HYPEWORKS

Video is Eating Advertising

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 03 Jan 2026 15:00:29 +0000

What’s New

In other news, Meta Platforms Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg announced on an October earnings call that Instagram and Facebook Reels had surpassed a $50 billion annual run rate, which means that the company is on track to make that amount of revenue in the next 12 months.

By comparison, analysts expect YouTube to bring in $46 billion in advertising revenue this year, and the research firm eMarketer estimates TikTok will bring in $17 billion.

The amount of money pouring into all forms of video demands attention. It’s taking share from every other form of advertising, linear, digital, whatever.

This week it would be rude of us not to talk one more time about our very own HYPEWORKS Summit.

ICYMI, a few weeks ago was the first time ever we hosted a IRL event for our podcast HYPEWORKS that we intuitively named 'HYPEWORKS Summit'.

Watch all the talks here.
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Headlines

AI in 2026: 'Show me the money"

OpenAI, AT&T, Box, Square and other leaders predict trends.

www.axios.com/2026/01/01/ai-2026-money-openai-google-anthropic-agents

Neuralink plans 'high-volume' brain implant production by 2026

Elon Musk's brain implant company Neuralink will start "high-volume production" of brain-computer interface devices and move to an entirely automated surgical procedure in 2026, Musk said in a post on the social media platform X on Wednesday.

www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/musk-says-neuralink-start-high-volume-production-interface-devices-by-2026-2026-01-01

Podcast

Latest episode: Fergus-Dyer Smith on Startups (Watch/Listen)

Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hypeworks-podcast/id1649131740
Other Podcast players https://hypeworkspod.com

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Happy Holidays

Alex MacGregor — Sun, 28 Dec 2025 10:31:08 +0000

What’s New

This week it would be rude of us not to talk about our very own HYPEWORKS Summit.

ICYMI, a few weeks ago was the first time ever we hosted a IRL event for our podcast HYPEWORKS that we intuitively named 'HYPEWORKS Summit'.

Guest speakers included Nico Jeannen who talked about building and selling apps, plus my pod co-host Jake Hissitt who talked about AI automation.

Was cool to do and we'd like to do another one next year.

Watch all the talks here.
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Headlines

I wore an Oura Ring for an entire year — here’s why I’m never going back to a smartwatch

Take my screen away!

www.tomsguide.com/wellness/i-wore-an-oura-ring-for-an-entire-year-heres-why-im-never-going-back-to-a-smartwatch

Top Advertisers 2025: Rankings by total marketing spend - Ad Age

Explore Ad Age’s Brand Report—the biggest companies, ranked by total marketing spend (including advertising, promotion and marketing services) across the U.S. and worldwide.

adage.com/datacenter/aa-top-advertisers-marketing-spend-2025

Amazon faces 'leader's dilemma' — fight AI shopping bots or join them

Agents like OpenAI's Instant Checkout and Perplexity's Instant Buy threaten to reshape the e-commerce landscape.

www.cnbc.com/2025/12/24/amazon-faces-a-dilemma-fight-ai-shopping-agents-or-join-them.html

Podcast

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

The New App Store on the Block

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 20 Dec 2025 11:00:14 +0000

What’s New

Last week, OpenAI quietly did something huge.

They previewed an App Directory and opened up their SDK so developers can build interactive experiences directly inside ChatGPT’s interface.

This is not just a feature update. It is a platform shift. Here's why:

ChatGPT is no longer just a tool you talk to. It is becoming an operating system for AI powered experiences. Music. Property. Food. Research. Productivity. All living inside one UI.
Even connectors are now being rebranded as apps. File search apps. Deep research apps. Sync apps. That tells you exactly how OpenAI is thinking about this.
Distribution is moving again. Just like mobile apps reshaped the iPhone era, AI native apps will reshape how software is discovered and used.
What is still unclear is the business model. Who wins visibility? How developers get paid?

This is the start of a new app economy that's moving beyond mobile apps with two gatekeepers (iOS/Android) to gen AI with potentially many platforms for developers.

What's your take? Would you use ChatGPT apps?ow isn’t “Can you code?” or “Can you design?” It’s “Can you use the AI tools?”
ts/3121505

Headlines

The ChatGPT app store is here

From chatbot to app platform.

www.theverge.com/news/847067/openai-app-store-directory-sdk-chatgpt

Oscars Bolts From ABC to YouTube Starting in 2029

The world's highest-profile and most watched awards show, which has aired on ABC since 1976, will be moving to a streaming-only platform starting as part of a deal that also includes red carpet coverage, the Oscar nominations announcement, the Governors Awards and more.

www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/general-news/oscars-bolt-from-abc-to-youtube-starting-in-2029-1236453188

The best experiential marketing of 2025

These campaigns exemplify the best experiential marketing had to offer in 2025.

adage.com/events-awards/year-in-review/2025/aa-best-of-experiential-marketing-apple-tv-netflix-verizon

Podcast

Latest episode: Scott Desgrosseilliers on Attribution (Watch/Listen)

Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hypeworks-podcast/id1649131740
Other Podcast players https://hypeworkspod.com

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

AI is Making Everyone an Engineer.. and Marketer, Designer, Product Manager & More

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 08:06:03 +0000

What’s New

AI is quickly making job titles obsolete. For years, culture treated job roles as very different beasts. Example: take designers and engineers, very much two separate species.

That line is disappearing fast.

Tools like Cursor are accelerating that. Cursor launched its visual editor this week. Designers are writing code. Engineers are designing flows. Everyone’s building, together, in real time.

AI copilots and code interpreters are making it possible to design through implementation, not just before it. You can sketch, prompt, test, and deploy in the same environment. The prototypes now run. The gap between “idea” and “it works” is shrinking to seconds.

Still, it’s hard to ignore what’s happening. The next wave of creators won’t call themselves designers or engineers. They’ll just be builders. They’ll think in systems and aesthetics simultaneously. They’ll prototype by coding, and code by designing.

The question now isn’t “Can you code?” or “Can you design?” It’s “Can you use the AI tools?”
ts/3121505

Headlines

How Brands Can Harness the Podcast Advantage

Brands can boost trust and loyalty by mixing transparent, values-driven messaging with trusted podcast platforms.

www.adweek.com/sponsored/how-brands-can-harness-the-podcast-advantage/?itm_source=homepage&itm_medium=adweek-branded-right&itm_campaign=1

Will OpenAI’s $1bn deal with Disney boost video app Sora?

Sora has struggled to build an engaged audience despite already hosting bootleg content from the Hollywood studio

www.ft.com/content/b14490d9-3ac9-45ce-bce5-df6c39db472f

Podcast

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Indiehacking, Security and AI Automation

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 06 Dec 2025 09:07:08 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

First up a recap of our first HYPEWORKS Summit. 10 minutes before kickoff we had 4 people.

Then 20 minutes later we had a full event with 30+ attendees and 3 excellent talks from Nico Jeannen, ThanusRapee Sa-Nguansup and Jake Hissitt.

People genuinely loved it.

And sure, 30 people isn’t “viral numbers” in a world where one video can pull millions.

But events don’t work like content. People churn. Attention moves. What matters is depth.

Last night a few dozen people genuinely cared.

Y Combinator put it best saying "It's better to have 100 people love you than 1,000,000 people just kinda like you".

Videos will go up on YouTube soon!
ts/3121505

Headlines

Netflix agrees $83bn takeover of Warner Bros Discovery

As part of the deal, WBD will continue with plan to spin off its cable television networks

www.ft.com/content/6532be94-c0bf-4101-8126-f249aa6be3c5

Chatbots are now rivaling social networks as a core layer of internet infrastructure

New data from Similarweb reveals massive spikes in traffic and app downloads, while the user base expands to include older generations.

the-decoder.com/chatbots-are-now-rivaling-social-networks-as-a-core-layer-of-internet-infrastructure

Podcast

Latest episode: AJ Cassata on Email Marketing (Watch/Listen)

Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB
Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hypeworks-podcast/id1649131740
Other Podcast players https://hypeworkspod.com

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Wrapped Season and We're Going Offline (Our First Event)

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 29 Nov 2025 07:29:09 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

First up some big news! In exactly one week's time we're taking the HYPEWORKS pod offline with our first event in Bangkok.

We’ll be discussing Tech, Marketing and Startups.

Want to join us? RSVP below:

Luma: https://luma.com/al41h0djhttps://
Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/hypeworks-summit-tickets-1968964915064
Meetup: https://https://www.meetup.com/hypeworks/ts/312150592

It’s Wrapped Season

Looking back on our listening habits for the past 12 months has become something of a tradition thanks to Spotify Wrapped.

Everyone has become accustomed to that one day each year where social media feeds become overwhelmed with people revealing what they've had their ears tuned to and who their favourite artist is.

The annual streaming recap has become so iconic that most other services, including YouTube Music and Apple Music, have been forced to offer something similar for their users.

While we know Spotify Wrapped 2025 is definitely coming before the year is out, we don't know exactly when it's going to drop.

Headlines

AI video start-up takes wide-angle view to boost growth

Seeing limited potential in its niche dubbing product, Synthesia built an AI tool to appeal across industries

www.ft.com/content/215df8da-717b-4e5f-ac66-c02e142e6ad6

Google limits free Nano Banana Pro image generation usage due to 'high demand'

If you were hoping to create some silly images with Google's new Nano Banana Pro model this Thanksgiving long weekend, I have some bad news: the company is further restricting free usage of the AI system.

www.engadget.com/ai/google-limits-free-nano-banana-pro-image-generation-usage-due-to-high-demand-223442929.html

Podcast

Latest episode: AJ Cassata on Email Marketing (Watch/Listen)

Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hypeworks-podcast/id1649131740
Other Podcast players https://hypeworkspod.com

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Make Every Platform Work for Your Ads

You’re running an ad.

The same ad. On different platforms. Getting totally different results.

That’s not random: it’s the platform effect.

So stop guessing what works. Understand the bit-sized science behind it.

Join Neuroscientist & Neurons CEO Dr. Thomas Ramsøy for a free on-demand session on how to optimize ads for different platforms.

👉 Watch the Webinar

The Age of the Builder

Alex MacGregor — Wed, 19 Nov 2025 08:43:36 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

When was the last time you saw a company do $200m within a year of founding? That’s what Lovable just did.

Everything great starts out looking like a toy

The insane part is this. A year ago Lovable looked like another AI toy. Today it’s sitting at $200M ARR. Not valuations. Actual revenue. That’s a number almost no one in the AI gold rush is hitting. And it happened in twelve months.

People underestimate what this signals. This is not just growth. This is the clearest proof yet that the power in software has shifted. The advantage has moved from people who can code to people who can create.

Lovable wasn’t a tool. It was a spark that flipped the entire equation. It turned millions of non technical people into builders. And when you give people the ability to build, they build anything they can imagine.

Big hitter users and shipping speed ⚡

You know something fundamental has changed when enterprise teams at Microsoft, Klarna, and HCA Healthcare are prototyping in minutes. When designers with decades of experience are saying this platform has rewritten how they work. When “demo, don’t memo” becomes the new internal culture.

Lovable’s new product drops only reinforce it. A cloud that handles the plumbing automatically. AI deeply baked in. Shopify integrations. MCP servers that turn a Notion doc or a Linear ticket into a working prototype. Themes that let anyone match their brand with one decision. Every release lowers the barrier a little more. Every update pulls a new wave of people into the builder mindset.

This is why Lovable is at $200M ARR. Not because of hype but because it solved the most locked door in tech. It handed creativity back to the people who never had access to it. And the results speak for themselves.

Welcome to the age of the builder. The shift has already happened. The rest of the world is just catching up.

Headlines

Timothée Chalamet Didn’t Mean to Drag Marketers, But He Did

Tactics and communications are merely the tip of the marketing spear. Proper marketers start in exactly the opposite place: diagnosis.

www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/timothee-chalamet-didnt-mean-to-drag-marketers-but-he-did

Demis Hassabis on Gemini 3, world models, and the AI bubble

Q&A with the Google DeepMind CEO on building AGI, compute bottlenecks, and the AI bubble.

sources.news/p/demis-hassibas-on-gemini-3-world

Podcast

Latest episode: Mia Umanos on Data Science (Watch/Listen)

Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hypeworks-podcast/id1649131740
Other Podcast players https://hypeworkspod.com

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

AI $$$ Plus YouTube on Fire

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 15 Nov 2025 07:51:38 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

Another week, another massive wave of AI startup fundraising.

ICYMI

- xAI raised $15B at a $200B valuation
- Cursor raised $2.3B at a $29.3B valuation (up 12x in 10 months)
- Thinking Machine Labs in talks to raise at a $50B valuation (up 4x from a few months ago)

Some people talk of a AI bubble, time will tell on that front.

YouTube on 🔥

Elsewhere, legacy media is starting to center their operations on YouTube, both from traditional publishers and a new brand of creator-journalists.

