Co-Founder @ A1M. Award-Winning Marketer Building AI Tools. Mediocre Call of Duty Player.

It all started in 1995 when my grandpa bought a copy machine and I started making counterfeit bills with my classmates pictures where the dead presidents should be. I sold them for $2 a piece or 3 for $5 until the school shut it down, so I switched to selling mix tapes before moving onto building geocities sites for local businesses. 

Some kids grew up playing with dolls or legos; I grew up playing business.

My most profitable childhood venture was mowing the neighbors lawns - I later learned that this was partially because my grandfather was fertilizing their yards while they were at work. This was before Nest and Ring when the only home security was the stay-at-home parents in the neighborhood and they didn't snitch on each other. 

I had an unconventional childhood which left me with a strong sense of purpose and confidence that I could conquer anything I chose, regardless of my experience or expertise in an area, as long as I work hard.

This led me to be the first-in-the-family to do a lot of things; starting college part-time at 15, moving to Italy at 16 for a year abroad, launching and selling a company in my early 20s, moving from a 7,200 person town to NYC to work in VC-backed startups, publishing a book, selling another company, being on tv, speaking at conferences around the country, grad school, and more.

Nearly 3 decades after my first (childhood) entrepreneurial venture I'm still in the business of building businesses and love it.

Outside of my day-to-day work you can find me advising startups and mentoring the marketing & revenue leaders of tomorrow.

Jess Bahr🚀

I don't know what happened at ClickUp, but whatever it is it's working. 

They are hands-on the brand I'm expecting to have the biggest 2026.

Jess Bahr

B2B Growth Consultant | I Build Marketing Systems That Scale Traffic, Pipeline & Revenue

Jumping on the trend because 2016 was a life-changing year, hopefully in the same way 2026 will be. 

I unapologetically threw myself entirely into my career and work at Socialflow, including moving to Midtown just a few blocks from the office and easily make it to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Tumblr offices for client meetings and events.

Spoke at Social Media Week NYC, Social Media Breakfast Madison, DreamBank, made my TV debut on Al Jazeera Media Network, contributed to Social Media Today, LLC and a handful of other online publications.

Built and launched my first online course, on Pinterest advertising. Shout out to Michael Pomposello and Josh Satler for letting me use their office space to record. 

Hired Ethan Maruscak as an intern (which stirred up a lot of industry drama somehow) before re-hiring him as an intern again the next year.

Waited 14 hours in line for Snap Inc. Spectacles to be the first person who didn't make the cut to use the vending machine (!) but a stranger who saw my Periscope sold me an extra pair he bought. (I actually rage-DM'd Spectacles on twitter and Evan Spiegel himself responded. I later apologized.)

Not related to business at all, but at least 10% of my 2016 photos are of Liquiteria acaia bowls. Another 5% are screenshots of snapchats from Justin Kan or Morgan Brown holding post it notes with growth hacks and book recommends. 50%+ are screenshots of ads. IFYKYK.

Also, in 2016 I joined Equinox which was life changing in a different way.

Just a reminder, humans also create shitty content, not just AI.

Half my LinkedIn feed is 20 year-old versions of this guy trying to sell you nothing wrapped in AI.

What a time to be alive. The Pizza Index broke the news on Venezuela before the media did.

A lot of conspiracy theories start because people don't understand how marketing works.

This has nothing to do with B2B marketing.

A few years ago I switched to UPLIFT Desk for the sole reason that I had zero patience and they would ship it out faster. 

Betweeen the weight of too many ultrawide monitors, 3D printers, and a super heavy LIAN LI oversized case, standing desks don't last me too long until the frame starts beinding or the desktop starts warping.

This desk has become an exception though. 

I was very rough on it and the casters started bending out so I reached out to Uplift and they sent me replacement ones the same day. Turned out the casters failing caused an issue with the feet of the desk so I reached out again and just like the last time, they sent me replacement fee the same day. 

Hands down the easiest warranty claim/replacement experience I've gone through. 10/10 will continue buying from them.

Social Media in 2026 is a bit weird. 

Somehow my Facebook feed is a ton of pages I don't follow and LinkedIn is a ton of posts from people I don't follow that people I do follow commented on.

Since cancelling LinkedIn premium my impressions per post caps at 50(ish) and only a few engagements, so I've been running a few experiments organically.

(this post is an experiment, see bottom of text for more).

Here's what hasn't worked to increase visibility:
⋆ Renewing premium (maybe it has to be SalesNav, idk)
⋆ Posting more often
⋆ Sharing great resources (there's a video from Daniel Pink I shared a few weeks ago you should go watch)
⋆ Commenting on other posts

Here's what has worked:
⋆ Boosting the post, which LinkedIn has prompted me to do with every. single. post.


Anyway, Colin Stewart-Perreault 🧙 said I could get 500% more impressions if I post a pic from a private jet so here is a pic from the last time I flew private. Based on the headphones (which came free with the phone at the time) can you guess what year it was?

Things I left in 2025 - Google workspace.

Fastmail, for email and domain related stuff, has given me more features for just $6 a month.

