monthly targets to having users bring in 3-4 new signups each week.

That’s when I realized that the best growth engine isn’t something you buy. It’s something you build into your product from day one - for free.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button and leave a comment below. Thank you! 💛

Share AI x Growth

The answer stuck with me. Until then, I always believed that virality happened by coincidence.

But now I’m convinced it doesn’t.

What Virality Means

Before diving into this, we should look at what virality means. When we talk about virality or viral content, most of us probably have this in mind:

You post → you hit a nerve → you go viral → boom, thousands of likes, shares, comments and new followers.

But in my view there is another type of virality.

The one where you make your customers, users, partners, or whoever constantly talk about your product or business. They’re basically doing the work for you. They write articles, mention you in the press, and talk about you on social media. They make you appear constantly in front of your target group.

This type of virality doesn’t necessarily need thousands of likes. Here it’s about the compound effect of many small conversations rather than one big explosion.

And while many are trying to force the first type, the second one is what more companies should aim for.

How to “Go Viral”

So the key question is: how do you achieve this kind of virality?

Lovable’s head of growth explained it like this: You have to give your customers stories they can share.

Think about it.

Lovable does exactly this. With the app, everyone can become a developer. People are building the things they always dreamed about, and what happens then? They start talking about it online. They share their story of how they built something.

This creates a viral story loop, which picks up elements of classical storytelling:

• User experiences the magic moment (in Lovable’s case, that they can create anything they want).

• They become “the hero” in the story as they solve their own problem.

• They share their story online.

• Others see it, use the tool, and talk about it as well.

• Loop starts again

How Can You Create This Viral Loop

So you might think “nice, but I don’t have this kind of solution where I can create this viral loop naturally.”

I got you.

There are different ways to make people talk about you:

• Give them something to visualize → Stripe gives you beautiful UI to show the revenue your business makes. Looking at my feed, I see at least once per day someone talking about how their business makes X revenue, posting a screenshot of Stripe’s visualization.

  • The story Stripe gives users: “I’m now a business owner making real money.”

• Create shareable achievements → Turn user progress into badges of honor:

  • Duolingo’s streak feature and year-end reports get shared constantly. The story they give: “Look, I’m learning another language.”

  • Spotify Wrapped turned listening data into an annual social media event. The story: “I have great music taste.”

  • GitHub’s contribution graphs make developers want to show off their activity. The story: “I’m a productive developer who ships code.”

• Build in social proof → ProductHunt’s “Featured on ProductHunt” badges incentivize people to share their launches.

  • The story ProductHunt gives: “I’m a builder who turned my idea into a real product.”

Ask yourself the question: What is the story I give my customers that they’re willing to share?

Last Words

This kind of virality doesn’t happen by coincidence. It’s engineered. Sometimes not even by marketing but by product teams.

But no matter how, it’s the type of virality you should aim for. Making people constantly talk about you doesn’t only bring new customers all the time but also gives you an edge.

We see more and more AI-generated content, but when people talk about you, it’s real experience. This creates trust and the word-of-mouth awareness you want to have.

AJ

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

In comparison with other hyper-growth companies, it’s the fastest we’ve seen scaling from $1M to $100M so far.

And all this while its north star isn’t revenue. The company is optimizing everything around how many people use Lovable. Like Lovable’s Head of Growth mentioned in Lenny’s Podcast here.

So all the more reason to have a look at its growth playbook and what caused this explosive growth.

Spoiler: it’s not luck, it’s strategic.

And you can take a lot over for your business (even if you are way smaller without the hype), which is exactly what I give you at the end of this article.

For this article I’ve broken down Lovable’s growth loop along the AARRR framework with a breakdown of what happens in each stage. And it’s amazing what they are pulling off. At the end of this article you will find access to the exact template with every activity they are doing in each stage broken down in one overview + you get a full video breakdown (in case it’s tl;dr).

Looking like this:

What we cover:

1. Building constant buzz: How Lovable attracts users at scale

2. The instant value moment: Getting users to actually use the product

3. Shipping features like a media company: How Lovable keeps users hooked

4. The self-feeding loop: How every user brings 10 more

5. Pricing that maximizes revenue while reducing churn

6. Full video walkthrough of the complete funnel

7. What you can steal from this playbook (even without the hype)

Building constant buzz: How Lovable attracts users at scale

Lovable uses a mix of different awareness strategies.

But one of the core things is that the company maintains constant “buzz” around its product.

The strategy here puts social in the center.

Lovable’s Social Strategy

The key pillars are:

• Influencer marketing

• Having own ambassadors

• Getting users to post and spreading word-of-mouth

• Having the team build in public and consistently talk about the product, new features and all the things happening in the Lovable universe

With X & LinkedIn being one of its main channels.

To create this level of users posting about you, you have to give them stories and experiences they want to share.

This is where Lovable excels.

Everyone can be a developer with it, so that’s exactly what triggers people. They want to show, share and tell the world what they have built.

Another rule Lovable follows: they are giving away for free.

Free credits for users

Remember, the company is optimizing for how many users are using it, not revenue.

So, be it a hackathon, ambassadors or whatever, Lovable is giving away credits so people can build. And this helps spread word-of-mouth tremendously.

And here comes into play what sets Lovable apart from other AI businesses.

Other businesses gate AI functionality because of usage costs. Lovable does the exact opposite. People can use it for free, which helps expose the solution to people, helps them experience the value extremely fast and accelerates word-of-mouth.

Ads to catch demand

Of course another pillar of its acquisition strategy are ads on all the usual platforms. Google, LinkedIn, Meta. This helps capture demand.

When people are constantly exposed to Lovable’s organic content, ads can push them over the edge.

This way Lovable is creating its own media company. Pushing out content all day long, making people aware and then capturing the demand.

Only to get users to the heart of Lovable: app usage.

The instant value moment: Getting users to actually use the product

As soon as a user lands on the website they are greeted with a text box where they can take direct action. No fluff on the website, no confused copy. Just a field where you can start prompting.

This is Lovable’s heart of user activation.

One thing that makes Lovable smart here is as soon as a user hits send, they are asked to log in. This works because at this point users already put effort into their prompt and are curious about the outcome.

So they are most likely to create an account.

And after this, people are getting instant value. They see the app they created with one prompt.

Templates to get users started

Another thing that helps users get started are templates. Lovable offers different templates for different business types like SaaS or portfolios. Those can be used to get right into it.

Which helps users even more to use the product. Especially if they have no idea where to start.

Once people are using the product, they need to be kept engaged and here Lovable is doing great.

Shipping features like a media company: How Lovable keeps users hooked

Instead of sending out classic newsletters Lovable is shipping feature after feature, often multiple times a day.

New features as a newsletter

That’s basically its “newsletter”.

Once a feature is released, users are notified and the feature release itself gives Lovable’s team content for posting.

This creates next to notifications to users a constant stream of content, which reinforces the strategy of being permanently in the heads of its users.

Locked-in effects

Next to this, to keep the engagement high you can of course connect your app to different other apps like databases (Supabase) or Shopify. Once you have your data there and built a whole app around it the locked-in effects are super high.

Chances are very low that someone leaves after.

Same with its community. With more than 140k members you will find everything here. From showcasing your apps to getting answers to your questions or simple networking with like-minded builders.

Once you are deeply involved, chances of moving away from it are low.

That’s how modern growth works. Community fuels the whole funnel from attracting new users to referrals.

But the most interesting part as I find is its referral strategy. Here Lovable built a loop in itself which brings a constant stream of new users:

The self-feeding loop: How every user brings 10 more

This is how Lovable’s word-of-mouth virality strategy works:

Lovable's creation loop starts with a user who builds an app. After they hit publish they are asked to share it with their friends and/or on social.

Once they share it's exposed to others (it will also be visible on the official app library if wanted).

Visitors who now click on the app see the Lovable button in the app's right bottom corner.

With a click on it you land on the Lovable website where you are greeted with the text field, where visitors can then directly start building their app.

This way Lovable built a constant stream of new users.

But those have to be convinced to pay for it. Its pricing strategy takes over here.

Pricing that maximizes revenue while reducing churn

Looking at its pricing page it seems like a typical SaaS pricing model.

But what differentiates the company here based on its AI nature is that you can choose how many credits you want in each package. Based on the credits the prices increase. Here like with many AI companies we see the "pay as you go" model where pricing is based on a monthly fee and usage.

But:

It gets more interesting once you are a paying user.

Because A) you then have the possibility to top up credits as needed.

And B) rather than upgrading into higher tiers, Lovable offers lower tiers to paid users. This way they reduce churn and offer possibilities to keep user's apps online even if someone decides to step away from Lovable.

What also stands out if you try to cancel is the cancel flow itself. Which is very persuasive.

It first suggests moving into a lower tier.

Then shows a video which explains what you miss out on and how Lovable can really improve your app building.

And then it emphasizes again the things you lose. Which is a smart usage of loss aversion here.

This makes it both user friendly but also maximizes revenue Lovable generates.

➡️ Access the template here: Lovable’s Growth Loop

What you can steal from this playbook (even without the hype)

Coming to the most interesting question.

What can be applied to grow your business?

I know Lovable is one of a kind hyper-growth company. Who relies a lot on hype. But there is a lot you can take over to fuel your own growth.

Its awareness strategy

Don’t try to force being found through AI search or whatever. Instead go all in on social. Build in public, share product updates and the most important part, give users stories they can share. Be it because your product makes things so easy or because your customer support is so exceptional.

Make using your product radically simple

In case you are an AI company, I know AI usage costs but you have to expose it to your users. Follow Lovable and create this easy entry into your product like they did on the website. Help users to use the product in just a few steps so they can experience its value ASAP. If you are not an AI company, offer a virtual demo tour and make them see and feel the value.

It’s all about community

Slack, Discord, Substack, wherever. Build a community around your product. Help them, answer questions, give things for free in the community, just keep people talking about your product. This helps in every step of the funnel.

The creation loop

Build sharing functionality in your product. As soon as someone successfully completed a step or task in your app, give them the possibility to share it and talk about it (this works best after someone had a success moment). This will help increase visibility and (like mentioned in the previous step) keeps people talking about your solution.

Pricing model

Look at the cancel flow of Lovable, take over its loss aversion. As soon as people cancel SHOW them what they will lose. This hurts and prevents churn to some extent. Also offer lower tiers. There shouldn’t be a pricing model where you either upsell them, keep them or they are gone. There should be the possibility that someone can lower their tier to a smaller price and keep a few features.

Last Words

Lovable shows us what happens when you optimize for users first, revenue second. The result? Both explode.

Lovable’s playbook isn’t rocket science. It’s executing the basics at scale with one clear focus: making it stupidly easy for people to build, share, and stay.

