Invest or die

The world is in turmoil.

Second Saturday writing from the shelter.

Everything might change with this new world order.

Formula 1 season is starting, and already the war might see two races cancelled.

How is this impacting you, if at all?

Let me know what you think.

In today’s Storyletter:

And the one thing no one will care about is whether you have more features.
They will only care if they can remember you.

And that, my friends, comes down to one thing: your brand.

As if tech and business weren’t hard enough already, the AI age means products that looked unbeatable just a few months ago don’t even get mentioned today.

It’s a dog-eat-dog world out there.

You must start investing more in your brand.

And no, I’m not talking about your visual identity. I’m talking about resilience.

What do you stand for?
How do you react when things don’t go as planned?
Why should your team care?

Creating content that matters.
Sharing more on social media.
Meeting the right clients.

Your brand needs to be strong, and it needs to mingle.

You want to be known for something.

So decide what it is and go tell the world you’re there.

I’m meeting more and more companies that are seeing growth slow down, yet their marketing budgets are smaller than my ad testing budget.

Brands that are willing to lose good leads because they are not training their sales teams to become better brand ambassadors. Instead, they allow them to keep complaining about bad leads.

If your brand is curious, it has to show in everything you do.

If you care about the client, it has to show every step of the way.

Look at your marketing budget.

If it’s zero, start investing.
If you have some, invest more.

But be intentional about what you say, to whom you say it, and how you measure success for every dollar spent.

Build a brand budget.

Think of it as a “show up” budget for the first few months. Let people know you exist.

My personal example: I built a QA platform to answer questions about business storytelling.

That’s a time and budget investment.

But it will bring SEO, better YouTube exposure, and brand recognition in a market where I had nothing just 30 days ago.

Branding is about building reputation.

And reputation takes time and money.

You want people to remember you?
Give them a reason.

The companies that fail to build their brand will be the ones left behind in the next 24 months.

Need help? Hit reply with a question.
Happy to answer if I can.

The most interesting hour this week happened in the shelter.

I was on a call with a U.S.-based company showing them what’s possible today with AI tools.

During the call, they mentioned an AI course they’re taking to expand their knowledge. I was intrigued, only to learn they are learning but not implementing.

So we spent the hour going through my toolbox.

Collecting Q&A from across the web using Gemini Pro.
Recording high-quality videos using OBS, Opus Clip, and ValueBot. Some edits are done with Riverside AI.
Design work using Canva and Nano Banana 2, which just launched last week.
Building landing pages with Lovable and creating SEO content using Toffu.ai.

The goal isn’t replacing people.

The goal is multiplying output.

Creating more content.
Testing more ideas.
Updating faster.
Measuring better.

We’ve been working with this client for a while, so showing them behind the scenes of everything I’m doing was fun and rewarding.

Over the past few weeks we’ve created multiple landing pages, a new website, redesigned the brand look and feel, and produced new content, guides, and social media carousels. The options are endless.

Instead of adding headcount, we’re building systems that allow the team to create and execute far more than before.

One tool I’m enjoying a lot right now is Wispr. It’s been incredibly helpful for capturing ideas through voice instead of typing.

👉 https://wisprflow.ai/r?NIR107

Spending more time in the shelter also meant more time building.

I finished a few new projects on Lovable and launched my Hebrew website.

Honestly, I’m having a lot of fun with this. The speed at which things can be built today is crazy.

What are you working on right now?

Every week, I collect things I enjoy online. This is my curated top three: playlists to work with, trailers, videos, or just fun stuff.

🎧 Music
This week’s Storyletter was written while listening to Declaration of Dependence by Kings of Convenience
👉 🎧 Listen

🧜 Do you believe in mermaids?
I really enjoyed this trailer and, between you and me… I hope mermaids exist
👉 🧜 Watch

🎬 Silicon Valley meets Succession
This April, a new show about money, tech, and crazy people
👉 🎬 View