Jake Abrams

Odyssey

The lean DTC growth marketing partner that I wish existed when I was an in-house marketing lead. 

At Odyssey, we help 7-9 figure DTC brands increase revenue & ROAS by finding the right combination of:

- Messaging
- Audience targeting
- Media channel allocation
- Creative

https://www.odysseyagency.com/

Founder

Stealth Startup

Connecting brands with the top 1% of creative talent, always on your timezone.

Strategic Advisor

Embr Labs

- Took a pre-revenue product named Wristify and renamed it within 4 weeks of start date. 
- Launched a Kickstarter 1 month later.
- Raised $630k in funding. 
- Kept growing. 
- Got featured on Most Expensivest with 2Chainz and Good Morning America in the same year. 
- Succeeded. 
- Failed. 
- Sold over 50,000 units with a team of contractors. 
- Learned so much about selling things online that I had the privilege to launch a DTC agency. 
- Now helping other brands navigate their growth journey.

VP Marketing

Head Of Marketing

Firehose Project

Firehose is an Immersive Online Coding Bootcamp designed to help people become professional developers or launch their own ideas. 

Accomplishments:

- Grew monthly site traffic 2.5x
- Grew monthly leads 8.5x
- Grew monthly organic leads 4.1x
- Grew Facebook audience 7.3x
- Scaled Quora to largest source of traffic
- Built paid acquisition engine from scratch across FB, Adwords, Quora, and coding platforms
- Led RFP and integration of Kissmetrics to solve attribution problem
- Grew prep course engagement 3x
- Generated 37 media mentions / syndicated pieces in publications like Forbes, Quartz, and Inc

Head of Marketing & Growth

Arnold Worldwide

- Led cross-functional team responsible for New Balance's Global Baseball business
- Oversaw end to end execution of launch campaign for New Balance's signature 2015 baseball product, exceeding sales goals by 30%
- Pitched for and won New Balance's Global Men's Training business
- Played key role in launch of New Balance's $5MM+ Always in Beta global rebrand
- Wrote winning 2016 Effie case in the David vs Goliath category for launch of New Balance's 4040v3 baseball cleat

Marketing Manager

Associate Marketing Producer

Streetwise Media

- Worked with channel partners to develop relevant, site-worthy content
- Offered full-time position in DC office upon completion of internship

Marketing Intern

Boston College

- Turned 1 year of high school tennis experience into the best paying job on campus

Tennis Instructor

SnapApp

My first experience in the startup world.

Learned a lot about the Internet, product development, and making sure the fridge was stocked with soda.

Marketing & Sales Intern

FunnyAthleteTweets.com

In college, I started a website detailing the absurdities of "athlete twitter" years before it was part of the mainstream sports conversation. 

Generated enough AdSense revenue to pay for a few college textbooks.

- Refereed high-level intramural basketball games
- Gave out technical fouls as necessary, even to football players
- Successfully learned and enforced the notoriously complicated over-and-back rule
- Selected as Intramural Basketball Supervisor based on high performance

Intramural Referee

I help 7-9 figure DTC brands with revenue & CAC | I write The Process, a newsletter about modern growth marketing | Sold 100K+ personal cooling devices

Consumer Marketing & Growth Leader.  

Brands I've worked with:

Caraway
Jones Road Beauty
Skylight
Canopy
Insurify
Naked Wines
Rugiet
Sundays For Dogs
Momofuku
Sunday Lawn Care

100+ others

Book a discovery call in the featured section below 👇

The lean DTC growth marketing partner that I wish existed when I was an in-house marketing lead. 

At Odyssey, we help 7 & 8-figure DTC brands increase revenue & ROAS by finding the right combination of:

- Messaging
- Audience targeting
- Media channel allocation
- Creative

https://www.growodyssey.com/

This AI agent watched 291 viral skincare TikToks from July and identified the winning hooks, visual themes, and messaging. 

Honestly, I was hesitant to make another AI agent post. Because 99% of them are all hype and not actually helpful. 

But I actually know this one is helpful, because it scales the exact strategy I've been running manually for years to make breakthrough ads for 250+ brands. 