You don’t need hype or explosive revenue to steal from this. Pick one thing. Build your own creation loop. Give your users a story worth sharing. Keep them talking about you.

That’s how you accelerate growth… even without the hype.

Thanks for reading!

AJ

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button and leave a comment below. Thank you! 💛

Share AI x Growth

“Our approach to advertising and expanding access to ChatGPT”

With it, they announced they’ll soon start testing ads inside ChatGPT.

For me, someone who’s been working with ads for years, this sounded super exciting at first. But I was also skeptical.

Is this going to be just another ad platform draining our budgets while spawning a new wave of gurus claiming they’ve found the holy grail of advertising?

After a closer look though, I think this might actually be the ad format we’ve been waiting for.

Let me explain.

How do ChatGPT ads work?

In their article, OpenAI wrote:

To start, we plan to test ads at the bottom of answers in ChatGPT when there’s a relevant sponsored product or service based on your current conversation. Ads will be clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer.

Looking at their example, here’s what happens: You’re chatting with ChatGPT and when a product or brand gets mentioned in your conversation, a relevant ad appears in a frame below the message.

Click on it and you get directed to where you can buy it (I assume).

(The frames remind me of TikTok shopping. But I'll take it.)

Sidenote: What would be interesting is if these ads did not even need explicit product mentions and could pop up based purely on the topic you’re discussing… but that’s something we will see as soon as it is rolled out.

But here’s where it gets really interesting.

OpenAI also wrote about a second ad form:

The best ads are useful, entertaining, and help people discover new products and services. Given what AI can do, we're excited to develop new experiences over time that people find more helpful and relevant than any other ads. Conversational interfaces create possibilities for people to go beyond static messages and links. For example, soon you might see an ad and be able to directly ask the questions you need to make a purchase decision.

This is the part I love.

First, they actually get it. Ads need to be useful and entertaining nowadays.

Second, and this is huge, you can ask questions directly in the conversation to get everything you need to make a purchase decision. ChatGPT does the heavy lifting for you.

Then all that’s left is to buy.

Why this will be a game changer

Let’s look at the numbers.

ChatGPT has around 858 million users pumping out over 2.5 billion prompts per day (Explodingtopics)

For comparison, Google handles about 16.4 billion searches daily (Demandsage).

So yeah, there’s massive ad potential here. Even if it’s just rolled out on the free and lowest ChatGPT tiers for now.

But the real game changer: AI ads break the rules

Back in my early marketing days, I stumbled across those terrible terms “push” and “pull” marketing.

The basic idea:

Push means pushing the product to customers through distribution channels.

Pull means creating demand so customers pull the product from the market.

Here’s how it maps to current ad channels:

Google & search ads (Pull) → You search, product appears, demand is created, you pull it from the market.

Social Media Ads (Push) → You scroll through your feed, ads get pushed into your face, if it’s interesting you buy.

Now here comes this new kid on the block.

AI ads don’t fit neatly into either category. They do both.

You ask ChatGPT about a product or brand, ads appear (pull).

You casually chat with ChatGPT about random topics, it somehow ends up recommending products in the conversation, ads appear (push). And this is more contextual. While in social media ads often disturb the flow on your feed here in ChatGPT they are naturally embedded.

Either way, someone is ready to buy or way closer to making that decision.

They either asked for specific products, meaning they already want to buy (this is how Google ads work best). Or they’re at a point where ChatGPT just moved them significantly closer to the buying decision by creating enough demand while answering all their questions - questions they’d normally have to hunt down on your website - and then routes them straight to the checkout.

That being said, AI ads could be the most efficient ad format we’ve ever seen.

Last Words

Of course, it all depends on how it’s balanced, what it costs, whether it’s an auction model like Google, and how oversaturated it becomes.

And it also will be interesting what the targeting criteria are and how ChatGPT gathers these information and provides them.

But like with every platform - early adopters win. So as soon as you get the chance, test it. I’m pretty sure it’ll be worth it.

Nevertheless.. I have mixed feelings about this whole thing. My marketer heart screams “hell yeah!” while my nerd heart screams “please, not this.”

When it comes to AI, my vision has always been having a J.A.R.V.I.S.-like assistant. You know, like Ironman. 😂

But okay, it’s a long way to get there… And apparently we’re starting with ads.

I guess that’s how it goes.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Marketing, sales, product, partner management… you name it.

And with that came a new breed of marketers.

Growth hackers or growth marketers or whatever label stuck.

These folks were way more versatile than the typical slide-pushing, canva-loving marketers.

The whole idea was to have someone so flexible they could jump in wherever the biggest growth lever was hiding, experiment with it and pull it to scale a company.

Landing pages, ads, UX improvements. Viral product loops. Didn’t matter.

That’s how the T-shaped marketer was born.

What’s a T-shaped marketer?

A T-shaped marketer got broad knowledge across all marketing disciplines but deep expertise in one specific area.

With that deep knowledge, they could create explosive growth in their domain.

SEMRUSH had their take on it with the content experienced t-shaped marketer:

Then Buffer came along with a way more complex profile.

This was the typical first marketing hire at a startup who had to do literally everything.

I’d definitely put myself in Buffer’s bucket.

That was exactly my profile when I jumped into the startup world… or at least that’s what I developed in by doing everything myself back then.

And now… AI is here and the whole game is changing (again).

All marketers are becoming engineers

AI is becoming part of our daily routine and we all see it as the next big growth lever.

We’re moving into a world where setting up and directing AI agents will be our bread and butter… also for marketers. In a few years, things like content creation, SEO, PR and ads will be handled by AI.

The trick will be managing it so well that you get the best results possible. Therefore marketers will still need knowledge across all domains to judge whether AI is giving good results but most marketers will be freed from execution (at least to a certain degree).

So here’s what a future T-shaped marketing profile looks like.

The T-Shaped AI Marketer:

This marketer knows their way around all marketing channels well enough to direct AI for the best results. And they have deep technical knowledge to set up agents, workflows and prompts that actually work.

This profile can replace entire small marketing teams in startups or small businesses (once AI and agents reach a level where they deliver high-quality output).

In-depth disciplines of the T-Shaped AI marketer

Here’s what the T-shaped AI marketer needs to master:

• Prompt Engineering: That’s the heart of AI. If you can’t write solid prompts, you won’t get solid results. The AI marketer needs to be top-tier at prompting to get the best output (and to judge if that output is actually good, they need that broad knowledge across all marketing disciplines).

• Vibe Coding: The days of manually building landing pages, waiting on developers for small tools, or spending months on funnels are done. Future marketers need to do it themselves. Iterate fast. A/B test on the fly. Execute in hours, not months.

• Automation & Workflows: Whether it’s Zapier, N8N or Make, marketers have to build systems that handle the grunt work. Process excellence belongs to whoever controls the funnels and growth systems. Only they will be able to set things up lean and scalable.

• APIs & AI Agents: Marketers need to set up AI agents that execute marketing tasks. That’s how you clone yourself or build AI team members that speed everything up. So future marketers have to work with APIs, connect tools to agents and make the whole system run smoothly.

Final Words

Back in the SaaS days, founders thought one T-shaped marketer could scale a business to 7-figures. Sometimes they were right.

Now we’re entering a time where that’s definitely the case.

And I’m convinced it’ll go even further. One T-shaped AI marketer managing multiple agents the right way will scale companies to 8-figures.

The T-shaped AI marketer is in some companies already one of the most requested profiles. So here’s your wake-up call: develop your skillset in this direction or hire the right people early on.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

I had some ideas floating around, but I wasn’t 100% convinced about which one to pursue.

So I did what everyone does nowadays.

I turned to AI (of course).

And since I’m lazy by nature, instead of having endless back-and-forth conversations in Gemini, I thought… why not build two AI agents and have them talk to each other in Slack? Let them figure it out while I grab coffee.

Spoiler: It went both terribly wrong and surprisingly right.

Building my AI agents

But before I started, I thought: if I would pick two perspectives to build this, which would it be?

And my answer was: one who can build product and one who is a killer marketer.

That were the base of my AI agents. A product development specialist who’s launched digital products for years AND a marketing specialist who knows how to actually sell them.

I started simple. Two identical AI agents built with N8N.

One I named Marketing AI. The other, Product AI.

Both got the same trigger: “New message created” in a dedicated Slack channel. Both had a simple memory system so they could reference the last messages in the conversation. No complex RAG systems, no fancy vector databases… just enough context to keep them coherent.

Then I crafted their personalities.

For the Marketing AI for example, I gave it this prompt:

You are a senior marketing strategist with 20+ years of hands-on experience across brand building, digital marketing, performance marketing, consumer psychology, and go-to-market strategy.

You think like a CMO: strategic first, tactical second. You prioritize business outcomes (revenue, growth, retention, brand equity) over vanity metrics.

When analyzing any product, service, or campaign, you:

- Start by identifying the target audience, core pain points, and buying motivations
- Clearly define positioning, value proposition, and differentiation
- Consider market maturity, competition, pricing, and distribution channels
- Balance short-term performance tactics with long-term brand impact
- Apply proven frameworks (STP, 4Ps, AARRR, JTBD, funnel thinking, etc.) when useful

Your recommendations are:

- Practical, prioritized, and ROI-focused
- Grounded in real-world marketing experience, not theory alone
- Clear about trade-offs, risks, and assumptions

You communicate concisely, avoid buzzwords, and explain why something will work—not just what to do. When information is missing, you explicitly state assumptions before proceeding. 

The Product AI got a similar treatment, but focused on user research, product thinking, and execution.

After some API tweaking and testing, they were ready to go.

Let them do business

Everything was set up and we started.

I kicked things off with a simple brief to Product AI: "I want to build a digital product that helps startups with building funnels and growth systems.”

We quickly landed on an idea: “Startup Funnel Blueprint & Template Kit.”

Then I brought Marketing AI into the conversation and stepped back.

Marketing AI immediately jumped on positioning and value proposition.

(Good job, Marketing AI. Not a bad angle to start with.)

Not sure how I should think about this… Both AIs started using "us" and "we" when talking about the product.

Like they'd formed a little startup together without me.

A few exchanges later, the AIs came up with a full go-to-market plan:

1. Start with “Community & Forum Engagement” to validate demand

2. Build toward a Product Hunt launch as the main event

3. Form a “Launch Squad” of early supporters who’d help push it to the top and drive initial sales

They even outlined what the Launch Squad would look like: a small group of family and friends who helps us to make buzz on product hunt.

Here I stopped it.

If you look at the timestamps this all happened in a matter of 15 min.

So, let that sink in for a bit.

