After running AdTribe for six years and managing over $100M in ad spend, I learned how hard it is to build and keep a world-class media buying team.

Finding great talent takes months.
Training takes even longer.
And the wrong hire can cost you clients and profit fast.

So I built the service I wish existed back then — Haven.

Haven is a white-label media buying partner that helps marketing agencies scale without hiring.

For $799 per account, you get a complete senior-level growth team:

✅ Media buyer
✅ Creative designer
✅ Video editor
✅ Developer
✅ Performance strategist

No hiring. No overhead. No training headaches.

Today, more than 20 agencies partner with us to handle their paid media.

A few of them said it best:

Olivia Kean, CEO at Fusion Hub
👉 “It’s allowed me to focus on the things I love, knowing they’re crushing it on their end.”

Kory Baraba, CEO at Grow Fast
👉 “We’ve worked with 4–5 different media buyers from Haven, and they’ve all been amazing.”

See more client stories here: https://www.hirewithhaven.com/clients

If you run a marketing agency and want to scale fulfillment without adding headcount,
connect with me or reach out at dmitry@hirewithhaven.com

Dmitry Fesenko

Looking for a TikTok Shop agency.

I just had a call with a $15M CPG brand. They need help with:

→ TikTok Shop setup
→ Affiliate management
→ Magento integration

Anyone in my network have an agency they'd recommend? I will make an intro

Drop a name in the comments or DM me.

UPDATE: Got hundreds of responses. Going through every comment and DM. Will respond to everyone. Thank you all.

CEO at Haven | Hire world-class media buyers for 65% less than in the US | $100M+ in managed ad spend

Took a few weeks off. First break in months.

No Slack. No LinkedIn. No client calls.

Just rest.

Honestly? It felt weird. Almost guilty.

But I came back to our busiest January ever.

→ onboarding 2 new agency partners for white-label offer
→ signed 3 new clients for media buyer placement offer

Not bad for week one.

Looking back, 2025 was really about laying the groundwork.

Building the team. Launching a new offer that's more profitable and easier to sell.

2026 is when we scale.

The break gave me some clarity too. I've been running at 100% for years. Two agencies. Teams across time zones. Always on.  

Turns out stepping away for a bit doesn't break everything. Who knew 😅

Anyway, here's what we're going after this year:

→ Scale placements to 3-4/month
→ Add 10 agency partners
→ Build creative department from scratch
→ Launch AI copilot for media buyers

Feeling good about this one.

What's your biggest goal for 2026?

What's the most underrated skill in media buyers?

It's not platform knowledge.
It's not creative strategy.
It's not attention to detail.

It's enthusiasm.

We recently hired a junior media buyer.

Every call, he's smiling. Every monthly recap, he shows up with a full presentation, pumped to share results. Last week he built a dashboard no one asked for, just because he wanted to understand the data better.

He makes it incredibly easy to work with him. And because of that, everyone wants to help him get better.

Skills can be taught. Platforms change every year anyway.

But energy and curiosity compound.

A highly enthusiastic junior will often outperform a grumpy expert over time.

Not because they know more. But because people actually want to work with them.

Next time you're hiring, don't just check the resume.

Check the energy.

5 years ago, we got hacked.  

Over $20k of client money was stolen (fkn casino affiliates).

At the time, our agency was doing $20k/month in revenue. So, needless to say, this was devastating.

It took 6 months to get the money back from Meta.  

Luckily, none of our clients left. We worked for free for 3 months to make it right.

But here's what came out of it:

We wrote two documents that we still use today.

1. "When FB account got hacked" protocol

→ How to identify which profile was compromised 
→ How to lock it down immediately 
→ How to contact Meta support 
→ How to protect the ad accounts 
→ Red flags to watch for before it happens

2. "How to keep your Business Manager safe" checklist

→ 2FA for everyone with access 
→ Regular audits of who has access 
→ Security checkup for all personal FB accounts 
→ Alerts for unrecognized logins 
→ Review apps and browser plugins regularly

We've used these internally ever since. Never got hacked again.  

Mistakes are unavoidable, but making the same mistake twice is a choice.

If you're running ads for clients, you need this.  

Comment "protocol" and I will send these two docs your way.

Slack is killing your media buyers' output.

Not the workload. The constant interruption.

I had a call with an 8-figure agency owner last week. He shared a simple system that changed how I think about client communication.

His media buyers used to be glued to Slack all day. Context switching between campaigns and client requests. It was destroying their focus.

So he implemented time blocks.

Here's how it works:

→ 9 AM: First communication window (30 min)
→ 12 PM: Second window (30 min)
→ 5 PM: Final window (30 min)

During those blocks, they clear every Slack channel. Outside those windows? Deep work only.

