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Transcript

I'm Spending 90 Days Cracking Instagram For My Ecommerce Business (Here's The Plan) · eCommerce Podcast

0:06
So for the next 90 days, I'm running a personal brand experiment, a kind of head-to-head
0:12
competition, if you like, between organic Instagram and paid Meta ads.
0:17
And I want to figure out which actually drives more business for an e-commerce founder
0:23
like me. And the reason I want to do this is two of the smartest operators in the world
0:28
just gave me completely opposite advice about how to spend the
0:35
next 90 days.
0:36
Don't you hate it when that happens?
0:37
Because one of them has got to be wrong.
0:40
So on one side, we have Davey Fogarty, who is the guy behind the Oodie, which is the
0:46
$200 million a year e-commerce brand.
0:50
He has come out and basically said, you know, founders shouldn't bother building a personal
0:55
brand. Until they're doing $10 million a year.
1:01
And his argument is solid and it's based on maths because he reckons every YouTube video
1:06
costs a founder over $3,000 in opportunity cost to produce.
1:13
And that money therefore would be better spent testing paid ad creatives.
1:18
That's his hypothesis.
1:19
And then on the other side, you've got Daniel Priestley.
1:23
Who's saying if you don't start right now, basically AI is gonna eat your business because
1:30
the window is closing.
1:31
And his argument is also pretty compelling, as lived
1:38
experience, which is what he talks about, is the one thing AI can't fake.
1:43
And the founders who don't show up on camera are gonna get outmarketed By the
1:50
ones who do.
1:51
Conflicting advice from two giants.
1:54
And if you want to see what's, you know, what this sort of going all in on Daniel Priestley's
1:59
advice actually looks like, look no further than the infamous, if I can call
2:06
him that, Alex Hormozi.
2:07
He runs, if you don't know, acquisition.com, and he reckons he has posted 35
2:14
35,000 pieces of content this year alone.
2:19
35,000.
2:21
That's insane.
2:23
I've been trying to do a podcast every week, right?
2:25
But he's done 35,000.
2:27
Now he's got a proper content team.
2:29
And I think he batches a couple of days a week to make that volume work for him.
2:35
But I do think the point still stands, right?
2:37
He treats content as the engine of the business, not as a sideshow.
2:43
And it is literally transforming his company.
2:47
So some big giants, conflicting advice, which is the way it usually works.
2:53
So which one is right?
2:54
Which one is the path to go down?
2:57
Because if I'm honest, I've been a bit stop-start on Instagram.
3:02
I think most of us have been there, to be honest with you.
3:04
I've tried it probably, I don't know, 3 or 4 times, never really cracked it.
3:08
We've done all right with it, um, with our e-com businesses, never really what I would
3:13
say cracked it though. I'm all in at the start, but either it takes more effort than
3:18
I thought it was going to take, or I'm not seeing the results as quickly as I'd like
3:22
to see them. And so I drift.
3:25
And of course, then I hire someone to do it for me.
3:28
I don't give them the right kind of guidance, et cetera, et cetera.
3:32
So to be fair, Though, to social media, LinkedIn did work for me for a season until
3:38
it kind of didn't because life got busy.
3:41
And then when life gets busy, social media gets kicked back, doesn't it?
3:46
Maybe, I don't know. Can you relate to that?
3:48
Maybe? Just putting that out there.
3:51
Anyway, I am going to settle this the only way I know how, which is actually by having
3:58
a go and seeing what happens.
4:01
And sharing on the podcast what I find out.
4:03
And the reason why this is of interest to me right now, well, there's 3 reasons, I guess,
4:07
3-fold reasons. The first one being it follows on from what we talked about last time
4:13
about generating organic sales.
4:16
In the previous episode, we talked about that quite a bit.
4:20
If you haven't listened to it, check it out.
4:22
It's a great episode, right?
4:24
Uh, the second reason, my 22-year-old son Zach, who is an absolute legend, has gone
4:30
from zero to over 100,000 followers in the last 7 months using his strategy,
4:37
which has enabled him to build his online business.
4:41
And third, we have just launched something called Slingshot, or SAM,
4:48
our Slingshot AI Mentor.
4:49
It's basically an AI for e-com membership, and this experiment then that I'm going to
4:55
go through, I'm going to live test on whether a sort of a founder personal brand drives
5:01
more signups, more sales, than the same time and money may be spent on paid
5:08
ads. And I will, of course, publish the numbers either way.
5:12
That's the experiment.
5:14
So hello, by the way, and welcome to the Ecommerce Podcast.
5:18
My name is Matt Edmondson, and it's great to be with you.
5:21
If this is your first time with us, a very, very warm welcome to you, my friend.
5:26
Make sure you like and subscribe.
5:27
And of course, if you're a regular, welcome back.
5:31
Now in this episode, as I said, we're going to be talking specifically about this 90-day
5:38
Instagram experiment, not necessarily the ad side of it, just the, the organic social
5:43
side of it, what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.
5:47
So Fasten your seatbelts.
5:49
It's, uh, there's a fair bit to get through.
5:52
Okay. So it's going to be dense.
5:55
You're going to want to make sure you get the notes for this one, which will be on the
5:58
website ecommercepodcast.net.
6:00
Links will be in the descriptions below.
6:02
So let me lay this out properly because like I said, there are these two arguments here
6:07
and both are genuinely strong.
6:09
And I think we need to give them both a fair hearing really before we make any kind
6:15
of decision about what to do with own businesses.
6:19
Now, at least that's what I thought.
6:20
And hence the reason we are where we are.
6:23
So Davey Fogarty, who, as I said, built the Oodie.
6:28
This is that sort of massive hoodie thing, isn't it?
6:32
That's kind of really warm that I see a lot of people wearing.
6:34
Anyway, he recently put out a video called something like, why founders shouldn't build
6:41
a personal brand. That's a bit contrary, isn't it?
6:44
And his argument goes a little bit like this.
6:47
He sat down and worked out the actual cost for a YouTube video for a founder to make,
6:53
not necessarily in dollars from the bank, but in the opportunity cost, which is something
6:58
we learned in A-level economics.
7:01
Now, by the time you have planned, scripted, filmed, edited, replied to comments, etc.,
7:07
etc., he reckons the average founder is going to be looking at about
7:13
$3,200 of time.
7:19
And he gets there actually by making some really interesting assumptions.
7:23
He thinks your time is worth about $200 an hour.
7:26
And he assumes you're therefore spending about 16 hours on it.
7:30
I'm not sure if both of those are actually true, but I get the idea,
7:37
right? And I get that it's not going to be the same for all of us, but the principle
7:43
sticks. The principle is the same.
7:46
There is an opportunity cost for time when we work on these things.
7:52
So when I get busy, um, social media always gets pushed to the back because it's the
7:57
first thing to go. It's the easy thing to go because of the opportunity cost, right?
8:03
And it is what it is.
8:04
And his point, okay, if you've got I guess the over $3,000 of founder time, if
8:11
you've got that to spend and you're doing under $10 million a year, where's the highest
8:17
leverage place to put that money?
8:20
And he reckons it's almost always paid ads and testing the creative behind them, because
8:26
that's where you can find a winning ad that scales a business at 10x in a quarter of
8:31
the time. Whereas a YouTube video, however good it is, is probably going to take 6 months
8:36
to a year to start meaningfully moving the needle, if it even ever does, because
8:43
you don't know, do you? And he's pretty specific about where the threshold sits.
8:48
He's— his thing is stay focused on paid ads until you're well past $10 million in turnover,
8:55
maybe even up to $50 million in turnover.
9:00
Okay, so the maths may be different for each of us.
9:03
Um, some of the ideology on this might be different for each of us, but I still think
9:08
it's a pretty strong argument when you think about it purely in times of opportunity
9:14
cost, especially when you're an operator and every hour you spend on something is
9:21
an hour you're not spending on something else, right?
9:24
And I appreciate that because most of us listening to this aren't sitting around with
9:29
a whole lot of spare time wondering what to do with said spare time.
