Patrick Tedjamulia

“Hey Drew, I can’t keep up with all the AI stuff; it’s just overwhelming,” shared a CMO at a $450mil tech company. The other Huddlers were relieved to hear they weren’t alone. A fascinating discussion ensued as these CMOs shared what they know, what they don’t, and how they’re sorting through the myriad of options. Here are some of their questions and an aggregation of the best answers. How are B2B CMOs using GenAI right now? Most CMOs admit they are still in the early days of GenAI adoption. Most don’t have a GenAI strategy. Most are creating content more efficiently. For example, those creating podcasts are doing so 5-10x faster by recording, editing, and publishing with just one person using Descript. How do we get beyond the “go play” and “dabbling” stage? Strategy before tools. This means identifying the problems you want to solve, which, when solved, would have the most significant impact on the business. For example, you may need to translate and route hundreds of digital ads into fifty different languages multiple times per year for multiple ad platforms. That’s a lot of variations and the perfect labor-intensive task at which GenAI excels. Benchmark your time sucks. Ideally, your team will be able to benchmark the current workflows for the most time-consuming projects. Some of these projects can be streamlined easily with one or more existing tools (like the podcast example). Focus on a few of these initially to record some quick wins. Isolate the big wins: Others may require more complex solutions with API integrations – stuff that you used to have to get IT help with but can now solve with the guidance of AI. You’ll want to create a matrix (potential value, time to solution, complexity of solution) to help shape your priorities. Training before licenses. Getting licenses for everyone on your team sounds like a great idea until you realize adoption is not universal. Giving them the tool alone does not improve productivity. Training your team together with some specific usage expectations will move things forward. Then, gather monthly to share problems solved and unsolved. Given the speed at which these tools evolve, expect to do training 2-3x per year. (Ping me for a list of trainers). How important is it that CMOs use these tools themselves? It’s imperative. First, every leader should have a folder on their phone's home page with at least 3 LLMs (I have the paid versions of ChatGPT and Claude and the free version of Perplexity). There’s no reason you shouldn’t use these tools multiple times a day to prepare for meetings, think through your ideas, and investigate something personal. Learn the basics of prompting. Better yet, become a master prompter. Jeff Morgan, CMO of Elements, uses this prompt engineering framework: S = Specifications P = Process     A = Authenticity R = Rules & Regulation K = KPIs See comments for the link to the CMO Huddles Studio episode in which Jeff details SPARK. How are you keeping up?

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AI is completely transforming how we work, but one of the biggest challenges I hear from other CMOs and business leaders is connecting different tools and solutions. I’m super excited about the launch of Gemini Enterprise, which brings all your company's data, tools, and people together in one secure place. Gemini Enterprise is bringing the full power of Google AI to everyone at work. Especially at big companies like ours, AI has incredible power to help us find information across internal documents, unlock new insights from our data, and deploy helpful agents that understand the context of our work and can help us get things done more efficiently. These tools are already saving thousands of hours on our team, and the boost to productivity and collaboration is helping unlock epic new ideas, move at the speed of culture, and drive real results. This is just the beginning, and I’m so excited to see what new campaigns are born with these new tools! 🪄 Congrats to Thomas Kurian, Alison Wagonfeld and the team on the amazing launch. Read more about what we announced → https://lnkd.in/gqiY-USZ

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Two media companies can have the same revenue and the same margins, and one will be worth three times the other. The difference is not in the stuff that shows up on the P&L. Owned audience vs. rented audience. Revenue quality. How deep the attention goes. Whether the business survives losing any single thing it depends on. I wrote an extensive piece on understanding all of this, whether you're running, looking to start, or looking to acquire a media brand. Link in the comments.