Couple that with the rise of video podcasting and an abundance of monetization tools, and you start to see why new media companies are putting their investments here.

Adweek writes more (below) but you just have to open the YouTube app to see for yourself.

Headlines

The Future of Media Is Being Built on YouTube

The platform, thanks to a constellation of factors, is becoming the preeminent incubator for new media ventures

www.adweek.com/media/future-media-youtube-onbackground/?itm_source=parsely-api&itm_source=site&itm_medium=most-shared-center&itm_campaign=4

Podcast

Want more discussion? Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Over the next year, Roku predicts that 100% of the streaming audience will see ads. For growth marketers in 2026, CTV will remain an important “safe space” as AI creates widespread disruption in the search and social channels. Plus, easier access to self-serve CTV ad buying tools and targeting options will lead to a surge in locally-targeted streaming campaigns.

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

It's Data, Stupid

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 13 Nov 2025 11:42:10 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

It’s Data, stupid.

Here’s the thing about data science, it’s supposed to make us smarter. But half the time, it just makes things noisier. Everyone’s swimming in dashboards, metrics, and “insights,” but almost nobody’s making better decisions.

“The real skill isn’t collecting more data. It’s interpreting less, better.” That’s what our guest this week on the pod, Mia Umanos, helped explain (see below).

Every company now says they’re “data-driven.” Sounds nice, but being data-driven without context is just analysis cosplay. You don’t win by knowing the numbers you win by knowing which numbers actually matter.

“The best data scientists I know are basically translators.” said Umanos. They turn patterns into sentences, and sentences into action. They don’t talk about models or regression co-efficients they talk about what’s really happening and what to do next.

The better you get at data, the less you show.

Thanks again for subscribing.

— Alex/Jake, team HYPEWORKS

P.S. Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Headlines

Microsoft to Use OpenAI’s Custom Chip Work to Help In-House Effort

Microsoft Corp. plans to use access to OpenAI’s development of custom AI semiconductors to help its own chip effort.

www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-11-12/microsoft-to-use-openai-s-custom-chip-work-to-help-in-house-effort

The Worst Ad of the Year

Rarely in the annals of modern advertising has such a poorly-made ad, for such a big brand, been the recipient of such a huge global media budget.

www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/the-worst-ad-of-the-year/?itm_source=parsely-api&itm_source=site&itm_medium=most-shared-center&itm_campaign=2

Podcast

Latest episode: Mia Umanos on Data Science (Transcript)

Alex MacGregor (00:01.27) Alright everyone, welcome back to episode number 52 of the Fibers Podcast Oratory. Yeah, we'll figure it out. Great to have Mia on the pod today calling from the US, so welcome to pod Mia.

Jake Hissitt (00:05.473) four three.

Mia (00:07.758) or 50 days.

Mia (00:18.68) Thank you, happy to be here.

Alex MacGregor (00:20.737) Yeah, we were just talking before about your kind of roots. You were saying you're kind of families from Philippine background, but you're in US now. So we were just talking about cross-culture, like US and Asia. And yeah, just kind of like, you got any additional thoughts on that? you know, in terms of like, you were talking about work culture in Italy. Like maybe have you got stories from Italy aside from not working there?

Mia (00:46.956) Yeah, mean, I'll say like, you know, having, you know, growing up in the States, having lived in Europe, having lived in Asia, my background in marketing has always been on the data side. And so my job for the last several decades, well, several, few decades has been to interpret marketing data to tell...

businesses, how they're doing, and then also help them do what they want to do with the data. And so with a lot of our customers in America, was very advanced, very, very, very forward about what we were going to do with it. So for example, people coming to a website or return on ad spend, and these are the things by campaign, what is the psychology behind how people are making decisions and what they're clicking on is my job.

When I moved to Asia, the questions were more to how can I discover who is moving their bank money from one account to another? And then because I own the mall and the main stores, can I give them a coupon right away as soon as I know that there's money in their bank? Which you would just never do, right?

in the state. So you would never use your data in such a sort of like questionably ethical manner. Yeah, super sketchy. But then in Europe, when I lived in Europe, like they don't even want to touch the data. They're like afraid to touch it. And so the data relationship and marketing across business cultures is really reflective of like that.

Alex MacGregor (02:07.051) Mmm.

Alex MacGregor (02:12.803) Sketchy, sketchy, yeah.

Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (02:21.985) Yeah. Yeah.

Mia (02:30.83) companies politics, like, you know what it's like to be in Asia. It's very like, you know, dog eat dog. And so their data practices are very, very sketchy. Like most, everything that people are afraid of is happening. And in the United States, they do like a little bit of a balance, but I just think that they're better at, mean, better, corporations are better.

Jake Hissitt (02:56.769) Hiding it.

Mia (02:58.542) at finding that balance. what is it?

Jake Hissitt (03:02.753) They've got bigger lawyers.

I'm joking, making a joke. saying they've got bigger lawyers. You know, I really wanted to like talk about AI for a second there and the privacy and how much, you know, these companies really mine from people. So, okay, there's things that help us every day as marketers, like Google analytics, which we're going to get an absolute storm on today, I'm sure. But, you know, there's like large language models, like open AI. How much do you, should we trust these people with our data?

Mia (03:13.411) Mm-hmm.

Mia (03:34.286) Well, there isn't much you can do about what it's ingesting, unfortunately. Like lot of these, what they're calling them is frontier AI. like anthropic, know, perplexity, chachi BT, like Gemini, they're just going to take whatever they want, right? They're going to, they're grabbing from Quora, they're grabbing from, so if you are a participant in social media, which 90 % of us are, they have that data.

And so.

What you should be trusting out of an LLM is a very good question. I you how these work is that they're actually, they're not just, I mean, there are some things right now where they're actually looking up and there's like, talk about agentic AI that are doing things for you. And, you know, even now, I mean, I tried to look for a cybersecurity professional in the Philippines. cause that's where my team is based. And Chachi BT gave me some recommendations, one of which was a complete fraud.

but this person had answered so many questions inside like a, I can't remember, like Quora, that content was there. And so it looked it up and said, try this guy. And he was a complete fraud. Like he actually had no certifications. He was a teacher, but this is the thing, like it is, it is just very much like, you think of it as a very, very junior resource for now.

Jake Hissitt (04:42.826) Reddit.

Jake Hissitt (04:56.057) in the system.

Mia (05:04.338) So, you know, do you want to have your content or do you want to have your content found by an LLM? If you're a human as a person, probably not so much. You have to definitely think about what you're putting out there. For me as a business, like we have

a PR person, you know, I'm making content. I a school about data and analytics, a school about website experimentation. And so, you know, I'd be curious what comes up for you.

Jake Hissitt (05:34.327) Does it change your relationship because you've expressed on the content side like we're going into content marketing, but you initially got that person. So for that person whose name we shall not refer to on this channel, but that person was gaming the system, right? So it does actually benefit them to game the system. So there's like an ethical question around, well, you actually use this data, but some people might not be as savvy as

data ready, have the knowledge that you have, and thus will fall into the trap of being this customer of somebody who's not got all the credentials, perhaps could be fraudulent. So has it changed your relationship with also trusting the information that the LLM gives you?

Mia (06:21.206) yeah, absolutely. mean, you have to, the thing about it is I don't think humans are prepared to question it as deeply as they should be. think LLMs are very good at like, okay, what was the cause of the fall of the Roman Empire? Right? It's like been written about many times. We know the causes, like, but to find things that are current, like who is the best marketer in Thailand right now? You can't.

Trust it, It's Jake and Alex. Which, right? So from a marketer standpoint, Jake and Alex needs to figure out how to get into the LLM through Quora, but on the user perspective, they have to be really diligent about vetting the information they're in.

Jake Hissitt (07:14.388) You should write a LinkedIn post about this. You've got one life of me.

Mia (07:16.846) Okay. Well, we do talk about it a lot. I mean, there's a few things that we're doing. Like number one, you know, we've built an AI to analyze data for marketing. Why? Because computers are very good at mathematics, but it's not an LLM. I well, it's not.

Not really in LLM. LLMs are not traditionally very good at mathematics, but what we do is connect it to writing code. LLM can be very good at writing code. So basically, we've built an AI very specific to shopper behavior analysis in e-commerce experiences. So if you go into, maybe not in Thailand, but in the grocery stores in the United States, like they're looking at your RFID, where you stop, what you put in your car, what you put back, how you pause, do you

you pause at the end cap, that kind of stuff is not happening in the e-commerce environment, even though it's much easier to do it. And so most companies are building out, like the Shopify customers and things like that are typically building out these experiences and making decisions about their store and their merchandising without knowing what the behavioral economics changes are. Here's an example. Like one of our customers selling like,

you know, $800 addresses online. They had sale in the top navigation of their website. So you're buying traffic, right? And you're buying traffic. It's going to e-commerce experience. And what is the user going to do? We're humans. We are attracted to that sale navigation item. And so what they had been doing over time was training their visitors that they paid for to go shop for the lowest ticket items. And so by leveling that up in the data,

Again, this is like stuff that you probably would have guessed, but if you're not looking at the data, you don't know. And so by looking at the data, you can see, okay, everybody is clicking there. That's like the number one click navigation item. If you walk into a store, they bury the sale. It's in the back of the house. It's not at the front. And so we put that sale navigation in the subcategories of, you know, tops and dresses and pants and so forth.

Mia (09:31.375) and didn't jump up and down about it. And as a result, their average order value went from $300 to $700 in 45 days, just by training the visitors that they hard earned through earned media and paid media and SEO to shop for things that are current and not on sale. those are the kinds of things that we do with our AI to

to be able to level that up pretty quickly, like most of the time, and this is where cultures differ on what they want to track, but most of the time businesses are really looking at all this hardened traffic and the behavioral science behind what they're doing once they get there.

Jake Hissitt (10:22.258) Yeah. Cool. I can't wait to see more. You know, you should give it a shout out to be honest, give it a shout out right now. We're not sponsored. it's okay. You've got a shout out. Like you can shout your AI name out if you've got one.

Mia (10:30.851) what do you mean?

Mia (10:35.65) OK. Yeah. Well, the company is called Clickvoyant. It's got very witchy vibes about the branding. But Clickvoyant is the company. And we do a combination of data, AI software, and data services. So.

Jake Hissitt (10:38.697) Okay.

Mia (10:54.434) People just have marketers in particular have actually pretty bad relationship with math. So we find that you can't quite take the human out of the experience yet delivering.

Alex MacGregor (11:04.355) Yeah. So do you have like a data science background Mia or how did you get into this?

Mia (11:11.51) Yeah. So, my God, you guys, this is, so I've been in data analytics in marketing since, my space. So, I actually recall a time when somebody had to teach me how to use Facebook. So, it's been, it's been a minute. So I've been doing this for a long time. It started out, actually, my background is in journalism. I studied journalism at school and I wanted to.

Alex MacGregor (11:22.659) Thank you.

Mia (11:41.357) be a science journalist working for a magazine, a very specific magazine called Nature Magazine. And that sort of fire in the belly was rooted in an ability to tell a story, to lay people on something that is highly complicated. So, you know.

Science is my first love, but then storytelling is my second. so, you know, coming from, I actually worked for a PR company. I was a journalist for maybe six months, but then I got sick of making no money. And I worked for a PR firm and there I was.

Right, I was working on an account for a person called Bo Jackson, who was a famous baseball player, NFL player in the United States.

And he, there was like, at the time there was a lot of like professional athletes getting embroiled in like steroids, right? It was like, at this time, like he's on steroids and he's on steroids and he's on steroids. So Bo Jackson was named, named and shamed. And I was on the PR team that was sort of combating that, the news. And I was in a

in a newsroom somewhere faxing my press releases, faxing to newsrooms all over the United States, like beep, beep, beep, boop, boop, know, faxing this damn thing and not knowing where it's going. And I had discovered a website called prweb.com, which last I checked about a year ago, it's still up there where I could see, holy shit, like a hundred people looked at my press release.

Mia (13:29.494) And having that one metric of how many people viewed my press release was the turning point. was like, I put cash all my chips in. Like I am not going to be a PR person. Like I am a data person from here on out for like 500 views to a Jackson press release. And that's pretty much.

Alex MacGregor (13:46.465) Yeah. There's always, there's always that argument, right? Like in agency world, like creative versus the data people. There's a famous quote from a football manager and he said like statistics are like a bikini, you know, you get to see a little bit, but you don't get to see the, what you want, right? Like it's that kind of, that kind of vibe, you know.

Mia (14:08.014) Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think that's a, think I pushed back on that. I think that is a, I believe that there is an art and a science to creativity, particularly for marketing, because like in the, in, you know, the quote about, can only see like part of the bikini or you'll see part of what you want to see. The use case for that kind of data is prove that you did your job.