Open article: Create your Fastmail account by join.fastmail.com

If you're a brand on TikTok and performance is starting to tank, you need to know that it isn't you, it's them. You're perfect.

If you don't have a slide deck with each month laid out, feel free to steal these from me: https://lnkd.in/g5Wx3_3K

A lot of people are worried about AEO when you can't even tell what they do from their website.

This might be absolutely nothing, but, I've been seeing a LOT more posts with a "repost" CTA.

Perhaps in this new weird LinkedIn algo shares are a higher intent signal?

also, why 'repost' and why not 'share'?

comment "SHARE" if you're going to test this.

I'll die on the hill that 2026 is the resurgence of IC responsibilities at senior levels.

It's creating an insane opportunity for young marketers who are willing to outwork everyone else in the room.

Yes, I said young, which we're not suppose to say. We're suppose to say "early career" or use other non-age centered terms but I'm saying "young" because I think that's exactly who it's going to be.

We are going to see someone in their mid-20s get a role like what I posted below, and absolutely crush it. 

In five years they're going to be a CMO speaking at a conference about how to do what they did when the reality is their growth is not repeatable and the tactics that made them successful aren't applicable to 90% of the businesses in the room.

Secondarily, we'll see a group of senior marketers who are able to bridge the gap and do the hands-on work while also building strategic direction (and probably category creation) without getting too lost in the weeds or getting discouraged being asked to prove ROI of initiatives that probably take 12 - 16 months to see any positive return.

Honestly I think the second group, senior leaders who can be hands on while also building long term strategy, is going to be much harder to find and some companies are going to burn through marketers before realizing they're trying to find a unicorn.

(If you're reading this and the role sounds like a fun challenge you should 100% apply. I have no affiliation with AirGarage, from the reserach I did the company looks solid and they're solving an actual market failure with revenue tied to it.)

I don't know if this is the best idea ever or completely unhinged and I should delete this post.

I want to host an SKO focused on my business growth/professional goals for the year and how the house and family stuff all fits in together with that. Just me, my husband, probably a 90 slide deck, and all of 2026 laid out. 

Our kid is optional on the attendee list because I already know she'll think this is cringe but she'll show up if there is free food.

Here's my thought process; Building a career, let alone a business, is not a solo venture. 

I sit at my desk and do 2026 and quarterly planning with myself, but my success is not solely dependent on myself, its heavily dependent on my husband as my partner in life even though he is not an active partner in the business. 

All of the house stuff and parental responsibilities impact my career and business so why not bring it all together?

For example, my husband being the primary caregiver for our kid directly correlates to my mental and emotional energy for work, so why not pull him in so he also can see how what he is doing directly translates to dollars in our family's pocket. 

We've dabbled in annual family planning for a few years now so maybe it's time to kick it up a notch.

I think where I'm feeling unsure about it is that, at this point in life, my business and I are one in the same so it feels unapologetically me-focused. 

I don't know though, it feels like the right move but also absurd.

What do you think?

Another 2026 prediction, that I think isn't going to last for just 2026, is more and more marketers leaving digital marketing in tech for totally unrelated fields.

🌊 Alan Zhao

🎆 Brand Marketing | 📈 Organic Growth Marketing | 📺 Building a media empire on a shoestring budget | DM me if you want to be on our podcast 🎙

We're building the GTM Brain: a stateful, self-learning decision system that observes buyer behavior, builds a world model of the market, and decides what to do in real time.

I left Warmly briefly to work as an SDR. Cold calls, rejections, the grind. What I saw: reps drowning in data, starving for judgment.

The problem was never execution. AI made execution infinite. You can send unlimited emails, generate infinite personalized copy, index entire markets in hours.

It was decision quality.

Pipeline got harder to build, not easier.

The GTM Brain is a self-learning decision system that captures decision traces so every win becomes a playbook and every loss becomes a lesson.

Outside of tech, I’m a bachata instructor and host bachata events in San Francisco. It's something I'm extremely passionate about. 

Most people think they can’t dance — solo or with a partner — but it’s one of life’s hidden gems to be able to express ourselves through movement while building a connection with a dance partner, socially.

I think social dancing is becoming a real movement, and I want to help lead it — and spread it positively.

Follow my dance journey: https://www.instagram.com/alan_j_zhao/

Follow my SF bachata classes & socials: https://www.instagram.com/sensual_soiree_sf/

Co-Founder, CRO

Alan Zhao (Click-Through King) 👑

The next billion dollar GTM company isn't what you think.

Here's what nobody tells you about AI sales/marketing tools:

Alan Zhao

Cofounder, Head of Product & AI @ Warmly.ai | Building the GTM Brain | #1 Context Graphs for GTM Agents & Humans

Here's what's strange about GTM right now. We've made execution basically infinite. You can spin up domains, send millions of emails, generate endless

Open article: The Infrastructure Gap: Why Decision Quality Is the Real AI Bottleneck in GTM by Alan Zhao • 7 min read

The Infrastructure Gap: Why Decision Quality Is the Real AI Bottleneck in GTM

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The Battle

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