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The great paid ads pullback of 2026 is here. We surveyed 50 mid-market B2B marketing leaders with Wynter. The data is violent. 72% are actively slashing budgets for paid ads, content syndication, or agencies. This isn't a "hot take." It is a capital flight happening in real time. Where the money is leaving: • 46% cutting paid ads • 40% cutting content syndication • 30% dropping agencies One CMO didn't sugarcoat it: "We're canceling contracts where we can." A marketing director explained why: "Lack of qualified leads, Google and all our typical funnels are bringing in trash." So where is the money going? 1. Events 46% are increasing investment in physical presence. Not webinars but handshakes. One senior director told us: "2025 showed us a clear demand for in-person... we are increasing spend to have a larger presence." 2. Partnerships 44% are moving budget here. The logic is simple: Borrow trust instead of buying impressions. One CMO explained: "Brand visibility through sponsoring influencers... scaling programs that provide solid ROI." 3. AI 62% are investing more in AI/Automation. But not for "innovation" but for survival. One CMO admitted the quiet part: "The expectation from our investment firm is that no one should be adding people because AI is gonna deliver that extra capacity." The takeaway: Leaders are abandoning rented audiences and returning to owned relationships. Paid ads got too expensive. Syndication leads never convert. The only things working are the things you can't fake: real events and trusted partners. This is marketers following the ROI. P.S. If you need to know how your buyers are actually allocating budget, Wynter can get you answers in 48 hours.

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Right now, acquirers are studying your market. They're mapping every player in your category. And most have no idea it's happening: I learned this firsthand while building Bleacher Report. While we were heads down building... Media giants analyzed every move we made. They tracked our digital signals: Search rankings, social engagement, and content velocity. This invisible scorecard determined everything. At Bleacher Report, we saw an opening others missed. ESPN focused on professional journalists. We planted our flag in fan-driven content instead. Everyone said we were crazy. That decision was worth $200 million. We didn't just pick a different lane - we created one. By 2012, we had tens of millions of monthly users choosing our fan perspectives over polished ESPN articles. Here's the framework for owning your category: 1. Map competitor positions using actual data 2. Find gaps where nobody's planted a flag 3. Align that gap with growing demand 4. Commit fully without hedging 5. Defend your position Most founders skip steps 1 and 2 entirely. The biggest mistake: trying to be everything to everyone. Winners pick one lane and dominate it completely. Acquirers pay massive premiums for clear category leaders. After Bleacher Report, I repeated this at Inverse. Found another unclaimed category: science meets pop culture. Within 2 years: 30+ million monthly unique visitors. Plant your flag before others notice the opportunity. Acquirers are currently mapping your category. If you're not deliberately positioning yourself, you're already losing. I spent years deconstructing what made our category positioning work. Now I help founders claim their categories before competitors wake up to the opportunity.

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gtm isn’t evolving. it’s being obliterated. ai is gutting the old playbook. most teams don’t even realize they’re already falling behind. after 300+ convos with founders, execs, and cros in the past year, here are 5 brutal predictions for what’s coming in 2025: 1. distribution > product. the idea that “great products sell themselves” is dead. if no one knows you exist in 2025, your toast. the best products will lose to teams that master audience building, founder-led content, and multi-channel reach. think how your brand becomes a media company > saas company. (p.s. then you're not wasting runway on ads—social impressions are free, you’ve just gotta put in the sweat equity) 2. community is your life line. buyers are jaded by broken promises and products that don’t work. distrust is the default. your only shot? presell them before they talk to you. a strong brand community builds trust and turns fans into buyers. no founder-led motion? you’re behind. 3. the rise of self serve will raise the bs bar. ai is wrecking the status quo. buyers hated “talk to sales” even before ai. gated content? over. basic rep discovery? over. ai agents will deliver vendor details faster and cleaner. teams that share the right info at the right time will win. sales reps? you better know your product cold. templated order taking in b2b? 100% dead. 4. signal based selling is the new spam. “i see we both have dog **** on our shoes… want a demo?” personalization for the sake of it is pointless. 100 other teams are sending the same “custom” emails. it’s ai-enabled noise. lazy outbound hiding behind expensive tools. cold is still cold. smart teams use signal selling with founder-led branding because prospects are way easier to close when they’ve already seen your linkedin posts. 5. founder-led gtm is reigning supreme. clay crew will say their 50k/month setup is worth it because “bro, look at the response rate” (zero meetings) but the teams i work with know this: nothing beats a founder reaching out. it’s personal. having your rep in your own account 2x’s reply rates. linkedin posts generate demand. views, likes, comments, connects this is where the gold is. smart teams focus 20% of prospecting on those engaging. (clay squad, this is where your energy should go) you’re selling to people who already know your brand. new model: execs create content. reps convert attention into pipeline. - it’s easy to feel scared in 2025 with all the fear mongering. but with the right approach and experimenting… as my old sales leader used to say with a dry monday morning smile: “there be gold in them hills.” - P.S why is this lowercase... because I'm so utterly sick of the polished homogeneity of pretty posts. the real ones will read it. get some value? follow me (Luke Shalom) for daily posts like this.