Right. It's like, I'm going to look at this KPI and I'm going to make some decisions about my performance. Right. That's like, that's very different from looking at all of the data to understand the customer. So like, that's what's different to me is like, you've got.

we've been taught, keep it simple, stupid, like kiss metrics or like use your KPIs, which is your key performance indicator. And I'm saying all of it is important. Not just. Right. So, so yeah, if you're, if you're, if you're just looking at your KPIs, you're probably, you're just navel glazing. You're just looking at your own value.

Jake Hissitt (15:07.68) This is a great analogy. Yes.

Jake Hissitt (15:17.462) Hmm.

Alex MacGregor (15:18.851) Do you not think this happens, at least personally for me, like everyone's got a data warehouse, right? And they have some tools that can, like every Friday my manager would get me to use a tool called Metawater. It's like a PR software, you probably know. So I would go into this tool and I would like download all the metrics, like ShareVoice and mentions and like all this stuff. It would crunch all the data and I would give it to her in the report every Friday. And literally nothing happened off the back of this report for like the whole time I was at the company.

Mia (15:31.598) Mm-hmm.

Alex MacGregor (15:48.995) So, yeah. Yeah. So how do you deal with that as a data scientist? Like, how do you deal with

Mia (15:49.314) That was my life like 20 years. I'm like, I'm a fucking...

Well, you know, like data science in technology has the biggest churn rate for employment. The average life span of a data scientist is like 12 to 18. Oh, well think about the churn of like, if you, if you, if you had one employee that was trying to like analyze all of your data for one year, and then after a year they left and you had to get a new guy in.

Alex MacGregor (16:05.763) Right. I didn't know that.

Jake Hissitt (16:10.868) Lifestyle. Okay.

Alex MacGregor (16:13.568) Yeah.

Mia (16:26.274) That's a pain in the ass. That means that...

Jake Hissitt (16:27.638) Bad management though, you know, like we had a data guy and the boss really loved him and listened to him and then we made every all the changes around this guy and the company like blew up, you know, that guy. that drives me crazy when they don't listen.

Mia (16:45.378) They don't, well, okay, so math, I've discovered, is like a religion. It's like, you know, it's like, I'm just gonna like, I know a couple of stories about the Bible, David versus Goliath, whatever, Jesus dude, but you don't go to church because of the Bible, you go because you like the preacher. And in math and marketing analytics in particular, if they don't like you,

no one's gonna believe you. And so you have to have, and that's where the storytelling is. I tell you, I got fired once by Moen Faucets. You know Moen, the faucet manufacturer?

Alex MacGregor (17:26.43) yeah, yeah, I heard of it, yeah. M-O-E-N, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Mia (17:29.932) So, you know, back in the day, there were no attribution tools. Once upon a time we had no fire. There were no tools to attribute a purchase to a channel, you know, paid media versus paid search versus organic search. And I was working in a product called Adobe Analytics and we had, my team had invented this new thing because the chief marketing officer wanted it. And I'm like, okay, well, I know how to do that.

I'm a data scientist. I know how to architect the data. I know how to get the data to you in your lab. So we came up with this very, I mean, it wasn't that complex, but it was a smart use and an off-label use of a feature on that software. So basically, nobody had done it before.

So we were able to create this attribution model to show where the revenue was coming from. And then we built these dashboards. We presented it at eMetrics that year, was one of the biggest, used to be one of the biggest analytics conferences. And then right after we presented, I got fired. And it was primarily because while the CMO wanted this work,

person in charge of the digital marketing hated it the whole time. Fucking hated it. She was just like, I don't understand it. Why is it so complicated? I mean, somebody on the team died during this time period. was like very, very weird time. So there was like weird feelings around it. But if you don't believe, like if you're a person who believes that, data is going to solve all the problems, like

you don't really understand the full relationship and the feelings that people catch when they're looking at data.

Mia (19:26.624) And you have to be a good storyteller. And sometimes what is doing the right thing from a science standpoint isn't necessarily what that company or that client is ready for. And so sometimes you have to do less smart things. you know, I mean, that's just when I say that mathematics is like religion is like, you can't just like dump the Bible on a person.

Alex MacGregor (19:53.283) Also, it's fair to say some companies operate with a very data-focused, like Google, example, like A-B testing. And you've got companies like Apple that's more like Gap Field, right? I think that's also fair.

Mia (20:05.454) Oh yeah. Yeah. I, I worked at Apple actually. I thought that that was going to be the best job ever. I was like, Oh, that's my, that's my dream job. It was the most boring job ever because I worked on my data. My data science skills was placed on one thing and one thing only that was site search. Like it was so much. Sorry.

Alex MacGregor (20:06.562) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (20:26.431) Okay, not so obvious to be honest.

Not the most obvious thing, to be honest. Like on apple.com, basically. Okay. I mean, who searches on apple.com, right?

Mia (20:33.954) Well, yep, apple.com is like my all my... Dude, like think about your all day, every day, working on just that one feature of one website, it was the most, and then all the...

Alex MacGregor (20:48.801) I Amazon, Amazon I could understand because everyone's searching on Amazon, right? They have that thing they want to buy, but Apple is like, who searches on Apple,

Mia (20:58.358) Well, I can't say much more, I think it's more like when we were talking, you start out talking about different cultures and the culture of data science and Apple A has deep pockets. They can put one data scientist on one feature of the website as a result. But for me, my sweet spot and my heart song is in this mid-market.

Alex MacGregor (21:01.986) Okay.

Mia (21:23.264) mid-market e-commerce because I feel I'm a founder of a company, right? I mean, and that's fucking hard. It's probably one of the hardest things I've ever had to do coming from a corporate job working for Omni-com or I think for JWT working for publicist. Like, you know, something goes wrong or somebody's not performing. You can't just put them on a performance plan. Like they got to go. And that takes a certain amount of

Alex MacGregor (21:43.927) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Mia (21:49.987) character development to be that leader of your business. And so with Shopify customers, I see that in my customers. I see that they're you know, they're like working hard, they're trying, they're trying to figure it out. They don't know what to do. You know, they're grateful. Whereas working for, you know, companies like Toyota and Mattel and, or Apple, like you're just doing this sort of like...

Alex MacGregor (21:54.573) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (22:15.351) You're just refining, you're just refining, Yeah.

Mia (22:18.316) You're doing hamster wheel work. And in some cases, like you mentioned, like they don't do anything with the insights. They don't do anything with the data. But whereas with this other dress company, it's like, we just basically doubled your money with one website change. That's meaningful to them. And they don't need to go through, you know, seven different departments and eight leadership decisions to make that change on a website.

Alex MacGregor (22:35.267) Mmm.

Alex MacGregor (22:45.315) How is, when Jake mentioned AI, how is AI Smup and this expansion of AI platforms and everyone's optimizing AI chat, how has that changed your work recently?

Mia (23:00.768) Well, for an on one hand, like the delivery of our work is made very inexpensive and accessible. So we have an AI ML team that is automating the e-commerce behavioral research. Otherwise, companies, know, bigger companies have to get a team of data scientists to do that. So that's like at minimum, like, you know, at least just with the people, the three hundred thousand dollar expense annual.

plus overhead, right? If you had two data scientists, that's what you're paying. And you're probably going very slow. For us, our e-commerce clients are spending $3,000 to $5,000 a month, depending on if they're doing A-B testing, and they're getting unlimited work. And that's what changes it for us.

is that we can now deliver the kind of smart and science to meet art and science of what marketing is.

Alex MacGregor (24:02.529) It's definitely flattening the agency landscape. You see that with the layoffs, right? The big guys are laying off and the small guys are going faster. So it feels like everyone's kind of being leveled, which is, it's kind of good. Yeah.

Mia (24:12.098) Yeah, mean, yeah, we can be competitive to our customers because I think our next nearest neighbor might do like CRO experimentation for like $7,000 a month for like up to three tests. And for us, like we're $5,000 a month and we're doing unlimited. So we're kind of averaging about 15 tests a month.

So, and that's really how you have to, that's the pace that you have to go to be able to learn from an experience or to.

Alex MacGregor (24:46.305) Who's like in this area, like it's not, there's not many, how you'd say like well known names. So who's some people that you kind of admire and like in this space that people can kind of research.

Jake Hissitt (24:57.736) talk about competitors.

Alex MacGregor (24:59.437) Come on, come on. No, I mean, I just mean like could be data scientist or yeah, just some people. Cause there's not a super well known industry really.

Mia (25:00.426) Jake Hissitt (25:03.272) You mean in like an industry?

Mia (25:10.356) No, in fact, CRO is kind of a new name for it. Like, used to be called just experimentation. CRO is like a new thing where like, it's conversion rate optimization.

Alex MacGregor (25:19.063) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (25:23.491) I saw the Facebook guy, CMO, launched a book last week and he apparently was like the data scientist guy, Alex Schultz was his name. He tests the hell out of the whole Facebook website like every day and apparently this book is full of all his like hacks, his like data science growth hacks. Yeah.

Mia (25:33.71) Mmm.

Mia (25:38.094) yeah.

Mia (25:41.646) Ooh, I also, I feel like every time I log into Meta Business Center, it's different. That's also like, they test so much at fucking stages, every week. I'm like, what, where is this? Like, how do I get to that, that location?

Jake Hissitt (25:54.167) It's still not amazing. Like, you know, I had this issue actually, Alex, you brought it to my mind. You're talking about like AI and optimization, but I've been getting so many errors and recently also made a recommendation of something that I should do within my advertising set. And I took its recommendation and the cost per lead has gone up. It's like, actually it's doubled and I'm leaving it because I'm like, well, I'm hoping it comes down because that's what it told me to do.

Alex MacGregor (26:22.874) Okay

Jake Hissitt (26:22.966) But actually I'm like furious. I'm like, oh, now I have to maybe restart the same set of ads to get the same cost per lead. Like, okay. understand logically why it told me to do what it did, but it seems to have not had a positive impact on the cost per acquisition. So I was like, maybe, maybe it's triggered me. That's all.

Mia (26:26.914) Yeah.

Mia (26:33.442) Mm-hmm.

Mia (26:43.755) I really thought a lot.

Mia (26:47.926) No, I have heard that. There are some agencies that we partner with. we're focused on analytics only. We don't do any media buying. We don't do any creative work. mean, unless you call CRO experimentation creative work, but it's a fine line. So we do partner with agencies. some performance marketing agencies have said it's not as good. Meta is not as good as we are. And I'm not an expert.

in ad buying, but I do know that that's some feedback. However, I have heard that PMAX is very good, that PMAX cannot beat, or PMAX will always

Jake Hissitt (27:28.096) I tell you, in e-commerce, in e-commerce, PMAX is killer.

Mia (27:34.255) Yeah. you know, I mean, I think it's interesting. know, AI, AI plus humans has always been where the rock meets the roll. You know what I'm saying? Like, I don't think that, I mean, I do think that if, you know, if you're a marketer that's like sort of sticking your head in the sand about it and is not AI forward, that marketer will fall behind.

But the marketer that is like constantly experimenting and trying to figure out, when is it like we, one agency partner always had a program to discover who wins. And they had, you know, they had enough clients and enough budgets at like A-B test. My person against their AI, what decisions would they make and who wins? And then that's like, that's like a program that they run all the time to just understand when is it trustworthy.

Jake Hissitt (28:29.385) Agree.

Mia (28:29.44) So yeah, kind of similar to like the own user of ChachiBT. Like you have to take everything with a grain of salt, but also understand that there are certain things that might help you do your job better, faster, smarter.

Jake Hissitt (28:44.552) Okay Alex, you know what time it is.

Alex MacGregor (28:48.268) Yes.

Jake Hissitt (28:49.454) I also, yeah. So it's the big one, Mia, prepare yourself. gets people every single time. But it's the final question of the show. What are your future predictions? It could be anything. It could be work, it could be life, it could be the world.

Mia (28:56.684) Okay.

Mia (29:08.494) Okay, well, you know, I do have podcast with my daughter about AI and we talk about this a lot. So I actually have an answer. I think I have an answer. We can't really peek around the corner of AI right now. Like we can't see it. But if you think about the strides that it's made from even last year to now.

It's quite big and we're at the beginning stages of it, the very beginning. And so I'll tell you something that I've seen in the data that across the board on all sites. we, you know, we mostly do e-commerce. have some higher education customers as well that we've had for a long time, but across the board.

the referral from chat, GPT and AI into a website has gone up from May, like hockey sticks since May. that last May was kind of the turning point, I think. It's not, you know, it's not commanding like even 10 % of website traffic, but it is grown quite a bit.

Alex MacGregor (30:05.389) I heard about this. Yeah.

Mia (30:24.794) across all industries, across all websites that we work on, which is more than 50. And in addition to that, the conversion rate of that traffic is often double what the other channels are. So I have this hypothesis that people are kind of like me with the, you know, the fraud, cybersecurity professional in Philippines are

pre-qualifying themselves before arriving to your site. I think that, I mean, what we've already seen like SEO, that people are taking a blood bath on website traffic.