But here's what makes it actually work.

Clients know about it from day one.

During onboarding: "This is Ali. He's running your ads. Here are his response times: 9 AM, 12 PM, and 5 PM EST. If you message outside these times, he'll respond at the next block."

They frame it as a benefit: "We do this so Ali can focus on actually working on your campaigns, instead of multitasking all day."

Most clients are fine with a 2-3 hour response time. The problem is never the wait. It's the uncertainty about if or when they'll hear back.

Clear expectations beat fast responses.

We'll be rolling this out soon at Haven across all 90+ accounts. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.

What systems do you use to protect deep work time?

What's the fastest way to have $1M in your bank account?  

I'm not talking about equity or paper gains. I mean cash you can actually spend.

Start an agency.

You don't need investors, a 7-year exit plan, or to pray for an acquisition.

Just clients paying you every month.

Now look, if you're the Elon Musk type who wants to build life-changing technology and is willing to suffer for 10-20 years without seeing real money, by all means do it. The world needs people working on groundbreaking stuff.

This post isn't for you.

This is for people who want to make good money, play golf on Fridays, pick up their kids from school, and actually enjoy the life they're building.

Most agencies never get to $1M, though. Here's why:  

→ Wrong clients (needy, low budget, bad fit) 
→ Wrong partners (or trying to do it all solo) 
→ Burnout from chasing every dollar

But if you pick your clients wisely and surround yourself with the right partners (like Haven ), agency life is beautiful.

Think about it.

What other model pays you to learn new skills and apply them to real companies with real budgets?

We get to do the sexiest parts of business:

→ Build strategies 
→ Run ads (spending other people's money) 
→ Be creative

Tech founders grind for years hoping for an exit.

Ecom founders are equity rich but always cash poor. Inventory eats everything.

Agency owners deposit cash every month. Cash they can actually spend on upgrading their life.

I will choose agency every time.  

Prove me wrong.

A few years ago I was visiting Vancouver for a few days.

One of our agency partners was organizing a small dinner for agency owners.

I joined without any expectations.

That dinner became one of the highest ROI decisions I've ever made.

First

One of the agency owners there, Gabby, became one of my closest friends. Later, she became a client.

Second

Another owner introduced me to a few friends who were way ahead of me in business.

Every time I meet them, my thinking expands. Problems feel smaller. Possibilities feel bigger.

Third

An agency owner I didn't even talk to that night just booked a call to hire media buyers from us.

Three outcomes from one dinner I almost skipped.

We spend so much time optimizing funnels, running ads, and writing content.  

All of that matters.  

But the best opportunities I've ever had didn't come from impressions or clicks.  

They came from showing up in person and shaking hands.  

The more rooms you walk into, the more doors open later.

Brent started his agency a few months ago.

He signed his first medspa client and asked us to run their ads.

One month later, here’s what he said:

👉 "Amazing work team. I'm seriously so proud of the results we're already getting, and it's only going to get better."

This is why we do what we do.

The best media buyers don't want to work for you.

Here's what most agency owners get wrong:

They try to hire great talent before they're ready for it.

Top media buyers want to work on interesting accounts. They want variety, challenge, and growth.

If you only have 3 clients and they're all low-budget headaches, you're not going to attract A-players. You'll get whoever says yes.

So what do you do before you have 10+ solid accounts?

→ Do the work yourself
→ Use contractors
→ Partner with a white-label team like Haven

Don't force a full-time hire when you don't have the client base to support it.

Once you have:

→ 10+ decent-sized clients
→ A pipeline strong enough that losing 5 won't break you

Then start thinking about bringing someone in-house.

Because the worst position to be in? Paying a six-figure salary while your media buyer sits at 50% capacity because you lost a few accounts.

Build the business great talent wants to join first.

The right people will follow.

Agency owners don't need more promises.

They need proof.

Here's what our partners said this week 👇

Ask 5 agencies what a "media buyer" does.  

You'll get 5 different answers.

At some agencies, media buyers manage millions in ad spend without touching a single creative.

At others, they're basically creative strategists — spending 90% of their time on new ads (like ours).

At others, they're client-facing growth strategists who own the entire funnel.

Same title. Completely different jobs.

After placing dozens of media buyers, here's what I've noticed:

The bigger the client, the more specialized the role needs to be.

Enterprise brands want someone who does one thing extremely well. Smaller brands want someone who can do it all — not just run ads, but actually grow the business.

Neither is wrong. 

But if you're unclear on which one you need, you'll hire the wrong person. 

And that's an expensive mistake.

At Haven, before we even sign a contract for placement, we run an extensive intake form to get 100% clear on who we're looking for.

