Marketing is just different now. The old school ways aren’t working, even for the big companies. Let’s look at the different approaches companies are taking to marketing.

Cluely has created over 10,000 TikTok accounts. Yes, 10k accounts. They’re essentially taking the clipping approach that a lot of the younger streamers are using. Cluey creates a ton of organic content on YouTube and X, then has a ton of people and probably some AI post clips of that content online endlessly. At this point it doesn’t matter if you want to see their brand. They’ll be harassing all of us eventually.

You’ve heard of Notion, right? They used a content first approach to reach these massive numbers.

1. Community-First → Content-DrivenNotion didn’t start with ads. Instead, they leaned into creators and power users to build Notion templates, tutorials, and use cases that spread across YouTube, Twitter, and Reddit organically.

2. Templates = Trojan HorseNotion turned templates into distribution. Every time someone shared a goal tracker or startup CRM on Twitter or in a YouTube video, it was basically a free ad for Notion.

3. Zero-ego EvangelismThey promoted community content more than their own. Their YouTube featured tutorials from users. Their website linked to user-made tools. They knew scaling evangelists > doing everything yourself.

4. SEO with SoulThey quietly built out a long-tail SEO strategy with helpful guides like:

These weren’t generic — they solved real problems with real examples.

When I have this debate with founders, my question is simple: what’s your other option? We have this conversation about what will work as if you can choose. If you did select the path of advertising to grow your startup, do you have the resources to make it happen? Can you consistently run ads for $1k per day? The truth is you probably can’t afford to.

The content-first method is something I live by because it’ll always be the easiest way for most companies to get started. You could start a YouTube channel for free and dominate the keywords your audience cares about. Creating a company page on LinkedIn and growing it with content and engagement is an option. Some startups would even benefit from setting up on X and connecting with influencers in your market while building an audience. (I can do a post on each of these strategies.)

The point is that organic content takes focus and effort but its literally the best way to build a stronghold in a particular market.

Building a waitlist is important. You can prepare the market for every launch that you execute. Imagine if they next time you wanted to launch something, you already had hundreds of people ready and waiting to work with you!

That’s why I built Launch List Pro. You can try it out here completely free.

Soon, I’ll be launching the full Growth Mode suite of products. You’re already on the list to get access but I want to learn more about you. Reply to this email and let me know what you’re currently building.