Alex MacGregor (31:06.083) Hands up, I spawned Reddit for my app, like for like three months, non-stop. And I did.

Mia (31:11.456) You did. mean, like, listen, you know, if people are coming to the site and I think my prediction is that more and more people will inform themselves like like SEO is dead, like traffic will be a metric that, you know, it will become more of a vanity metric, the quality of the people coming to the site. So like informational marketing is going to change quite a bit. And as well.

I think that humans, I mean, I'd like to think the best, I think humans are going to get dumber. I do. think, I mean, have you seen the movie Idiocracy? you should take a look at that movie. It's a 20 year old movie, but it's like, you know, my, my modern day, like Nostradamus.

Alex MacGregor (31:55.233) No.

Jake Hissitt (32:02.036) Alex, didn't someone else mention that film on one of these podcasts? I think one of our last like three or four guests has mentioned this film.

Alex MacGregor (32:06.295) I dunno, it rings a bell, it rings a bell.

Mia (32:13.408) You need to pick up that. You need to watch that on Netflix or wherever it's streaming. So it's about, it's an American movie about, American, like very average Joe in the military. And he, as an, yes, yeah. So as an experiment, he is put in a cryogenic freezer and then he wakes up accidentally, like a hundred years later and

Alex MacGregor (32:27.021) Definitely. For sure.

Mia (32:38.518) When he went in, he was the most average man on earth. And when he came out, he's the smartest man on earth.

Alex MacGregor (32:43.811) Three podcasts ago, for sure. That's weird. Yeah, we should watch it.

Mia (32:46.07) Yeah, so I mean, we see it happening all the time. mean, you know, when we when I think the humans, I mean, we saw what happened with social media and how humans behave with social media. Now we're having this, you know, pre processed information. Research is no longer a thing that we do as humans. It's a thing that we do less and less. And

Critical thinking, think as a result is suffering. So, yeah, I'm like, buy all the guns, stock up. I mean, I don't, I'm not usually, right. I am American. was, I did grow up here, but no, I I, I like to think the best, but I do, you know, I do think that there has been a bit of a devolution and critical thought. And I think that AI is definitely, you know,

Jake Hissitt (33:23.446) It's taken after your parents.

Alex MacGregor (33:42.381) But the AI maximalist would say it's augmenting our intelligence, right?

Jake Hissitt (33:47.22) guess in some way it depends how much you lean in on it. The reasons why.

Alex MacGregor (33:50.755) Mm.

Mia (33:51.277) Listen, sure. And you know, I mean, if you're just being fed the answers all of the time as humans, we've classically throughout history been very good about that, right?

Jake Hissitt (34:04.276) You know, that MPC, sorry, sorry, Alex, okay. I'll admit, I know we're going, I know we're going.

Alex MacGregor (34:04.525) That's a good note to end on, the way. A bit positivity.

Alex MacGregor (34:11.669) No, no, I'm glad we got to something that's not a doomsday scenario.

Jake Hissitt (34:17.366) Okay, we can call it.

Mia (34:19.15) Is everybody in a doomsday scenario when you ask that question?

Alex MacGregor (34:22.857) Mmm, a lot. A lot.

Jake Hissitt (34:24.458) I tell you what, we do get quite a few. We'd say at minimum 50%.

Mia (34:29.89) Wow. Well, you know, mean, Sam and founder of OpenAI is working on a basic income plan.

Jake Hissitt (34:31.755) Time to go.

Jake Hissitt (34:37.93) Yeah, I'm not sure I want to be on it.

Mia (34:40.126) No.

Alex MacGregor (34:41.645) Yeah, we'll get you back in a year and we'll see if we're still here, hopefully.

That was awesome though, enjoyed it, it was a good talk.

Mia (34:50.402) Thank you. Yeah, appreciate you staying up very late for this podcast.

Alex MacGregor (34:54.307) Nah, normal for the I-Works. Like and subscribe, please. All right, bye.

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Legacy Media is Dead. Long Live New Media.

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 11:00:09 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

Legacy media is dead. Long live new media.

This week we look at Cluely founder Roy Lee’s TechCrunch appearance, lack of virality (ironically) and subsequent knifing (below) that’s created a lot of debate about the state of media.

Lee himself tweeted:

Twitter tweet

The interview with Lee, at barely 13,000 views. is somehow the second most-watched TechCrunch video on YouTube in the past year!

If one random interview I did can outperform almost everything a billion-dollar media brand posted all year, it tells you everything you need to know. The audience isn’t there anymore. The attention left the building.

All the views are on social. Every breakout clip, every quote that travels, every founder people actually care about, it all happens on feeds now.

Nobody wants to watch corpo slop. The days of five-person panels, fake laughs, and “let’s unpack that” interviews are over. People want tension. They want honesty. They want to feel like they’re in the room when something real happens.

Social media has already eaten everything. It’s bigger than AI, bigger than the internet, bigger than media itself. It’s where culture actually lives.

TechCrunch can’t compete with a guy holding an iPhone and a take. Because the game isn’t about production anymore, it’s about connection.

If the internet built infrastructure and AI built automation, social built identity. It’s where everyone goes to see what’s real.

So yeah. Legacy media is dead. The feeds won.

Thirteen thousand views on TechCrunch means nothing. But that same clip, reposted raw on social? That’s where it lives forever.

Thanks again for subscribing.

— Alex/Jake, team HYPEWORKS

P.S. Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Headlines

BRANDWEEK: 'The Biggest Enemy Is Boring:' American Eagle CMO Argues for Unapologetic Marketing

Craig Brommers discusses Sydney Sweeney and the apparel brand’s ongoing strategy.

www.adweek.com/brand-marketing/brandweek-biggest-enemy-is-boring-american-eagle-cmo/?itm_source=parsely-api

Google is in early discussions to deepen its investment in Anthropic

Google is in early discussions to deepen its investment in Anthropic. The two companies announced a massive cloud computing deal in October.

www.businessinsider.com/google-deepen-investment-in-ai-anthropic-2025-11

Podcast

Latest episode: Jason Fishman on Raising Money and Crowdfunding (Watch/Listen)

Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB Listen on Apple https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hypeworks-podcast/id1649131740
Other Podcast players https://hypeworkspod.com

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Shoppers are adding to cart for the holidays

Read our guide to find out why growth marketers should make sure CTV is part of their 2026 media mix.

Learn more.

Crowdfunding and Raising Money

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 01 Nov 2025 05:59:06 +0000

What’s New

Welcome back to the HYPEWORKS Newsletter.

This week we talked with Crowdfunding expert Jason Fishman talking about money and Crowdfunding.

Thanks again for subscribing.

— Alex/Jake, team HYPEWORKS

P.S. Join our Marketing Telegram group and be part of our community.

Headlines/News

Exclusive: OpenAI lays groundwork for juggernaut IPO at up to $1 trillion valuation

OpenAI is considering filing with securities regulators as soon as the second half of 2026, people familiar with the matter said.

www.reuters.com/business/openai-lays-groundwork-juggernaut-ipo-up-1-trillion-valuation-2025-10-29

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says Bill Gates told him his big bet on OpenAI would be a flop: ‘Yeah, you’re going to burn this billion dollars’ | Fortune

Nadella said despite the risk, “it was not that hard to convince anyone.”

fortune.com/2025/10/30/microsoft-ceo-satya-nadella-bill-gates-openai-investment-burn-billion-dollars

Latest episode: Jason Fishman on Raising Money and Crowdfunding (Transcript)

Alex MacGregor (00:00.278) talk with episode 52 of the Highways podcast myself, Alex. Yeah, so we're just talking before we were on live. So Jason, he works on investor acquisitions, and he's on the financing side of the venture side. And this is kind of cool for us because we actually don't, I don't think we've had like someone on that side of the kind of business aspect on so far. So

Jake Hissitt (00:05.782) Jake.

Alex MacGregor (00:28.864) And this is very pertinent right now because of all the money that's getting raised across different industries. So yeah, Jason, maybe just give a quick background and kind of like your kind of experience and kind of where you're at right now.

Jason Fishman (00:39.376) Sure, sure. I always start my introduction by saying I'm a marketer. I've been doing this for over 15 years. I've been on the agency side, client, ad network, while being part of a social gaming startup here in Los Angeles and being directly involved in fundraising for our seed round. I saw all the inefficiencies and later in the career, once starting the agency, DNA, as a growth marketing firm, that

discussion of capital raising came back and our clients were constantly bringing us to this conversation, whether it was, hey, can you work on the marketing section of our business plan and talk about how we're going to grow? We're trying to bring capital in from this. Can you put together a pitch deck for us? We want to do this first campaign. Let's send the results to this investor that we have. And then hopefully we can get more funding. They'd even asked me to participate in those investor meetings. So when I was introduced to these laws, first regulation D506C here in the U.S.,

which allows for solicitation of accredited investors, high net worth individuals. I said, wow, light bulb, I can be of direct value here. I run ad campaigns. I can stack data for high net worth, high household income, audiences, filter by investor behaviors, interests. And our first ad campaigns there saw success. I was introduced to more of these issuers, companies issuing shares.

began working on those as well as at that point, we're talking 2015 reward crowdfunding. So Indiegogo Kickstarter campaigns, some of those agencies saw what we were doing on the close point equity crowdfunding side and said, Hey, let's run some of that traffic over here. Worked on a good 40, 50 of those. And then they began introducing us to Reg CF Regulation Crowdfunding, which went into law, went into effect May of 2016.

Day one, we had ads live, kind of fell into it, found our niche, our specialization as marketers at that point. Took me a while to really embrace it because it's a shorter term engagements, lower budget in some cases, groups really scale as it's working. But we started working on Reg CF, Regulation Crowdfunding Campaigns, which allowed us to target both retail and a credit investor, basically any adult. There's another, another filing I'll throw out to you, which is Regulation A+.

Jason Fishman (03:01.976) Right now, you can raise up to $5 million on Reg CF and up to $75 million on Regulation A+. And to date, we've worked on over 500 of these deals, have collectively produced nine figures of capital, have worked on campaigns this year alone that have raised over $100 million collectively. But anywhere we target investors, this could be Web 3, gold, real estate, all different types of funds. Like the list goes on, we've been able to put numbers on the board.

Jake Hissitt (03:27.561) AI.

Jake Hissitt (03:31.498) Any AI?

Jason Fishman (03:33.316) Yes, of course. A lot of the AI companies use Reg CF. I don't know if we've worked on any that are Reg D. I worked on a notable regulation plus influencer AI platform this year, Radintel. $12 million capped out in June. Next year, we filed the raising another $50 million. It just went live last week here in October.

Alex MacGregor (03:56.91) So just a quick kind of backtrack a little bit, Jason, like, you, were you always interested in the finance aspect or like, is that just something you kind of stumbled into? Like, I'm just trying to get it clear, stumbled into, yeah.

Jason Fishman (04:10.303) I started marketing, grew up here in Southern California as an action sports consultant. So working on snow, skate, surf campaigns, we're talking 08, 2009. And going through that journey, the social gaming startup, did the capital raise there. And then in the growth marketing side, lot of the clients needed funding. So I understood the need and

the impact it would have when we brought in capital, especially once we started working on these marketing campaigns for them.

Alex MacGregor (04:40.525) Yeah.

Your story reminds me actually, there was a company in Silicon Valley, like around the dot com bubble, like when Google and all these guys came on a scene called plug and play. And these guys, they, they owned the, like a carpet store or something. And, they own some office space and all of the startups were asking them for office space. They had no nothing about venture or finance. And then suddenly they just learned the thing as they went. And then they started a, like a venture, they're now basically a venture fund.

capital business. yeah, so like it's interesting evolution. And so your kind of main focus, like, is kind of really diverse. So how do you, how do you kind of look at it like, like across so many different industries? Why not just focus on one thing? Me and Jacob, we talked about recently, actually, like focus versus, you know, spreading across different things.

Jason Fishman (05:37.04) Sure. It's definitely important to have your niche as an agency, as a marketer, to be able to say, hey, we're the best in the world at, and for us, it's regulated investment crowdfunding. About 420 some odd live reg CF campaigns today. I think it's 423 as of Monday. Another 40 or so live regulation A plus campaigns. So relatively small market. Now,

Within that, we work with groups in a full spectrum of different verticals, which makes it exciting. Every week, bringing on a new client and or new clients and they have different industries where they're growing their market share. They're looking to bring more investors. We see overlap from the investors, similar target audiences across each of these at that.

I do look at it as investor acquisition. That is our niche. There's only so many groups doing it. There's more companies, more issuers filing a Reg D, which is the credit investor only. So higher entry point or Reg CF, Reg A, may be a hundred to a thousand dollars as a minimum investment. Average investment may be somewhere between fifteen hundred and a few thousand dollars. Reg D, may be twenty five, fifty K as the minimum.

