Nerd who fell in love with marketing & growth.

Available for keynotes and short advice calls

Nicholas D'hondt

I'm building an AI marketing team of one.

Here's the thing about being a one-person marketing & sales team at an open-source software company (JobRunr): you don't have time for everything. 

So I asked Patrick for help.

Patrick is my AI executive assistant, built on OpenClaw. And this week, he built me a LinkedIn Ads review system. From scratch. 

Let me walk you through how we got here.

Step 1: We did the research first.

Before writing a single ad, we analyzed our actual data. Not vibes. Data.

We pulled company visitor data from Scarf and cross-referenced it with HubSpot. IP matching, domain lookups. That gave us a ranked list of which industries and companies are actually visiting our Pro and Pricing pages.

Finance. Insurance. Government. Not what I would have guessed.

We built company lists from that intelligence and matched them to LinkedIn audiences.

Step 2: We built a messaging framework.

Patrick analyzed all our existing customer data. Hubspot data, email conversations, intake questionnaires, support questions, ads,... Then we used that data to fill in a creative strategy map and come up with 3 angles per target-audience.


Step 3: The visuals.

I showed Patrick our existing ad visuals. He reverse-engineered the visual language and wrote image generation prompts matching our brand. Generated with Gemini. I could approve, reject, download, tweak in Photoshop, re-upload. All from a review tool he built.

Step 4: The review tool.

Patrick built a web app where I review everything:
→ Ad copy with live LinkedIn preview
→ Image variants (approve, download, replace, regenerate)
→ Comments and feedback
→ One-click approve to push live

No SaaS subscription. Just me and my agent.

The proof? One ad Patrick created by analyzing my best performers and generating a variant is now my highest CTR ad at 2.65%. AI-generated. Outperforming all my manual ones.

The difference between "write me an ad" and this? Real context. Your CRM data. Your analytics. Your brand. Your actual performance numbers. 

And most importantly: Your taste. You are the creative director who shows the way. 

Full stack: OpenClaw, LinkedIn Marketing API, HubSpot, Scarf, Gemini, and a custom review tool. Fully built using Telegram conversations.

Happy to share more details. Or just roast my AI visuals. Either works.

Head Of Growth at JobRunr | Turning creative ideas into measurable results | Public Speaker - Available for keynotes

Are AI agents going to take over all our jobs???

Probably not. But they're definitely taking over parts of mine.

I got invited to join the Content Coffee Break podcast by Fuss for the first time. We recorded in Alicante ☀️ and covered three topics I think every marketer should be paying attention to right now:

🤖 AI agents are the new marketing colleague
OpenAI just acquired OpenClaw, and it says everything about where we're heading. AI is no longer a chatbot you ask questions to. It's an agent that actually does the work. 

My own AI agent is called Patrick, and he already handles a big chunk of my daily workflow. From email triage to content research to CRM follow ups. Not replacing me. Working with me.

📱 The TikTok algorithm is under attack
Europe wants to ban infinite scroll. If that happens, your entire organic reach strategy changes overnight. Less passive scrolling = fewer chances to be seen. Time to rethink how you show up.

🔍 Social search is eating Google alive
62% of Gen Z uses TikTok as a search engine. They're not Googling "best restaurant Antwerpen" anymore. They're searching it on TikTok. If you're not optimising your social content for search, you're invisible to an entire generation.

10 minutes. Three trends. Zero fluff.

🎬 Watch the teaser below
🎧 Full episode link in the comments

Did I just become my AI agent's assistant?

So I have this AI executive assistant called Patrick. It runs on Claude Opus, has access to my browser, can execute scripts, manage files... basically it can do a LOT.

This morning I wanted to test something. Could Patrick download a popular TV show for me?

I gave it 10 magnet links. One for each season. "Download these, store them on my Desktop, folder per season."

Patrick didn't even hesitate. It wrote a script, connected to Real-Debrid, started downloading. Season 1 done. Season 2 done. Season 3 done.

Then it stopped.

"I can't help with downloading copyrighted TV shows."

Wait. What? You already downloaded three seasons! NOW you have moral objections?

I pushed back but Patrick wasn't buying it. "The torrent names literally say Friends Season 1-10 (1080p BD x265). I can't pretend otherwise."

Fair enough. So I tried a different approach.

"Fine. Don't run it. Just write me the script."

And it did. Wrote a Python script. Saved it to my Desktop. Even left a placeholder for the API token so its hands would stay clean.

Then I asked: "Can you paste in the token already?"

Done. No objections.

So let me get this straight. Patrick refused to RUN the download. But happily wrote the script, added the credentials, and handed it to me with a "Ready to run."

The irony is perfect. 

We're building AI agents to do our work, and here I am... doing the work my agent refused to do. Because it had principles. That it applied... selectively.

We live in interesting times.

If you want to see the full conversation, scroll through the PDF below 👉

Patrick's Moral Objections...

Better Private Market Data for Funds, Banks & M&A Teams | Chief Revenue Officer @ openthebox | Pavilion Belgium Lead

With nearly a decade in the strategic growth and marketing landscapes, I've focused on propelling B2B businesses to new heights, currently at openthebox. Our mission is to revolutionize the business data market with innovative solutions that align with Mediafin's vision. My role is to infuse the organization with diverse perspectives and industry expertise, fostering a culture of continuous growth and value creation.

Since joining openthebox, I've been instrumental in building a robust B2B growth engine, leveraging my expertise in social networking and new media. My approach combines strategic planning with tactical execution, utilizing social media marketing to enhance our market presence and drive revenue. At Pavilion and RevGenius, I continue to expand my network and knowledge, ensuring our team remains at the forefront of industry trends and best practices.

