Why every brand is a media company and organic social is the biggest opportunity

Executive overview

Most brands treat social media as an afterthought while the biggest growth opportunity in business sits unused. The brands that scaled from zero to $100M+ in the last five years did it through organic social content, not TV ads or paid media alone.

Every company is now a media company — the ones that act on this will win; the ones that don't will keep buying expensive ads for diminishing returns.

The shift to interest media

• Social media no longer exists — it's now interest media: content finds its audience, not your followers
• Your feed shows what you're into, not who you follow — this is a structural shift, not a trend
• Brands that recognised this early used organic content to go from zero to $50–250M revenue
• Poppi, Liquid Death, Mary's Organics all executed versions of this

Organic social strategy

• Post across seven platforms minimum — not just Instagram and TikTok
• YouTube Shorts feeds Gemini's LLM: product content there surfaces in AI search results for queries like "healthy beef jerky"
• LinkedIn for B2B and ingredient-depth content; Snapchat Spotlight for 15–35 year olds (almost no brands are there)
• Written word on Substack, Beehiiv, and X is underused by CPG brands
• Allocate at least 20% of total marketing budget to organic social production — more if under $100M revenue
• When a post over-performs (800 views → 57K), use that creative as a performance ad or CTV campaign — this is the mid-funnel flywheel

Content creation and time

• Every founder has time; most are spending it on hour-long meetings that should be 15 minutes
• Gary V posted for 8.5 years before hiring his first content person — no team is not an excuse
• 15-minute meetings: humans fill allocated time; shorter defaults force efficiency
• Content creation and time efficiency are two of the four most important things for any founder trying to build

AI and the next shift

• AI is as significant as the internet and the iPhone — no one is behind yet
• Tools like Claude, OpenAI, and Perplexity can be learned quickly enough to catch up fast
• Repetitive, non-thinking jobs will be automated; founders need to stay ahead of each technology wave
• Using geopolitics or societal concern as a reason not to learn AI is a self-deception pattern — recognise it

Investing and self-awareness

• When evaluating people or investments: jockey (operator) and horse (business thesis) — both matter
• Early-career investing was often charitable; real investing requires detaching emotional support from business conviction
• Self-awareness is the most under-discussed trait of successful founders: know what you're good at, hire for the gaps
• Self-awareness is a cousin to self-love — both are compounding assets

Kindness, culture, and authenticity

• Tolerating a toxic top performer destroys culture — the short-term P&L gain is a long-term liability
• Don't talk about culture, clean ingredients, or marketing commitment if you're compromising on any of them — hypocrisy is a business vulnerability
• Someone not reciprocating kindness has nothing to do with you; empathy for their context is a protective mindset
• Karma is the most practical energy in business — human connection at events like Expo West compounds over years