Alex MacGregor (06:38.252) Yeah.

Jason Fishman (06:59.862) We've worked on real estate, REGDs this year was over 500K as the minimum per investor. So there's a bit more happening there. And we've broadened just from REGCF because the audiences we've built, I've developed a database of over 1.8 million investors who participate in these types of deals. So I see performance when I bring it to a gold or real estate or Web3Camp.

Alex MacGregor (07:14.584) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (07:24.13) Yeah. Is it just me or is it like, feel like the crowdfunding space was really hot like 10 years ago, like we had Shark Tank and we had Dragon's Den in the UK. And then you have all of these platforms and companies. So now it's a very mature thing really, the crowdfunding space. And you talked about the deal flow there. So how is the deal flow right now for crowdfunding? Like, is it fairly stable or is it, because you can't really crowdfund an AI.

Jason Fishman (07:33.722) Sure.

Alex MacGregor (07:51.512) company, right? Like they require a different type of financing.

Jake Hissitt (07:54.271) I have to interject there. I got approached today, the first time ever, by the way, by an AI fund that is crowdfunded through cryptocurrency.

Alex MacGregor (08:08.141) Okay.

Alex MacGregor (08:12.194) Interesting.

Jason Fishman (08:12.463) Yeah.

Jake Hissitt (08:13.0) First time I'd heard of it.

Jason Fishman (08:14.96) I wonder if it's a Dow and there's voting rights all the way through.

Jake Hissitt (08:19.348) I wonder, I wonder, you know, I haven't looked into it any more than that, but they hit me up. They're called Pond, Pond AI. I'm not entirely sure. You can search it, just check it out. But, I thought it was quite interesting.

Jason Fishman (08:34.734) Yeah, it all comes down to how it's structured. So as Jake's mentioning, you know, if it's a fund, some type of Web3 setup, Alex, there's plenty of groups that are running a RegCF early round up to five million dollars and they're selling stock and the company's private. wouldn't, you know, the word crowdfunding somewhat broad. I wouldn't necessarily say, this is Indiegogo or Kickstarter and you're getting some perks, you're getting early access, you're getting free months of usage.

you're actually getting shares, or let's say it's a convertible note, some different type of structure capital formation. But it'd be the same as if you were buying OpenAI or any of these other companies, let's say early rounds, private in many cases. Public companies could actually run regulation A plus campaigns, but it's selling ownership into the company.

Alex MacGregor (09:15.906) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (09:28.632) Have you, have you heard of a company in the, there's a company in the UK called, crowd cube. Are you aware of this company? The crowd. Yeah. Is there like an equivalent in the U S they're, they're trying to do this, or is it not quite there yet in terms of like, like a technology platform? Like it's still much, very much like a service offering.

Jason Fishman (09:35.47) Yeah.

Jason Fishman (09:49.136) Yeah. So the UK, Europe as a whole, from my understanding, and I serve on the Global Equity Crowdfunding Alliance, have different counterparts in Europe, you guys are a few years ahead in terms of the legislature, in terms of mass adoption and understanding. I'm still explaining to people what equity crowdfunding, regulated investment crowdfunding is every day. Even speaking about it with you guys.

Alex MacGregor (10:04.024) Really?

Jason Fishman (10:17.484) learning, asking different questions. I still have to break it down for groups every day and explain it as another way to reach investors and bring funding in. I think it'll be the primary approach towards capital formation in years to come. I also serve on the Crowdfund Professional Association Board, going to be in Washington, D.C. later this month. We're pushing for higher limits. We're pushing for tax credits. We're pushing for all different types of benefits for both investors and issuers and to bring more of a spotlight on the space.

So there are tech platforms here where you could add an invest now button to your website. You have to file with the regulators, SEC. You have to do everything by the book. They want to prevent fraud, of course, but there's tech solutions. There's platforms where you can list these deals. There are service providers, agencies, different types of consultants, quarterbacks, crowd cube type companies here in the U.S.

But many of the filings now allow for international investors. There's regulation S. There's different ways you can work with the lawyer to make sure you're compliant for bringing investors from all over the world.

Alex MacGregor (11:24.078) And how would you pitch this like to a young founder? V's the traditional financing, like venture capital or, you know, like the polymarket guy this week, he took money from the ice, right? For his, like a investment from ice for his startup. So how would you pitch this V's those other like P and VC traditional.

Jason Fishman (11:45.24) Yeah. Well, you know, I'm not in the business of telling every company they should run a regulated investment crowdfund campaign. am highly recommending for every company that is running these types of initiatives or even just looking to reach investors online to run a digital marketing campaign initiative rollout. And I speak about that at length every day, talking about a podcast or conference.

a workshop tonight with an accelerator and different founders here in Los Angeles. I want to see a higher success rate industry wide, but I would start the discussion there of, you know, it's under 5 % of deals that are getting funded at the VC level. It's a tougher market right now. I think you were asking a question earlier kind of about, you know, relevancy, market conditions. I have clients in the med tech space and they tell me it's dried up. VC

funding, angel investors, different fluctuations with new laws and pullback of funding here in the US. There's question marks. And as a result, investors are weary about putting funds into med tech, health tech, biotech, all of these different, similar verticals, but verticals. So there's been a lot more of those companies entering the Reg CF, Regulation D, Regulation A plus markets.

And we tell a story, we could target doctors, we could target high net worth individuals that may be interested in getting on board, even in a lower level and watching things grow from there. some other stories I would point to Alex, there are groups we've worked with where they were, know, $20 million, one running a REG CF in terms of evaluation. And we've run campaigns with them this year where they're over $3 billion in their valuation.

This is a marketing play. You probably need 50,000 visits to your offering page per million, two and a half million dollars raised. Maybe you're getting a 2 % conversion, thousand investments off that. Maybe it's somewhere between a thousand, $2,500 as the average investment. So think about the millions of impressions you're getting to drive those 50,000 people there. That marketing campaign becomes added value to the capital that you're bringing in.

Jason Fishman (14:08.367) and you get a set the valuation after a successful round, you could keep going back to the crowd and saying, Hey, we're to do our next filing and at a higher valuation. We've got all the press we got from the last one. I've had clients where they complete the round. There are Forbes 30 under 30. They're getting different types of awards, accolades, publishers want to cover them. So they're growing throughout this capital raising process. It, it's a great way to get out there.

Alex MacGregor (14:19.17) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (14:32.374) Yeah, there's a company in UK that really well, BrewDog, the beer company. they did this many, many times, right? It was actually founded, I'm from Scotland, it was founded in Scotland. So these two guys literally, you know, didn't have much money and they just went for it with crowdfunding and yeah, nailed it.

Jason Fishman (14:37.049) Yeah.

I've been to one of their locations.

Jason Fishman (14:52.944) Oh yeah, they were one of the early regulation a plus campaigns. I didn't work on it, but I studied it. I've worked on campaigns with the lawyer who put together the deal and on some of his other clientele. And I've been to one of the locations, one of the pubs in the UK. And I believe it was $25 in person and you could get a pint and a share.

Alex MacGregor (15:09.133) Nice.

Alex MacGregor (15:17.326) Yeah, pretty cool.

Jason Fishman (15:18.48) Mm-hmm.

Jake Hissitt (15:20.502) I have a question, how, I mean, maybe this is the secret sauce, so you don't have to...

expose yourself and give away everything but are you driving most of this traffic via email campaign?

Jason Fishman (15:37.584) Well, I break it down into three categories when I'm speaking to a founder or marketing team in terms of the channels, the tactics they should be using, content marketing, advertising, and outreach. Content marketing to build the funnel, manage the brand-owned channels. It's going to be seven touch points or more before that investor converts. We want to be intentional about what they see. There is email drip systems going out to first degree networks and to new signups.

people signing up for webinar and other types of live events and content. We want to have headline worthy announcements coming out on a weekly basis. So emails occurring over there. We drive traffic into it with advertising. I would tell you advertising is the most consistently tied to performance of the channels. I can upload those databases as custom audiences, run ads directly to highly active investors in this space. Some of have over

100 companies in their portfolio at this point from these exemptions from Reg CF, from regulation A plus. So you imagine reaching those individuals and with an advertisement and retargeting them on a daily basis, more aggressively than we would with a cold email outreach campaign, and then getting all of the analytics around it, know, click through rate, conversion rate, cost per acquisition, cost per purchase, cost per conversion, return on ad spend metrics, and then scaling up as we're seeing performance.

Maybe it's a 10x return on ad spend, have campaigns performing higher than that today, start to ramp it up once we hit about 3x, 5x. So advertising has been a big driver, Jake. know roughly every dollar, $2 we spend as an investor getting to that offering page. For outreach, I find outreach to be a bit more hit or miss. And in many cases, there's actually an offline element where an investor is getting a direct message, email.

and wants to speak with the founder of investor relations team. So I'm a big fan of LinkedIn outreach. I find profile picture, mutual connections, background, it leads to not only a higher response rate, but a warmer dynamic once those prospects are on the line. So I'll see our clients get on the phone daily with prospective investors if we're running a LinkedIn outreach campaign.

Jason Fishman (17:57.828) but they are limited. about 25 invitations per day, 39 invitations per day. Once an account's warmed up on LinkedIn, are the numbers we find. You can run it from multiple accounts, so you can get to higher volumes. We'll then add email on top of it, create an email server, start with batches of 5,000, 10,000 prospects to go after. I find it to be a bit spamier and it shows up in some of the responses, even have some investors a bit more standoffish. I really want to use outreach.

as an approach to get larger investments, higher transactional value, building a rapport relationship, instilling confidence in who the client is speaking to offline. And I've seen some groups with a well-oiled machine of an investor relations process, particularly some of the funds and Reg D real estate issuers that are always bringing on more investors and at six figure levels, they have a tight system.

They're closing at great levels. The average investment is very attractive for them. If I bring a RIG CF investor with the founder who was having trouble securing capital offline onto calls daily from email, it may not produce the same way.

Jake Hissitt (19:17.846) Okay. I was, you know, again, I don't to, get into the secret sauce. I'm a bit of a, a bit of a tech stack guy. That's a, that was really why I was asking. So I was just curious, like, do you use like clay or Apollo for this, or do you use any like custom made tools? I'm not trying to sell you. Don't worry.

Jason Fishman (19:26.766) Okay.

Jason Fishman (19:39.469) Yeah.

WUF

done extensive data mining. So some of these equity crowdfunding portals, as defined by the SEC, the sites that list the deals online, and there's an offering page picture, like a vertical pitch deck and a pitch video on there, following landing page best practices, a lot of social proof all the way through, and then an invest button and the entire transaction can occur on that portal. Some of them have investor reviews on them, meaning

As part of the checkout process, they ask investors, why did you invest in this? And then a little box they can check anonymous, or can we list you on the offering page? It very much helps the issuer to list them on the offering page. In fact, the anchor investor, the lead investor syndicate lead is often put onto that page with a testimonial and amount on why they invested. You can go on to these offering pages.

and collect data of, here are all the investors for Reg CF. There's been about 10,000 deals across Reg CF and Regulation 8+. So you're talking about different tech stack. If you were data mining there and putting together a list, and then let's say cross-referencing that with Apollo or with a data provider and getting contact info accordingly.

Jason Fishman (21:12.28) And then you could upload those lists for advertising targeting. And it's just advertising targeting at that point. You'd have to go through an extra level of compliance to make sure you're doing everything right on the outreach side. If you're reaching out to him directly, but plenty of ways to do that, of course. So yes, Apollo, you would come across when searching around a variety of different investor, Apollo's.

where Apollo's more B2B, there's platforms that are just for investors. There's some email list providers that, it's kind of junk. And some of the good investor platforms, more of dossiers, you're searching, you're going one by one, you're learning about their family office and everything all the way through, but there's plenty of data out there.

Jake Hissitt (22:05.632) Yeah, really great. know, it's there's so much data in a way, I guess the system that runs behind it. Yeah, it's one one of design, I'm sure.

Jason Fishman (22:21.112) Yeah, something I say a lot, the name of my podcast, test optimized scale. So we've designed it by testing and optimizing and changing it up and new tests and an hour we find in the pockets of performance and then scaling what's working because they're very direct response. They're very performance oriented campaigns. It's not a, hey, six month SEO. Hopefully we'll see some traffic at that point. It's

campaign went live a week ago, campaign went live a month ago, what's my return on ad spend, what's my cost of capital. So in that environment, you got to put numbers on the board quick. If it's not working, pivot, you may only get a month, you may only get two months out of a client because their campaign's closing or they have limited budget to begin with. Maybe they didn't plan accordingly. Maybe they have other vendors that are working and they're bringing you in. So they can be quick runs.

three months, I'd say is a common equity crowdfunding campaign. If it's working, they'll get extensions. They could run throughout the course of the year, but if it's not, they don't want to leave it up for too long. So it puts you in this state of, hey, we have to test out new audiences, new creatives, new funnels every week, do more of what's working. Hey, how do we find shortcuts by data mining and pulling different audiences in or by tapping in?

to the voice of different publishers and their follower base. But the results that come out the other side, it's very exciting. It's rewarding to be a part of, and you watch the clients you're working with grow. Their offices, their team, their tech, everything.