Some of the questions we ask:

→ Does the media buyer need to be on client calls? 
→ What platforms do they need to be expert in? 
→ What industries or niches? 
→ Do they touch creatives or not?
→ How much ad spend will they manage monthly?

The clearer we get upfront, the better the match.

P.S. If you're hiring media buyers in Q1, we have a few spots left.

🚀 December 2025 results at Haven (our biggest month ever)

Ad spend: $1.7M
Revenue: $4.2M
Leads generated: 85,692

Top-performing niches:
→ Apparel & Accessories ($1.9M in rev)
→ Home & Lifestyle ($680K in rev)
→ Food & Beverage ($520K in rev)

Platform breakdown:
→ Meta: 54%
→ Google: 44%
→ Pinterest, LinkedIn, Taboola: 2%

December highlights:
✅ 83% of accounts hit or exceeded targets
✅ Closed 3 media buyer placement contracts
✅ Built a first version of our AI media buying copilot
✅ Hired a new pod leader 
✅ Wrapped up the year with 87 active accounts

But the biggest win? We've assembled a killer team of media buyers.

Took 7 years to build this crew for Haven and Adtribe.  

Now we do it for other agencies too.  

P.S. If you need media buyers who actually deliver, DM me.

The most boring client we ever had made us the most money.

I'm talking about a network of men's health clinics.

→ One offer
→ Same creatives
→ Just different locations

One media buyer managed 30-40 accounts by copy-pasting campaigns.

Boring as hell, but we were printing cash. Both the agency and the media buyer (we pay a % of revenue generated).

Now compare that to a 7-figure DTC brand.

→ New creatives every week
→ Constant testing 
→ Strategy calls
→ Slack messages at all hours

You give it ten times the effort, and results still aren't guaranteed.

Is it more interesting to work on a challenging DTC account than running Meta lead forms for a local business? Absolutely.

But here's the thing. Every exciting project comes with a hidden cost: your time.

You overinvest. You obsess over details. You give it way more than the retainer covers. And it kills your margins.

Agencies making real money aren't chasing the coolest brands. They're running the same boring playbook over and over again.

So ask yourself: 

Are you building a fun business or a profitable one?

Because in my experience, it's really hard to do both.

undefined undefined

adtribe

aceleads-agency

haven-ca

We just moved every account we’ve ever worked with into Airtable.

All of them.

621 accounts over 7 years. 

That's 621 onboardings.
621 founders. 
621 different business models and niches.

Some stayed for months. Some for years. Some came back twice.

Every single one taught us something.  

What works. What doesn't. What kills accounts. What scales them.  

You can't fake 7 years of reps.

P.S. If you're an agency owner looking for media buyers who've seen it all, DM me.

Marketing is just the game of impressions.

Businesses that serve the most impressions to the right people win the market.

That's it.

Every tactic, every hack, every "secret strategy" is just a way to get more eyeballs on your offer and make more of them buy.

SEO? Impressions.
Paid ads? Impressions.
LinkedIn content? Impressions.
Email/SMS? Impressions.
Influencer marketing? Impressions.

The channel doesn't matter. The math is the same.

More people see your offer → more people buy.

Shopify recently released 150+ updates.

One of them will change how people shop online.

It's called Agentic Storefronts.

This feature allows brands to sell products directly inside ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Copilot.

Think about what this means.

People are already asking ChatGPT "what's the best running shoe for flat feet" instead of Googling it.  

Now they can buy right there in the conversation without leaving the chat.

No ads. No landing pages.

For the last 20 years, ecommerce worked like this:

Search → click → website → convince → buy.

Now it’s becoming:

Ask → decide → buy.

Your storefront is no longer just a website.

My prediction: websites will become almost like a business card. Most commerce will happen directly in chats or on social.

Two things brands can do right now:  

→ optimize your product catalog mapping so AI agents know how to present your products in searches 

→ use the Knowledge Base app to add answers to your most frequent questions

The new era of commerce is already here.  

Brands that adapt fast win. The rest get left behind.

I started a newsletter with zero strategy.

No content calendar. No lead magnet. No "10x your agency" promises.

Just me every week sharing what's actually happening in my life: agency stuff, travel stories, random thoughts.

Last week I wrote about my trip to Vietnam and how we're rebuilding our internal systems to run Haven more like an ecom platform than a traditional agency.

I treat it more like writing updates to my friends. 

And agency owners are liking it 👇

→ "I just opened your latest email and it blew my mind"
→ "It's very informative, please keep them coming"
→ "I'm really inspired by your recent newsletter"

My last newsletter had 46.2% open rate.

Not bad for something with "zero strategy."

If you want to hear what's going on behind the scenes at Haven, the good and the ugly of running an agency, subscribe.