9:33
We've got teams to run, products to ship, customers to look after, suppliers to chase.
9:39
So David's point, I think at least here, makes a lot of sense.
9:45
And of course, on the flip side, like I said, you've got Dan Priestley, and he's coming
9:50
in with what I think is probably an equally strong counterargument.
9:55
but one that is slightly more longer term in its thinking.
10:01
Okay. So Daniel's saying, look, AI is changing the rules.
10:05
Uh, it's changing the rules of the game and it's doing that right now.
10:09
And the window is closing because AI can now do most of what you do as a business.
10:15
It can write your copy, it can design your ads, it can generate the images, it can even
10:20
handle your customer support to a fair degree.
10:24
The one thing AI can't do though is be you.
10:32
It can't have lived your story.
10:34
It can't have made your mistakes.
10:36
It can't have grown your business through that really one painful time and thing that
10:42
you went through. And so lived experience has become the most interesting
10:48
idea in all of this. In fact, it's become the moat.
10:52
I would say that AI can't replicate.
10:56
And honestly, this is, if you're familiar with the show, uh, and what we do here, this
11:02
is where the Digital David thesis that we've been banging on about this podcast over
11:06
the years fits in just in maybe a slightly different language.
11:11
The whole idea, of course, is that we as small e-commerce businesses can run at the Goliaths
11:17
we face, the giants, you know, with their their unlimited budgets and their race to the
11:22
bottom pricing, uh, and their space rockets.
11:25
You know what I mean. Uh, and we can still win because the one thing they can never replicate
11:32
is us, the true authentic storytelling selves that we are.
11:37
The founder, the actual you as a real person.
11:41
Amazon, Jeff, he can't be you.
11:44
The big D2Z Brands buying customers at scale can't be us.
11:49
And now AI can't be us either, which I think makes the founder, the
11:55
human, the operator, the one who's been in it from day one, the single most defensible
12:02
asset a Digital David has got.
12:06
And founders who don't build then a personal brand are essentially hiding
12:13
that asset.
12:15
They're hiding the one thing that the Goliaths can't really take and
12:21
compete with. And so then Dan Priestley stacks on top of that a Steve Bartlett
12:27
observation, which I think is brilliant actually.
12:31
And, and, you know, this is not a big loving for Steve Bartlett, I'm not necessarily
12:37
a big fan, but Dan went on to his podcast and had what
12:44
can only be described quite a lot of success with the views, had a lot of views on his
12:49
video. And so Daniel wrote to Stephen, said, why do you think that is?
12:52
Because there are more famous, better well-known people that have come on who did not
12:57
get the views, um, that he got.
13:02
And so the answer that Stephen gave, which I thought was really fascinating, it's a really
13:07
interesting phrase. Relatable beats impressive, right?
13:13
So relatable beats impressive.
13:17
And Daniel goes on to say that if you're waiting to land on the moon, you know, or do
13:21
something else equally impressive, don't, because we don't follow
13:28
people because they're amazing.
13:29
We follow people because we see ourselves in them.
13:33
And founders. When we're honest, have a real edge here, don't they?
13:37
We— because we've been through the mess, we can be relatable in a way that polished corporate
13:43
accounts simply can't really.
13:46
And so what Dan Priestley is saying is start now while you've still got the AI moat advantage
13:52
and before anyone else sort of figures this out.
13:56
And if you want to see this in practice, like I say, look at Alex Hormozi.
14:01
And what those guys are doing.
14:02
I think he's running about 10 e-com companies and software companies.
14:06
They're doing a combined turnover of well over $200 million a year.
14:12
And he reckons, like I said, he's posted 35,000 bits of content.
14:16
I mean, that's just insane, right?
14:19
Granted, he's got his content team to make that volume work for him.
14:23
Most of us don't have that.
14:26
But like I said, the principle holds.
14:28
And he treats content as the engine of his business and not a sideshow.
14:33
And it's— the result is he is selling more books, more software, more services than most
14:38
of his competitors combined.
14:41
So who's right? Right?
14:43
Because they're both compelling, they're both successful, they're both speaking from
14:48
experience. And the honest answer is, I don't know yet.
14:54
And that's a question I'm going to try and answer over the next 90 days.
14:59
Now, truth be told, I have been here before, sort of, years ago
15:05
when I first set up my Twitter account, which I appreciate does date me.
15:09
I think I, I had and probably still do about 40,000 people follow me.
15:15
40,000, you know, which at the time felt like a really big deal when all your mates have
15:19
got 100. And I'd open the app and I'd see that number was going up and I'd feel like
15:24
I was winning. But here's the thing, I didn't really do anything.
15:30
Well, let me rephrase that.
15:33
It really didn't do anything for the business.
15:36
Maybe that was me using it wrong.
15:38
Um, but I can tell you it did feel good having that many people follow you that quickly.
15:45
And I think this is something that we need to talk about, um, especially as founders,
15:50
right? Honestly. Because I think this is a common thing in e-commerce.
15:54
The number on the profile is a vanity metric.
15:58
I'm firmly convinced of this.
15:59
It feels like a scoreboard, but I believe it's measuring the wrong game.
16:04
It's just a small part of a bigger picture.
16:06
And I've seen so many brands, and I've done it myself, by the way, so I'm not throwing
16:11
stones from a glass house.
16:13
I've seen so many brands throw a truckload of money at building the follower count,
16:19
and you know what? The engagement is just not there despite having
16:26
the followers. There's no comments, there's no DMs, there's no purchases coming off the
16:30
back of it. Just a big number at the top of a profile that makes everyone feel good
16:36
when they looked at it.
16:39
I've watched my competitors do it, I've seen clients do it.
16:43
We've boosted follower counts and the engagement hasn't really changed.
16:47
You know the old saying, it's better to have 1,000 followers that are really, really
16:51
good and buy a lot from you than 1 million followers that don't really engage with what
16:54
you're doing. Okay. So the question isn't, should we get followers?
17:02
The question is, should we as e-com founders specifically spend our limited time
17:09
are limited hours building a personal brand, which is a particular kind of follower
17:16
base, isn't it? It's the kind where people actually care that it's you versus
17:22
spending those hours on paid ads, creative, or product development, or hiring, or
17:29
any one of the 15 other things currently on the top of your to-do list.
17:35
And the reason this matters now for me personally, like I said, is because of SAM.
17:39
We've just launched SAM.
17:41
Slingshot AI Mentor.
17:44
If you've not heard me talk about it yet, SAM Quickly is our brand new AI for e-com membership
17:50
platform that joins the power of Claude with all our e-commerce frameworks and insights
17:56
and knowledge and adds in business context, which in effect is a huge winning formula.
18:02
We've added recently a huge research engine called Magpie, um,
18:09
a video structure called Prism, Prism, not prison.
18:14
Sounds very similar, doesn't it?
18:16
And we've even released Scout, the sort of organic search discovery
18:22
skill that I talked about in the last episode.
18:25
And this whole stack of AI tools is specifically for e-com founders running
18:31
businesses in our sort of size range, right?
18:34
So anything under, I guess, $5 million a year on their business.
18:38
And it's what we have developed and used.
18:42
And now we've packaged up the whole thing as a membership because so many people were
18:46
interested in what we do. It's brand new, it's live, it's open for signups right now,
18:51
today. Um, and of course, if you want to know more, go to ecommercepodcast.net, uh, sales
18:56
pitch over. But what this does, right, is it puts me in a really specific position as
19:00
a founder because I want to sell that membership, right?
19:05
It's one of the things that we want to do.
19:06
Now, I appreciate it's not especially cheap, right?
19:09
It costs $2,000 to join, but the value you get is insane.
19:15
Now, I've got 2 to 3 hours a week of founder time that I can spend on this growth experiment
19:21
rather than just farm it out to the team.
19:23
And I want to see if I can do it.
19:26
And I guess I have this sort of clear choice in front of me.