Alex MacGregor (24:00.365) We did briefly mention AI and I see a lot of now these like guys, traditional VC, PE people starting to set up these AI funds, right? Where basically they're allocating capital with some kind of AI. How do you think about AI in terms of what you do?

Jason Fishman (24:24.1) Well, yes, there's AI funds, there's AI companies, there's AI tools that we use, there's AI across the board, right? And I feel like sometimes the term's misused. If I were to turn on the light here in the room, it's like, it's my AI candle. Anything electric, they're calling AI these days. Anything automated, where some of these tools have been using for years, it's just, you

machine learning and automated tech, especially on the media buying side. But we're exploring new AI social networks that are really exciting to me. You're treating Sora 2 as a social network, treating other platforms as a social network. You know, my creative director, creative team is finding all different types of ways to improve quality with video and graphic design platforms.

I really emphasize that I don't want to use AI unless it's better than human. I don't want to have shortcuts for my team. I want to have better quality coming out because that's what the clients care about. They don't care about if it takes us less time or, you know, if we put together extra pages and a marketing plan, but it doesn't put out stronger creative, doesn't put out stronger follow ups, doesn't make the results come in at a higher level.

in their reporting dashboard, but a lot on the creative side right now. I'm a numbers guy, do a lot of data analysis as well too. And what we're able to do with AI. mean, what would take me hours? I can do in seconds, less than a minute these days. I have to have the right data source. I have to be asking the right questions. I have to double check everything. I find a lot of platforms are regularly wrong, but we're using it.

for new things every week at the agency. And then yes, what comes across our desk in terms of new clients generally reflects what you're reading about in the media. if it's, you know, I mentioned influencer AI, that that's something we're working on. If it's a hot month for alt coins, we're getting, you know, leads coming in and, you Hey, alt season, we want to run more traffic, we need to work on.

Jason Fishman (26:48.752) know, content, creative collaborations, need, to figure out more to do here, to reach trusted audiences. we, we need to, basically figure out what works from our current stack work on a strategy, bring in more options towards it. but what is popular at the time tends to need more eyeballs and comes through an agency like us.

Jake Hissitt (27:17.79) Alex, it's time for the question.

Jason Fishman (27:21.144) We've worked with different buying algorithms on the web three and even public market side for years. So some of those and what they're doing with AI and the results they're hitting right now are off the charts. It's pretty insane. So it's a matter of telling that story in a few words in the messaging and bringing new audiences, new users, new investors into them. Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (27:21.196) Yeah, go ahead.

Jake Hissitt (27:34.636) That was the end.

Alex MacGregor (27:40.974) also think going back to the polymarket example, like the blockchain crowd prediction thing has a lot of legs.

Jason Fishman (27:44.922) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (27:52.394) It seems to be very popular.

Jason Fishman (27:52.425) yeah.

Jason Fishman (27:55.628) Once comedy shows like South Park start talking about you, I think it means it's hit the mainstream. yes, mean, we spend so much, we live online at this point, right? We spend so much time on our devices. Sometimes I'll joke around, I'll be at a dinner and ask someone about their screen time. Apps break it down and show, and everyone's always embarrassed to share.

Alex MacGregor (28:01.075) Tom Brady.

Jason Fishman (28:22.224) So being able to make predictions, make investments, I'll call it investments, see returns on that is definitely a big deal. It could be looked at as betting, could be looked at as investing, could be looked at as a social network even. But where we're putting our time, where we're investing our mind share can put out different results. If you're on a social platform, just pressing like on memes all day, or if you're putting it into an investment platform.

even a place where you're more or less placing wagers, you could have a radically different result with the right strategy in a small period of time.

Jake Hissitt (29:03.964) Okay, the question has got to be asked, Jason, really sorry about this one. It gets it gets everybody. Don't worry, you won't be the first person but we have to ask you about the future. I mean, it could be within your field. It could be within your life. It could be the future of the world. But where do you see the future heading?

Jason Fishman (29:27.536) feel like you want me to have a Terminator 2 type answer with AI and the machines taking over. And I don't always get asked this. And I have, though, and I've had answers like that. I don't It's hard to say. In some aspects, technology has moved much slower than what we were promised as kids. Where's my hoverboard? I can't, you know.

Jake Hissitt (29:55.436) That's a good thing now though, right?

Jason Fishman (29:56.186) take my flying car out. mean, everything moves slower. AI seems to be an exception to that. But still, if you would have asked me two years ago, I would have expected more people to be using AI on a daily basis, more builds, more custom GPTs, but more occurring on a daily basis. So.

It's hard to say what you know, there's always a fear report of, know, by next year, there'll be no more jobs. And, you know, someone else will say 2027 2030 2035 2050. I feel like, you know, Jurassic Park Life Finds A Way will be able to adapt to all of this, you know, along with every

Conspiracy theory about AI is one that there's time travel and people from a hundred years from now coming back and visiting us and things are different, but we're still doing our thing. So I try to focus on near term. Yeah.

Jake Hissitt (31:00.14) I mean...

Alex MacGregor (31:01.486) Actually, Jason, just to point out a little point there, you did say earlier in the pod that you think that your model of financing will be the future investing. That could be a really interesting one. That's quite a bold claim.

Jason Fishman (31:13.082) Yeah.

Yeah, that's a good near term one for me to focus on directly applicable to what I do and.

Alex MacGregor (31:25.506) Where's the other forms of investing gonna go? Like maybe add some color on that. Why is it gonna take over?

Jason Fishman (31:25.87) When I first got involved

Jason Fishman (31:32.432) Yeah, well, when I first got involved in the startup community in Los Angeles, it 2009, 2010. Market had just crashed. And I would see these amazing ideas that weren't getting funded. the founders were speaking to different investors on a daily basis. They kind of exhausted their own network. They were speaking to broker dealers. were speaking to marketing agencies. They were speaking to

All different types of people who played around in the capital communities, claimed they had a big network and were getting introductions right and left. Meanwhile, people weren't investing and you were basically limited by your network. You were basically limited by their networks, first degree, second degree. And if you didn't have the right connections, if you weren't able to present in the right way, you weren't getting funded. Meanwhile, everyone reads about companies that, you know, have

proof of concept, but they're, you know, they're pre-products, pre-revenue, pre-users, and they get $80 million, hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars in funding. It's like, what's happening? And he mentioned Silicon Valley. There's a lot of different inroads for the right people. What I like about these digital channels to bring in capital and call it crowd sales, which, you know, this was really like, these were bad words in 2016, 2018.

That meant you couldn't get funded offline and you were trying something new. Now, a lot of companies are opting for this route because they get to set the terms and every investor has to work off those terms. It's no longer, you know, getting strong armed by a VC or anything like that. know plenty of great VCs, but you know, it's the common story, right? And they end up taking control over time and, you know, so on and so forth. But this democratizes access to capital for founders. This

makes it available to every retail investor to participate in these early stage opportunities. You could get in on a company that has a $10 million valuation and turns into a unicorn. Billion dollar, multi-billion dollar higher valuation over time and get those type of returns that you hear about. You hear those stories of, you would have gotten a Facebook during the first year of business, what it would have been worth when they went public or what it would be worth now.

Jason Fishman (33:59.736) And it makes it so you don't have to have the right contacts to know about these early stage opportunities and the right funds, the right levels to actually participate in them. You don't have to have the right investor audience on the other side of the table. You can just do the right thing in terms of marketing, have the right formula, have enough traffic getting there and have a good shot towards success using one of these vehicles. As an investor, different

Ideologies you want to follow with, you know, high risk, high return section of your portfolio, maybe 10, 20 % having enough deals there, enough diversification. But over time, maybe you are able to have that high return and, you know, noteworthy liquidity event. So I believe as there's more investor success stories, there is going to be more people entering the space. are going to be more, you know, publishers talking about it.

And again, we live online. Why wouldn't we market these deals? Why wouldn't we invest? Why wouldn't we try to have that convergence of investors and issuers happening online and the crowd around it?

Alex MacGregor (35:09.454) Jason, Jason, very interesting. think we should revisit this in a year and off the back of all this and the Polymarket stuff, I think it's going to be very interesting to see, especially as VC returns are struggling. And I think in a year's time, maybe you're kind of dominating this space. So let's check in in a year.

Jason Fishman (35:32.812) Absolutely. There'll be more investors. There'll be more issuers. Again, it's relatively unknown. So I picture instead of a few hundred companies running a reg CF at a time, a few hundred thousand down the line, a few million, 24 some odd million small businesses in the US. It just needs more awareness and more investors participating. And yeah, happy to do it again.

Alex MacGregor (35:55.49) Cool, thank you. Cheers. Let's go.

Jason Fishman (35:58.213) Thanks.

Alex MacGregor (35:59.695) Thanks, thanks guys. Cheers.

Jake Hissitt (36:00.813) Thanks Jason.

Jason Fishman (36:02.87) Awesome. Hope that.

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When AI Meets Short Video

Alex MacGregor — Sat, 25 Oct 2025 12:00:32 +0000

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Latest episode: David Attias on OpenAI Sora (Transcript)

Alex MacGregor (00:00.778) Yeah, great. So yeah, we're back with episode 51 of the High Breaks podcast with myself, Alex and Jake. So yeah, we were just talking before we went on air there, but like, so this past week, Sora 2 has launched and everyone's sharing videos online. But one of the reasons we got David on this day is because David's like one of the few people that are actually talking about the specifics behind Sora, like in terms of like, you know, how to optimize it and how to like remove watermarks and do all that kind of stuff. So

Jake Hissitt (00:07.454) Great.

Alex MacGregor (00:30.27) Yeah, I just want to get your background, David, like, why did you kind of start talking about this online and like, what's your background in terms of like all this stuff, like video and stuff like that?

David (00:39.638) Yeah, sure. Because I am the founder of a mobile app called Stopper, which is an app for women to stop their sugar cravings. And I have been working with influencers a lot for the past six months. And I was very frustrated to work with influencers because sometimes the quality is not there and the price, the cost for their videos is quite expensive.

And when I got access to Sora 2, it was like Thursday. Basically, that's a friend of a friend who gave me his access code on day one. And it was Joe dropping. Like when I saw the quality of the video and the audio and basically like the different camera angles and when the characters, they were talking, I was like...

Like, trust me, like, the entire day of Sora 2, the first day of release, I was... I think as a B2C app marketer, that's the most powerful tool I've seen, like, by a very large margin.

Alex MacGregor (02:01.896) Yeah. And so like before this, before Sora 2 then, you were just working with creators, doing the usual, giving them a brief and getting the video and then asking them to edit the video. So kind of like what's, I mean, what's the, do you still do that or is that, you going to like switch? Yeah, you still do that. Yeah.

David (02:19.382) Yeah, yeah, of course. Of course, of course. With influencers who have power of influence, basically like influencers that have a large audience and a large audience of fans. Yes, I'm still working with those. With influencers with charisma, who can smile on camera, who can speak in front of a camera, yes. With all the low-charisma ambassadors and influencers, no.

Basically, like all the pretty girls just being pretty on camera and then basically showing my stopper app, gone. It's over.

Alex MacGregor (02:56.798) Yeah. It's funny because the video that you shared, the girl in Bali. like I, I've been to Bali. I go to Bali every year and I've, I've, I've added some girls from Bali in my Instagram. And I saw a video exactly like that from a girl I know in Bali and her, she is from Singapore. I'm not going to name her name, but she's got, just say like, three or 400,000 followers and her video was exactly like that video that you shared.

David (03:17.133) Sure.

Alex MacGregor (03:25.29) Literally she went to the gym, she ate like a Kai bowl, she was down by a pool, she was working out and even like the way she talked and the way she delivered was exactly the same as that girl. Like it literally was like for like. So I'm thinking in my mind like, okay, if I'm a brand like, like, you know, I don't know how much she charges, but like the cost, the difference in costs alone is gonna be like really tempting for brands, isn't it?

David (03:38.51) I know that's useful.

David (03:52.172) Yeah, because I am working with similar influencers from Bali and Thailand. And what they used to charge is basically between $100 and $200 for one video. And for last week, we saw how to make the same video. It was free. And the quality was awesome. And then, far, two free got nerfed in terms of quality and in terms of things we can do with the free model.

And since the end of last week, I got access to the Pro model, to the Paint model, which we can access with a Shad GPT Pro subscription. And there, the quality is insane in terms of video, camera angles, and image, and audio. That's just insane.

Alex MacGregor (04:44.094) Yeah, interesting. So in terms of like the, what are the main kind of issues right now in terms of like adopting this then? Like you talked about the watermarking thing, used a third party tool. Like what is the main kind of issues right now from your perspective?