Link in comments.

One change saved our team 10 hours a week.

The last few months at Haven have been busy. We signed a few new partners, and our team is now doing 3–5 account audits every week.

Great problem to have. But it created a new one.

Our team leads were spending hours on Slack every day. Partner requests, audit coordination, invoicing follow-ups. The back-and-forth was eating into actual work time.

That's not sustainable.

So we're making a shift.

My long-term vision for Haven is to operate more like a platform than a traditional agency. Less Slack chaos, more deep work that actually moves the needle.

First process we're fixing: audits.

Before:

→ Partner messages us on Slack
→ We gather context and access
→ Team leads coordinate the work
→ Someone has to remember to send an invoice

It worked, but coordination was taking longer than the audits themselves.

So we automated the entire intake process.

Here's how it works now: 

→ Partner submits a simple form 
→ Chooses platform, adds context, pays upfront 
→ System auto-notifies the team on Slack 
→ Task gets created in Asana automatically

I estimate this one change alone will save our team leads 10 hours per week, which is huge.

That's time they can spend on strategy and results instead of chasing invoices.

Audits are just the start. Onboarding new accounts is next 💪

Which tequila shot got you drunk?

My client asked me why attribution is so hard. Since she's not technical, I gave her this analogy (not my idea):

Imagine you're at a bar with friends doing tequila shots.

You get wasted.

So the question is: which shot got you drunk?

→ The last one? That's last-click attribution.
→ The decision to do shots in the first place? That's first-click.
→ Every shot contributed equally? That's linear attribution.

Same thing with marketing.

There are tools that claim to solve this, but here's my honest take:

Consumer behavior is too complex. Knowing exactly which ad made someone buy is almost impossible.

Someone sees your Meta ad Monday. Googles you Wednesday. Clicks an email Friday. Buys Saturday after a friend mentions your brand.

Which one gets credit?

The real answer: stop chasing perfect attribution.

Instead, use a combination of:

→ Blended ROAS (MER) across all channels
→ Post-purchase surveys
→ Multi-touch attribution tools (Triple Whale, Northbeam)

Even then, data won’t give you the full answer.

Experience and judgment still make the final call.

We have a Slack channel called #social_proof.

It's not for clients. 
It's for the team.

Every time someone crushes it (a big win, a record day, a client compliment) it gets posted there.

"@Alexandra great job 🔥"
"Best sales day of the month yesterday 🎉"
"Thank you for being on top of this @Serhii"

Nothing fancy. Takes 5 seconds to post.

But here's what I've noticed:

Public praise is way more powerful than private praise.

A DM saying "nice work" is fine. But when the whole team sees it? That's when people feel genuinely recognized.

It also creates a culture of celebration. When one person posts a win, others start looking for wins to share too. It becomes contagious.

Most managers only give feedback when something's wrong. That's backwards.  

If you want people to repeat good behavior, you have to acknowledge it publicly.  

Praise in public. Criticize in private.

How do you recognize your team?

Entrepreneur | I build powerful branding solutions for bold businesses

I help AI and Tech B2B businesses build brands that shape industries. Companies that work with me aren’t looking for another branding agency. They need a strategic partner who understands how to position them for long-term demand and market leadership.

At Jumpact, we focus on positioning brands where perception drives growth. My work spans high-growth companies in Canada, US, UK,
Middle East and beyond, helping them gain visibility, credibility, and competitive strength.

What I focus on: 
✔ AI and Tech B2B brand positioning
✔ Narrative-driven branding
✔ Category ownership and market perception

If you’re building in AI, SaaS, or future tech and need more than a branding service, let’s talk.

Momina Rajput

"100% Human-Led" is the new luxury tier in B2B.

Social platforms are already slapping AI-generated labels on every other post - which, honestly, makes the "polished" corporate look feel like a trust liability instead. 

In a feed flooded with synthetic perfection, the most valuable asset a brand can own is a soul. Perfection is now a symbol for "fake."

The shift is moving toward intentional imperfection in real time.  

Proving there is a real person behind the brand requires the details a model cannot replicate. 

I am talking about raw voice notes, unpolished behind-the-scenes chaos, and the specific, polarizing opinions that committees usually scrub away.

B2B SaaS companies have been conditioned to sand down every edge. 

It is the reason the industry sounds like a loop of automated support bots from 2012. That polish is a massive risk in 2026.

Standing out means leaning into the unproduced. 

One team I worked with stopped shipping high-production demos and started sending raw, unedited Loom videos instead. 

Engagement spiked and the quality of their inbound leads shifted from "just looking" to "ready to partner."

People no longer buy from algorithms. 
They buy from humans who are obsessed with the problem. 