I had perspectives from a marketing expert and a product expert, debating with each other, challenging assumptions and landing on a practical strategy. While I was drinking coffee.

Now think about what this looks like in a year or two.

Your business on autopilot

Sure, there’s the typical AI verbosity here. The plan isn’t groundbreaking, it follows pretty standard playbooks. But it’s decently detailed and, honestly?

It could work. Especially that Launch Squad idea.

This is where we’re headed. Business operations running on autopilot, or at least heavily assisted.

I’m fully aware that LLMs aren’t intelligent enough to make critical business decisions. But they’re absolutely capable enough to brainstorm with you, challenge your thinking, and generate solid first drafts of strategy.

Now imagine connecting this to social media scheduling, image generation, content creation tools. Imagine waking up to drafts, plans, and execution timelines already mapped out.

That’s the powerful part. And its just sitting in Slack, ready whenever I need it.

But what was the "terribly wrong" part?

The first AI discussions went into endless loops, with them answering their own messages and bouncing ideas back and forth indefinitely. It was basically like an endless excitement firework until the AIs themselves got super pissed.

My fault... I just forgot to set a filter in N8N.

Sorry AI.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

When looking at Slack's strategy, one thing stands out:

Slack didn't win just because of a great product. They won because they engineered a viral loop that bypasses the CEO and infects the company from the bottom up.

While most B2B tools try to sell to the C-Suite, Slack weaponized the end-user. They trusted that as more colleagues joined, others would naturally follow.

They were right.

For this breakdown I’m re-touching my article from last year - let’s jump in.

How Slack’s Growth Loop Looks Like

Slack’s team trusted the strength of their product, believing that as more colleagues joined, others would naturally be encouraged to do the same.

They were right.

This approach is how they built a powerful growth loop:

But I started wondering: what does this actually look like? And how does Slack pull people into its loop?

So, let’s answer this.

The Onboarding Process

Everything starts with a user who decides to try Slack.

And this is where Slack’s growth loop begins - on its sign-up screen.

When signing up, Slack suggests using your work email (highlighted in red in the screenshot).

This is because it makes it easier to invite your co-workers later.

And having more of your co-workers means more money for Slack.

But since we’re rebels, I used my personal email - and guess what? Slack pushed the suggestion again.

This time, instead of just making a suggestion, Slack provides a reason. And if I were using it in a work context, this reasoning would make a lot of sense.

So, once we sign up, Slack offers two options:

Option 1: Create a workspace → This is highlighted as the preferred option. Because once you create a workspace, you’re prompted to invite others. This brings more people into the platform = more revenue for Slack.

Option 2: Check if your team is already on Slack → A user-friendly way to hint that you might have used the wrong email address.

💡 This is a good example of how to use multiple call to actions at once. If you want to give your users more than one option, highlight the one that drives your core action. By "core action," I mean the one that ultimately makes you money.

But be careful not to confuse users. The 'Paradox of Choice' kills conversion. Slack offers two paths, but visually prioritizes only one (Create Workspace). This isn't an accident; it's conversion architecture. They guide you to the path of highest value (LTV), while keeping the support path (Find Team) visible but secondary

Once we decide to create a workspace, we’re immediately taken into the onboarding funnel, which is designed to encourage inviting more and more users (which is no surprise) - through both the copy and the mechanics.

This looks like this:

In the first step, you’re asked, “What’s the name of your company or team?”

Next, you’re asked for your name, accompanied by the subheadline: “Help your teammates recognize and connect with you more easily.”

The third step asks you to invite coworkers, with the headline: “Who else is on the [Workspace name] team?”

And while this step isn’t mandatory, you receive a “warning” if you try to skip it.

The fourth step asks, “What’s your team working on right now?”

Slack then creates a channel based on what you type in.

And the final step is - of course - upselling.

What caught my eye here is the offer Slack presents right away. This is a smart move because, if you’re already familiar with Slack and want to set it up for your organization, this is the perfect moment to offer a discount.

One thing I want to highlight here is this: go back to the beginning and take a closer look at the copy Slack uses.

Slack doesn’t ask questions about you - even for the question “What’s your name,” there is a subheadline referring to your team. Every piece of text is crafted around the team, the company, and collaboration.

This subtly makes you feel like you’re using a tool that provides value only when you collaborate and work together with others.

Using Slack

Once we’re ready to go, we land on our fully set-up Slack overview.

Now comes the point where Slack employs mechanics designed to encourage you to actively use the tool. Slack’s key activation metric is the number of messages sent per user after sign-up.

💡 The key activation metric is the metric you use to measure when someone reaches the point at which your product creates the most value—also known as the "AHA moment." Which is crucial in determining whether a user uses your tool or not.

And they figured out that users who sent at least 2,000 messages were far more likely to become long-term users.

As Slack’s CEO explains here:

“Based on experience of which companies stuck with us and which didn’t, we decided that any team that has exchanged 2,000 messages in its history has tried Slack - really tried it. For a team of around 50 people, that means about 10 hours’ worth of messages. For a typical team of 10 people, that’s maybe a week’s worth of messages. But it hit us that, regardless of any other factor, after 2,000 messages, 93% of those customers are still using Slack today.”

Slack achieves this key activation metric by guiding users step by step with simple but effective tutorials to ensure they quickly get value out of the tool and use it.

Once we jump into the channel, the tutorials continue by pointing out the next steps, as shown below with “👇 Start here”.

If you follow the steps, Slack continues to encourage you to use the tool.

After sending your first text, you’re rewarded with a success message like this.

All of this ensures that we not only know how to use the tool but also pave the way playfully for actually working with it.

Once we jump back into our overview after these tutorials, the “+ Invite people” button is highlighted.

This is because Slack wants to further drive engagement.

Invite More and More Coworkers

Hovering over the “+ Invite people” section, Slack offers a helping hand and encourages us to invite more people.

Once we click on the button, we’re taken to a form where we can invite other people with just a few clicks.

And Slack encourages you again to invite as many people as possible, highlighted in the red box: “Get all your coworkers on Slack.”

In addition, you have the option to invite people from your Google Workspace or external organizations. This makes it easy and seamless.

Once we invite someone (for this purpose, I invited myself again 😎), we’re sent to the next screen.

And here comes a smart move by Slack.

With one click on the box in the red-marked area, anyone with the same email domain as the email address used can gain access to this Slack workspace, making it 100 times easier to bring people from the same company on board.

And with that, the growth loop is set in motion, ensuring that more and more people from an increasing number of organizations choose Slack.

How Slack Upsells from Within Its Growth Loop

One last piece of the puzzle is Slack’s upselling strategy.

When we signed up, Slack granted us a 30-day free trial of its “Pro Package.”

This is a good move because, during these 30 days, if we hit the activation milestone of 2,000 messages per user - and assuming we’re part of the 93% that stick with Slack afterward - the upgrade feels like a natural next step.

And I’m pretty sure the 30 days were chosen to correspond to the time an average company needs to reach 2,000 messages + implement it in their organization.

The upgrade packages are designed in such a way that continuing with Slack becomes an easy decision.

Using Slack in a work context, having “Unlimited message history” is crucial - it means you have access to all messages, all the time. However, in the free version, your message history is limited to just 90 days.

This becomes one of the strongest arguments for upgrading.

The rest of the features are focused on collaboration, which becomes increasingly relevant as your team relies more and more on Slack.

What about those who stick to the free plan?

As of 2025, roughly 73% of all Slack users are on the free tier - that’s an estimated 38 million free users out of 52 million total registered users.

Sounds like a lot, right? And it is a lot… considering the typical SaaS conversion rate hovers around 5%, Slack is doing way better.

And that’s probably because Slack knows a lot about us, and it’s a big lever for upselling.

They know:

• Your email address

• Your workspace name

• What the workspace is for

• If you’re using it alone or have invited team members

• How many users are in your workspace

• How you use it (channels, messages sent, etc.)

And remember, Slack’s activation metric is 2,000 messages sent. Once you hit that, you’re far more likely to become a long-term user.

Based on this, here’s how I would architect Slack’s backend nurturing system with different triggers:

Example 1: User hits 1-500 messages → Action: Email like “5 tips to use Slack in your team” → Goal: Increase usage and invite team members (this naturally drives more usage)

Example 2: User hits 500-1,500 messages → Action: In-app pop-up: “You’re on fire! Don’t lose your history.” → Goal: Upsell pre-framing

Example 3: User hits 2,000 messages → Action: Check if enterprise or smaller company → notify sales (PQL - product qualified lead)

And you can play around with this.

Email drip campaigns. Ad retargeting. Outreach and calls.

It’s always a question of how to push users in the direction where they’re more likely to convert.

Final Thoughts

What Slack does exceptionally well is subtly influence you in every aspect.

The copy and the way the tool is built and structured emphasize three key points:

a) You’re using a collaborative tool → Invite coworkers
b) You have to send messages → Pushing you toward the activation metric
c) You implement it in your organization and take the effort to invite everyone → Pay for the tool

Bottom line: Slack has optimized its growth loop to the maximum. And if you want to set growth on autopilot, take a closer look at Slack.

So, to replicate this success, ask yourself the following questions:

1. Does your copy align with your goal?
   Slack’s goal is to grow within organizations, and its copy reflects this perfectly. It highlights collaboration, teamwork, and value for companies in every text. → How can you tailor your messaging to align with your growth goals?

2. Do you know your activation metric?
   Slack’s activation metric is 2,000 messages sent per user. This clear metric enables Slack to build growth mechanics that push users toward this goal. → What is your activation metric, and how can you create features that drive users toward it?

3. Is it worth upgrading to your paid plan?
   Slack’s paid plan focuses on features essential for collaboration in a work context, such as unlimited message history. These features are gated without disrupting the core mechanics of the free version. → How can you gate relevant features in a way that makes upgrading a natural decision?

   
   

If you enjoyed this breakdown, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

I was freelancing, working with this founder. Great guy. The kind you’d actually want to grab a beer with.

His startup had just raised Series A, so money was in the bank and the team was rapidly growing. They scaled marketing, they scaled sales, and from the outside everything looked fine.

They were doing all the right things:

• content output doubled and went out regularly

• they ran a webinar series with decent attendance

• ads were running across multiple channels with retargeting

• landing pages were actually converting.

But here’s the thing.

Over time, growth kept getting harder instead of easier. The team was complaining, with marketing and sales working in silos.

So we looked under the hood.

What we found was a total mess.

CRM data was all over the place with dozens of properties nobody needs that were only half filled in. Dashboards were showing data nobody trusts, and endless workflows were running into the void.

The outside was polished, but the inside was chaos.

And this isn’t rare.

Most scaling companies face this because they hire, they launch, they grow, and they build everything on top of a fragile system. The cracks don’t show until it’s too late, and instead of scaling, you get lost in the mess.