19:29
Do I pour these hours into Meta ads creative testing for Slingshot, which
19:35
is what Davey would tell me to do, and I am going to do more about that in the next episode
19:40
anyway. Or can I pour them into a personal brand on Instagram, which is what Priestley
19:46
or Hormozy might tell me to do?
19:50
So both are real options. Both cost, I guess, the same if you think of time as money.
19:56
And in 90 days, I think we'll know an awful lot more.
20:01
We're going to know which one drove Sam signups, definitely.
20:06
And yeah, I'll tell you the numbers.
20:07
Keep listening to the show. If you're not subscribed, make sure you are.
20:10
If you want to find out how this experiment goes, we're going to track Instagram attributed
20:15
signups versus the paid ads signups.
20:19
Not, not vibes, not a feeling, but we'll definitely give you the actual numbers.
20:24
And so I guess for me, that's the real bet, right?
20:26
David says no, run the ads.
20:27
Daniel and Hormozy say yes, build the personal brand.
20:31
I think Alex Hormozy will probably tell me to do everything at the same time anyway.
20:35
But before we get into that, and before I tell you actually what I'm going to do, let
20:41
me tell you who I'm stealing the playbook from.
20:49
Yes, because this is the bit I think that tipped me over the edge into actually committing
20:55
to this experiment rather than just thinking about it for another 6 months.
20:59
You know, this is what kind of led me to do it.
21:03
And it is my son, right?
21:05
Zak. So Zak has an Instagram channel called Zak the Nutritionist.
21:11
Zak is spelled Z-A-K or Z-A-K for our international cousins.
21:16
So Zak the Nutritionist.
21:19
All one word if you want to go follow him.
21:20
Again, I'll put the link into the description.
21:25
And he's grown from zero followers when he launched in, I think it was September, October
21:31
last year, 2025.
21:34
And he's currently over 70,000 followers on Instagram as of today.
21:39
He's put content out every day.
21:41
He's focused specifically on generating Instagram Reels and hasn't really cross-posted
21:46
them much to YouTube or TikTok.
21:49
Although he does use the auto-posting tools to push out to Facebook as part of his workflow.
21:56
And the other day, he accidentally discovered that he's got another 30,000, 40,000 followers
22:02
on Facebook that he never really knew about because he never goes on Facebook.
22:05
Anyway, that's brilliant.
22:07
So in the last 7 or 8 months, he's built up a following of around 100,000
22:14
people across those 2 channels.
22:16
And what's more, he's created a business off the back of it.
22:20
So what he does is he has written a recipe book, um, and he sells that on his site.
22:26
And he's just about to release his first mobile app, which he's going to put on Apple
22:31
Store and Google Play right now.
22:33
The thing with what Zach does is it focuses specifically on IBS, irritable bowel syndrome,
22:39
which I, I appreciate is quite an interesting niece— uh, niece— niche.
22:43
Yeah, IBS is not my niece, just want to clarify.
22:47
Uh, but it is an interesting niche, and the reason it's interesting is because it's mainly
22:52
his story, right? The founder's story.
22:54
He has suffered with IBS for years and everything that's gone along with it since he
22:58
was a young kid, and he really wanted to help people in that area.
23:03
He went to uni, he did nutrition, he really has dug into it, he's got his head around
23:08
it, and he's, he's improved his life no end.
23:11
And all the stuff the doctors probably should have told him but didn't he's put into
23:15
his business. And guess what?
23:17
He is just about to go and travel the world as a digital nomad off the back of all of
23:22
this. Now, I'm telling you this, uh, not just because I'm a proud
23:28
dad, although obviously I am very proud of him.
23:32
I think the guy's an absolute legend, I really do.
23:34
And it's been great sitting down with him and talking to him about all of this stuff.
23:38
Um, but there is a methodology in there which I think is transferable.
23:42
Honestly, Watching Zak crack this in, what, 7 months while I've been faffing around with
23:48
Instagram on and off for years.
23:51
Well, slightly humbling, if I'm honest with you.
23:54
But the methodology that he uses is actually really simple.
24:01
As with all of these things, it's just that most of us don't do it.
24:05
So what does he do? Well, he finds the videos that are working well.
24:09
Especially in his niche.
24:11
Okay, he understands the format and the breakdown of that video.
24:16
Like, you know, he asked, why is this video working?
24:19
What's the hook doing? What's the structure?
24:21
What are the sort of little micro cues that I can take from the video?
24:26
And then he replicates them with his own point of view and his own little twist onto
24:32
it. He'll publish that and he'll experiment, and he figures out what creates engagement
24:38
and what doesn't.
24:40
Okay, so if you break that down, there's 4 steps, right?
24:43
He finds, he decodes, he replicates, and then he iterates.
24:49
And that's it. There's nothing magical in there.
24:52
There's no sort of secret sauce.
24:55
Uh, there's no, um, algorithm hack.
24:58
It's just discipline, systematic copying of what already works,
25:05
applied to his own niche and his own story.
25:08
With his own little experiment.
25:11
And it's that experiment which I find fascinating, right?
25:15
Zak figured out, for example, that if he puts a tea towel on his shoulder versus not
25:21
having a tea towel on his shoulder when talking about nutrition, the same script,
25:27
the same person, obviously same camera, the engagement was higher with the tea towel.
25:32
Why? Because it made him look a bit more homely, I'm guessing, a bit more like he'd just
25:36
stepped out of a kitchen.
25:39
I guess visually it breaks the viewer's sort of standard pattern.
25:43
There's not just a guy standing in front, there's a guy with a tea towel on his shoulder.
25:47
And that subtle shift, I think, made his content feel more curious or more relatable.
25:53
But it's the same script, just simple experiments.
25:56
And then he figured out something else, which is the same video, same script, same person,
26:01
same setup, but with a slightly different camera angle, also had more engagement.
26:06
He figured out the exact position he needed to put his camera on.
26:11
Why? Now we're talking a few degrees of difference, not a different shot, not a different
26:16
setup, just a slight tilt or a slightly different framing, and the engagement
26:22
moved. Now if you'd have asked me before Zach figured this
26:29
out what moves engagement on a reel, I I would have probably said something quite sensible,
26:34
you know, like the hook, the topic, the script, the value add, all of which matter, obviously.
26:41
But a tea towel on your shoulder and the camera angle slightly tilted an inch closer.
26:47
Don't know if I'd have guessed that. Not in a million years.
26:50
But the only reason Zak finds this stuff out is because he was testing it, right?
26:54
He was experimenting and he was monitoring the results.
26:57
He wasn't just sort of sitting in a room going, What do I think is going to work?
27:02
He was posting variants and watching the audience actually respond.
27:07
And the audience told him things that he never would have guessed on his own.
27:10
And I think that is the crux of this whole thing.
27:15
Most of us, when we make content, we're guessing.
27:19
At least I am. We're making it based on what we think looks good and what we think sounds
27:25
right. And I guess what we would watch.
27:30
And so we trust our own taste, which is fine, except our taste is almost
27:37
always wrong because we're not the audience.
27:42
The audience has a different brain, thank the Lord, right?
27:45
Different scrolling habits, uh, different reasons for stopping or not stopping.
27:51
And so the only way to find out what they respond to is to systematically test it
27:57
exactly like Zak did with the tea towel.
28:01
And this connects into something really important.
28:03
So, um, again, a few episodes ago we talked about, um,
28:10
story and about brand and about something called the story overlap, where the customer
28:16
story and our story interact.
28:18
And this, if you're a regular to the show, fits exactly that, isn't it?
28:23
And so that's the methodology that I'm stealing from Zach.
28:25
We're going to find, we're going to decode, we're going to replicate, and we're going
28:28
to iterate. Uh, and we're gonna commit, I guess, to running the variables and trusting
28:34
the data and not my taste, as good as my taste is.
28:38
And I suppose for me, the good news is I don't have to be Zach, as much as I think the
28:42
guy's cool, and I'm trying to live my life through him because he's going to go travel
28:45
the world. But anyway, that's another story.