David (05:05.069) With the Sora Free models, there are tons of issues. Sometimes the character doesn't look real, sometimes the audio doesn't look real, sometimes the quality of the image is bad, and same for the audio. So we have to use a lot of tools to remove the watermark, to improve the voice, to do some video upscale as well.

And those things, don't need to do them with Sora 2 Pro. We still need to remove the watermark, but from my experience, the Pro model, 90 % of the generated videos, in terms of image and audio perspective, it's not perfect, it's almost perfect. It's almost perfect. Actually, I think Sora 2 Pro is better than 95 % of the content.

of the similar content in the same niche that I see on TikTok and Instagram. That's mind-blowing.

Alex MacGregor (06:12.754) Yeah, that is it's from the videos I've seen, like I've seen little mistakes here and there. Like I saw the girl pouring the, I think it was like milk or something onto the table. So she literally just poured it onto the table and onto the. Yeah.

David (06:24.622) Of course, of course, that's true. There are sometimes, there are often actually some mistakes like that which with a video software editor we can cut. Yeah.

Jake Hissitt (06:38.259) I think we need.

David (06:38.51) But yeah, like, basically, like when I share this video on Twitter, like I don't, I don't edit the video that I'm sharing on Twitter. just, I just share like that. And because, because my audience is mostly people making apps, working with AI. So like they will notice those kinds of things, but I guarantee you like most of the rest of the world, the rest of the Gen Z teens on Twitter, TikTok and Instagram won't.

Alex MacGregor (07:03.39) Yeah.

David (07:06.87) They won't notice the long finger, they won't notice the milk on the... Some might, but most won't.

Jake Hissitt (07:16.466) Okay.

David (07:22.924) I think Jack is mute.

Jake Hissitt (07:25.203) think I'm in the middle of an electrical storm that's affecting my internet.

Alex MacGregor (07:25.224) Yeah, you're on music.

Alex MacGregor (07:31.796) Hahaha.

Now we can hear you.

Jake Hissitt (07:36.059) Yeah, I'm in and out, but I can see that my camera is going on and off and my sound is as well, it's raining quite heavily here. So I wanted to ask a quick question actually, because obviously David here is from, guess what we would know, everybody would know is a traditional influencer agency. And I want to get your perspective, David.

How do you think that this technology is going to affect the influencer industry? Because I look at it this way, right? I used to, I actually have automated systems as well where we can create avatars. And I know that HeyGen, I'm not sure if you're familiar with HeyGen, but I actually have a way to create automated avatars from transcripts automatically with HeyGen. And HeyGen has just recently integrated Sora 2, as in the Sora 2 engine into the HeyGen model.

David (08:28.494) Mm-hmm.

Jake Hissitt (08:31.411) Do you think we could be potentially in a new world where you could just license somebody's face and then use a third party tool like Hey Jen to then create videos on behalf of them?

David (08:45.998) Actually, that's what I am doing with two girls on Sora 2. Because on Sora 2, we can create our cameo, our AI avatar. basically, I made them create an account on Sora 2. I made them create their cameo. And I told them to give me the right to use their cameo for me to do some promo video for them.

for stoppers. Yeah, yes. Actually, it was my first business study when Sova 2 got released is to make a kind of marketplace, a kind of cameo marketplace where regular people that are creator or maybe not a creator can rent their AI to brands.

I was hoping that it would have been possible with the Sora2 API that got released yesterday, but that's not possible for now. But I'm pretty sure that in the very future, either in the Sora web app directly or via the APIs, that would be possible to rent cameos from specific people.

Alex MacGregor (10:05.822) Yeah, I saw Mark Cuban, he tweeted earlier saying basically my Camuil was out on the app or whatever, just go play with it. So I think a lot of people are just going to let people use their Camuil for free, right? But what you're saying is the switched on influencers, creators, they're going to be charging people, could be a lot of money to use this in the future, if there's a marketplace.

David (10:30.326) Yeah, for big influencers, yes. But let's say, for me, I am working with girls that are just creators, they're not big influencers. It's some girls that I pay probably like $500 per month to post multiple times for me per day, maybe like two, videos per day. But that takes some effort. They still have to take their phone, they still have to shoot those videos to edit.

Alex MacGregor (10:33.907) Yeah.

David (10:58.912) But let's say like instead of me paying them 500 dollars to do some active work, I can rent their cameo for like, for let's say for half the price and to make let's say like, to make let's say like as many promo video as I want in a specific context because like in the Sora 2 app we can say like

I allow my cameo to say that, that, that, but I don't want my cameo to be in that specific scenarios. And instead of paying them $500, I will pay them, for example, $150, $200. And they can multiply that deal with as many brands as they want. And for them, that deal is 100 % passive. For them, that's true passive income.

Alex MacGregor (11:48.851) Mm, yeah.

Alex MacGregor (11:53.63) Yeah, yeah, super interesting.

Jake Hissitt (12:03.379) I am here. Sorry. It's such a delay. do. You know, I also used to work in influencers. So I do have the questions about it. And I just wonder though, because I'm not sure if you know who HS Tiki Toki is. He's a kick streamer. He's very famous, particularly in the UK. And he's always got a viral moment, but I have seen people just creating AI videos of this like streamer.

David (12:08.599) I can't see.

Jake Hissitt (12:32.443) effectively without his permission. So I think that the disruption in the model, you know, for the influencers, it could be good because they, they can obviously license their face, but then at the same time, there's going to be a lot of like black hack, maybe not in like commercial mainstreams, but there's definitely going to be the ability for people to create quote unquote, deep fakes of people without their permission and use that in a commercial way.

Alex MacGregor (13:04.872) Yeah. I mean, I saw, I saw CAA, the big talent agency come out today and say, they're basically going to sue, open it again about this. Like they're saying their, their, their talent, like roster, you know, like the value of their roster is going to go down. So in, in a way, like this, this could like lift all of the micro influencers. and it could hit the, hit the big ones. Like, what do you think about that? Like, do you think the big influencers creators are going to be like?

You know, like Jake said, like if there's deep fakes and stuff, like, do think they're going to kind of resist this or like, what's your thoughts on the big guys?

David (13:39.692) Yeah, if they will. So yeah. So when you show my video about that girl in Bali, what she eats in a day, most Bali girl and Thailand girls will say, that's fake. She's not a real girl. It doesn't look that real. But trust me, 99 % of TikTok Instagram, they will think it's real. So when you ask.

Big influencers, what do they think about Sora? I think it's like asking taxi drivers what they think about Uber. I think the people getting disrupted don't like the product that is disrupting them.

Alex MacGregor (14:17.394) Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex MacGregor (14:29.104) Exactly. Yeah. We used to in a, in a past life, I used to work with a guy called MQHD, right? This tech influencer, everyone knows. And almost he's like the, he's like the gatekeeper for the whole of tech. Every single tech company in the hardware business, at least has to have a video with this guy. And like, I'm sure that's the same for every category of influencer. There's always like one influencer at the top and everyone else is underneath it. So.

David (14:38.103) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (14:57.32) You're right. Like this could lead to like an explosion of, of new influencers because literally you're having people that don't adopt this are going to be stagnant. And the people that do adopt this are going to grow exponentially because they're just going to be on more videos, right? Like, like think about the, the TikTok and stuff, like it rewards engagement, it rewards like interaction with different accounts. So instead of having one account, like right now most creators have one account, right? Or maybe two accounts or three max.

David (15:13.472) Yeah, yeah.

Alex MacGregor (15:26.974) But in theory, they could have a hundred accounts, right? At the same time with loads of different types of videos running in parallel. so actually this is, I mean, most creators won't be able to do this. Like it's, it's, it's going to be too much. they just can't do that. So that's the, think that's where there's an opportunity for people like yourself and even ourselves to create services that enable them to scale their content. Right. Cause that doesn't exist right now.

David (15:29.654) Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yes.

David (15:56.33) Yeah and I'm going to share some source basically like whenever I publish a video in English I think there is a lot more competition so like it's higher for me to get more views. Whenever I share a video in French or in Tagalog or in Spanish that's easier for me, easier to have the views.

views above like one thousand for example like one thousand views to two thousand views it's not much but it's still i feel like i feel like even bad videos they perform better in french and spanish than in english so so to use your example a big influencer could create a could create the same videos in english in french in spanish in like in

Alex MacGregor (16:34.889) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (16:45.78) Yeah.

David (16:48.352) And that's a way to basically, I think, to demultiply yourself in multiple models. Yes.

Alex MacGregor (16:54.674) Yeah. I remember Mr. Mr. Beast talked about this. Like he, said that basically that's what got him from being a, 10 million to a hundred million to 400 million was the fact that he went to Brazil, he went to Indonesia, he went to Philippines, but that was done via teams. Like he's got hundreds of people translating. obviously now by AI, but like he has still a lot of people to kind of, you know, run all these different accounts. Whereas in theory now with Sora two, you can literally just go global.

with the software and then you can be in every country.

David (17:26.152) Yeah, for now that's not possible with Sora 2 to generate the exact same video in English and in multiple languages. We can generate probably like 90 % of the same video and with a different person.

Alex MacGregor (17:43.754) What about the audio? How is the audio in general? Because I know you did clip some videos of audio.

David (17:55.374) In SOHR 2.3, the standard model, to be honest, is quite bad. In the PRO model, it's great. But there are some AI free tools. mean, it's not free, but they have a free trial during four weeks or so.

And basically, we just dropped the video in there, and it will improve the audio and voice quality greatly. And just one click.

Jake Hissitt (18:19.292) Bye, bud.

Alex MacGregor (18:30.238) Hmm. What? Yeah. What about, about music? Because before we joined the pod tonight, Jake had a really banging tune on and like they don't, opening I don't have like any licensed music, right? Like how's that going to work?

David (18:44.782) No. sometimes, yes, in the video sometimes they add some music, But I really don't care because I always ask the people that post for me to use the trading music from TikTok and Instagram. And I always tell them to add the text themselves directly in TikTok and Instagram. Because I heard that when you do the edit yourself that shows the...

social media platform like you are not a bot, you are a real human doing some human interaction. So for all the text overlay and for the audio, that's direct, for me, for my content, that's directly within TikTok and Instagram.

Alex MacGregor (19:31.134) Yeah. And in terms of like, sort of going forward then, like your main focus is still going to be the app or are you, you looking at kind of like, as it talked about scaling some services around this or like, what's your main focus with this?

David (19:46.51) I'm thinking because I am working on the Sora Sass. I don't know if I can speak about it right now because whenever I will share the source a lot of people will copy.

Alex MacGregor (19:56.844) Exclusive here, yeah.

David (20:03.342) Okay, let's say the Sora 2 videos are quite okay. They're okay-ish. Like if I would rate them, it's between 6 out of 10, so 7 out of 10, which is still okay. The Sora 2 Pro video, it's often 8, 9 out of 10 from a video and from an audio perspective.

Alex MacGregor (20:03.401) Yeah.

David (20:30.646) What if you don't have access to Sora 2 Pro because that's too expensive for you? You don't want to pay the $200 per month. You just drop your video in the SAS, and that will remove the Sora watermark for you. That will upscale the video quality for you. That will enhance the audio quality for you. So that you will get a video in terms of quality that is between Sora 2 Free

and Sora 2 Pro. So basically, your video will go from a 6 out of 10 to like 8 in terms of image and voice and stuff.

Alex MacGregor (21:15.048) Yeah, I mean, this sounds good. If you're pitching that to businesses then to agencies or brands, what is the pitch? Because basically do you lead with the cost? You can say, look, I can cut your influencer creator spend. Or do you say like, we can increase the volume, like which is the most important, the cost or the volume in your opinion?

David (21:40.206) If they use the API from Sora to generate a 10 second video with Sora 2 Pro, it's the cost for one video that's $5, which is quite expensive. So instead of paying $5 for a good quality video, you can pay $1 for a Sora 2 standard video to...

to import that video in that SAS, you will pay probably like $1 more for that video. So instead of paying $5, you will pay in total, too. So.

Alex MacGregor (22:26.206) Yeah. another, another thing is though, when I, when I work with influencers before, if I don't like something, I would just talk to the influencer directly or the manager and say, can we edit this? Can we change that? what is the process with Sora? Cause like, literally you do, need to like, you need to generate a new video, right? Basically. So how does that affect things? Like you can't just, you can't just edit, you can't really edit a clip, right? In the same way you would with a traditional video.

David (22:45.186) Yeah.

David (22:56.398) Yeah, the only thing what I can do with Sora when I don't like a certain part of a clip, it would be to do some cut. Like some B-rolls or some cut. to... Yeah, actually that's a great question.

Alex MacGregor (23:07.881) Yeah.

David (23:17.386) Basically, like when I have someone in a Sora 2 video that says something that I don't want and I want to keep the exact same character with the exact same angle and exact same background and to ever say something different, that's not possible so far.