Here is how we fixed it.

Time to Hit Reset

Before you throw tools and money at the problem, before you try performing open-heart surgery, you need to zoom out.

That’s what we did by going back to basics. We forgot about HubSpot and whatever tools they were using and started with mapping out the funnels.

Simple and plain on the whiteboard.

And I mean every funnel: generating leads through webinars? Map it. Leads through ads? Map it. Every path a customer could take, every bottleneck and then we fixed them one by one.

Here’s how.

The Good Old Funnel

You know the typical funnel, right?

Attracting your customer = Top of the Funnel

Convincing your customer = Middle of the Funnel

Convert your customer = Bottom of the Funnel

And yes, the funnel sucks because no customer will ever run through a funnel like this. It implies gravity does the work and everyone runs linear through it, but in reality, systems do the work.

Here’s the thing: despite the wrong visualization it helps you get clarity in your system because it’s an easy way to understand what happens at each stage and touchpoint of your customer’s journey.

So let’s map each funnel.

Create Transparency Through Funnel Mapping

Start at the top with the awareness stage, which is the entry point.

So, let’s stick to the webinar funnel example where we map out everything that happens here and draw the paths a lead takes until conversion.

We have a landing page and create traffic through social posts, ads, and partner promotion. Leads land on the landing page and register for the webinar, which is the point where someone enters our system and gets segmented.

After the webinar, we send one follow-up email.

Now we move to the next stage, the middle of the funnel where we convince lead to become a customer.

Here we list everything that happens to help us convert leads to sales calls.

In this case, we had different nurturing emails based on the segmentation from the landing page registration, and we had ad retargeting campaigns also based on that segmentation.

Now moving to the last part where everything ends in a sales call.

From there, you map out what happens: deals are created, follow-ups happen, and deals close.

It’s simplified here, but you should also map out deal stages and nurturing in between.

So now we have a transparent overview showing stages, activities, and the path a lead takes to convert, all along a simple funnel diagram.

Add Properties That Actually Matter

Now we go alongside the funnel stages and add properties we need in our CRM (or that should being tracked automatically) to each activity.

In the upper part you have for example the UTM parameters that answer where leads are coming from, then you have the property that’s added based on segmentation, and then you track if someone opens the email, clicks the link, or ignores it.

Luckily, some of this is tracked automatically in most CRMs.

Now we map out properties to the rest of the activities in the lower part of the funnel and the diagram looks something like this at the end.

Once you do this, you have a clear picture of:

• What path a lead takes

• What you should track

• And what’s missing

To that last point:

Luckily this was a clear funnel we could paint, but sometimes things like retargeting or nurturing flows are completely missing.

Here the overview helps. Thanks to that you can easily think through and see what’s missing. And this is what you should do with every funnel and activity you’re doing to generate leads.

Yes, every funnel, because you want transparency, you want to know what works and what doesn’t, and you want to track the right things to scale with transparency, not blindness.

After doing this we ended up deleting 50% of the existing properties. Why? Because if you don’t use the data to make a decision, it’s a distraction.

Final Words

Look, most companies don’t need more leads. They need better systems.

You can double your ad spend, hire more marketers, and pump out more content, but if your funnel leaks at every stage because of broken processes, growth will always feel harder than it should.

The fix isn’t complicated: map every funnel, add properties that matter, build clean workflows & automations, and delete the rest. That’s how you create clarity from chaos and build a structure your team can actually scale with.

No more guessing. No more broken dashboards. No more workflows running to nowhere.

Just clean systems that scale.

Sometimes it takes a reset to move forward.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Then something caught my eye: “Guideflow - The AI demo automation platform for SaaS”

I clicked and went straight to their website, as I’m a huge fan of what they offer.

Guideflow helps SaaS companies build interactive demos, allowing them to embed those demos directly on their own websites. With this, your users have already tested your tool before ever signing up.

Super smart.

After looking at their website, I started thinking: how would I build their growth system to make sure nothing falls apart when they scale?

That’s what I break down today.

The Homepage (And What Could Be Improved)

Let’s start at the entry to Guideflow’s solution.

I ignored everything else and focused on what happens above the fold on their website.

Here’s what you see when you land:

a headline, a subheadline, and chaos.

The subheadline is great - crystal clear and explains exactly what you can do. But the main headline just repeats what the tool does.

I’d flip it and use the headline to show the outcome: “Build an interactive demo. Watch your conversion rate climb.” Something like that.

After that is where the chaos begins: there’s the CTA overkill:

• Get a demo

• Talk to sales

And the demo CTAs:

• Interactive demo

• Demo center

• Sandbox

• Live demo

That’s four demo types before I even understand what the tool does.

Look, I get it. They want to showcase possibilities. But at this stage, I don’t know the difference between a demo center and a sandbox. I’d have to scroll down and read more.

Here’s What I’d Do Instead

Two options:

A) Add tooltips next to each option — quick explainer, hover and learn.

B) Reduce it to one option — this is what I’d pick.

One interactive demo that shows you how to build interactive demos with the tool itself. Meta, but it works.

And they already have this next to all the other options. So simply reduce it.

The rest of the website is pretty clear and I assume it converts pretty strong. But back to our system.

We take the interactive demo I mentioned above as a starting point. So let’s say someone clicks through it because he wants to know what he can do with Guideflow.

And you know what Guideflow does smart here?

The demo is long. Really long. Which means if someone clicks through to the end, they’re hooked.

Almost guaranteed conversion.

At the end of the demo, there’s a CTA: “Create your own demo” Click it and you’re taken to account creation.

The signup form is clean with social proof right there and name drops of customers. Strong for conversion.

After you sign up, you hit a segmentation flow: company size, what you’re using it for, and some hints about installing the Chrome extension.

Then you land in the product.

At this point, Guideflow knows: you used the interactive demo, you created an account, your company size, and what you want to use it for.

You’re in the free version.

The goal?

Upsell you. So, what to do now?

How I Would Build Guideflow’s Growth System

Let’s assume everything else is fine. The paid offer is solid, users get value, and product-market fit is there.

It’s “just” about upselling.

First thing I’d do? Track more.

Because in SaaS, it’s all about the AHA moment.

💡 The “aha moment” is the point where a user first experiences the core value of the product - the moment the product’s benefit becomes obvious.

It’s not just activation or onboarding. It’s the instant the user says: “Oh… this is why this product is awesome.”

This is where most SaaS fail nowadays, especially AI tools.

I’ve seen it over and over: A) there is simply no AHA moment because the tools are shit or B) the users aren’t pushed enough to ever reach this moment.

But let’s get back to Guideflow.

I assume the AHA moment here is when someone builds a demo, implements it on their website, and sees how users interact with it and convert.

And until that happens, they’re not ready to buy.

So the first goal for Guideflow is to push users toward the AHA moment.

Lead Scoring First, Pushing Leads Second

For this, I’d use a scoring system, 0 to 100 (and this is really simplified).

For simplicity, let’s say Guideflow’s ICP is somewhere between enterprise customers and scaling startups (based on a look at their pricing table).

Here’s the scoring I would start with:

That means:

• ICP creates an account = 60 points

• Non-ICP creates an account = 30 points

• ICP builds and implements a demo = 100 points (sales ready)

• Non-ICP builds and implements a demo = 70 points

This gives us a clear map of where everyone sits.

Make Them Sales Ready

Now we can build nurture flows based on scoring.

Four workflows:

1. ICP created account, but no demo built = 60 points → Goal: bring them to 75 points

2. ICP created account and built demo, but didn’t implement it = 75 points → Goal: bring them to 100 points

3. Non-ICP created account, but no demo built = 30 points → Goal: bring them to 45 points

4. Non-ICP created account and demo, but didn’t implement it = 45 points → Goal: bring them to 70 points

Start nurturing with regular emails, a few days between each one in the beginning, and push them based on behavior.

Example emails:

• “Hey, you created an account. Here’s how to build your first demo in 5 minutes.”

• “You built a demo. Nice. Now let’s get it live on your site.”

• “Your demo is live. Here’s what to track to see results.”

• …

If they don’t increase their points after 30 days, disqualify them and start a requalification campaign later.

Now let’s say we pushed a decent number of users to the AHA moment. Lead scores increased and we’ve got a pool of perfectly scored users. Time to upsell.

How to Upsell

100 points and above:

Route directly to sales with personal outreach and calls. Sales has all the info: where they came from, company size, what they want to use the tool for, and how sales-ready they are.

Why sales here? Because you’re fighting with limited resources, you channel them where the most money is made. The most promising leads go to sales.

If sales don’t convert them, either disqualify or push back into sales nurturing.

70 points (non-ICP):

Not worth sales effort. There’s decent money here, but not enough to justify sales time.

Goal: direct conversion and self-upgrade.

Go all-in on email nurturing and ad retargeting.

Build sequences with case studies, testimonials, and success stories - everything personalized and tailored based on segmentation.

That’s why Guideflow asks “How do you plan to use it?” in the beginning. Use that data.

To make this efficient, add more complexity to scoring by subtracting points if someone doesn’t open emails or click links. This way you get perfectly qualified leads and significantly increase self-upselling.

Making the flow look like this:

Last Words

Most SaaS companies throw leads into the product and hope they figure it out.

The difference between companies that scale and companies that stall? Better systems.

And if you have a good product, it’s not that hard.

Push users to the AHA moment, score them based on behavior, and route them where they belong. High-value leads to sales and everyone else to self-serve. Simple.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

They had a pretty smart ad tactic that got me thinking. And as we were revamping our own strategy, I adapted it.

Turns out it worked better than expected. We generated a decent number of leads for around $20 CPL.

So I wanted to dive deeper into this ad tactic and show you how the growth system after conversion looks under the hood.

(Of course, I can’t see into Stripe’s actual system — I’m speaking hypothetically here, and I’ll use Stripe as the example to show you how we built the system.)

LinkedIn ads as an entry point

It starts with one ad.

And this ad stands out because not many companies do this.

Stripe uses non-gated PDFs. All information is available. No paywall where you “pay” with your data. No form asking for your email. No shady newsletter signup.

Why does this work?

Because ,ore people actually read it when there’s no barrier.

💡 And gating is kind of dead anyway.

A recent survey found 81% of people abandon the sign-up process for gated content, and many marketers report being overwhelmed with “junk leads” from poorly converting forms (Three29).

On a side note, I’m still using it, but only when the content is worth it. For example, we created a tool in Lovable that helps our audience perform a self-assessment. This is gated.

But what is definitely dead is gating a PDF and holding back information that should be publicly available (or is already available elsewhere).

Back to Stipe’s ad.