28:48
Um, but I don't have to do what he does, like post every day, do the constant grind.
28:53
I don't have to be 22.
28:55
I just have to apply the same discipline methodology, don't I?
28:59
Um, and I'm going to actually do that.
29:02
I can cheat a little bit here, uh, because I have a lot of AI tools which we've built,
29:08
which Zach didn't have access to, especially in the early days.
29:12
And so I'm hoping I can do all of this in a fraction of the hours Zack
29:18
had to put in at the start and still get meaningful results.
29:22
At least that's the theory that we're going to test.
29:28
We're going to find out.
29:32
So before I committed to a single thing about this experiment, let me
29:38
explain what I did. I went away and I used our Magpie which I mentioned earlier, our
29:44
sort of internal, although it is available on some sort of internal Instagram research
29:51
engine. It's such a great explanation, is it?
29:55
Instagram research engine inside SAM.
29:58
So basically, we went to YouTube, and we pulled all of the
30:04
top videos that have done well in the audience growth and personal brand space recently.
30:10
Okay, we went, did some searching, we pulled up the videos.
30:14
And then using Magpie, we analyzed those videos.
30:19
Um, and we asked one question over and over.
30:21
Does this transfer what they're talking about in this YouTube video to an e-com founder
30:28
like me, or is this sort of creator economy noise that I should sideline?
30:35
And what I found was fascinating, as it always is, because it broke down really cleanly
30:40
actually into this is gold, or yes, this is creator economy fluff.
30:47
So we can ignore it, right?
30:49
I do like that word fluff.
30:50
Anyway, so let me walk you through what I found because it will save
30:56
you watching countless hours of YouTube videos.
31:00
Yes, you're welcome.
31:01
So what is gold?
31:03
What is the gold, Matt?
31:05
What did we find out? So a couple of things.
31:06
Number one, Callaway's sort of pick one platform for 6 months rule.
31:12
We call it. This, I think, was hands down the strongest single argument in the sample
31:17
that we looked at. The idea is that you pick one hero platform and you commit to it
31:24
for a minimum of 6 months.
31:27
Now, I've broken that already because we're starting with 90 days, but I figured a 90-day
31:30
challenge would be better for the podcast.
31:32
Not gonna lie, uh, we may well carry this on beyond the 90 days, uh, but the soundbites
31:37
are just better on the You guys will have forgotten about this in 6 weeks.
31:41
Um, anyway, you go for a minimum of 6 months and you ignore everything
31:47
else. No cross-posting strategy, like Zach turned out to be right, right?
31:54
Like no be everywhere nonsense, just one platform, 6 months, full commitment before you
32:00
even think about expanding to another platform.
32:04
And the reason is So important, because if you're like me, you want to do it all now,
32:10
right? But every platform has its own algorithmic logic, and therefore it's got its own
32:16
audience behavior, and it's therefore got its own formats and language.
32:21
You know, the men are from Mars, women are from Venus.
32:23
So trying to do them all at once means you do none of them well, unless
32:29
you put every single waking hour into it, I guess.
32:32
And so for me, the platform we're going to try is Instagram.
32:36
Specifically, we are going to be doing reels and carousels, which ironically I think
32:42
makes this experiment, in theory at least, easier and not harder because it removes a
32:47
load of decisions that I don't have to make, which is a beautiful thing.
32:52
And I want to flag this for us as e-commerce founders as well, because I think a lot
32:58
of us, like I said, myself included, historically fall into the trap of
33:05
we should be on LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, Twitter, X, Threads,
33:12
Bluesky, MySpace if it's still around.
33:15
I don't know all of them. Right.
33:17
And so what happens is we, we spread ourselves very thin, don't we?
33:23
And let's face it, we're already limited to only having a marginal amount of time anyway.
33:29
And we're splitting that across 5 platforms and none of them really get the investment
33:34
they need to break out.
33:36
So Callaway's rule is pick one, just one, 6 months, then
33:42
assess. That's exactly what Zach did.
33:45
And that's what I'm gonna do.
33:46
So I'm gonna pick Instagram for the next 90 days and we'll see where we are at day 90
33:52
before I even think about anything else.
33:57
Number 2, number 2 piece of gold.
34:00
Chantal Leonharts' Name the Audience in the Title trick.
34:05
I thought this was brilliant. This is something I'd not thought about before, but basically
34:09
Chantal's, uh, interesting with this because she had a video go, I think
34:15
it was 15 times over her normal performance, about 700,000 views.
34:21
From a sort of 40-something thousand subscriber base.
34:26
And the only thing different about it was that she'd named
34:32
her audience explicitly in the title.
34:37
So the phrase 'for your small business,' for example, so the title 'Duh duh duh duh duh
34:42
for your small business,' and what that does actually is it prequalifies the click.
34:47
Um, so anyone who's a small business owner sees the title and goes, oh, that's me.
34:52
And they therefore click through and then the rate goes through the roof.
34:56
Whereas anyone who isn't in a, uh, who isn't a small business owner scrolls past, which
35:00
is fine because they're not your audience anyway, are they?
35:03
Um, and so for e-com founders, I think this genuinely is gold because it means we don't
35:08
need to chase generic audience hooks.
35:12
We can and probably should name the audience directly.
35:16
So, you know, for me, founders doing up to 5 million, or for e-commerce operators
35:22
running small teams, or if you're an e-com founder and you've ever wondered, dot, dot,
35:27
dot, you know, it's going to be that kind of framing where I name the audience in the
35:33
title. And I think that's a direct transfer to us, really costs nothing, just requires
35:38
me to be willing to say no to the broader audience and yes to the specific one.
35:45
Which is actually harder than it sounds, right?
35:49
So I've got to bear that in mind.
35:51
Okay, so two things of gold.
35:53
There's more, by the way. We're going to get into that in a little minute.
35:57
But let's look at, uh, what the creator fluff was and what, what should we ignore.
36:04
Number one, we've mentioned this already, Vanity Metric opens, right?
36:11
So a bunch of the videos I watch opened with something like This month my content
36:18
did 32.7 million views, man, or I made $80,000
36:24
in 30 days. I don't know why I did both those with an American accent.
36:27
I'm genuinely sorry, but they were all American.
36:30
And, you know, look, I get why creators do this because for their audience, that's social
36:36
proof, right? That's the credibility hook.
36:39
But for founders like us, And I'd love to know if you think this is actually
36:45
true, by the way. Write it in the comments if you're on YouTube, uh, or let me know on
36:49
Instagram. Those kind of things kind of repel me.
36:54
Now I'm breaking my own rule, aren't I, in sort of my own personal taste, but I think—
36:59
I don't think it's a fit for the audience that I'm going for.
37:03
Um, and I, you know, it's not true to our sort of, uh, our brand, I suppose, but
37:11
You know, as, as a founder, when I hear someone open with, I made $80K in 30 days, man,
37:18
I immediately think this person is going to be selling me a course.
37:22
It's going to be a thinly sort of veiled pitch for their thing, and therefore I'm out,
37:27
right? And I think most e-com founders will feel the same way.
37:31
Just a bit of a guess. We've all been around the block.
37:33
We can all smell that opening from a mile away.
37:37
And so for our content, I'm going to avoid the vanity metric opens.
37:42
They're going to be out like, do this and you'll generate 100 grand in sales in 30 seconds,
37:47
man. I'm going to stop doing that accent now, uh, now because I don't think they're going
37:51
to work, uh, but I especially don't think they will work for our or my audience.
37:57
And that's the thing I need to keep coming back to, isn't it?
38:00
What works for our people?
38:02
Where is that customer story?
38:04
Where is that brand overlap that I need to think about.
38:10
So I'm going to avoid those. Number 2, the Daily Reels grind cadence advice is one thing
38:16
that I'm blanket ignoring, right?
38:19
Almost every video said post once a day minimum or post 9 times
38:26
a week to grow.
38:28
9 times a week, are you mad?
38:30
Now that might be possible if you are a full-time creator.