Sometimes that looks like a typo or a shaky video but it always looks like the truth.

Is your brand too polished to be trusted?

Brand Messaging for B2B Tech Founders: Build Authority, Win Clients & Raise Capital

OpenAI just locked in the enterprise market.

New data from Ramp shows that 36.8% of US businesses are now paying for OpenAI products.

This is a record high that honestly makes those "AI hype is cooling" articles from last summer look a bit ridiculous - and the spike to 46.6% total AI spend in December suggests the experimentation phase is dead. 

Companies have stopped playing with chatbots and started hard-coding this stuff into their payroll. 

I used to think Anthropic might steal the crown because of their developer-first reputation. I was wrong.

The thing is, OpenAI reversed its fall slowdown and now has over 1 million business customers paying for real API usage and chat subscriptions. 

Anthropic is sitting at 16.7% and Google is barely scratching 4.3% in paid adoption. 

It turns out that being first to market actually mattered more than the "cleaner" developer experience - which reminds me of how legacy software used to win just by being the default - and now OpenAI is the default.

If you are watching the spend, you are watching the reality. 

Usage is likely even higher when you factor in the personal accounts people use to bypass IT but the corporate credit cards have spoken. 

OpenAI owns the office now.

I’ve sat in enough boardrooms to know that by the time someone clicks “Request a Demo,” the deal is already 80% decided.

We obsess over landing pages and email sequences (fine). 

But we keep missing where the decision actually gets made. I’ve watched SaaS founders lose a deal before sales even knows the buyer exists.

It happens in three stages of behind-the-scenes research:

1. The whisper network

Before they Google you, they ask private Slack groups and WhatsApp threads: “Has anyone actually used this?”

If your name doesn’t come up with a peer’s approval, you’re done. Your site is stop #3, not stop #1.

2. The technical teardown

Modern buyers don’t read your marketing posts. They go straight to docs to see where the API cracks. They comb Reddit for unfiltered complaints. 

They’re looking for the catch while you’re still selling the dream.

3. Internal consensus

By the time you get the first call, the committee has already met. 

They’ve compared ROI to budget. They don’t want a pitch. They want a reason to feel safe saying yes.

If you wait until the demo to shape the story, you’re late. 

We spend millions on attribution to map a journey that happens in private. 

The fix is simpler: put the useful stuff where buyers already look, and make it easy for internal champions to share.

What’s one piece of “invisible” feedback you’ve heard about your product lately? I’m curious if it matched your internal data.

Steal my secret to B2B positioning. 

It is the reason my clients have more engagement than your average user manual. It is called Emotional ROI.

While logic builds the case, emotion is what actually seals the deal.

Hear me out..

Last month I had to stop a tech founder from running another campaign about "seamless automated workflows." It was painful to watch. 

Nobody actually wakes up dreaming of a workflow - which, by-the-way, is the least inspiring phrase in the SaaS dictionary - so we pivoted. 

We started marketing "the end of Sunday night anxiety" instead.

The shift in message changed the entire positioning.

The thing is, tech founders get buried in the "how" of their product. 
They obsess over the speed of the API or the clean UI. 

A buyer with a corporate credit card is still a human with a nervous system. They are not looking for a tool. They are looking for the version of themselves that finally gets to leave the office at 5 PM without a looming sense of dread.

I helped this founder realize that the more technical the product, the more human the messaging needs to be. 

One of my other clients saw a 40% jump in demo requests just by swapping a list of bulleted features for a single story about a Lead Dev who finally took a weekend off.

- Focus on the relief. 
- Focus on the status. 
- Focus on the outcome that actually makes their life suck less.

If your homepage reads like a list of technical specs, you are leaving money on the table.

If this sounds like you and you're looking to pivot your positioning to help you find the feeling behind your features, let's get in touch. 

DM "OUTCOME" and we can look at your current positioning.

They told you to play it safe with your positioning to 'reach more people.' 

They lied.

The B2B SaaS market is currently drowning in a sea of sameness - which, honestly, is what happens when you let a "safe" committee or a generic LLM prompt write your value prop.

Being "professional" however, is no longer a differentiator. 
It is table stakes. If your messaging sounds like everyone else's, you are effectively invisible to the 2026 buyer.

"Inoffensive copy is the safest way to ensure your SaaS stays invisible."

SaaS homepages look identical because the people behind them are terrified of taking a stand. 

I see it every single day - million-dollar budgets poured into "safe" messaging that effectively says nothing. 

In 2026, being 'inoffensive' is a death sentence for your conversion rate.

B2B buyers are no longer looking for "All-in-One Efficiency." 
That is the probably the most overused and hollow phrase in our industry. 

They are looking for a specific, opinionated solution to a specific, painful problem. 