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Is AI taking over marketing? 🤯 In this episode, we sit down with David Jones, Founder & CEO of The Brand Tech Group, to explore how AI is disrupting marketing, branding, and advertising like never before. 🚀 David has been a pioneer in AI-driven marketing, working with global brands to leverage generative AI, automation, and tech innovation. But what does this mean for marketers, agencies, and businesses? Will AI replace creativity, or is it the ultimate game-changer? 🔥 Topics we cover: ✅ How AI is transforming marketing & advertising ✅ Why brands MUST adapt to AI now ✅ The role of AI in brand building ✅ Will AI replace human creativity? ✅ The future of marketing in 2030 Tune into the podcast here: YouTube 👉🔗 https://lnkd.in/eMqD8fWW Spotify👉🔗 https://lnkd.in/ekW-nVDV iTunes 👉🔗 https://lnkd.in/e_ndmyuk The Places We'll Go Show is sponsored by StudioSpace and Marketing Skills Trust 👀 Don’t get left behind! Watch now to learn how AI is reshaping marketing, and what YOU need to do to stay ahead. #AIinMarketing #DavidJones #BrandTech #MarketingAI #FutureOfAdvertising #GenerativeAI #AIvsHumans #MarketingTrends #DigitalMarketing #Entrepreneurship #AIHacks.

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Most AI workflows overpromise & undersell. But one of my favorites has (actually) driven hundreds of thousands in incremental revenue. The CEO of Zapier—who’s the homie—shared it with me, and I’ve been hooked ever since. Think of it as an AI SDR, who qualifies, organizes, and engages sales leads. Here are all of the steps my sales sidekick takes: 1) Extracts the name, email, company, role, and website for any lead that fills out a sales form on our website 2) Researches the lead online to gather the following info: - Company website & recent news - Linkedin profile and background - Company size, industry, and estimated funding/revenue/growth indicators - Specific pain points related to my company’s service 3) Compares lead info against ideal ICP criteria I’ve set: - US-based company - VP-level & up  - Revenue: $10m-$500m annually  - Company size: >50 employees 4) Scores the lead as “Great Fit,” “Possible Fit,” or “Poor Fit” based on ICP comparison 5) Adds a new record to our CRM with the following details: - Contact details (name, email, company, role) - Research findings (company size, revenue, industry) - ICP fit score - Date submitted 6) Conditional logic based on Lead Fit IF lead is “Great Fit” Draft a personalized email in Gmail incorporating: - Their specific company challenges identified in research - Relevant case studies from similar companies - Clear next steps for a discovery call IF lead is “Possible Fit” Send direct message in Slack to me with:  - A summary of lead and research findings - Reasons for uncertainty regarding ICP fit - A recommendation with supporting data - The question: “Should I draft a response email for this lead?” IF response is “yes”: follow great fit action  IF response is “no”: no response Update CRM for this lead based on action taken in Step 6. Let me know if you have any questions—and if you take it for a spin—let me know what you think. #ZapierPartner

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The irony of a must-have product. (And why it matters). I had a delightful conversation with Yosef Peterseil from Blings. In the conversation (and this clip) I mentioned that when an industry/vertical starts deploying a new tech solution, once it passes the 30% deployment rate, the tool/platform/solution essentially becomes a MUST HAVE. When the 'must-have' status is solidified, that same product sees immense growth in desirability, demand, and ARR. But there is an irony to that, an irony that we could all benefit from. Let's use Gong (or any Gong competitor), for example: Let's say that the Payments/Fintech sector is seeing several companies deploying Gong into their revenue teams. Initially, these companies gain a competitive advantage over their competitors. They have a more advanced revenue operation, and it shows! Then, the market catches on, and once they do, the threshold bar grows with it. Gong benefits from that. They make more money. But capitalism is being played. Now, Gong needs to add more layers, upsells, and solutions to give their premium clients that competitive advantage again! If they don't do it, someone else will. And so on and so on. As an entrepreneur/marketer, you should always be aware of the current deployment level of a product or tool at any given time. That is more important than the product or tool itself, as the primary purpose of the tool is to gain a competitive advantage.