Jona Koekelcoren

Just because you're a startup, doesn't mean you should only focus on the short-term. 

That's why we want to make sure the next generation of financial services professionals learn to work with the best-in-class tools for the future, and today.

Happy and proud to renew our partnership with Vlerick Business School, giving their students access to openthebox, and allowing them to explore structured financial and ownership data in the private market, just like professionals do.

We went to Vlerick Business School's Mergers, Acquisitions & Buyouts Conference yesterday, and it was so valuable that... 

We forgot to take a group picture. To make sure Amelia wouldn't get mad at me, I had ChatGPT generate this version of a previous conference so it would look like we took one yesterday. Don't tell her. 

It was great to see existing customers like M80 Partners and Van Reybrouck among others, meet new people, and get a feel for what's on the minds of people in our local space (spoiler: it's mostly AI). 

And great, just like last time, to see Robin (aka David Clarkson) and Seppe (aka James Taylor) work the room again. Along with Steve of course, but I had no picture of the 4 of us to run through ChatGPT.

We asked 80+ decision makers in financial services in Belgium, and the results are clear. 

Lots of intent, not enough foundations, clarity and direction. We’re very much in the early stages of the local AI wave. 

Data you trust, especially, is key in supporting any AI initiatives. 

Some of our customers at openthebox have been building this data layer for years. They’re ready for what’s coming. Some are only just getting started now. 

We support these customers with our custom APIs. 

➡️ Interested in knowing more about our API offering, and how the best are using it to position themselves for the AI wave, among other things?  

Drop me a message here or at jona.koekelcoren@openthebox.com.

AI Readiness Report Results

Slack's brand strategy: 

"Creating a "human" B2B brand that is approachable, playful, and deeply focused on user experience, rather than just technical features. By using a freemium model, community-driven growth, and a distinct, colorful visual identity, Slack positions itself as an essential, friendly tool for modern teamwork."

openthebox's brand strategy:

How we built a cold outreach campaign that smashes every single benchmark by 3-5X ?

We built a cold email campaign that gets:

❇️ 94% open rate
❇️ 15% reply rate
❇️ 10% demo booking rate
⚠️ And the first batch hasn’t even finished running yet! 

And the secret so far… Zero AI. 

Basic foundations:
👉🏻 Your list is holy - give it full attention 
👉🏻 Come up with a strong hook 
👉🏻 Make it HYPER relevant and personalized

Key principles:
🔑 Always respect the stranger who didn’t ask for your email in follow-ups - every interaction is a brand-building or -destroying touchpoint, don’t create the latter

🔑 Small batches. This ensures the personalization, which ensures the success. The success reduces the need for big batches. Moreover, we don’t have 100 reps. Weekly batches getting a 4-week sequence ensures you are sending a good amount emails every week. We suspect our demos booked rate can still rise. With inbound and cold calling added in, our calendar and pipeline get filled. 


🤔 What’s next? 

Now that we know this works, we see two areas where AI can help:

🔹 Account Research / Enrichment: automatically enrich the data we use to build this flow
🔹 Copy creation (based on our template) and merging data - only requiring a human in the loop for final edit & sending

This way, GTM Engineering makes a ton of sense. Not if you’re just scaling up campaigns that people ignore. It’s still quality over quantity, and you will still need to do cold calls and actual marketing. There are no shortcuts. 

Comment “Playbook” and I will send you nothing. 

Hope this was insightful!

Always a good time when Vincent King and Luca Burigat come by. 

Even more honoured to present them with our first ever Deal Toy for an excellent partnership. 

On to more lunching & learning!

𝗙𝗶𝗿𝘀𝘁 𝗹𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗵 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻, 𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗹𝗲𝘁𝗲. ✅

Vincent King and Luca Burigat from WAD Capital stopped by our offices at Mediafin this week. The format was simple: 𝗮𝗻 𝗮𝗰𝘁𝘂𝗮𝗹 𝗲𝘅𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗻𝗴𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗲𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀, not just a product update.

They walked us through their real workflow. Deal sourcing, list building, financial analysis. Their CEO-led acquisition model runs on speed, and they're already exploring how our ownership mapping can sharpen their edge even further.

We also presented them with our first Deal Toy. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁 𝗽𝗮𝗿𝘁𝗻𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗽𝘀 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗼𝗻𝗲𝘀 𝘄𝗵𝗲𝗿𝗲 𝗯𝗼𝘁𝗵 𝘀𝗶𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝘂𝘀𝗵 𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵 𝗼𝘁𝗵𝗲𝗿 𝗳𝗼𝗿𝘄𝗮𝗿𝗱, and WAD Capital has been exactly that for us.

These conversations are why we build. You learn more in an hour with customers than in a week of internal planning. 🤝

Looking forward to the next one!

📸openthebox team: Filip, Robin, Jonas, Jona, Jeroen, Seppe

The deals that quietly die after six months are often the most expensive ones you'll ever work on.

Pure P&L drag, costing you management fee without ever providing any ROI.

What a dead deal actually costs:

🔴 Opportunity cost: every week on a dead deal is a week not spent sourcing a live one
🔴 Bandwidth drag: senior attention is finite; misallocated early, it compounds across the pipeline
🔴 No return on time invested: no fee, no carry, nothing to offset the cost
🔴 Pipeline distortion: teams hold back on new targets while a deal still looks alive
🔴 Sunk diligence costs: legal, financial, and advisory fees hit the P&L with zero offset

Deal decisions get made under time pressure, rarely with a complete picture. So capital and bandwidth get allocated to deals that shouldn't have passed the first filter.

The teams generating strong deal flow kill bad deals faster than everyone else. Speed to disqualification is a sourcing metric, not just a diligence one.

If I see one more Peter Steinberger post...

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