I used to think a broad net caught the most fish. I was wrong. 

As I moved away from "best practices" that produce "average" results. 

I realized that the most defensible moat you can build is a brand that actually stands for something - even if it means a few people decide you are not for them.

In this market, a broad net just has more holes.

Is your positioning a moat or a mirror?

I am opening up 2 spots for a Brand Audit this month to help you kill the vanilla and find your edge.

DM me the word "VANILLA" and I’ll send over the details.

I used to think posting every day was the only way to win. I was wrong.

The data is getting harder to ignore. 

Comments on LinkedIn can drive up to 6x more visibility than original posts because they piggyback on existing momentum. 

While a post waits for the algorithm, a high-intent comment starts working the second you hit "reply."

Why it doesn't seem to work is mainly because B2B teams treat commenting like a chore. 

They leave "Great post!" or "Thanks for sharing!" - which, respectfully, is just digital professional litter. 

Generic praise isn't meant to build authority; it just makes you blend into the background.

If you want to turn a comment into a lead, you need a system in place.

I’ve realized there are three non-negotiables for a high-intent comment:

1. The Specificity Anchor: 

Reference a specific data point or line from the post. Prove you didn't just skim it.

2. The "Add-On" Logic: 

Don't just agree. Add a new perspective, a counter-point, or a singular anecdote from your own "trenches."

3. The Implementation Bridge: 

Start by identifying the bottleneck. End by pointing out exactly what makes the post’s advice difficult to execute. 

Instead of a simple "What do you think?", try: "The real challenge here lies in getting the CFO to sign off on the attribution model required to prove it."

Eventually, these comments allow you to move the conversation to DMs and build a genuine connection out of a single comment. 

The "where" matters as much as the "what." 

Stop commenting on your competitors' posts - you’re just helping their reach. 

Instead, build a "Dream 50" list of non-competing founders, industry analysts, and the "niche famous" creators your buyers already follow.

The thing is, the "Golden Hour" is real. 

If you engage within the first 60 minutes of a high-authority post going live, you’re effectively buying a billboard for free. 

Research shows that interacting with just 10–20 posts daily can increase your profile exposure by 50%.

The goal isn't to be "active" just for the sake of being visible. 
The goal is to be so hard to ignore that acknowledging your presence becomes inevitable.

What’s one 'unpopular opinion' you’ve been wanting to share in the comments of a big industry post, but haven't yet? 

Drop it below - let’s practice some 'Add-On Logic' together.

This just in: Salesforce just hired MrBeast for a Super Bowl ad.

The world's biggest B2B giant just handed full creative control to the world's biggest YouTuber.

Here's how it happened:
MrBeast tweeted at Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff asking to collaborate.
Benioff responded publicly within hours.

Deal done. No six-month agency briefing process. No committee review.

Salesforce is officially betting that enterprise buyers have the same attention spans as everyone else.

The thing is, tech brands are still terrified of creator partnerships because they seem "unpolished."

CMOs used to laugh at the idea of a YouTube integration. Those same leaders are now watching Salesforce set the playbook for the next decade.

A buyer doesn't stop being a human just because they're holding a corporate credit card.
If the playbook requires a "professional" case study before trying creators, the market has already moved on.

ClickUp's "pain in the apps" ad showed the cracks forming. This move by Salesforce breaks the wall completely.

Every B2B brand that's still running whitepapers and stock photos just got lapped by a guy who gives away cars on YouTube. 

That's not my hot take. That's LITERALLY what just happened.

Your prospect visited your pricing page twice this week, and they still haven't booked a demo.

The objections that kill deals happen at 11pm when they're staring at your pricing page alone, trying to decide if this is worth the risk.

Here are the three objections running through their head:

1. "What if this doesn't actually solve our problem?"

They've been burned before. 

The last tool promised everything and delivered half. 
Now they're skeptical of every demo request because they know you'll show them the best-case scenario, not their scenario.

Your homepage needs to answer their specific use case before they ever talk to you. 

Generic value props don't cut it anymore.

2. "What if I look stupid for recommending this in three months?"

They're not just buying software. 
They're putting their credibility on the line with their team and their boss. If your product fails, they look incompetent.

This is why peer reviews, case studies from similar companies, and transparent implementation timelines matter more than your feature list. 

They need proof that people like them have succeeded.

3. "What if the switch is a nightmare?"

Migration anxiety is real. 
They're imagining the chaos of onboarding, the training, the integration issues, the three months of their team complaining about the new tool.

If your site doesn't clearly show how smooth the transition is, they'll assume it's a disaster. 

Make the path from "interested" to "live" crystal clear.

These objections live in your prospect's head long before they hit "book a demo." 