1. Find what's already crushing it on organic TikTok
2. Study the common themes
3. Mash together with your implicit knowledge of your brand

Using Apify, N8N, Gemini, and Airtable, this agent actually watched hundreds of videos and analyzed:

Hooks
Visuals
Messaging

And the analysis isn't generic or pointless. It's actually actionable.

I'm giving away the full database & analysis of these 291 videos.

To get the full Airtable database: 

1. Connect with & follow me
2. Comment "DATABASE" below  
3. I'll DM you the link to access it

---

EDIT:

You can actually just grab the resource from this landing page: https://lnkd.in/eJa_BVt8

---

P.S. I've been talking a lot with the Motion (Creative Analytics) team about AI agents, and we kept coming back to this idea:

The most useful agents don't try to do everything. 
They're laser-focused on very specific tasks. 
They help you get to better creative ideas, faster.

That's the purpose of this agent.

Talks about #dtc, #careeradvice, #growthmarketing, and #digitalmarketing

Motion (Creative Analytics)

Creative-led growth for 8-9 figure consumer brands | Writing about AI & advertising | Sold 100k+ personal cooling devices

Just watched Dara Denney's 14-minute video breaking down how she turned around a failing Meta ad account. Super actionable, sent it to my team. 

4 key takeaways for 8-figure DTC operators:

1. Pack more ads per ad set (10-25 vs 5)
All of Meta ads manager is now essentially ASC. Since the algo handles a lot of the decision making, you want to give it more options to work with.

- Skip small variations. Take big creative swings instead.
- Images: Go for higher volume (20-25)
- Videos: Lower volume since they are harder to produce (10-15)

2. Put creators on retainer
Stop chasing brand new creators every month. Whether it's direct or through an agency partner, find at least 4-5 creators who love your product and put them on retainer for monthly content and partnership access. 

- We pay $1K-$5K/month per creator, depending on quality. 
- Way more sustainable than the constant creator churn.
- They will make more authentic & effective ads because they are real customers who happen to be great at content.

3. Make Partnership Ads at least 30-40% of your spend. 
Partnership ads aren't an A/B test, they are simply how you run a modern ad account in 2025.

- Unlike whitelisting, partnership ads tap into new audiences because they optimize based on the creator's page
- Setup is way easier. Just need their IG handle. Don't need to go through the complex & painful Meta business manager setup.
- Nano and micro influencers suddenly become way more valuable here because they have a relevant audience.

4. Focus on AOV and LTV, not just creative
Your creative won't dramatically move CPMs, because your CPM is mostly determined by your vertical. Creative will help with CTR and cost per visitor. 

- If you're stuck selling $30 single products instead of bundles, you're probably not going to make it. 
- 4 / 5 bestselling products by Rhode (Hailey Bieber's brand) are bundles, that's how you increase AOV. 
- Make more products for different use cases to increase LTV Increase that lifetime value.

TLDR: 
✓ More ads per ad set 
✓ Creators on retainer
 ✓ Partnership ads (30-40% spend) 
✓ Build for LTV & AOV

I said I would never be that guy that posts a picture of himself on LinkedIn, but here we are. 

It's the AI era. And nobody knows what's human and what's not. 

So here's a human post that no AI could have written, because it's so weirdly specific to me and my future goals that I've never written about. 

Here's exactly why I'm working in my garage on a Saturday at 9:59am:

By the age of 40, I want to:

Have a major business win that validates me.
Work till noon every day, only on things I like. 
Play tennis with my wife every afternoon. 
Walk to the beach from my house. 
Own a $2M house and not be stressed about it. 
Go out to lunch and dinner whenever I want. 
Play golf with my dad on a Monday at 12:30pm.
Take my kid to school without worrying about Slack messages. 
Architect the single best 3rd grade basketball offensive system to ever exist. 

I like to work, but I don't want to work all day for the rest of my life. 

As far as I know, showing up here every day now is the best way to make that happen. So here I am once again, working towards a weird set of goals that no AI could dream up for me.