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I often see marketing leaders respond with insufficient urgency to creative performance degradation. I view any meaningful drop in creative performance as an all-hands-on-deck emergency that needs to be addressed aggressively. A few years ago, in one of the most popular posts on Mobile Dev Memo, I proposed the idea of a "creative performance half-life": the point after which creative performance degrades precipitously because of saturation. That half-life is essentially a replacement timeline. If the creative production process requires two weeks from concept to deliverable into testing, then any significant decline in creative performance means that the creative production process either malfunctioned or became misaligned with market conditions *two weeks ago*. That's a catastrophe. The team should respond accordingly by dramatically increasing production output. This is why I advocate for working with a large number of agencies and freelancers, since their output can be flexibly scaled at a moment's notice. But the broader point is that a considerable drop in creative performance reveals a process problem in the past that will have accumulated over the half-life of the advertiser's creatives. Fixing it now requires a deliberate expansion of creative output and diversity.

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The number one business resource for pickleball club owners has been updated for 2025! Ask Google Ask ChatGPT Ask Perplexity They will point you to the PodPlay Technologies Guide to Starting Your Pickleball Business because it is packed with real insights on how to run a profitable pickleball club based on our experience running sports venues, our daily conversations with current and aspiring pickleball club owners, and building the tech stack for the pickleball club of the future. So you can benefit from the best business logic, resources, and tools emerging in the fast growing pickleball market. We added new learnings to key topics to help you: ➡ Identify your target customer ➡ Determine how big your pickleball club should be ➡ Select the right business model ➡ Evaluate membership models for your pickleball club ➡ Decide whether to offer peak and off-peak hours ➡ Choose the most profitable pricing model ➡ Develop a mix of programming to offer at your pickleball club ➡ Differentiate your pickleball business from competitors And covered new topics this year: ➡ Finding the right location for your pickleball facility ➡ Player development pathways ➡ Running a profitable pickleball club ➡ Marketing strategies to grow your pickleball club Are you starting a pickleball business? PodPlay Technologies can help. Many thanks to the industry experts at Johns Design & Consulting and StackEleven Marketing for their contributions to this year’s guide. And to the clients we serve and learn from - together we are building a better future for pickleball! What did we miss? Let us know in the comments what you would like to see in future updates to the guide. Check out the full PodPlay Guide to Starting Your Pickleball Business linked in the comments.

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World-Class Design: The $6.5B Bet I break down why OpenAI’s rumored $6.5B acquisition of Jony Ive’s LoveFrom design firm isn’t just a flex—it’s a strategic bet on world-class design. Key Points: 🎨 Jony Ive = the mind behind the iPhone, iMac, and Apple’s iconic hardware legacy 🤖 Pairing him with GPT could unlock the iPhone moment for AI 📱 Apple fumbled AI hardware—OpenAI sees the opening 📈 If his design lifts OpenAI’s value just 2%, the math checks out This isn’t about pretty hardware—it’s about changing the interface of AI. And it starts with design. #DesignMatters #AI #OpenAI #JonyIve #Startups #ProductDesign #TWIST

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So much agency pricing is literally a few people sitting on a room saying things like "Hey Jim, ya think they'll go for this or throw up?" And then Jim just shrugs. Agencies that tell me they have this massively scientific approach to pricing. Jail. Straight to jail. I just don't believe it. I've sat in these rooms. I've been 'Jim' and I've been the person asking the question. The most successful agencies have a very simple pricing model. - Is the client cool? - Do we wanna work with em? If yes... - Is the budget kinda fair based on the expectations? - Do we see an upside? If yes... - Cool, here's the price. I recently led a search where the incumbent was involved. I was sent their pricing for feedback by the CMO of that brand. I was very very very very confused reading it. I honestly couldn't exactly tell what they were charging. It required me asking a few questions. If while reading your pricing, someone isn't sure what the actual pricing is... ...you may want to rethink your pricing. Money, cost, budget, investment...whatever you want to call it.. ...should be rulllllllllllll simple to understand. Things like 'value based pricing' give me a visceral feeling of angst in the center of my chest. Who talks like that. Brands don't care what your model is called. They want to see 2 things. - the dollar amount. - the deliverables/solutions they want. That's it. BYE!

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