38:34
Fine, I'll give you that. But I am an e-commerce founder with a maximum of
38:40
a few hours a week.
38:43
Uh, and so you've given me a recipe for burnout or short-term
38:49
posting that's no chance of being good, or even worse, I turn it over to AI
38:56
and get AI to do it all for me.
38:58
Um, and so the advice I think we actually need is the opposite.
39:02
I think cadence reduction with structural improvement is more the methodology,
39:09
i.e., very Jerry Maguire, isn't it?
39:11
Uh, some of you will be like, you are, uh, fewer posts.
39:15
Um, but each post, I think, deeply systematically built using the sort of find,
39:22
decode, replicate, iterate loop.
39:25
And that is very Jerry Maguire.
39:26
We should call it the Jerry Maguire rule.
39:29
Less but deeper and more value.
39:32
I think that could work.
39:35
I'm going to keep that name, the Jerry Maguire rule.
39:39
Anyway, if you've not seen Jerry Maguire, go watch it.
39:41
The human head weighs 8 pounds.
39:44
The— so I think the other thing that I noticed, right, in all of
39:50
the YouTube content and part of me was the reason why I keep referencing YouTube.
39:54
In doing this experiment, part of me was toying around with the idea of, can I learn
39:59
everything I need to know about Instagram from YouTube?
40:02
Yes or no? And so I'm like, let's go and get all our research from YouTube just to see
40:07
what happens. Okay, I thought that'd be quite fun.
40:10
Um, and so when we did, we, we kind of looked and there were 3 gaps all of
40:17
the YouTube videos collectively left open and they all matter for us, I think, as founders.
40:23
Okay, 3 gaps.
40:25
Gap number 1: no one properly addressed email or
40:31
owned audiences.
40:33
Now, the reality of it is, unless you are literally starting from zero, you are going
40:37
to have an audience and you can have an email list.
40:40
How do we deal with that? It's a good question.
40:43
The second gap that almost no one talked about was working with a small team
40:49
where social media is in effect probably the 189th priority on the list that day, not
40:56
the first, um, because it's a small team.
40:59
And then gap 3, every single video assumed you were starting at zero, which I think is
41:05
rarely true, especially if you are an established founder.
41:10
I mean, if you are starting literally today, God bless you, The finance, starting from
41:14
zero, I mean, follow along, same rules in some respects apply.
41:18
But I think most of us have cameras, a sort of a following, a content runway,
41:25
and probably some real operator credibility.
41:28
So that's not zero, it is a foundation that we currently have.
41:33
And so building a playbook, I think, that ignores it leaves some leverage on the
41:40
table. So they were the three gaps.
41:43
So let me try, uh, and pull this together in something resembling a playbook, because
41:48
I think the worst thing I could do here is hand you a load of analysis with
41:54
no actual plan.
41:56
So here's what I'm gonna do and why.
42:01
Okay, so the first thing, and honestly the bit I've wrestled with the most is the
42:07
niche. Do I do one of our e-com brands?
42:11
Do I do the e-commerce podcast, podcast channel?
42:15
What do I do? What's the niche?
42:17
Now, most of us, I think, when we start posting default to a, I'll post about my business
42:23
in general, which is what I could have done.
42:25
I've got all of these e-com businesses.
42:26
Let me tell you about them all, which sounds sensible, right?
42:29
But then I'm taking on people like Alex Hormozi, aren't I?
42:32
A long way to go. So, uh, posting about my area of expertise is
42:39
the obvious move in many ways.
42:41
But I think this is where the research really shifted my thinking, um, especially Calloway,
42:47
who makes this point, and Meta's actually own algorithm article, which was quoted
42:53
by Modern Millie, which I think is a great YouTube name, Modern Millie.
42:58
Um, and that essentially confirms it, that Instagram's algorithm builds an embedding
43:05
of your account based on the topic consistency of what you post.
43:10
Okay, so the more disciplined you are about staying on a single topic, the stronger the
43:15
signal you give the algorithm.
43:18
The more sprawl, the weaker that signal, and the harder it is to get distribution.
43:24
Callaway calls it hitting the bullseye over and over.
43:27
So same topic, same audience, same problem, and you do that repeatedly.
43:32
And what that means is that if I post about e-commerce and leadership and AI and
43:39
the books that I'm reading and the books maybe I'm trying to write, even though all of
43:43
those things are genuinely part of who I am, the algorithm doesn't really know me or
43:48
doesn't really know what to do with me.
43:51
And so it doesn't really give me the audience that I need, whereas Zach picked one thing:
43:57
IBS nutrition.
43:59
Not nutrition, not health, but nutrition specifically for people who suffer with IBS.
44:06
And the algorithm has grown to understand him, the audience has grown to understand him,
44:11
and then the growth followed.
44:14
So for me, the niche I'm picking, I needed to deliberately tighten it.
44:20
And surprisingly the niche is not e-commerce per se.
44:26
I think that's a bit too broad.
44:28
It's not even e-commerce plus leadership or founder lessons.
44:32
Um, no, specifically what we're going to be doing is something like AI for e-commerce
44:39
or AI workflows, uh, for e-commerce operators with a turnover under
44:45
$5 million.
44:47
That's it. I mean, that's pretty niche, isn't it?
44:48
There may be 4 people out there that are interested in that.
44:51
Um, I don't know, we're gonna find out.
44:53
But anyone running an e-commerce business of that size, under 5 million, that's who I'm
44:58
talking to. Anyone interested in how AI actually changes
45:04
how you run that style of business day to day, well, that's the topic.
45:10
And everything else, even the stuff I genuinely care about, should get put on a different
45:15
channel or saved for another day.
45:18
And I appreciate it sounds a bit narrow, but I think that's the point.
45:21
The narrower we go, the stronger the signal and the more the algorithm and the audience
45:27
can both lock on. Which actually doesn't do me any favors because if I keep
45:34
my Instagram account, it's already got history there, which I need to overcome somehow.
45:40
The second, uh, piece of the playbook is the methodology we've already walked through
45:45
with Zach. The Find, Decode, Replicate, Iterate methodology.
45:50
That's the operating system under what we're going to do, so I don't need to re-explain
45:55
that. If I do, just rewind.
45:57
Um, uh, the third piece, and this is where the AI tool stack I think
46:03
genuinely matters, is the time budget.
46:08
I've given myself sort of a maximum of 2 to 3 hours a week that's it.
46:12
I mean, that's going to be a stretch to find, but 2 to 3 hours a week, right?
46:16
Because if this thing requires more time than that, then it's already failed against
46:23
David's argument. You know, the opportunity cost, I think for me would be way too high
46:28
right now. And I should be spending the time on paid ads creative or shipping product
46:33
or doing a million other things.
46:36
So 2 to 3 hours a week is the ceiling.
46:38
Uh, and the AI tooling, I think, is what actually makes that ceiling, uh,
46:45
viable. So specifically, a few things that we have developed.
46:51
Okay, so like I said, Prism, not prison, uh, is a video analysis system.
46:56
So, um, using Claude Code, we can take a video and we can analyze that video
47:03
to quite good depth.
47:05
No other tools other than just some stuff we've written with Claude Code.
47:11
Um, so it's great because it just uses our Claude Code subscription.
47:14
Love that. Um, we're going to use Magpie, uh, for research and trend spotting.
47:21
And so this is a something that we've developed that analyzes Instagram channels, and
47:26
so, or Instagram search terms or hashtags, and it understands what reels are doing well.
47:33
Um, it understands, um, you know, the sort of the virality of them.
47:38
And so it grabs certain reels and it's like, let's look at these ones, let's not look
47:42
at those ones, along with some other interesting tidbits about channels and what's working
47:46
well. And it puts that back into Prism, and that then analyzes that video, which gives
47:51
us that analysis through Claw Code.
47:53
So we get a really detailed breakdown of videos, which is brilliant.
47:57
So that's sort of the find that's, you know, the, they have a good old look and decode.