AI agent (N8N + Apify + Gemini + Airtable) watched 374 greens powder videos on TikTok that have a total of 162,619,580 views and extracted the...

visual hooks
undeniable proof shots
themes
key insights
problems identified
desired outcomes

plus 24 other data points.  

if you're operating a supplement brand, this is a helpful data set for you. 

keywords this agent scraped:

greens powder
super greens
daily multivitamin
super greens
registered dietitian greens
gut health simple
bloom greens vs
greens powder taste test
AG1

my most predictable ad wins usually come from:

1. discovering what's working within a category on TikTok
2. adapting those proven elements for a brand
3. operating like a psychopath to launch high volume

swipe the full database with analysis of these 374 videos.

no comment / like / follow needed here on LinkedIn.

just grab the Airtable database from this landing page: https://lnkd.in/eDBE9Ptz

(you'll also be first to get access to more AI creative strategy resources like this)

---

P.S. i've been talking a lot with the Motion (Creative Analytics) team about AI agents. This specific use case (scrape what's working organically on TikTok, extract insights, build creative) is the one I'm most excited about.

P.P.S. i'm not "technical," but I learned how to build things like this from watching Mike Futia's videos. If you want to build AI agents, there is no better person to follow.

Just hit 10k followers on TikTok after putting it off for too long. 

13 lessons for anyone hesitant to take the leap to short-form video:

1. Get over the fear of talking to your phone 

It feels ridiculous at first, standing there talking to your camera. But everyone else is doing it, so nobody is going to think you're weird. Once you get past that mental barrier, it becomes second nature.

2. Don't overthink production value 

I bought a nice Sony camera, professional mic, and lighting setup. These tools actually became a blocker to creation. So one day, I just made an ugly video on my phone, and that broke the ice.

3. Repurpose your winning content

Start by making video versions of your top-performing LinkedIn posts. Some of my early wins came from just speaking my best LinkedIn content to camera.

4. Different platforms = different audiences 

People on LinkedIn audiences are incredibly positive. TikTok? It's a mix. Posts about unique hiring stories that crushed on LinkedIn got me roasted in TikTok comments.

5. TikTok needs time to find your people 

It took a while to find my niche and have TikTok understand who wanted to watch my videos. The algo now knows I'm an "AI / creative strategy guy", so I lean into that. 

6. Your hook caption is everything 

People decide to watch based on your caption, especially for talking head videos. 

I use a two-part structure:
- Main headline (hook): "MCP's are the new App Store"
- Sub-header (context / credibility): "The next billion dollar industry"

7. Green screen videos are easy wins 

Show a demo, explain it. Show a valuable image, talk over it. Simple but effective.

8. Your "throwaway" videos often perform best 

The videos I spent more than an hour on often flopped. But random takes I recorded in one shot got 200k+ views. Lesson is to just post everything.

9. Trend-hopping works 

Video I made with 291k+ views was about an ongoing TikTok drama. I gave the "marketing guy" take. So find what's trending, and add your unique POV. 

10. Consistency beats perfection 

Just like LinkedIn: post daily (or at least 5x/week). You become "that person" who's always in the feed talking about your niche.

11. Be 20% more specific than you think matters

Use specific keywords like "MCP" or "Claude" instead of generic keywords like "AI." Doing so will make you stand out and find the right audience. 

12. Credibility in your bio is everything 

People understand what content you make from watching. So your bio just needs one specific line about why you're credible. 

13. Audio quality matters more than video quality 

Finally upgraded to the Rode Pro Wireless mic. Even for talking head videos, good audio makes a massive difference.

---

TikTok has been super fun. More casual than LinkedIn, different audience, same core principle: show up consistently with quality / unique / actionable takes.

Follow me on TikTok (link in comments) and let me know what I should be doing better there.

This AI agent (Apify + N8N + Gemini + Airtable) watched the 272 most popular apparel / clothing TikToks from the last 30 days and extracted the undeniable proof shots, visual hooks, and desired outcomes. 

Data from these 272 videos:
- Total Views: 82,187,821
- Total Bookmarks: 474,303
- Total Shares: 630,120

If you're operating an apparel brand, this is the ultimate data set for you. 

