Matt Kelly | The Midnight Pod

Javi Zavala is the creative director and co-founder of HiStrips. He runs seven creative agencies on commission, cuts the worst one every month, and makes ugly ads on purpose because they print. This is his full playbook for static ads.Watch the video version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrZ1q6yTqXcJavi Zavala: https://www.javizavala.comHiStrips: https://histrips.comJPEGS Mafia: https://jpegsmafia.com✅ All my links are here - https://www.midnight.co00:00 From crypto to SaaS to HiStrips07:29 Tribe: the platform that scaled them09:58 Is a winning ad art or science?13:22 The ugly ads that print in every account15:00 The 6am ChatGPT report19:11 Seven agencies, all on commission21:52 What they pay their agencies24:10 Judging ads on spend, not just ROAS28:20 Hiring editors with one tweet33:08 Brand vs performance: ugly only in the ads38:52 Starting from $10k and a laptop41:06 The Twitter like-chain hack45:50 Quickfire51:15 Final wisdom: attention, not time Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sam Posthuma started at 16, selling electric lighters at school in Holland. A dozen brands later, he built Old Money into a fashion brand with half a million followers, sold it after two years, and went all in on HiStrips: the pink nasal strip that started as a party brand on a boat in Valencia.Now world-class athletes wear the strips, 4,000 creators make content for the brand, and the factory in China says it gets a request to copy them almost every week.This is a conversation about why the story now matters more than the product: building with three co-founders, how a small e-commerce exit really works, growing through creators, funding stock without investors, and how Sam would start a brand today on a small budget.Sam Posthuma: https://www.samposthuma.comHiStrips: https://histrips.com✅ All my links are here - https://www.midnight.co00:00 Why e-commerce is now all about the story03:14 The factory that said "you're number 14"06:29 Selling lighters at school at 1609:51 Song Shirts and the copyright claim12:37 Years of trial and error15:49 Building Old Money19:21 Why fashion is brutal22:56 Why he sold25:26 How a small exit actually works31:59 The buyer, and keeping 20%35:47 Joining HiStrips as co-founder number four40:39 Four co-founders, four jobs44:28 18 months of compounding46:03 World-class athletes in pink strips48:03 4,000 creators: the growth engine50:03 Why he still runs the ad account52:08 Funding growth without investors56:09 Electrolytes and the email-list test58:52 Can HiStrips sell more than strips?1:00:22 Making the best product possible1:04:08 Hiring from the DMs1:08:46 Retail, global and getting 10x bigger1:11:49 Why they won't sell1:13:43 The hardest part1:16:58 Money, freedom and how much is enough1:19:31 How he'd start a brand today1:24:37 Quickfire1:26:56 Advice to his 18-year-old self Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Four and a half years ago, Jack Zambakides came on the pod running LS Personal Shopper: designer clothes for footballers and about £1 million of PlayStations a month in lockdown. He said he'd never take investment and that he'd sell within two years.Almost none of it went the way he predicted. Robberies helped end that business. He walked away, went all in on D.Louise, the jewellery brand he built with his wife, and moved to Dubai.This is two founders comparing what they believed then with what actually happened: focus, hiring, investors, founder mode, retail vs DTC, AI, and the biggest lesson from scaling that nobody tells you.Watch the video version: https://youtu.be/ltBAVubWL7IJack's first episode (March 2022): https://youtu.be/zS7hUIJP65Q✅ All my links are here - https://www.midnight.co00:00 Four and a half years later02:39 Leaving LS Personal Shopper05:21 Building D.Louise17:29 The bootstrapped grind21:54 Blagging into Gymshark's world29:30 Founder mode and hiring40:34 What's driving growth43:58 Retail, ads and trends52:25 Trust and the customer57:45 UK vs US59:34 Money, ambition and being CEO1:06:29 Could you do it again, bigger?1:14:56 Dubai and the modern team1:21:16 Pay yourself more1:23:39 Quickfire1:27:46 Advice to his 18-year-old self Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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