Paid Ads & Media Buying
The biggest ad-strategy push of the week was a deep dive on avatar research. His most-discussed original in this lane — a 7-part thread breaking down how to find avatars that scale to $100K/day — argued that most ecom operators confuse demographics for avatars and rely on AI, producing generic targets. He pushed for method-acting the customer: digging into pain points, using their exact words, and turning objections into hooks [1]. On the diagnostic side, he tackled the 'spend winner' problem — ads that pull spend but don't convert. The usual culprit is creative targeting pulling the wrong fish, like a sock ad that accidentally looked like it was selling Nike shoes. The fix is calling out the avatar explicitly in the hook while keeping what made the ad pop. If you're under $100k/month, he says don't bother with landing-page CRO yet — just focus on the ad [2]. He resurfaced his own Sept 8 'Hook Trap' essay to reinforce the point: high hook rates are meaningless if they reel in the wrong audience. Winning hooks need emotion, curiosity gap, and high stakes, all tied to the product's solution [2]. Community validation came through retweets of his own content, amplifying the $115K/day scaling post (9.7k views) which credited 'boring' deep avatar research over hacks for the breakthrough [3][4].
Avatar Research & Method Acting: He broke down why demographics aren't avatars and pushed for deep customer intel over AI-generated generic profiles. The thread covered finding real customer language, matching words to problems, and turning objections into hooks [1].
Diagnosing the 'Spend Winner': When ads get spend but don't convert, he says the issue is usually creative targeting pulling the wrong audience, or a landing page incongruent with the ad's awareness stage. He recommended Ad-Based CRO — matching the exact angle — as the unlock for 4x spend at KPI [2].
Community & Coaching
The week's community focus was the Kuala Lumpur meetup with Steve Tan. He announced the event, pushed ticket sales hard as 50% sold in 48 hours, and engaged with attendees — bantering about Singaporeans not wanting to travel an hour to KL and shouting out the Origins community [5][6]. He retweeted the announcement (5.7k views) and Steve's promotion of it [7][8]. He amplified Evolve student wins aggressively. A retweet of a $115k/day scaling milestone (9.7k views) credited deep avatar research and the 'boring stuff' as the driver [3]. Another retweet highlighted an Evolve member going from $20k/day to $3M+/month, using it to pitch Evolve as the unlock for sustaining that scale [9]. He clarified Evolve's entry point explicitly: it's for dudes at $100k+/month, not beginners [10][11]. He also praised the Skale.guru launch by peers as a 'no brainer offer' [12].
Ecom Strategy & Economics
The standout strategic post was the preorders-as-scarcity playbook, which pulled 24k views and 252 likes. He argued that out-of-stock situations are genuine scarcity, not a crisis, and should be reframed as exclusive access. The playbook: position preorders as 'so popular we can't keep up,' use a widget showing ship dates and preorder counts, and protect the backend with clear terms and Disputifier [13][14]. On scaling economics, he spotlighted an Evolve member who scaled from $600k/month to $3M+/month by hiring A+ talent instead of cheap hands. Cheap hires optimize for output, not outcomes, and need micromanaging. Paying top dollar for self-directed people is what lets a founder divert focus to new angles, SKUs, and channels like Google [10]. When asked about refund risk on 21-day preorders, he kept it simple: constant communication and upfront framing keep refunds low [13].
Founder Journey & Personal Story
He leaned into the 'regular kid who figured it out' narrative through the KL meetup promotion, repeatedly citing the journey from a $5 Upwork gig to 9 figs in ecom as the core story for his live interview with Steve Tan [7][5]. On mindset, he agreed with Sean Frank's take that you just need to build something undeniable, and echoed Jon Brosio's point that 'ready is a myth' — make the decision before you feel ready [15][16]. He also pushed back on the fear of others' opinions, saying he 'wouldn't be where I am today if I did' [17]. He credited mentors like Shackelford and Shane Rostad as 'goats' for popularizing the preorder scarcity tactic he teaches [13].
other
Mostly quick reactions and banter: laughing at Sean Frank's Meta ad dumpster fire meme [18], hyping up students hitting milestones [19][20][21], commenting on a pizza debate [22], and reacting to an Uber driver's hustle [23]. He also bantered about Steve Tan wearing Crocs and Singaporeans not traveling to KL [5].
Also this week
Product & Offer Development (~8%): He reinforced the 'must be different' mandate indirectly through his avatar research thread, emphasizing that using the same AI-generated avatar as everyone else leads to generic ads [1]. When a student credited the 'mechanism part' in Evolve for their $10k/day breakthrough, he acknowledged it [24]. He praised a peer's 7-figure brand for breaking out of a $300K plateau, noting the 'big moat but massive TAM' as a key factor [25].
Team Building & Hiring (~5%): His strongest hiring stance came through the Evolve scaling case study: hire A+ talent, not cheap hands. He argued that three junior strategists instead of one senior is 'optimizing for output, not outcomes' and that cheap hires need you on top of them 24/7 [10]. Paying top dollar for people who don't need micromanaging is what lets a founder keep quality up while scaling to $3M+/month [10].
Top conversations
1 replies · 143 viewsHe ran a 7-part thread arguing that most ecom bros confuse demographics for avatars and rely on AI, producing generic targets. He pushed for method-acting the customer — digging into pain points, using their exact words, and turning objections into hooks. [1]
1 replies · 282 viewsHe diagnosed the 'spend winner' problem — ads that pull spend but don't convert. The usual culprit is creative targeting pulling the wrong fish, like a sock ad that accidentally looked like it was selling Nike shoes. The fix is calling out the avatar explicitly in the hook while keeping what made the ad pop. [2]
0 replies · 233 viewsHe shared the preorders-as-scarcity playbook, arguing that out-of-stock situations are genuine scarcity, not a crisis. The fix: reframe preorders as exclusive access, use a widget showing ship dates and preorder counts, and protect the backend with clear terms and Disputifier. He said it held conversion rates and sometimes improved them. [13]
1 replies · 78 viewsHe spotlighted an Evolve member who scaled from $600k/month to $3M+/month by hiring A+ talent instead of cheap hands. Cheap hires optimize for output, not outcomes, and need micromanaging. Paying top dollar for self-directed people is what let the founder divert focus to new angles, SKUs, and channels like Google. [10]
Retweets
249 viewsRetweeted @heystevetan's announcement of the Kuala Lumpur meetup with @shauneng, framing it as a live interview on his path from a $5 Upwork gig to 9 figs in ecom. [8]
Calls
- N/AEcom inventory / preordersQ4 stock issues are coming for everyone; if you scale too hard, something will break. Use the preorders-as-scarcity playbook to profit rather than panic. [13]
- N/AEcom ad strategyIf you're under $100k/month, don't bother with landing-page CRO; just focus on the ad. [2]
- N/AEvolve communityEvolve is for brands at $100k+/month, not beginners starting from zero. [10]