Because the most predictable ad wins come from:

1. Discovering what's working in your category on TikTok
2. Adapting those proven elements for your brand
3. Operating like a psychopath to launch as many good ideas as possible

Keywords this agent scraped:

fit check
fall fits
clothing brand
sustainable clothing
summer fits
everyday basics
athletic wear
comfortable clothing
workout clothes
activewear

I'm giving away the full database with analysis of these 272 videos.

No comment / like / follow needed here on LinkedIn.

Just grab the Airtable database from this landing page: https://lnkd.in/eNCTxYxP

(you'll also be first to get access to more AI-enabled creative strategy resources like this)

---

P.S. I've been talking a lot with the Motion (Creative Analytics) team about AI agents. Right now, the best way to use agents is to massively scale processes that you already figured out with your human brain.

I'm stoked that the Air marketing team made this unhinged B2B SaaS video because it finally calls attention to something that's been driving me insane. 

The dangerous narrative from people who’ve NEVER CREATED ANYTHING their entire lives is that AI will replace the "creation" part of the creative process first. 

But anyone with a drop of creative talent knows that creation will be the last thing to go. Because there are so many other parts of the creative process that are completely broken. 

Here's what actually blocks me:

I can't find that creative hook that the creator shot last month
I can't find an undeniable proof shot of this product working
I can't find a shot with this specific expression on a person's face
I can't find raw images of this specific SKU in this specific type of environment
I can't find the shot where someone says this exact line, but I know it exists

If you actually do daily creative work, you know what I'm talking about.

But all the ChatGPT copy / pasters are confidently posting about how "AI will automate your entire creative production process with 1 simple N8n workflow”.

No, dude. 

Anyone who is actually running a brand or or agency knows the real opportunity isn't the creation part. It's solving the thousands of broken inputs that go into creation.

So that’s why I’m so blown away by Air’s natural language search.

Because AI can now:

Look at every image
Watch every video
Read every transcript
Know everything in your creative library

With Air’s natural language search you can simply ask for what you need:

"Show me non-captioned footage with zoomed-in shots of dirty air filters” 
“Show me every green-screen video with a credible narrator”
"Find all my shots where people are laughing." 
"Find a hook where the creators talks about the competitor downsides”

You can search the way you think. No more folder diving. No mindless tagging. This is the process unlock that creative people actually want. Fix the inputs to creation so that talented humans can focus on the creation part.

As far as I know, that's what Phase 1 of AI-enabled creative is actually about.

Not replacing what we're good at. Fixing what's broken.

🎬 Watch the full film → air.inc/creative-therapy

---

P.S. If you run a creative team or know a creative strategist who is worried about being replaced by AI, I encourage you to tag them on this post. The narrative has gotten so out of hand and it's time to reclaim what’s ours. 

#AirPartner

You won't be fired & replaced by a 27-step n8n flow just yet...

The "creation" part, meaning the last step of the creative process, will be the last to go. Because AI isn't very good at end-to-end creation. There are too many fail points. 

I've used all of these overhyped AI-only creation tools. Most are trash. Everyone I talk to in this industry says they're trash. We all joke about how much we hate end-to-end AI-only creation tools. And if you have zero taste, your outputs are even more trash than mine.

You know what AI is actually good at?

- Helping you get to the right insight
- Helping you land on the right idea
- Making the inputs to creation less painful

Anyone with a spec of creative talent in their body knows this is the truth.

You're dead as a creative agency if you don't do these 15 things:

1. First-mover AI company
2. Top 5% founder brand
3. In-house video production

4. Owned creator ecosystem
5. Growth marketing expertise
6. Operational psychopaths

7. Relationship builders
8. Whitelisting at scale as part of the offering
9. Deliver more for the same cost

10. MCP workflow
11. Airtable database as the primary advantage
12. Help brands solve the declining reach problem

13. Absolutely nail native content
14. Owned 3rd party pages & media properties
15. Organic TikTok as testing ground

It's about to get more competitive than ever. 

Buckle up.

We're witnessing the birth of a brand new App Store, and it represents a multi-billion dollar opportunity for anyone with good product building skills.

Because in 2025, the App Store for business products is just MCP servers, which stands for Model Context Protocol.