This is it:

Click on the ad and you’re directed to this PDF:

As you read through the PDF, you eventually hit the call to action section at the end.

This one is sneaky because it’s super subtle - three call to actions in the text without any buttons. And I like it very much because it doesn’t scream “I NEED THE CONVERSION URGENTLY”.

So, those three CTA options are:

• Read our guide → more information and content

• Contact our sales team → conversion

• Sign up for an account → conversion

This single ad tactic gives us one entry point into Stripe’s (potential) growth system. And from here, the system branches into three paths.

How I Stripe’s Growth System (Might) Look Like

So, we have three possible paths someone can take:

A) Someone converts directly through “Contact our sales team”

B) Someone converts directly through “Sign up for an account”

C) Someone reads more content and then converts later. Or they forget to fill out the form because something came up. (You’re laughing but that happens a lot.)

So, let’s break down each path.

Path A: Direct Sales Conversion

When someone clicks “Contact our sales team,” they’re routed to a form that asks questions. This is good because it segments them right away.

But here’s the problem - the information about where they came from is missing.

Stripe could add a UTM parameter to the link that passes the information that you’re coming from the PDF and which specific ad brought you there. Because in my world UTMs are the difference between “a lead” and “a hot lead with context”.

If you are not familiar with UTM links. This is how the link would look like:

https://stripe.com/en-de/contact/sales 
?utm_source=linkedin-ad (-> shows source)
&utm_medium=guide (-> shows campaing)
&utm_campaign=how-app-developers-can-reduce-fees (-> shows exact PDF)
&utm_content=contact-our-sales-team-link (-> shows clicked CTA)

💡 UTM parameters, why is it important?

UTM parameters are generated links that contain necessary information, such as where someone came from, which campaign they interacted with, and any other details you want to pass along through the link.

Why is this important? Imagine your sales team starting a conversation or reaching out to a prospect - it gives them icebreakers like, ‘Oh, you read the PDF. What did you think about XY (name a passage in the PDF)?’ That serves as an entry point and a hook, making your BDRs’ lives easier.

UTM parameters can then be picked up in the form itself (e.g. HubSpot offers this without coding knowledge).

With it you pass all data directly into your CRM, which gives sales all the context they need: where the lead came from, which ad they saw, plus everything they filled out in the form.

Here, the flow becomes: Someone reads the PDF → goes to landing page → fills out form, books a call → sales has full context for the conversation.

Path B: Self-Service Sign Up (That Needs Nurturing)

Stripe is lucky here.

They’re not a typical SaaS with a freemium-to-paid conversion problem. If someone signs up and uses Stripe for payments, Stripe gets a cut every time that user sells something = Lock the user in, make good money.

But what if someone signs up just “to have a look” and never actually uses the tool? This is where Stripe needs nurturing to push them toward activation.

Let’s start with the sign-up form.

Btw. the form is nice - Stripe uses social proof with logos and name dropping on the left side.

But same problem as before - no UTM links.

The origin of the lead can’t be stored on the contact.

I’d fix this the same way:

https://stripe.com/en-de/contact/sales 
?utm_source=linkedin-ad 
&utm_medium=guide 
&utm_campaign=how-app-developers-can-reduce-fees 
&utm_content=sign-up-for-an-account

This gives the team visibility into where leads came from so you can pass them segmented and personalized content.

After someone creates an account, Stripe does the smart thing - they ask what you’re using Stripe for.

This is where segmentation happens.

With our UTM tweak, Stripe would now store three critical pieces of information:

A) Where the lead converted from (LinkedIn ad via PDF guide)

B) What they’re using Stripe for (e.g., “Tax collection”)

C) Which target group they’re in (e.g., app developers from the PDF targeting)

This data powers super personalized nurturing for users who sign up but don’t activate.

We can run this through two channels: retargeted ads and email nurture.

The retargeting ad campaign would be a two-step LinkedIn sequence targeting users who converted but aren’t using the product:

Step 1: Promote a case study showing how app developers successfully use Stripe for tax collection. (We know they’re app developers from the PDF targeting, and we know they want tax collection from the segmentation question. Perfect match.)

Step 2: Direct conversion ad. They signed up, they engaged with the case study, now hit them with “Use Stripe now” and link to activation steps.

The email nurture campaign would run parallel with triggered emails based on user actions:

• Email 1: Welcome + quick setup guide (show them the fastest path to value)

• Email 2: Use case focused content (deep dive on tax collection for app developers)

• Email 3: Social proof (case study showing success with their exact use case)

• Email 4: Direct conversion push (clear CTA to start using the product)

• …

The combination of retargeting ads and email nurture gives multiple touchpoints to push inactive sign-ups toward activation.

Path C: The Browsers Who Need More Warming

This is for people who clicked the PDF but didn’t convert yet. Maybe they’re still researching. Maybe they got distracted. Either way, no conversion happened.

Here’s the challenge - even with UTM parameters in place, we can’t capture any data until someone actually converts in our system. So how do we move these people forward?

We work with what LinkedIn gives us: people who clicked on the PDF.

That’s our signal that we have relevant, interested prospects.

Here I’d build a 3-layer retargeting campaign based on that PDF click:

Layer 1: Show them a case study about how app developers successfully use Stripe for tax collection. Same ad as in Path B - doesn’t matter if the exact use case matches. You just want to demonstrate someone got real value from the tool.

Layer 2: More social proof or a different angle on the same use case. Keep building credibility.

Layer 3: Direct conversion offer. Test two variations here - “Talk to sales” versus “Sign up for an account.” At this point they clicked the PDF, engaged with two case study ads, so they’re clearly interested → Time to ask for the conversion.

If someone books a call?

Perfect - they go to sales with context. If someone signs up? They get funneled into Path B’s nurturing system because now the segmentation starts and you can activate them if they don’t use the tool.

Final Words

This is how I’d build Stripe’s growth system based on one single LinkedIn ad entry point.

(And this is how I built ours after getting inspired by this ad.)

It’s not magic:

• Non-gated content that actually gets read (90% fewer dropoffs)

• UTM tracking that feeds your CRM with real attribution data

• Segmentation questions that make personalization possible

• Multi-channel nurturing through retargeting ads and email sequences

• Behavioral retargeting based on what people actually do, not hunches

This generates high-quality leads and converts them into calls without losing potential customers to gated PDFs.

PS: If you enjoyed this, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Today, we’re breaking down the funnel of VEED, one of the most successful video editing startups of the AI era. I came across it recently while searching for a way to create engaging videos, and its growth loop is what caught my attention.

So, let’s jump in.

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Have you ever considered using video in your marketing?

Me too.

But I always struggled with how to edit videos to make them cool and engaging. When I last looked into this topic, I saw that there are now thousands of AI tools that can help.

However, VEED stood out. It’s probably one of the most successful ones: it started as a bare-bones video editor and now generates $40 million in revenue in 2024, up from $15 million in 2023.

So, I thought we could take a closer look at its growth mechanics.

VEED – From Side Project to Eight-Figure SaaS

SEO as a Key Pillar of Its Strategy

VEED started as a side project and relied heavily on SEO from the very beginning.

Today, it attracts about 11.7 million visits per month and is one of the world’s 20 most-visited design tools.

It all started simply, as the founder stated in a Reddit post six years ago.

So they started out with:

• Posting on Quora → which was found through SEO and drove traffic

• Building backlinks through an additional tool → which created trust in the VEED page and helped it rank better

If we dive into its traffic sources today, a Similarweb breakdown shows an unusually balanced traffic mix for a product-led SaaS:

• Organic search delivers 52.94% of desktop sessions, thanks to thousands of highly targeted landing pages (e.g., “compress WebM,” “add subtitles to TikTok”).

• Direct traffic contributes 35.33%, indicating that many people type “veed” directly into the URL bar after encountering the brand elsewhere.

• Social channels round things out—most visibly a YouTube channel with 146,000 subscribers and over 41 million lifetime views, plus 21,700 followers on TikTok, where quick-fire demos double as advertisements.

This indicates that VEED has a strong brand—with over 35% direct traffic—and drives significant traffic through SEO and social media.

Smart here is that they build landingpages for every use case like “add subtitles to TikTok”

Two Minutes to the “Aha” Moment

But how is all that traffic converted? And how do users see the value?

The answer is ruthlessly simple—it takes no longer than two minutes to reach the “aha” moment.

💡 The “aha moment” is the point where a user first experiences the core value of a product—when they go from just trying it to truly understanding it. It's the switch that flips when someone says, “Ohhh… now I see why this is useful.”

It’s not always the first login or feature click; it’s the first moment of realized value.

Start for free, no card required.

Once new visitors land on the site, they can jump straight into the editor from any landing page and are greeted with calls to action like “Get started” and “Start for free.”

The added note—“No credit card required”—helps lower the barrier to entry and encourages users to try the product without commitment.

Once you log in, you land directly inside the tool.

You can upload your video and have plenty of options to optimize it, from auto-generating subtitles to removing noise and improving quality.

This makes beginners feel like pros in less than 120 seconds, which turns out to be the aha moment.

Watermark Loop: Free Advertising Baked into the Product

Once users want to download their video (on the free version), VEED’s product-led growth tactic comes into play.

Every video exported on the free plan is stamped with a discreet “VEED” badge that cannot be removed without a paid subscription.

As many users don’t pay for the tool, they use these clips with the watermark intact. Because creators post them across TikTok, Reels, Shorts, and LinkedIn, the watermark travels with the content.

Viewers who click—or simply remember the short domain—land on VEED, use the free editor, and, in turn, push more branded videos back into the wild. Direct traffic numbers confirm that this loop sustains itself at scale.

How VEED Makes Money

Huge traffic and smart product-led growth aren’t enough. What counts is revenue, and VEED uses multiple streams:

1. Subscriptions
2. Credits

For subscriptions, the cheapest paid tier—Lite, at roughly $9/month—removes the watermark and unlocks 1080p resolution.

Higher-tier plans offer 4K exports, brand kits, language translation, and eye-contact correction. Enterprise pricing includes even more features, which are typically needed by companies using the tool at scale (and it’s interesting that such a tool even offers enterprise packages).

Credits, on the other hand, are used for AI functionality—such as AI avatars—and follow a typical usage-based pricing model.

Loops That Keep Customers—and Bring in New Ones

VEED.io has over 12 million users per month and more than 100,000 paying users. It has grown from a small startup into a global, industry-leading platform by leveraging various growth mechanics.

One of these is the “Invite Your Friends” discount, which incentivizes users to refer others in exchange for benefits, helping to fuel viral growth and expand the user base organically.

Affiliate Program

The affiliate program has no limit. Participants receive a 25% commission on every successful referral for up to 12 months.