If your site doesn't answer them, your sales team won't get the chance.

Kill the objections on the homepage. Not in the demo.

And if you need help in doing that, drop me a dm.

One of my big goals for 2026 is to start taking stages and speaking more.

A lot of what I do day-to-day is help B2B founders explain what they do in a way that actually makes sense; to customers, to teams, and to themselves.

Positioning.
Messaging.
Personal brand.

Everything that reduces buyer hesitation and shortens the sales cycle.

It’s usually not that founders don’t know their business.
It’s that they’ve been too close to it for too long, so saying it simply becomes harder than it should be.

Over the last while, I’ve been asked to talk about this more — at founder dinners, offsites, panels, and smaller events — and I want to lean into that this year.

So if you’re putting together something for B2B founders and need a speaker around brand messaging, positioning, or building authority in crowded markets, I’m open to those conversations.

And if you’re not the one organising these rooms but know someone who is, feel free to tag them here.

If this fits something you’re already planning, happy to chat.

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ClickUp did something ballsy for B2B.

They made SaaS advertising actually funny.

I've been watching ClickUp's "Pain in the Apps" campaign, and here's what they're doing that their competitors won't.

They named the problem everyone's been living with.

SaaS fatigue is real. We're all drowning in tools. 

Slack for messaging, Asana for projects, Notion for docs, monday.com for boards, Trello for... I don't even remember anymore. 

The tab switching alone is exhausting.

ClickUp looked at this mess and said "pain in the apps." A pun. 

In B2B marketing. Where everyone else is using words like "streamline" and "optimize workflows."

They're doing a brilliant job at positioning against the entire ecosystem instead of one competitor.

When Asana says "better project management," ClickUp says "we replace everything." 

That's a different value proposition entirely. 
They're going after your mental load, your budget line items, and your team's collective exhaustion with logging into twelve different platforms before 10 AM.

The thing is, their branding feels like it was built for humans who work, not "enterprise decision makers."

Watch their ads. TikTok-style skits. Meme energy. Workplace humor that actually lands because it's specific. 

They're running Super Bowl commercials and billboards in tech hubs while their competitors are stuck in LinkedIn carousel hell explaining features.

Their Chief Creative Officer literally advocates for "talking like a human." Which sounds obvious until you realize how rare that is in B2B.

I keep thinking about the timing. 

Right now, companies are cutting SaaS budgets. Teams are tired. 

The "one app to replace them all" message lands differently in 2025 than it would've in 2020 when everyone was still excited about adding new tools.

ClickUp saw the cultural moment - SaaS fatigue turning into genuine frustration - and built their entire positioning around being the cure.

Their ads get shared on LinkedIn. Organically. Because they're actually entertaining. 

That's paid media turning into earned media without forcing it.

Here's what tech founders can learn from this:
Your category doesn't have to stay boring just because it's B2B. 
If everyone in your space is using the same corporate voice, that's your opportunity.

Find the shared frustration your market is actually living with. 
Give it a name. Make it memorable. Own it completely.

ClickUp positioned themselves as the empathetic ally. 
They're solving a problem their competitors won't even acknowledge exists because they're too busy listing features.

What's the "pain in the apps" equivalent in your category that everyone feels but nobody's named yet?

I’m hiring a Marketing Ops Lead (full-time).
📍 Pakistan | 🌍 Fully remote

Before you get too excited, I’m not an easy founder to work with.

I have ADHD, two young kids, limited work hours, and very low patience for shallow thinking or missed ownership.
I move fast and expect you to see the whole system, not wait for instructions.
I don’t want to chase, I want to trust.

I run a B2B brand messaging & LinkedIn consultancy for tech/SaaS founders.
Demand is strong. Ops need to catch up.

You’ll work on:
- CRM setup & daily ops
- LinkedIn Sales Navigator workflows
- Inbound leads (DMs → calls → pipeline)
- Proposal building & tracking
- Organizing assets, case studies, social proof
- Lead magnets, email flows, light automation

Tools: LinkedIn, Sales Nav, CRM (Pipedrive/similar), Notion/Drive, email tools, Zapier.

Who this is for:
Someone with 3–4+ years in Marketing Ops who’s worked with small teams or founder-led businesses and can think + execute independently.

Compensation:
PKR 150,000/month

Time zone: EST. You have to be working in my work hours.

If this sounds intense, good.
If it sounds exciting, even better.

Comment “Marketing OPS” if interested.

And if you know someone who can take this up — tag them!

I used to take any client who would pay me.

Realtors. House flippers. Local businesses. B2C. B2B. If they had a budget and a problem, I said yes.

For two years, I was busy. I was making (some) money. But I wasn't building anything that compounded.