MCP servers are a bridge between:
- The AI tools that you use every day, like ChatGPT or Claude
-  External tools that you've used your entire career

This is such a massive opportunity for anyone who's building a software product now because most of these SaaS companies haven't figured this out.

Because it doesn't make sense anymore to spend so much time on UX and UI and building for a world where someone's spending all day within your product.

Here's an example: 

If you're Asana, it doesn't make sense to spend time building out features that help people:

- Manually build out projects with subtasks, & timelines
- Manually assign tasks to other people 

All that makes no sense anymore.

What you should be focused on is building an experience that allows people to: 

- Get insights directly within Claude from Asana
- Or even have agents take action within Asana just by speaking to Claude

So the billion dollar opportunity is this:

1. Find a problem that has already been solved
2. Identify the slow moving companies in that space
3. Build the modern, AI-native version of the solution

This man in a yellow suit and hat is a modern marketing genius. 

Steal his 4-part founder brand framework:

1. Founder is the main character
2. Audacious public goal
3. Underdog story
4. Purple cow theory 

This is the single best execution of founder brand on the internet right now.

I built a $550k+ / month creative agency using these 5 creative frameworks

(Creative strategists & DTC brand owners, swipe these to consistently make better ads)

1. Problem-Agitate-Solution (PAS)
→ Hook: "This might be the greatest hack for [pain point]"
→ Agitate the problem (make it relatable)
→ Introduce your solution ("That's when I found X")

2. Enemy Framework
→ Hook: "Don't settle for [enemy], try this instead"
→ Show why the enemy fails
→ Present your product as the superior option

3. Failed Solution
→ Hook: "This is the #1 mistake I made as a [audience]"
→ Discuss the pain point and failed solution
→ Present your product as the actual solution

4. AIDA (Attention-Interest-Desire-Action)
→ Hook with something visually shocking
→ Build curiosity with the setup
→ Create desire by showing the outcome
→ End with clear CTA

5. Before/After/Bridge (BAB)
→ Start with relatable frustration
→ Paint the outcome after solving it
→ Your product is the bridge

Stop trying to be 100% original.
Start with a framework.
Then fill in the rest.

Here's the weird reality about moving fast as a creative team ↓
You actually need to plan 3 months ahead.

I know that sounds backwards, but hear me out. 

Most creative teams get stuck hitting the same 3 roadblocks:

- Production delays
- Messaging misalignment 
- Creative direction bottlenecks

So, all you need to do is proactively solve all of these roadblocks:

1. Production
- Product in hand of in-house production team
- Product in hand of 10+ creators, so you can activate them immediately
- Creative library that's so organized that you can pull existing footage and make something that feels brand new in under an hour

2. Messaging
- Deep research done quarterly: AI analysis of customer reviews, historical ad data, competitor analysis, etc...
- Build a massive library of validated, high-level ideas ahead of time from that research using team brainstorms
- Weekly creative meetings become "I saw this cool new format, which audience / angle do we think we should test it on first? Not "what the hell should we say?"

3. Creative Direction: 
Use 3 types of briefs to eliminate creative paralysis:
- Word-for-word scripts (when the message needs to be precise)
- Open-ended brief with a menu of angles and formats (let creators pick what matches their experience and content skills
- Hybrid approach (specific key messages + "talk about your personal experience with X")

So when that perfect moment hits:
- Competitor stumbles
- Trend you want to hop on
- World is talking about your brand

You're not figuring out logistics. You're just executing.

Speed isn't about rushing. It's about proactively removing friction and building a "let's try this" culture.

My performance creative agency ships 3000+ ads / month. 

Here's what I believe are the 3 most critical components of modern performance creative strategy ↓

🧠 Insights
→ AI-enabled research of your brand's performance data and other signals
→ AI-enabled research of competitors, the category, and social listening
→ MCP system to allow teams to get to deeper insights, faster

🎯 Strategy
→ Creative planning built around modern media buying & broad targeting
→ Brief writing system with the right mix of optionality
→ Continuous optimization based on performance marketing expertise

🎬 Creation
→ Elevated content creation with in-house production team
→ Native content to capture attention and drive engagement
→ Reliable creator ecosystem with vertical coverage & whitelisting rights

Get to the right insights. 
Build a strategy from that foundation. 
Create in lots of different ways. 