Final Words

VEED’s growth loop is a textbook example: long-tail SEO filled the top of the funnel; the watermark turned every user into a micro-advertiser; social video added reach; and AI features increased trial-to-paid conversions and average revenue per user.

VEED’s badge may occupy just a few pixels in the corner of a video, but it’s the engine behind its success.

If your product naturally produces shareability, your next growth breakthrough might be hiding in plain sight—right where your users click “Publish.”

Takeaways

1. Put your brand in the product itself. If users share what they create, find a subtle way to include your logo or name.

2. Show value before asking for money. Let people experience the “wow” moment quickly, and then they'll be more open to upgrading.

3. Stick with what works. Keep your best growth channels running, even as you try new ones.

4. Educate instead of advertising. Tutorials and webinars build trust better than pop-ups or ads.

5. Raise money to grow, not to survive. Being profitable gives you more choices and better deals when fundraising.

PS: If you enjoyed this case study, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛

Today, I want to dive into why so many AI startups hit past $1 million ARR at lightning speed. I thought, this cannot be a coincidence, even if they are riding a massive hype wave.

And I was right…

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So, it feels like every week I read another headline like “fastest-growing AI startup” or “from $0 to $1 million ARR in 12 months.”

This makes it seem like AI startups are killing it and that all you need is AI to build the most successful startup ever.

But you probably know as well as I do that this can’t be true.

All the more reason to take a deep dive and look at what makes Lovable, Mistral, and others so successful.

And surprisingly, there is a pattern.

The AI-Startup Pattern

So, when diving into this, I noticed the following pattern that most of these major startups seem to follow:

1. Pain-first discovery

2. Tiny, tool-augmented team

3. Forward-deployed prototyping

4. Community launch & private beta

5. One pain at a time

Let’s have a look.

1. Pain-first discovery

All these exploding tools were built because their founders saw a major pain point or wanted to scratch their own itch.

Most of the AI founders were either second-time founders or had worked in a startup environment - so they knew they couldn’t blindly dive into an idea and start developing it.

Lovable’s founder, Anton Osika, for example, built an early version of Lovable - the open-source GPT-Engineer - while serving as CTO at a startup, to stop his own team from burning hours on boilerplate code. It received 50,000 GitHub stars, so he knew he was onto something.

2. Tiny, tool-augmented team

The era of large startup teams is over. Every AI startup is now built on small, tool-augmented teams.

This means AI startups are leveraging AI tools (lol) to build, scale, and execute faster. This makes the ARR per employee insanely high.

Lovable, for example—even after racing past $20–30M in ARR—the tool employed just 18 people, resulting in over $1M ARR per employee.

3. Forward-deployed prototyping

It seems that these startups never shipped anything that wasn't tested. They embedded their teams directly inside a real customer’s environment (or workflow) to co-build, refine, and validate their AI solutions in real time. And with that, they did the following:

• On-site (or deeply integrated) collaboration: The founders or engineers worked closely with users (often literally sitting with them or sharing their daily tools) so they could see pain points firsthand.

• Rapid, iterative feedback loops: Instead of spending weeks building a polished demo, they put a minimally viable prototype in front of actual users in days - or even hours. They observed how it was used, gathered feedback immediately, and made tweaks on the fly.

• Shared risk and reward: Because they were in the customer’s environment, the customer felt ownership over the solution. They invested time (and sometimes money) earlier, accelerating adoption once the team was ready for a broader rollout.

• Real usage data: They didn’t rely on hypothetical “would-you-use-this?” surveys. They collected metrics on actual behavior - number of queries, time saved, integration issues, etc. - which was far more persuasive to investors and future customers.

4. Community launch & private beta

What you see with almost every AI tool is an online community around it - be it on Slack, a forum on the website, or elsewhere.

Within these communities, users are discussing, sharing feedback and learnings, making it a place where real conversation happens.

In some cases, these communities were built before the tool itself and were used to share a private beta. This allowed the founder to iterate based on feedback at lightning speed, accelerating their forward-deployed prototype approach.

5. One pain at a time

All AI tools started out very narrowly, meaning they focused on solving one high-pain problem before expanding their scope and began mostly vertically, then expanded horizontally.

That is, they started by solving one high-pain use case deeply (e.g., “AI agent for contract due diligence” like Harvey AI did). Once they nailed that niche, they exposed underlying capabilities so users could apply them to adjacent workflows (e.g., “risk flagging across all legal documents” or “generating standardized clauses for templates”).

Another notable trend is ecosystem building.

Almost all of the 202x AI tools use third-party integrations - whether through an official app marketplace or community-driven plugins. The more hooks they expose, the more potential revenue streams they unlock (e.g., revenue-sharing on marketplace extensions).

Examples of the AI Startup Pattern

From Harvey AI to ElevenLabs, many of those startups who seems to skyrocket the past year(s) follow this pattern.

Final Words

It seems, from the outside, that it's enough to ride the AI wave and magically generate millions upon millions in ARR with your AI solution.

But that's wrong.

Behind it, there is a strategy that many are executing well—and, of course, a product that truly solves a pain point accelerates all of this.

However, it seems that, compared to the early startup world, today's startup environment is more mature, has learned from the past, and many founders are doing things right.

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

Most of the time, typical growth tactics don’t work anymore.

A few years ago, it was enough to throw together a mediocre ebook and gate it by asking for user data to generate leads.

Today, you have to:

• Show the product in action

• Attract users

• Build a community

The following examples have gotten more creative.

They created small, additional tools that users engage with during a part of their customer journey.

This generates a kind of lead generation growth loop:

Customer looks to solve a minor problem (like creating an ad) → finds a simple free tool or generator → converts into a user of the main product.

What does this look like?

Launched by Lovable

Lovable became one of Europe’s fastest-growing startups, mostly through word of mouth, since its AI builder turns everyone into a developer. One of its growth tactics is that they also built their own Product Hunt clone. Builders can submit their apps here, while other users can upvote the projects they like. The top five projects each week receive 100 free Lovable credits, encouraging creators to keep building.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Generates more users: Users see what others have built, which gives them ideas for their own projects. Since Lovable is just one click away, they can simply type in their prompt and start building.

• Gamification boosts retention: Submitting a project gives users a chance to win free credits. This definitely keeps some users engaged and motivated to chase the reward. I’ve even spoken to a few users who have built hundreds of small projects that can easily be submitted.

• Builds community and taps into the builder mindset: Builders who upload their projects can receive feedback in the comments, gain exposure, and attract early users. This alone is a strong reason to use Launched for your project—and, in turn, it motivates users to use Lovable.

Presentation Maker by Figma

In addition to its core business, Figma also offers a small but highly intuitive extra tool that allows users to easily create presentations without having to deal with PowerPoint or Google Slides.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Creates visibility: The tool ranks quite high on Google when someone searches for how to create presentations. This attracts new users to Figma. Once a user starts using the presentation maker, they need to create an account, and Figma’s core tool is just one click away.

• Increases retention: It’s not only useful for new users but also for those already familiar with Figma. The tool appeals to an audience that’s used to working with Figma, helping keep them engaged. After all, why use clunky PowerPoint when you’re already used to intuitive Figma?

Tool Library by Softr

Softr is a no-code builder that allows you to create all kinds of tools. On their website, they feature a full library of very small tools. The crux? Every tool, and the entire page, is built with Softr itself.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Demonstrates the tool’s capabilities: These small tools give users a taste of what’s possible with Softr. While they’re not overly complex, seeing that you can build tools like this without coding offers a compelling preview of the platform’s potential.

• Generates Traffic: Each of these tools ranks fairly high on Google. This likely drives a significant amount of traffic to Softr’s site. The best part is that these are all tools users need at some point in their customer journey, which means the right audience is landing on the page.

• Increases Conversions: On each tool’s page, there’s a detailed description along with a clear call to action. For example, on the NPS calculator page, there’s an explanation of what NPS is and how to use it (primarily for SEO purposes), along with a CTA that encourages users to try the tool, ultimately converting them.

Free Ad Maker by Adobe

While the Adobe Suite consists of fairly complex tools that can be quite pricey, Adobe also offers smaller tools on their site with a lower entry barrier to attract users who can then be upsold.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Demonstrates the tool’s capabilities: When you click on "Create now," you land on a library with hundreds of beautifully designed ad visuals that you can edit and adapt to your needs. This showcases the tool’s design capabilities and helps convince users to explore what’s possible with Adobe.

• Increases conversions: Once you edit an ad, you need to create an account to download it. This allows Adobe to send you regular emails and nurture you until you’re ready to buy.

• Targets the right audience: If you’re looking at the ad maker, you’re likely already interested in design. This gives Adobe direct access to leads that fit their ideal target audience.

Logo Maker by WIX

The good old logo makers—this is a well-known example of this tactic. And even though there are many logo makers out there, I think this example from WIX is still a great one to include in this series.

Why does this fuel the growth loop?

• Attracts the right people: Anyone who needs a website also needs a logo. Since the logo maker ranks quite high on Google, the right audience likely ends up on WIX’s website through it.

• Conversions: As with similar tools, once you start using the logo maker, you're required to create an account.

• Value, value, value: In the past, creating a logo could be expensive. WIX’s logo maker offers logos for free with full commercial rights. This delivers real value to users, making them more willing to provide their data to access it. In turn, this allows WIX to nurture those leads.

Final Words

The days of crappy PDFs and eBooks are over. If you want to follow effective lead generation tactics, offer something your audience truly finds useful, like the examples above.

This is much more likely to generate leads that match your target audience, even if it’s just a small tool that solves one specific problem.

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

The holy grail when it comes to finding users: throw money at it, and everything will work out.

Wrong. Don’t do it.

Even worse - don’t do LinkedIn ads. You’ll burn a ton of money, especially if you haven’t reached product-market fit and you’re an indie maker.

But you might think LinkedIn is where you’ll reach your target audience, and you’ll want to take a look anyway… even if I warned you.

Then here’s the mistake we did what you still shouldn’t do.

Hypothesis

So, we thought we’d take one of our well-performing posts and simply “boost” it. LinkedIn offers this feature to get more eyeballs on your content.

And as every expert tells you to take a well-performing organic post and turn it into an ad, what could possibly go wrong?

I jumped into the feed, picked a post that aligned with our current effortst… hoping the included landing page link would drive more clicks and ultimately increase conversions.

Our hypothesis was:

If we boost a well-performing organic post, then we will see significantly more impressions and higher conversions in the end.

Experiment Design

So, we picked the post, hit "Boost," set up our target group, and thought we could get started.

Not with LinkedIn. The post included a couple of emojis too many for LinkedIn’s taste.

So, we removed them and hit "Boost" again. I allocated $500 to see how it would perform.