Alex MacGregor (23:36.062) I was having this, the reason I asked that question is I have this discussion a lot of times this year already, and I've spoken to other guys that are building automated influencer marketing. So they build tools where they email influencers and they do all the negotiation via AI, right? Like mostly text-based and they come from non-agency, non-marketing backgrounds. They've no idea about the negotiation contracts. So they're asking me questions like, what's, what's the stop us doing automated influencer marketing? And

David (23:57.87) Hang on.

Alex MacGregor (24:03.762) I have to interject with that very point about the fact is in this business, it's most of the energy is spent in the negotiation and edits and the revisions and reformatting. It's not the shooting of the content or the payment, right? Or the delivery, even the like literally just to upload files to Dropbox or Google drive. So I think that is the question for me right now with all of this is how, how will it fit in the workflow? Like of the, of the business, like, like business itself, like people.

David (24:14.851) Yes.

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alex MacGregor (24:33.736) People expect like they won't really care much about the technology. They just say, okay, this is a cheaper video. It's a better video. Can it fit with my workflow? need to have revisions. need to have edits. so I think that's still a little bit of a question, for like all the services out there, even, even sort of to team itself, maybe they can build some technology to do edits and cuts. I don't know. But then you, then you're into like, cap, cut, like building an editor into the tool, right. Which is another.

David (25:02.638) Yes.

Alex MacGregor (25:03.551) Another thing.

David (25:05.086) Actually, I will revise my previous answer because I never used that feature. There is some remix. There is this remix button on all the Sora 2 video. And basically, we can change the output of a video with some prompt. For example, yeah, this character has a red t-shirt, but I want a black t-shirt. Or the character says that, I

say abc but i want i want that person to say def for example so if we can do some some basic edit right now with with sora 2 with some some basic runs here but for now for now that's that's that's pretty basic i'm pretty sure that the worst sora 2 will will would be ever right but still from a from a starting point i

I know, I know I am, I don't know why I became this SuraGuruanX but I just became by...

Alex MacGregor (26:02.557) Who inspires you in this space? Like guys like levels that do all the, like he's been using like AI video and AI photos for a while, Yeah.

David (26:11.788) Yeah, I've been a photoai.com customer like he says for long time, and it's great. Yeah, so I'm inspired by Peter Levers, inspired by the Jack Fricks as well. He's from Canada. He's quite young. There is Marc Louvion, he's French. There is another guy as well with French. He's called Thibault.

Alex MacGregor (26:21.192) Yeah.

David (26:41.864) is the SaaS founder of HotRank. Yeah. Some thoughts.

Alex MacGregor (26:46.9) These guys are so good at distribution, right? Of course they're good product people, but they've mastered the distribution. And I think that's what's gonna be really important with Sora stuff. Like it's not just a case of generating videos, right? It's like how you talk about them, how you share them. Yeah.

David (26:54.04) Yeah.

David (27:05.774) Yeah, I am very excited for the future of Sora because you see that those cinematic intro videos from Clueli, right now, all the founders, they have those cinematic videos with a lot of quality production being very high. I am so convinced that in the near future, when I say near, maybe one year or maybe two years, I don't everyone will be able to generate with Sora, like with...

with a different system like this kind of videos and for me they're just mind blowing.

Alex MacGregor (27:42.386) Yeah. Jake, do have any questions for David before we ask the final question?

Jake Hissitt (27:48.741) I don't know. To be honest, feel like Sora is something that I haven't really touched on. So I've been learning. You know, I think about Sora lot in the Heigen space about generation of Avatar, but I know I'm learning, you know, I'm learning because I've not really experimented with it. I do other things. So super interesting, super interesting. I'll definitely I'll be

David (28:13.726) Yeah, guess. Yes.

Alex MacGregor (28:13.737) How do you, that's the question for you David, how do you stay on top of all the developments, right? Because things are moving so fast. How do you use like Twitter X, like how do you stay on top of it?

David (28:22.478) I don't have any full-time job. I am working a lot on Stopper and I am all day long on X.

Alex MacGregor (28:31.993) X is the only place you can learn about this stuff, like in real time.

David (28:34.336) Yes, yeah, actually, like I have, I'm subscribed to AI newsletter by email, but like I don't read them. Like all my AI news knowledge comes from X.

Alex MacGregor (28:43.891) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (28:49.117) That's crazy how X is like the quickest place to find out.

Jake Hissitt (28:52.399) It is, it is the go to, you know, it is it really is like and the scene is a space. I don't think it's that big. I mean, there's a lot of people in it, but it's not huge. We all know the same circle.

Alex MacGregor (28:55.282) Yeah

David (28:57.804) Yes.

Alex MacGregor (29:01.906) No.

David (29:02.518) Yeah, think it's like.

Alex MacGregor (29:08.541) People, yeah.

so yeah, what's, so what's the near term just before we get to find a question, like what's the near term plan, David, like you can't talk about your app. but you're just going to keep working on this like Sora, like you're going to keep pushing on that. Yeah.

David (29:25.71) Yeah, because for me, maybe that's a bold statement. Maybe, like, I don't know what I'm talking about. But for me, the low charisma UGC, all the low charisma influencers, they are done. They are done. They are just done. Like, all the...

Jake Hissitt (29:47.761) Well, that was... Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (29:48.073) That is that you've just answered the final question. No, no, ask the question, Jake, and then we can go back to it.

David (29:51.368) Sorry.

Jake Hissitt (29:54.451) No, you know, it's funny. It's funny. think that I don't want to say too much because it sounds like almost controversial, but it's just if you go on Instagram or TikTok these days, you know, I don't know what your feed looks like, but if you're a girl, you just need to do a dance and you've got 20k plus followers. Like that's all my Instagram is. Like it's just

David (29:56.365) Okay.

Alex MacGregor (30:05.683) Do it.

Jake Hissitt (30:23.955) some girl that's an eight out of 10 or above, let's be honest, doing a dance and she's got like 20K followers in the space of like a week and you're like, what is this? know, like, what is this? It's a...

David (30:30.808) Yeah.

Alex MacGregor (30:37.193) But do you think Sora and these tools are gonna change that, like the algorithm, or is it just gonna feed him?

Jake Hissitt (30:40.723) I don't think they'll change some of it, but they'll probably create a new, carve a new niche. They'll carve a new market out for people that want to generate their own dancing chick or something.

Alex MacGregor (30:51.017) Okay. No, very interesting. So yeah, the final question, Jake, go for it. I think that was a good answer though for the final question, but anyway.

Jake Hissitt (30:57.488) Okay.

Do well. Hold your horses, David. We're on to the final question of the podcast. You know, this one shocks people. It takes a minute for people to get their heads around the question, but I'm going to throw it out there. It's really just about future predictions. You could be anything. It could be your life, the future of the world, work, but future projections, predictions. What do you think is going to happen?

David (31:25.198) Sure. Yeah, I think I I think I will. When I discovered SoRat2 last week, and it was not even the pro model, right? It was like the standard model. I was very convinced that the influencers without charisma, the UGC actors without charisma, they are done.

Alex MacGregor (31:28.263) You can say the same answer, by the way, the low-quality influencers.

David (31:55.124) Like they are not done right now because like Sora is not spread out worldwide and most people don't know Sora. basically like girls dancing on camera, girls eating a fat burger, a fat pizza, like this kind of McBang video, girls being pretty doing some promo for an app with just being pretty with some text on the video.

Basically, all the low effort creators, they are done. They are just done. For me, as a brand, for my stuff, I'm they're just right now, like even today, that makes no sense. Makes no sense to work with them. So I fired quite some.

quite a few of ambassadors last week that I was paying $500 per month just to be pretty on camera. Because I can do that with SoRat 2 Pro in English, in French, in Spanish, in Italian, with girls that are prettier than them and with girls that have more charisma than them and with girls that can speak on...

Alex MacGregor (33:05.353) Yeah.

David (33:20.654) on camera clearly during 15 seconds.

Alex MacGregor (33:23.881) I got a marketing tip for you. Like, do you use threads, the app threads? If you start posting like this opinion on threads, you're going to blow up because the backlash you'll get from all of the anti-AI slop, mostly left leaning people, they're just going to blow up your threads account. So cross post that stuff on threads. It'll blow up. Yeah.

David (33:44.138) Nice. Thank you.

I will, I will. Like when you will, when you will publish this podcast, I'm going to clip that part and I will post it on threads.

Alex MacGregor (33:57.329) Yeah. All right. All right. Cool. Thanks, David. That was really cool. Let's get you on in a year and then let's see kind of like what's changed. I'm sure a lot will change.

David (34:07.15) Sure. Thank you. Thank you, Alex. Jack, thank you. Bye bye.

Jake Hissitt (34:07.187) Pleasure.

Alex MacGregor (34:09.012) Take care, see you later. Cheers, thanks, bye bye.

Headlines/News

OpenAI's new Sora 2 video generation app went viral. Is it a real threat to Meta?

Sora 2 is the latest competitive threat to Meta's social media supremacy.

www.cnbc.com/2025/10/24/meta-faces-a-new-threat-from-openais-new-viral-sora-2-video-app.html

WPP cuts out the agency to help brands create their own ads with AI

British ad group WPP said on Thursday it was letting brands access its AI-powered marketing platform to plan, create and publish their own campaigns.

www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/wpp-cuts-out-agency-help-brands-create-their-own-ads-with-ai-2025-10-23

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The pen is mightier than the sword

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 23 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

We welcome Hunter Stuart, a former journalist turned PR professional. We discuss Hunter's experiences living abroad, particularly in the Middle East, working with outlets like Vice and his transition from journalism to starting his own PR agency. The conversation also delves into the impact of AI on the industry, innovations in web development, and the future of public relations in a tech-driven world.

Watch/Listen
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AI and AI Agents

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 09 Jan 2025 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode of the HYPEWORKS Podcast, Alex MacGregor and Jake Hissitt engage with Sam Mallikarjunan, a growth marketing expert with a rich history at HubSpot. They explore Sam's unconventional journey into marketing, the dynamics of management at HubSpot, and the challenges of transitioning from corporate life to startups.

What a Year!

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 12 Dec 2024 05:40:38 +0000

2024 has been a great year for the HYPEWORKS pod.

We now have recorded 40 episodes, with some of the best guests we could hope for.

This wouldn’t be possible without you, our listeners.

One even shared a screenshot of his most listened to podcasts (above).

We’re honored to have you onboard and if we could ask for just one thing in 2025: share the pod with your friends.

We are global marketers.

- Alex & Jake

Fractional CMO'ing

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 05 Dec 2024 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode, we're joined by Andy Culligan, a seasoned marketing professional and founder of Purple Path, a go-to-market agency. Andy shares his journey from being a full-time CMO to embracing the fractional CMO model, discussing the evolution of this role and its current relevance in the marketing landscape. He elaborates on the challenges of scaling a marketing agency and the strategies for bootstrapped startups to effectively manage leads and growth.

Watch/Listen
Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB
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Revolutionizing Ecom & Going Viral

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 21 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Alex and Jake welcome Liam Fuller, a 17-year-old entrepreneur from Ireland who has built a business called Cart Share from a school toilet. Liam shares his journey from trading Pokemon cards at a young age to developing an AI voice assistant and eventually creating a Shopify app that allows users to share their shopping carts to reach free shipping thresholds.

Watch/Listen
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Listen on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/show/66WE7FcRZg33hvCo9pCAhB
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Building an Agency

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 07 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Nathan Yeung, CEO of Find Your Audience, shares his journey of building his agency and working with notable clients. He discusses the challenges and growth he experienced over the years and emphasizes the importance of focusing on operations and quality. Nathan also talks about the value of primary research in an AI-driven world, the role of creativity in marketing, and the need for human connection in an increasingly automated world.

Watch/Listen
Watch on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/@hypeworks
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Nailing Sales Funnels

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 24 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Alex and Jake with Neils Blonk discuss the differences between working in big companies versus small companies. They explore the advantages and disadvantages of each, including the opportunities for learning and growth in big companies and the autonomy and fast-paced growth in small companies. They also touch on the importance of good management, the evolution of online marketing, and the need for targeted landing pages and ad campaigns. Niels shares his career journey from starting in a small company to becoming the head of marketing in a multi-million dollar company, and his current focus on funnel optimization with his company, Funnel Supply.

Neils Blonk
https://x.com/NielsBl85

Watch/Listen
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It's Community, People

Alex MacGregor — Thu, 10 Oct 2024 10:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Alex and Jake are joined by Elias Stråvik to discuss personal branding, pivots, and building communities. Elias shares his experience with startups and the importance of focusing on employee well-being. They explore the concept of creating communities and providing value to target audiences. They also discuss the challenges of standing out in a saturated market and avoiding the perception of selling 'bags of smoke.'

Watch/Listen
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