aj-4 | 1 year ago | on: I Built an AI Tool for Influencer Outreach
aj-4's comments
aj-4 | 3 years ago | on: Onshore vs. offshore for hiring software devs?
im a US citizen but spend lot of time in EU
that's what im thinking but just trying to see if there's any long term blind spots / downsides to not starting domestic
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: What makes Germans so orderly?
as far as a place to raise a family, be a part of a community, general quality of life, it fits.
if it was always summer there, i'd be there no question.
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: What makes Germans so orderly?
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Building a great product only gets you 20% there
sales were not terrible, but they were about 10x worse than I was hoping for.
I took the "focus on the product, customers will come" aphorism a bit too literally.
Marketing does not magically happen yet it's easy to ignore.
Obviously i knew this but it took experiencing it myself to fully believe it. Hard lesson.
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Caffeine: A vitamin-like nutrient, or adaptogen
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Caffeine: A vitamin-like nutrient, or adaptogen
imo it's good for certain things like coding but significantly reduces lateral thinking / creativity
kinda gives you "mental tunnel vision"
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Show HN: Dark Mode for HN
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Ask HN: What startup/technology is on your 'to watch' list?
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Joe Rogan got ripped off
his success is basically a middle finger to traditional media and corporations - having a very small team, organic growth, and being more authentic and making millions without NEEDING to sell out.
of course I've never had a 9 figure deal so I'm soapboxing here.
but I'd be lying if I didn't say this damages what i really admired about the podcast. idk.
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Joe Rogan got ripped off
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Joe Rogan got ripped off
if his desire was to kick back it seems like the move would be to just relax his release schedule
wanting something steady in the chaos of creative work though, I can completely understand
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Joe Rogan got ripped off
point being, I think the YouTube platform has played quite a large role where users don't have to "seek out" new episodes and I don't think that can be understated.
ultimately, only the numbers will tell.
aj-4 | 5 years ago | on: Joe Rogan got ripped off
Ultimately seems to be a lose-lose-lose for the platform (where they don't pull 1/4 of their prior numbers), fans (who generally just stop caring), and creator (who makes money short term but loses major brand equity, relevance, growth)
Rogan didn't know how high he could've taken it. Now he does. Maybe he was ready to retire anyway?
aj-4 | 6 years ago | on: Quarantine will normalize WFH and recession will denormalize full-time jobs
aj-4 | 6 years ago | on: No person who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia
https://twitter.com/phl43/status/1227343129696702468/photo/1
Try to have an open mind
aj-4 | 6 years ago | on: No person who was born blind has ever been diagnosed with schizophrenia
I was 23, living abroad, feeling totally isolated.
One day, I smoked weed which led to an "episode" I guess you could say -- quite literally I was hallucinating that I was in a hospital, while i was in my room.
What happened next was weird. I felt extremely depersonalized for weeks and months after, concurrently I developed a swirling blind spot in my right eye.
A distortion, so to speak.
I saw neurologists and was diagnosed as having an "ocular migraine" however I never had a headache so this didn't add up.
Looking back, I believe I was on the brink of becoming schizophrenic - and would have unless what happened next did.
So this next part is slightly controversial -- but hear me out
Through the several months that would follow I would discover and get obsessed with "RSD" -- a controversial company that teaches guys how to pick up girls.
On the surface, it sounds crass and not politically correct, but if you watch their videos "get you in the door" with "game", and teach you topics of incredible value, like "growth mindset", "the power of now" / meditation and believing in abundance.
Now WTF does this have to do with the topic at hand?
Well, being receptive to these new ideas and absorbing them completely changed my world view.
I grew up in an extremely liberal household, and did feel any agency to affect the world around me. Fixed mind set.
What these guys gave me was empowerment, agency, a more conservative mindset under which the world "made sense" - there was now a framework for reality, rather than chaos.
Subsequently, I was able to learn programming from scratch, start a business, go on to make 6 figures less than a year later.
Somewhere along the line the distortion and negative feeling were entirely replaced. I couldn't tell you when.
tl;dr: I was close to schizophrenia which manifested itself in visual symptoms, overcame with a mindset change
aj-4 | 6 years ago | on: 1000 True Fans? Try 100
aj-4 | 6 years ago | on: 1000 True Fans? Try 100
Furthermore I read your take, and maybe I'm wrong, as a 1k "fans" and not 1k "true fans"
The "true fans" model is a subset within the larger audience demographic -- they don't care if you stop producing for a while, need their short attention spans pandered too, or the like, this is what makes them "true" fans.
maybe your advice changed their life, or they really resonate with you for some personal reasons -- and again this would only be a sub-set of a creator's total fan base.
At least this is my interpretation of the concept.
Basically, AI creates a brand profile based only on a website URL
It uses a combination of 3 social media APIs and some scraping to aggregate influencer data with keywords from the brand site (this was very hard to do at low cost!)
Then it checks profiles individually and scores them based on content performance, audience demographics, and brand-fit
Finally, it auto-contacts the highest scorers on behalf of the brand, so basically brand owners just get positive replies from qualified influencers
I'm really hoping the price point will make influencer marketing more accessible for small to medium sized brands who don't have dedicated marketing departments.
Especially because you can get some insane ROI output with micro influencers in particular.
Any case thanks for reading and there's a no-card trial if it sounds interesting to anyone!
Very open to feedback as well, cheers