48:03
Uh, we've got, so the, so we've got Prism, we've got Magpie.
48:07
The third thing I've got is Sam, um, the AI mentor, uh, that helps with
48:13
all things e-commerce. And that's going to help me with content development plus a few
48:17
other bits and bobs. Because I reckon without those tools, I'd probably need 10 to 15
48:22
hours a week to do this, probably properly, maybe more actually.
48:27
And I just don't actually have that time.
48:30
Zach was spending 34 hours, 30 to 40, maybe 50 hours a week in the early
48:36
days trying to figure all this out.
48:38
And so it was watching him that we could understand that system and start to get AI to
48:44
help us because I just didn't want to go and subscribe to a whole bunch of other stuff,
48:46
if I'm honest with you. Anyway, that's the honest disclosure.
48:50
Sam, our Slingshot AI mentorship and the membership we've just launched.
48:55
That's what we're going to be trying to promote.
48:58
And so this is the experiment.
49:00
It's a live test case for the product, and the product we've built.
49:04
And hopefully, maybe one day, if it fits, go check it out, right?
49:08
I'm not here to sell this product to you.
49:10
But I, I do think it's pretty awesome.
49:12
Now, coming back to that third gap I flagged earlier, you know, the the
49:19
what you actually start with.
49:21
So let me be honest about my own starting position, because if I pretend I was at zero,
49:27
then the experiment would be, I guess, dishonest from minute one.
49:30
And so I'm not starting at zero.
49:32
I've got an Instagram account, um, @mattedmondson if you want to follow along.
49:37
Um, again, I'll put a link in the description.
49:40
I've got 489 followers, uh, 489, mostly friends, family, and various
49:47
sort of people from business that I've met around the world.
49:51
If I'm honest with you, I— very few are what we would, what we would class as my ICP,
49:58
my ideal client profile.
50:01
Um, and in fact, one of the first decisions in week 1 is whether I keep that account
50:07
or rebrand or start fresh with a clean sort of algorithmic embedding from day 1.
50:14
I think if I'm honest with you um, I'm gonna stick with that account
50:20
because— and the reason why I think I'm gonna— I think it would probably be better to
50:23
start fresh based on what we've talked about already, but I appreciate, uh,
50:30
we can't always start fresh.
50:34
It's not always possible, is it?
50:37
So how do I take something like that and turn it around?
50:39
It's going to be an interesting experiment.
50:42
I've also got a camera, as you can tell if you're watching this on YouTube.
50:47
I've got my home studio, which is where I'm recording this from.
50:52
We've got a new studio coming at the warehouse, which is a bit more state-of-the-art.
50:56
We've invested quite a bit into that.
50:57
That's going to probably— will that be ready before the 90 days are over is a very good
51:02
question. I sure hope so.
51:05
And obviously, I've got years of podcasting behind me.
51:08
So the on-camera bit, I don't think is going to be the bottleneck.
51:13
Maybe it is, I don't know. Um, so, and I've also got, as a result, what you would call
51:18
a content runway sitting in plain sight.
51:22
So I've got hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of me talking to a camera about various
51:28
things, which I could, I could use that.
51:32
Um, like, is, is there a sensible strategy in this for me?
51:37
To have, uh, Sam go through my entire back catalog and cut
51:43
loads of clips out from different podcasts that would make sense.
51:48
And because then I could probably post, I don't know, 5, 10 a day because there's so
51:53
much back catalog content we could put out there.
51:57
Um, I don't think that's what I want to do.
51:59
Um, I could do using what I have, but I don't, I I don't, I don't know, maybe that will
52:04
be done. Who knows?
52:05
It just doesn't feel right to me right now for a number of reasons, but I could be persuaded,
52:09
uh, otherwise.
52:11
Okay. Um, so that's the niche we're focusing on.
52:16
They're the sort of things we've got. What else have we got?
52:18
Uh, I've got the AI tooling.
52:20
Like I said, I've got Sam, Magpie, Prism, Scout.
52:23
They're all built and shipped.
52:25
Um, we are just updating the system at the moment to help me write scripts for videos.
52:32
Um, and so I've got a lot of AI leverage, like I said, and I've also got the
52:39
patterns, the research that we've talked through.
52:42
I mean, all of that research we did for this episode, um, and to sort of start this whole
52:48
process is now in Sam.
52:52
Uh, and so Sam is like now the world's leading expert on how to build an Instagram channel.
52:57
At least I think it is. We're going to find out.
52:59
Um, and I've also got the methodology which I've robbed from Zach.
53:03
So none of that is blank.
53:05
Okay. But there is a line that I am drawing.
53:07
I've mentioned AI a lot.
53:09
It is gonna be one of the main themes of the channel.
53:11
Um, but I, I think some, to be clear, and this matters more to me, I think, than, than
53:17
maybe I'm letting on. Um, every video, every single reel
53:24
will be me. It's gonna be me on camera.
53:27
It's gonna be me talking, me telling the story.
53:31
Um, I will have AI do the operational work, the
53:38
analysis, the scheduling, the first draft scripts, the captions, the graphics, the research,
53:42
the decoding, um, monitoring competitor content and all of that sort of good stuff.
53:50
Um, I suppose all of the bits where you don't need a soul.
53:54
But the face, the voice, the actual story, well, that's gonna be me.
53:59
Because like that, again, coming back, that's the whole point of the Digital David Manifesto,
54:06
that AI cannot be you.
54:09
And if I start to outsource that bit to AI, even though it can't do it, I think I've
54:15
already lost the bet before I've even started.
54:17
So that's my guardrail.
54:19
Okay. And of course, there's an honest trade-off to flag here as well.
54:24
The Instagram purists will tell you to post natively from the app for maximum reach,
54:30
um, and they're not wrong actually.
54:32
There is genuinely, it seems, a small algorithmic tax, uh, for scheduling via tools.
54:38
But I've got 2 to 3 hours a week, and so that's a tax I'm going to have to pay because
54:43
I'd rather spend my time on something other than sitting there on my phone scheduling
54:49
all of this stuff. Of course, if the experiment shows that the text is killing results,
54:55
I am going to have to adjust somehow.
54:56
But for now, leverage over purity is important.
55:01
And so we will use scheduling tools.
55:05
And one quick connection to last week's podcast, because it's the real strategic reason
55:10
behind all of this.
55:12
Last week I talked about Scout, our sort of AI discoverability work.
55:17
And one of the findings I found genuinely a bit nuts at the time— brand
55:24
search volume, which is the number of people typing your brand name into a search engine,
55:31
is the single strongest predictor of whether AI tools like ChatGPT and Perplexity are
55:37
going to recommend you to their audiences.
55:41
Uh, they're 3 times more predictive than backlinks, which means this whole 90-day experiment
55:47
isn't just a sort of an organic versus ads bet.
55:51
I'm hoping it's the actual manufacturing of some brand search volume around
55:57
what we're doing, you know, because it is building a personal brand and the Instagram
56:03
audience builds that moat.
56:06
Um, And let's see, shall we?
56:09
I mean, last week's episode and this week's, I think, are two sides of the same coin.
56:12
And if you haven't listened to that episode, do go check it out.
56:14
Right. Thank you for bearing with me so far.
56:17
We are almost there.
56:19
Okay. Few other things just to say.
56:21
Uh, I'm gonna put some cards out on the table, the specifics, the actual bit, I suppose,
56:26
because I think if I don't define what success and failure are upfront, Will I be
56:32
tempted at day 90 to retrofit a narrative around whatever happened?
56:38
Hmm. I don't know.
56:40
I don't know if I would or if I wouldn't, but let's not give myself that temptation.
56:44
Okay. So the niche, AI workflows for e-commerce operators under 5 million, tight and
56:51
deliberately so. And not e-commerce in general, not AI in general.
56:56
There's a lot of people doing that, but the intersection bound by an audience revenue
57:00
stage I think is important.
57:02
The platform, Instagram, uh, focused on Reels.
57:06
We will do carousels as well.