That's the process.

Writing a newsletter in under 3 minutes with Wispr & Claude

This process is shockingly simple:

- Upload examples of your newsletters & writing style to a Claude project
- Use your human brain to come up with an original idea
- Verbally outline your idea to Claude, using Wispr
- Claude writes the first draft
- Utilize your taste to give feedback to Claude
- Edit & finalize the content manually

Massive unlock for anyone suffering from writer's block.

"AI doesn't work for me."

That's because you failed at these 3 things:

Your imagination
Your articulation
Your judgement

Because AI is a superhuman suit, not a replacement. 

AI is as powerful as your imagination. 
AI then follows your articulation. 
AI ends up being as effective as your judgement.

So if before AI you couldn't...

Think of a good idea
Communicate it clearly
Decide which pieces of the idea best serve the goal

Then you still won't be able do that, even with AI. 

AI doesn't think for you. It thinks WITH you.

---

Let me know if you think I'm wrong. 

And follow me Jake Abrams for posts about AI & advertising.

“Where are you? Come back for Thanksgiving dinner. We're waiting. - Mom”

I was in a coffee shop
Furiously making changes to ad accounts
Believing I could turn my 1.2X ROAS into a 2.5X ROAS
During a BFCM that was headed sideways
All because I planned like s**t.

You know, I’ve probably managed over $25M in ad spend over BFCM weekend since 2018.

And if you’re like me, you know that this is the worst feeling in the world.

But the single most important thing I’ve learned from the last 7 years of BFCM, is that you win during the months before the weekend.

And it’s why I love the BFCM Treasure Map that the Wunderkind team put together, because it lays the foundation you can put into place today so that you don’t disappoint your family this November. 

(WK even sent me a real map) 

Here are 5 ways this will help you crush BFCM, starting today:

1. Identity Resolution
More recognized visitors means your ESP can send way more abandoned cart and browse abandonment emails.

2. Q3/Q4 Calendar Planning
Start priming your subscribers now, and then follow every single best practice come November. 

3. List Growth Tracking 
System for tracking daily email / SMS signups and engagement rates so that you can run tests that improve these numbers. 

4. Smart Segmentation
Make sure you’re not the brand blasting the exact same message to your entire list.

5. Pricing Psychology
Maximize every drop of conversion with crossed-out pricing and pre-loaded discounts. 

This resource has every benchmark, strategy, look-book, and checklist you could ever want for BFCM. 

Check out the full online BFCM hub here: https://lnkd.in/eTyUhsxA

hashtag

#WunderkindPartner

P.S. I want to hear your BFCM horror stories. Tell me in the comments. Best one gets a free 1-hour 1-on-1 consulting session. 👇

Brand partnership • Creative-led growth for 8-9 figure consumer brands | Writing about AI & advertising | Sold 100k+ personal cooling devices

Most agencies say "let me get back to you" when you have a content idea.

My #1 goal is to be the agency that says "we're on it."

Idea: "Let's do street interviews outside a wine store in NYC."
Us: "Shooting next week."

Here's how:
→ Our own in-house production team in NYC 
→ Professional cameras and crew ready-to-go
→ Pre-negotiated on-camera talent
→ Proven street interview ad concepts

Other agencies:
→ Try to source a freelance crew 
→ Unclear expectations around shooting equipment
→ Start emailing random people on Instagram from scratch
→ Spin wheels writing the right briefs 

The difference isn't just speed.
It's the ability to say YES to great ideas.

When your agency can move from concept to content faster. 
You're getting a competitive advantage.

When is the last time you came up with an idea, then shot it within 7-10 days?

if you are that marketer who is always behind & overwhelmed and...

you're not using Claude + Wispr
you refuse to try it / learn it
you say "it's not for me" 

then i honestly cannot help you. 

because every single thing that i do now that used to be hard, is so much easier simply because i start by talking to Claude with Wispr.

Taplio

Jake Abrams's Linkedin Analytics

What is Jake talking about?

Who is engaging with Jake

's Best Posts (last 30 days)

Want to drive more opportunities from LinkedIn?