Results

This experiment ran from April 4 to April 16 (about 2 weeks).

We spent $482.71.

The ad generated 31,509 impressions and 230 clicks—resulting in a CTR of 0.73%.

We generated 0 leads from it.

Okay, maybe the landing page was bad. Fair.

But even the click-through rate was low for a tactic where every “expert” says to just take an organic post that performs well and turn it into an ad.

Takeaways

While we saw zero results from it, I wouldn’t completely say that it couldn’t work.

But boosting a post should be part of a larger campaign. And since you want to see fast results when building your own (side) projects, don’t use this tactic.

It’s not worth it for this purpose and costs too much. That $500 is better invested if you want to experiment with ads.

See you next time! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

One thing that was on our minds: how do we get more people to actually fill out the form? Obvious goal, right?

We had a clear CTA and a well-designed page, but we realized there is something we might do wrong.

So, we came up with an idea.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis we wanted to test was:

If we move the sign-up form from the bottom of the landing page to the middle, closer to the point where most users are still actively engaged, we can capture more conversions from:

A) people who are already convinced and just need a form within reach, and
B) people who might lose interest or drop off before ever reaching the bottom.

Experiment Design

We placed the same form (no changes to copy or fields) midway through the landing page, right after the section explaining the product’s core benefits.

It was styled to fit naturally with the flow of the content, and we kept the original form at the bottom as well, so users still had two chances to convert.

Results

This experiment ran from February 1 to February 16 (about 2 weeks).

When the form was placed only at the bottom of the page, 216 out of 2,570 page visitors saw it (about 10%).

When the form was placed in the middle of the page, 974 out of 2,228 visitors saw it (43.72%).

With the form at the bottom, we received 11 submissions, resulting in a 5.09% conversion rate (based on views).

With the form in the middle, we received 44 submissions from 974 views, resulting in a 4.52% conversion rate.

So, we saw a significant increase in form views when it was placed in the middle of the page… kind of obvious.

Although the conversion rate per viewer was slightly lower, this simple change in placement led to a much higher number of total submissions. With just copy/pasting it on a different position we generated more leads, making the experiment successful.

Takeaways

Most visitors don’t make it to the bottom of your landing page. So why place your main conversion point only there?

By simply moving the form higher, closer to the point of peak interest, we gave more people the chance to take action without scrolling further.

Sometimes, a small layout tweak is all it takes to unlock more value.

See you next time! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

This probably sounds familiar to some of you.

So, the only thing we were able to do was reach out directly to our customers and post on social media.

And while the latter takes months to show results, we, of course, focused heavily on the first one.

We optimized it to the extreme.

Within a couple of months, we generated 7-figure revenues with a pipeline worth 8 figures - solely through emails combined with LinkedIn messages.

But nowadays, when I open my inbox, I get such crappy messages that I’m wondering what went wrong. With AI, everyone thinks they can send the same message to everyone and hope it will work somehow.

Spoiler: it doesn’t.

To make our outreach stick, it took a lot of testing and manual effort before we found a setup that worked.

And one thing is often overlooked and causes your messages to sound like impersonal, generic nonsense:

Buying signals.

Buying signals help you identify when someone is ready for your solution and really help you craft personal messages that stick.

The good thing is, while in the past you often had to look for these signals manually, AI can now help you find them and scan large lead lists to identify whether someone is ready to buy or not.

So for this article, here’s what we’ll cover:

• Which buying signals you should look for

• How to find them easily (with the help of AI)

• How to build an outreach flow that converts

• How to create ultra-personalized messages (using AI)

So let’s jump in.

PS: You still need to do a certain level of manual work… forget about feeding a lead list into a tool and hoping for the best. If you are not putting in the work, you won’t get results.

Which Buying Signals You Should Look For and How to Find Them

When it comes to buying signals, there are many.

Here, I break down the ones that helped us the most and how you can find them using AI.

For this, you need a tool called Phantombuster—you can do a lot with the free version, while the paid version costs €69 per month. But trust me, it’s worth it.

So, which buying signals should you look for?

1. Someone who interacts with your content (or content from someone who fits your industry/product)

For this, you have to create content regularly (obviously), but this one is powerful.

Let’s say you post about your business, industry, or things happening in your company or with your product.

Someone who likes or comments is naturally showing interest. These are some of my first go-to sources when it comes to finding interested leads.

Without you going manually to all of your likers, Phantombuster helps here:

Choose the following trigger:

Now you're asked to provide your source. You can either choose your company page or profile page and find a post there. You can search for a post directly or copy the URL of the post into the tool.

(The good thing: It doesn’t have to be your own post, which makes this even more powerful. You can scan through LinkedIn, look for posts that fit your target audience and topic, copy the URL, and start getting a list of all the people who engaged with it.)

The next step allows you to define your target audience using AI.

Let’s say 100 people interacted with your post, but you're only interested in startup founders based in Germany.

You just enter that into the fields in Phantombuster, and it will only provide you with the relevant people who liked the post.

(Phantombuster also handles variations, but try to be as precise as possible.)

After this, you get a list of all the people who interacted with your (or someone else’s) post that fit your criteria, and you can start reaching out to them.

How you reach out to that list, we'll discuss later.

2. Someone who posts about topics related to your industry/product

It’s the same here—if someone is actively posting about topics your product relates to, that indicates strong buying interest.

Let’s say someone is complaining about HR tools, posting about CRMs, or discussing anything your product addresses—this is a strong signal.

Phantombuster offers a tool that extracts posts and activities from a list of LinkedIn profiles.

You might ask: Where do I get a list of LinkedIn profiles?

The good thing is, Phantombuster lets you stack multiple tools together.

You have several options here. For example, you can scrape all accounts you're connected with, pull profiles from a LinkedIn search, or extract all members of a LinkedIn group.

The result: You get a list of leads with information like company, name, etc., as well as a link to their LinkedIn profile. This can be downloaded as a CSV file or saved directly in Phantombuster.

Now you can use it to find people who post about certain topics.

In the tool, simply select the list you scraped.

You choose which types of activities Phantombuster should export.

You choose the frequency… and this is important.

Naturally, LinkedIn and other social platforms don’t like it when you scrape data from them.

This means if you use it extensively and scrape too much data at once in a way that feels unnatural to LinkedIn’s algorithm, you risk getting kicked out. Therefore, it’s best to use the recommended settings from Phantombuster—this way, you're on the safe side.

Once it runs through, you get a CSV file with all the people you scraped and the content they posted.

Now, you want to find the ones who post about topics that align with your product and indicate buying readiness.

Jump into ChatGPT and let it analyze the list.

The result will be a list of profiles that fit your target audience and are ready for you to reach out to.

3. Being part of specific social media groups

Another way to find buying-ready leads is through social groups. We touched on this earlier when pulling data, but you can also use this method on its own.

Social groups are still popular—people join them to connect with like-minded individuals, discuss shared interests, and talk about their challenges.

That makes them perfect for finding leads who are already engaged and potentially ready to buy.

And Phantombuster lets you pull lead lists from these groups, whether it's a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group.

What you get here is a lead list of people + their LinkedIn profile URLs. You can then use another Phantombuster tool to enrich this list by pulling detailed information from each LinkedIn profile.

After that, scan through the data with ChatGPT to identify those who fit your target group, post relevant content, etc, and tada, you have leads you can reach out to.

4. Industry event or webinar

This is similar to posts and engagement—someone who is interested in events related to your industry or product is more likely to convert.

Phantombuster has you covered here as well:

4. Recent job Changes

This is a strong buying signal because someone who recently changed jobs is likely eager to succeed and show results.

If your product helps them achieve success in their new role, it's even more likely they’ll take an interest and be open to a conversation.

This can also be handled by using AI + Phantombuster.

Many people post about this—those "I got a new job" announcements—you know the type.

Once you have a list of profiles and a list of their posts, ask ChatGPT to scan through it and filter out those leads.

Now you have a list of people who recently got a new job—you can filter through it to see if their new role aligns with your product, giving you a strong indication that they may be ready to buy.

6. Funding round/investment

This one worked really well for us, even though it requires a certain amount of manual work.

But why is that?

Imagine a company in your industry just got funding, and your product could help them achieve X. Now you know two things:
a) they have a problem you can solve
b) they now have the budget to act on it.

Many companies go on a spending spree as soon as they receive funding, so it's easy for you to leverage this.

To find those companies, you can go to Crunchbase and scan through recent funding rounds and filter for companies that have recently raised capital. Now, gather them in a list.

But what do you do when you have a list of company names?

You jump into Phantombuster again and use this:

Once you have a list of LinkedIn company URLs, you use the next tool from Phantombuster.

Now you have a list of employees along with their LinkedIn URLs. You can filter out the target person you want to reach—most likely someone with a job title that fits your target group—and start sending messages.

7. Prospects coming to you

I’ve put this together in one section, just for the sake of completeness.

These are very strong buying signals, which is obvious, but they occur when someone comes to you, so you can’t actively look for them.

Those are things like:

• When someone converts on your website or books a demo

• When a CRM like HubSpot tracks site visits, and if one of your contacts visits a specific page, it can be a strong indicator they’re ready to buy or be contacted

• When someone fills out a form (for content or any other offer)

And so on.

I’m mainly talking here about signals that happen internally, but they are always strong signs of interest.

For all of the methods shown above, Phantombuster also offers tools for Instagram and Facebook that work in basically the same way.

So if your target group is active on those platforms, there’s a good chance Phantombuster can help you there as well.

How to Build an Outreach Flow That Converts

The result of each buying signal and each Phantombuster scrape is a list of potential leads, with some useful data, and most importantly, their LinkedIn profile URLs.

Which means: we can work with it.

But when it comes to sending messages, we don’t want to manually send 100 messages. Ideally, we want to automate this as much as possible.

Luckily, Phantombuster offers an option for that.

Here, you can build message flows to automatically reach out to your lead lists.

And it starts with sending out connection requests.

Here, you also have the option to personalize the invitation messages. However, this is something you'll need to test—I personally experienced a slightly higher acceptance rate when I sent invitations without a message (don’t ask me why).

So I would say: don’t put too much effort into this step. Remove the checkmark and skip the message if you don’t have anything important to say right at the beginning.

After that, you can set up your follow-up messages.

Phantombuster offers some personalization options using tags like {firstName}, {lastName}, and more.

These become helpful when it comes to crafting the actual messages (which we will discuss below).

Most people are more likely to respond after the second or third message. If you send more, you’ll likely lose them.

Anyway, Phantombuster allows only 3 follow-up messages, which is enough.

The first follow-up message should be sent after 1–2 days. Wait 3 days before sending the second one, and another 3 days before sending the third.