57:08
Don't know if I'll get a chance to do stories, but we'll possibly look at this idea of
57:12
just reposting to TikTok and YouTube.
57:15
I'm aware of Callaway's suggestion not to do that.
57:20
Um, whether we do or don't, I don't know, but Instagram, we're going to experiment with
57:23
it. Instagram is going to be the hero.
57:26
This is where we will probably use things like the auto direct message features that
57:32
you get with things like ManyChat, which I'm not going to use.
57:35
We're going to start off using UploadPost.
57:38
Um, so yeah, we'll see how that goes, right?
57:44
Cadence. Like I said, we're going to be— I'm going to build up gradually.
57:48
Um, weeks— for the first few weeks, I'll probably do 1 or 2 reels a week.
57:53
Weeks 3 to 5, maybe 2 to 3 reels a week, and then week 6 onwards, um, I think
58:00
probably 3 or more reels a week.
58:02
Um, and so my target by 90 days is that we'll actually be posting reels daily.
58:08
I may get there sooner, I don't know, but I'm, I'm aware in myself that I need to build
58:14
up rather than start at daily from day 1, uh, because I know me, if I can, if I commit
58:20
to doing daily from day 1, I'll probably burn out by week 3 and hate everybody by week
58:26
4. Um, and then I'm gonna go back to the start-stop thing.
58:30
Uh, and so don't want to do that really.
58:34
Uh, like I said, hours, there's going to be 2 to 3 hours a week, very AI-assisted, full
58:40
stop, uh, not AI done.
58:44
If it's taking more than that, something's broken in the system and I'm going to need
58:47
to fix the system, not just push through.
58:50
Uh, for content, I'm going to use the 70/30 rule.
58:54
Now, this is where 70% of the content is on the topic, basically
59:01
AI workflows for e-commerce operators, and 30% will be on me as
59:07
founder context, like what we're running, what we're building, what's working, what's
59:12
failing, and avoiding the kind of sprawl that kills this algorithmic signal.
59:18
That I mentioned. Phasing.
59:21
Let's talk about phasing.
59:23
Month 1 is organic Instagram only.
59:26
From month 2, if all goes according to plan, I will add paid Meta
59:33
ads alongside, um, using a framework which
59:39
I've not decided on yet.
59:40
We're going to figure out the methodology.
59:42
Uh, and in the next episode, I'm hoping I'll be able to introduce to you not only the
59:48
sort of day 30 Instagram report, but also what we're going to be doing in the ads.
59:54
So at 90 days, we'll have 30 days, um, at 90 days,
1:00:00
we'll have 90 days of pure Instagram data plus 60 days of the ads data.
1:00:06
It's not a perfect parallel A/B split.
1:00:09
I appreciate that. Um, but I have got constraints on time.
1:00:13
Hopefully it's going to give me at least some data to make some kind of call on it, whether
1:00:18
that's go one way or the other or extend the experiment.
1:00:21
I don't know, but I do want to test both alongside each other and see what the outcome
1:00:27
is. So that's the input side.
1:00:29
What about the output side?
1:00:31
What does success actually look like?
1:00:36
Well, success— obviously Davey was wrong.
1:00:39
This actually was worth my time.
1:00:42
So number 1, the headline metric is going to be Slingshot signups attributable to
1:00:49
Instagram. So realistically, I think there'll probably be 20+ maybe paying signups
1:00:55
in 90 days at a stretch.
1:00:59
If there's 50+ signups, great.
1:01:03
Um, and they have to be what the same hours plus budget on paid
1:01:10
Meta ads would have produced.
1:01:11
That's the track.
1:01:12
That's the the, not the track, the experiment.
1:01:16
Um, and I will track both.
1:01:18
Let's get my words mixed up.
1:01:20
And obviously, I'll give you the data.
1:01:21
Uh, it's not a problem.
1:01:22
So number 2, uh, quality of audience signal.
1:01:26
So Slingshot specifically, this is important.
1:01:29
Again, it matters in e-commerce, doesn't it?
1:01:31
Because Slingshot specifically is for e-commerce operators under $5 million.
1:01:35
So success is the right signup, people who fit the ICP engage
1:01:42
with the content, stick past month 1.
1:01:45
Vanity signups that churn in 30 days don't count.
1:01:48
Not that I've had anyone churn on Slingshot within 30 days, and I definitely don't want
1:01:53
to do that. And if we start getting a lot of churn, then I know I've missed it.
1:01:56
I've not attracted the right audience.
1:01:58
And then number 3, secondary outcomes from the right audience will be something I'm also
1:02:04
keen to track, right?
1:02:05
For example, how many e-commerce podcast guest bookings do we get from AI curious
1:02:12
ecommerce founders that have connected to us via Instagram.
1:02:16
Um, we also obviously are looking for founder partnership deals and acquisitions and
1:02:21
equity, uh, deals and so on and so forth in ecommerce.
1:02:24
That's one of the things that we do.
1:02:26
So how many of those leads, uh, are coming in?
1:02:29
Measurable— what I would call Orion leads.
1:02:32
Orion's the name of our main company, in case you don't know.
1:02:35
So measurable Orion leads in the sort of our inbound that makes Instagram make sense
1:02:40
as a source would be interesting.
1:02:42
Okay. So number 4, by day 90, we come out with a working AI
1:02:49
for e-com on Instagram playbook.
1:02:52
Now we have started with a very detailed playbook.
1:02:55
I'm going to be refining that, if I'm honest with you, over the next 90 days.
1:02:59
Uh, and I can take that then into phase 2, which is our e-commerce brand channels.
1:03:04
So what we learn over these 90 days, we can extend out into the brand channels of our
1:03:08
e-commerce businesses and we can roll out the AI we've developed and so on and so forth.
1:03:14
Even in— I think we'll do that even if direct signups are modest, because I think a proven
1:03:20
playbook will compound across all of our brands for years to come.
1:03:25
So let me get— there's a lot of learning, a lot of value in me doing this, and I appreciate
1:03:30
that. Number 5, obviously, let's talk about follower targets because Why not?
1:03:36
I think maybe gaining 2,000 to 3,000 followers is realistic.
1:03:41
7,000 to 10,000 would be a stretch.
1:03:44
But as I have said, this is the least important metric, as the 40,000
1:03:50
Twitter followers reminds me.
1:03:52
Follower count isn't the bet.
1:03:55
It'll just be one of those numbers that we measure.
1:03:58
The 6th thing, um, and then how do I measure this?
1:04:01
There's going to be an interesting question, but I need to have enjoyed the whole thing.
1:04:06
And I want to have learned something really valuable and something which is teachable
1:04:11
and something which helps our team.
1:04:13
Okay, because if I burned out on it, if I hated it, then I— and
1:04:19
the playbook isn't repeatable, then I'm not really that— I've just not been that good,
1:04:24
really. So that's what success looks like for me.
1:04:27
Failure: Davey was right.
1:04:29
And this was in fact a waste of time.
1:04:32
So slingshot signups from Instagram are non-existent, the same hours on paid meta ads
1:04:38
would have pronounced— pronounced— would have produced— pronounced— what did I— don't
1:04:43
know— would have produced significantly more for the same cost.
1:04:47
I didn't enjoy it. I didn't learn anything.
1:04:50
I didn't learn anything I couldn't have learned cheaper elsewhere.
1:04:53
Maybe, maybe the team needs me and I was sat there editing reels, or
1:05:01
if that's where we land, David was writing.
1:05:02
So I won't be— I won't— what, will I be happy?
1:05:06
I don't know. At least we figured it out, right?
1:05:08
Uh, I'll tell you on day 90.
1:05:11
Um, and one more honest thing, um, I've watched how creators can get obsessed with metrics.
1:05:17
If you are doing this, if you're following on and doing this on yourself, view counts
1:05:22
up, you feel good. If it's down, you feel terrible.
1:05:24
Your whole life becomes about stats.
1:05:27
And it's interesting to me how many full-time creators end up living with
1:05:33
quite significant levels of depression because of it.