Every new client meant starting from scratch. New industry, new jargon, new problems I had to learn on the fly. I was decent at a lot of things but an expert at nothing.

Then mid-2024, I made a decision. B2B SaaS only. Pre-sales messaging and reducing buyer friction. That's it.

The first month felt terrifying. I was saying no to revenue. Turning down projects that would've paid well because they didn't fit.

Then things started clicking.

The more I focused, the faster I got. I started recognizing patterns across clients. 

The objections were the same. The hesitation points were predictable. I could walk into a call and diagnose messaging problems in ten minutes that used to take me hours.

My positioning got clearer. My content got sharper. The right clients started finding me instead of me chasing everyone.

Generalists work harder. Specialists get paid more and work less.

I needed those two years as a generalist. You have to start somewhere. But staying there too long is the mistake.

The work gets easier when you stop trying to be everything to everyone. 

Your expertise compounds, your reputation builds, and the clients who need exactly what you do will find you.

If you're still saying yes to everything, maybe it's time to pick your lane.

January is lying to you about fresh starts.

Every year, founders treat January 1st like a reset button.

New goals. New plans. New energy.

And by February, most of those goals are already collecting dust.

Here's what I've noticed about the tech founder I have worked with over the last 5 years:

The ones who actually move the needle in Q1 are the ones who got clear first.

Because goals without clarity are just wishes with deadlines.

If your sales team explains your product three different ways, your revenue goal is already in trouble.

If you don't know what you want to be known for, posting more on LinkedIn is just adding noise.

If your messaging sounds like everyone else's, enterprise buyers will keep scrolling past you.

This happens literally every January:

Founders set ambitious targets. They skip the foundation work. They sprint on execution. Then they wonder why nothing sticks.

So before you set a single goal for 2026, answer this:

Can your team clearly explain what you do, who it's for, and why it matters, without you in the room?

If not, that's your Q1 priority.

What's the one thing you're getting clear on before you start chasing goals this year?

Marium and I did a LinkedIn Live together a few weeks ago, talking through how B2B brands should be speaking to their audience. She and her business Software Finder has been a fantastic client and partner to us since April 2025.

During that conversation, Marium also shared what it has been like working with us - how we approached her brand positioning and messaging, how it has helped her as a founder, and what kind of impact it’s having on the business.

Sharing a short clip from that Live below.

Reviews are great for business, but they are even better for motivating one's self on the journey of building a business. 

And God knows, we all could do with some motivation :)

My 6-year-old stood in the games aisle for 15 minutes yesterday.

Picked up a puzzle. Put it down. Asked me the same question three different ways.

She wasn't deciding if she wanted it. She already knew she did. She was managing risk.

"What if it’s tough?" "What if I don't like it after?" "Can we return it?"
She needed permission to feel confident.

That's your B2B buyer at 2am on your pricing page. The hesitation is fear of looking stupid in front of their boss three months from now.

SaaS founders pile on features and demos. Buyers stay stuck at "what if this doesn't work?" Your prospect is paralyzed by uncertainty they can't name.

The vendors winning in 2026 answer the unasked questions before they surface. They show peer reviews from companies like theirs. They offer trials that prove the thing works before anyone has to defend a budget line. They make the implementation timeline clear so there's no surprise chaos in Q3.

They don't wait for the "I need to think about it" objection. They kill it on the homepage.

Give them proof. Give them an out. Give them confidence.

Stop selling features. Start killing the "what ifs." 

That's how my daughter finally grabbed the toy and walked to checkout. And that's how your buyer will hit "book a demo."

We love tuesdays when networking calls look like this ! 🙃

Your CAC just doubled because your buyers can't sell you internally.

ProfitWell's 2025 SaaS benchmarks show median CAC increased 60% between 2023 and 2025. 

Sales cycles stretched from 32 to 47 days. Deals that used to need two calls now need five.

Gartner found that 77% of B2B buyers describe their latest purchase as "complex or difficult." 

Your prospects know they need a solution. They struggle to justify yours to their team.

Every stalled deal is a messaging problem.

Your buyers get stuck between "this looks interesting" and "let's move forward" because they lack the words to champion you internally. They're building the business case themselves, using your vague positioning and generic benefits.

Sharp positioning compresses sales cycles.

When your positioning clearly articulates who you're for, what specific problem you solve, and why you're the obvious choice, deals move faster. Your champions know exactly what to tell their CFO, their IT team, their skeptical colleague.

Clear positioning improves conversion and compresses your sales cycle, which directly cuts CAC.

Most SaaS companies lose deals to confusion. Better positioning means faster deals and lower acquisition costs.

Worth asking: when's the last time you sat in on a deal that stalled and actually listened to how your champion was pitching you?

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