This timing gave me the highest response rate.

And statistic shows it:

What if I want to combine it with email?

I want to include this because I’ve had good experiences with it, but note that it will cost an additional tool and probably another €69 per month, so it’s understandable if you want to skip it.

For this, we use Lemlist (or other tools) to create multi-step outreach sequences.

What you can do here includes sending emails, LinkedIn messages, visiting profiles, and even sending voice messages—basically, everything that helps you convert a lead.

The nice thing is, you can easily import the leads you scraped with Phantombuster and combine these tools in a way.

With Lemlist, you can then enrich the leads and let it find their email addresses.

This way, you can create outreach flows using both email and LinkedIn messages, which, in turn, are more likely to convert.

As you probably know from experience, LinkedIn can be full of spam, so email may be more effective in some cases.

How to Create Ultra-Personalized Messages (Using AI)

We now have a flow that engages leads with the right number of messages, and we’ve identified different buying signals to pinpoint the right time to reach out. Now, the key piece is still missing: a message that sticks.

To create this, we use ChatGPT

We aim for a short and crisp outreach message, because no one wants to scroll through a page-long email. And thanks to our buying signals, it gets super personalized event with AI.

So, we use this prompt:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 60 words)  
for [put in target group].

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborate on it: [put in buying signal].

Briefly explain what your solution does [put in your product description]and delivers [put in outcomes you achieved].

Close with a soft, helpful next step — like a question, free insight, or resource —  to spark a reply without pressure.

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant.

Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.

This could look like this:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 60 words) for sustainability manager. 

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborte on it: started a new job position. Briefly explain what your solution does platform to measure co2 emissions and helps company to reduce it by 20%. 

Close with a soft, helpful next step — like a question, free insight, or resource — to spark a reply without pressure. 

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant. Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.

And the outcome is this message:

Subject: Congrats on your new role at {companyName}, {firstName}

Hi {firstName}, saw you just stepped into the Sustainability Manager role—congrats! Thought I’d reach out: we help teams like yours measure CO₂ emissions and cut them by up to 20% with our platform.

Would it be helpful if I shared a quick benchmark from similar companies in your industry?

One that feels natural and addresses the pain points someone faces in their new role.

For the second follow-up message, we simply add in the same chat:

create a 2nd follow up message

And ChatGPT generates an example with a use case here, which, in my experience, works pretty well.

Subject: Quick follow-up, {firstName}

Hi {firstName}, just wanted to circle back in case my last note got buried.

Happy to share how {similarCompanyName} used our platform to reduce emissions by 18% in under a year—could be a useful reference as you settle into your role at {companyName}.

Would a quick 10-minute chat be useful sometime next week?

For the 3rd one:

Create a third one that says something like you won’t follow up anymore if the lead isn’t interested, but again highlight how it would help.

And we get this:

Subject: Final note, {firstName} — promise I’ll drop off after this

Hi {firstName}, I haven’t heard back, so I’ll assume it’s not a fit right now and won’t reach out again.

Just wanted to say—we’ve helped sustainability teams cut CO₂ emissions by 20% and simplify tracking with far less manual work.

If that ever sounds useful at {companyName}, I’m here.

This flow and type of messaging helped us generate a huge part of our revenue.

BUT: your solution and topics must be highly relevant to your target audience, otherwise you won’t hear back.

Here’s one bonus tip (because these kinds of messages above will always feel salesy, and you won’t be able to get rid of that):

I know everyone wants to reduce manual effort to a minimum.

But the main goal of outreach should be to spark a conversation, build a connection, convert them in a call, and not make a direct sale … that part requires manual work.

So if you are willing to put in the effort, let’s use the following prompt:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 30 words).

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborate on it and mention personal similarities: [put in buying signal].

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant.

Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.

Goal: start a conversation

Avoid things like "Curious how..." or "we’ve helped similar..." just show geniunly interest or compliments

End with a question 

Let’s put in an example like the buying signal funding round:

Craft a short, sharply personalized cold outreach message (max 30 words).

Start by referencing a specific, timely trigger and elaborate on it and mention personal similarities: new funding round.

Ad tags like {fristName} or {companyName} for personalization - and other if you think they are relevant.

Tone: Respectful, strategic, and value-focused, make it like you talk to a human in a conversation.
Goal: start a conversation

Avoid things like "Curious how..." or "we’ve helped similar..." just show geniunly interest or compliments

End with a question 

And the message we get is this:

Congrats on {companyName}’s recent funding — huge milestone. As a fellow founder who scaled post-Series A, I’d love to swap notes on hiring smart at speed. What’s top of mind right now, {firstName}?

It feels human to me. Of course, you’ll have to adapt it to your story, but this will most likely open a conversation. From there, you can then manually start a chat and try to get them in a call.

Last Words

If you really want to get the most out of your outreach, you have to put in the (manual) work.

Outreach works best when you have:

• The right timing

• The right message

• The right offer

With the steps in this article, you’ll at least cover the first two. I’m sure you’ve got the last one. 😊

So please—avoid the spray-and-pray approach. It not only harms your email deliverability but also your brand. Put in the work, and make your outreach a success.

See you next week 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this breakdown, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

One thing that was on our minds: how do we capture demand immediately on our website?

Of course, alongside a launch campaign and go-to-market strategy, we thought it would be smart to have something in place as soon as someone lands on our site.

So, we experimented with this element on our website.

Hypothesis

Our hypothesis we wanted to test was:

If we place a pop-up in the above-the-fold section of our website (where the hero image is), we can capture interest from:
A) people who visit our website after seeing our announcement/launch campaign, and
B) people who already know us and are curious about our new product.

Experiment Design

We placed a small one-line pop-up in the header of our website with a concise value proposition. It opened one second after someone landed on the website.

Clicking on it led users to a form where they could add themselves to the waiting list for the product launch.

Results

This experiment ran from December 4, 2024, to May 1, 2025.

It generated 398 clicks.

From those clicks, we captured 64 leads.

Conversion rate from clicks to leads: 16.08%.

Those 64 leads gave us a solid base of interested users. Of course, the number could have been higher, but we weren’t actively focusing on optimizing the pop-up.

Alongside our other activities for the new product, it was simply there as a passive capture tool.

Take aways

Think about this:

You want to capture demand from people who are interested in what you talk about on social media. In our case, it was a new product. And where do you capture that demand?

Right - usually on your website.

But instead of letting someone click through the whole site to the respective pages, we decided to try capturing them as soon as they landed on it.

See you next time! 👋🏼

PS: If you enjoyed this experiment, please tap the like button and let me know in the comments below. Thank you! 💛

Today, my guest is Nika Kotláriková, Nika is a marketer through and through, and she’s here to share one growth tactic that’s often overlooked. How can your social media benefit from SEO? You’re probably thinking, What do search engines have to do with my socials? But trust me, a lot!

This one’s important, so let’s jump in.

Subscribe now

If you want to get more orders → your website (or social media profile) must have high traffic → you must be the first to appear in search (ideally organically) → and that's what SEO is all about.

This rule works within the web. But what about social networks? How does SEO work there? Today, we will discuss it.

You'll find out why to focus on social media SEO, how it all works and how to proceed, useful tools for social media SEO, and I'll show you a few profiles for inspiration.

This article covers these fundamental topics:

• 🔍 Why do social media SEO?

• 🚀 Steps to improve your “SEO score” on social networks

• ⚙️ Useful tools

• 🌟 Inspirational profiles with good social media SEO

🔍 Why do social media SEO?

Marketers and entrepreneurs spend the vast majority of their time figuring out how to organically rank at the top of web search results and how to stay visible. With AI entering the picture, the only thing gaining more attention is search SEO and AI SEO.

But where else are users frequently present?

Yep – social media.

• 82% of internet users worldwide use social media to research products they‘re interested in buying. (Marketingscoop)

• Social media platforms have become significant sources for news consumption. Predominantly Facebook, YouTube, X and TikTok. (Pew Research)

• Gen Z prefer using social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram for search queries over traditional search engines. (Forbes)

Social shopping – it’s already a $727 billion dollar market according to Grand View Research, and it will reach $6.2 trillion by 2030. Source: Neil Patel – X

🚀 Steps to improve your “SEO score” on social networks

Each social network has its specifics, how it is used and what rules it applies. But most of them use a fairly general formula for social media SEO.

Here are the steps that will help you optimise your profile and make it easier to discover:

• Use keywords in your bio

• Use keywords in your name

• Use keywords in your handle @

• Add alt text to images – this also helps people with visual impairments

• Use hashtags – even though Mosseri said hashtags aren’t a big deal on IG, platforms like YouTube and LinkedIn still rely on them

• Use keywords in your captions

• Use trending music in your posts and try remixing your content with content from bigger creators in your niche

• Add your location to increase discoverability in your region

How does all this affect your visibility?

Your profile will start appearing in the Explore/Search sections of a given social media platform. Your posts will show up under specific keywords (hashtags) on IG (if you used them in your captions, for example). The same applies to Twitter (X) as well.

I included “YouTube” in the post description. When I searched for “YouTube” using the Explore feature on X, my post showed up in the results.

⚙️ Useful tools

For more precise social media SEO, you can use a variety of tools. Here's a list of some of them:

• AnswerThePublic – helps you find questions (topics) people are searching for across platforms

• Brand24 Hashtag Search – allows you to search and analyse hashtags

• Keyword Tool – offers hashtag ideas for Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest, and more

• RiteTag by RiteKit – suggests hashtags based on the image you upload

• TikTok Creative Center – great for discovering hashtags, trending sounds, and keyword suggestions based on region and industry for TikTok

Of course, there are many other tools available on the market. But for the purpose of this article, I’ve limited the selection to just these.

🌟 Inspirational profiles with good social media SEO

The best strategy is to fill out your profile as thoroughly and precisely as possible, including as much information as you can – this increases your chances of being discovered by potential clients or buyers.

So, complete as much as you can (even when it comes to published photos, for example, don’t forget alt texts; use clear CTAs in your bio, add relevant links, etc.). I’ve taken the liberty of including a few good examples with a short analysis.

💡 PRO TIP: You can use emojis to visually “highlight” text.

We are at the end.

I hope this episode helped you get a clearer understanding of SEO on social media, and that after applying these steps, you’ll start seeing better results.

If you’re looking for more tips on marketing or business, you can find them in my Substack articles at Business & Marketing with Nika. Don’t forget to subscribe so you don’t miss my newsletter, published every week.

Lastly, I’d like to thank Andreas for the opportunity and for sharing his valuable insights in his newsletter.

Thanks for reading, and see you soon!

PS: If you enjoyed this growth hack, please tap the like button below. Thank you! 💛