1:05:39
The benefit for me is I'm not chasing a full-time creator income.
1:05:42
I'm not relying on this.
1:05:44
Um, I can take what works from the methodology and leave behind, hopefully, the obsessive-compulsive
1:05:50
disorder where numbers are concerned.
1:05:53
If you see me doing that, just tap me on the shoulder and go, Matt, put the numbers down,
1:05:57
dude. Your health, your mental health is more important.
1:06:00
So I'd love to know where you are on this whole thing, by the way.
1:06:04
Um, are you convinced a personal brand, uh, is worth it for founders like us?
1:06:10
Are you fully on board with this idea?
1:06:12
Are you going to commit to this yourself?
1:06:13
Or you're skeptical, which is also fine.
1:06:16
Um, maybe you're even just skeptical it's going to work for our kind of businesses, sitting
1:06:22
more in the Davey Fogarty camp.
1:06:24
Um, maybe you've tried it before, I don't know.
1:06:26
Or maybe you're somewhere in the messy middle, um, a bit like me really, kind of half
1:06:30
curious, half suspicious.
1:06:32
Um, this is my general pose in life, uh, but I am willing to be persuaded by evidence.
1:06:39
So again, tell me in the comments, reach out to me on social media, let me know.
1:06:43
Um, because that's helpful, that's hopefully, hopefully, but not just hopefully, it will
1:06:49
actually dictate the kind of content we put in the next episode.
1:06:55
Thank you for bearing with me. I hope this sparks some ideas for those of you who are
1:06:59
wrestling with this question, because I know it's not just me.
1:07:04
And to help, we of course have a freebie.
1:07:07
We've put something together called the Founders 90-Day Instagram Lab Kit because we
1:07:11
needed a really complicated name for it.
1:07:14
And I really need to think about names for these things.
1:07:18
I did not until I say it out loud on this show that I realized how crazy some of these
1:07:22
things are. Anyway, it's everything that I've just talked about packaged up in a way
1:07:26
you can actually use this week.
1:07:29
Full disclosure, I've not tested it yet.
1:07:32
I know from our frameworks and what we've done with clients what works.
1:07:35
Does it work for me? I don't know.
1:07:36
This is a bit we're going to find out, right?
1:07:38
It's got 3 bits in it.
1:07:40
It's got the 5 Million Decisions Sheet.
1:07:43
Again, that's not easy to say, which walks you through whether you should specifically
1:07:49
build a personal brand right now, given your revenue stage, your hours, your paid ads
1:07:54
maturity, and your founder-as-talent fit.
1:07:58
So that's hopefully going to help you make the right decision rather than
1:08:04
just guess. Okay, it's got the T-Towel test worksheet.
1:08:09
The T-Towel Test, the 3 Ts, um, which is the variable testing framework.
1:08:14
So what to test, how to log it, how to read the engagement signals without becoming obsessed
1:08:20
by them. And of course, it's also got what I call the Founder Content Scorecard.
1:08:26
So 10 yes or no questions you can run any social media advice video through to
1:08:33
figure out before whether you implement it or whether the advice actually does apply
1:08:38
to e-commerce founders like us, or whether it is this sort of creator economy noise
1:08:45
that you should sideline.
1:08:46
Um, I do this a lot actually.
1:08:48
I, um, Magpie is great.
1:08:51
We've, we've got Magpie really dialed in.
1:08:53
I can put in there a link to a specific video that has come up, you know, like how to
1:08:57
do this on social media.
1:08:59
I put it into Magpie, Magpie goes away, analyzes the video, understands it, researches
1:09:05
it, figures out if it's true or not, understands because it's got my business context
1:09:10
whether it's going to work for me.
1:09:11
If it is, how I could apply it.
1:09:14
I love that. Now you will find the link in the show notes or the description if you're
1:09:20
on YouTube, or just head over to the website ecommercepodcast.net and click the resources
1:09:26
link if you want to get a hold of that freebie.
1:09:30
Um, as I said, we will be updating the playbook and stuff, uh, as we go through.
1:09:36
Um, and so that workbook may well get updated as we go through.
1:09:41
Um, but it's a pretty good solid workplace, uh, start place.
1:09:45
If you want to take the challenge up yourself and follow along with me, um, and you know,
1:09:49
just give yourself a bit of a social media challenge for the next 90 days, why not join
1:09:53
in, right? Now for those who want to go deeper, Um, the Lab Kit
1:09:59
is the sort of the 80/20, the public version.
1:10:03
The comprehensive playbook, um, that I've mentioned that I will be updating, uh, and
1:10:09
that I'm actually running this whole experiment from, sits inside our Slingshot membership
1:10:15
alongside the AI tooling that really makes 2 to 3 hours a week, uh, actually
1:10:22
possible. So like I say, SAM, Magpie, Prism, Scout.
1:10:26
Um, if you want to know more, head to ecommercepodcast.net and click the Slingshot link.
1:10:31
Um, if you want to find out more about that, I'm not here to pitch you on it any harder
1:10:37
than that, but I did want you to know that exists and that all will exist inside SAM.
1:10:41
So if you're already a member, you can go and check that out.
1:10:45
And while we're talking about community, check out Cohort if you'd like to come and join
1:10:50
us. It's a free community to join.
1:10:52
There's definitely no strings attached, uh, and we all just help each other grow, uh,
1:10:59
in e-commerce. And it's great. Honestly, it's one of the most useful, uh, little corners
1:11:03
of the internet. Um, I really enjoy it.
1:11:06
Uh, and it's great for people running businesses like ours.
1:11:10
We'd love genuinely to have you in it.
1:11:13
Uh, no strings attached. And of course, love to know your thoughts on this and whether
1:11:17
you think Davey or Daniel was right.
1:11:20
It's interesting they both start with D. Anyway, and whether you're up for your own 90-day
1:11:24
challenge and experiment with me.
1:11:25
So do reach out to me on social media.
1:11:28
If you've got this far, please come follow me on Instagram @MattEdmondson, because that's
1:11:34
the channel I'm trying to build.
1:11:37
Uh, come give me some love, uh, some Instagram love.
1:11:40
Uh, you'll definitely get bonus points if you do it on Instagram because that's part
1:11:44
of the experiment. In fact, probably what I could do I don't know if I should do this,
1:11:49
but if you've made it this far, not only are you a legend, um, I think last week we did
1:11:54
this thing where if you joined the waitlist for Slingshot, you got 25% off.
1:11:59
Um, that expires this Thursday.
1:12:03
Um, so if you message me, direct message me on Instagram as a result of getting this
1:12:09
far and listening to the podcast, I'll send you the 25% even though it's expired.
1:12:14
Don't tell everyone, uh, but just message me and I'll send you a special code.
1:12:19
Um, yes, I will, absolutely.
1:12:21
Uh, I'm doing whatever I can to grow my Instagram channel, boys and girls.
1:12:25
Anyway, thank you so much for sticking with me.
1:12:28
I appreciate these last two episodes have been a bit meaty, um, and a bit, a bit longer
1:12:33
than usual, but I really want to deep dive on this because I know it's a problem that
1:12:38
quite so many— actually, quite a few people reached out to me like the day or the first
1:12:44
2 days the last episode came out, because I'm recording this one— what day is it today?
1:12:49
It's Monday, it comes out on Thursday.
1:12:51
Um, and so in the last 3 days, the amount of people that reached out to me, um, saying
1:12:55
they got some real value out of the last one was great actually.
1:12:57
So thank you for those comments.
1:13:00
Um, I think these are some things that we're going to have to start doing and start doing—
1:13:03
be better at. So I hope you've enjoyed these sort of slightly deeper dives into some
1:13:09
of these things. I appreciate they're a bit meaty.
1:13:11
Um, but I do thank you for sticking with me, and hopefully they're helpful.
1:13:14
So that's it from me.
1:13:16
Have a wonderful week wherever you are in the world.
1:13:18
I'll see you in the next one.
1:13:28
Bye for now.