From Mexico to Meta: Lessons on Speed, Storytelling, and Standing Out

Hey, it’s Arik.

Last week, I was in Mexico sitting next to the person running Primal Queen’s TikTok (if you know, you know. That brand’s on a multi 9-figure run rate). And right across the table, the person managing their Amazon.

The entire room was filled with multiple founders doing up to $100M+ a year. People actively shaping how brands will be built over the next decade.

So yeah, when I say the conversations were different, I mean it.

It was a mix of speed, execution, and big-league thinking.

The theme that kept coming up again and again is that authority-first selling is no longer optional; it's a requirement.

With AI leveling the playing field, the only thing that will set you apart is owning your positioning and moving faster than everyone else.

Let me explain:

🚀 The ceiling hasn’t changed; the floor just got higher

We’re all still capable of building something massive.

Brands doing $50M, $100M, even $500M+ are still out there, and they're still growing, but the bar to compete has gone way up since AI tools have become ubiquitous.

Everyone looks competent now because everyone has access to "super intelligence" at their fingertips, and it's raising the baseline of what's considered "good enough" across the board.

You’re not just competing with a product anymore. You’re competing with founders, marketers, and operators who are moving faster, iterating publicly, and building momentum because they know how to use AI to execute with speed.

The difference-maker now is how quickly you act and how clearly you own your lane.

🍽️ Build a 5-star experience, not a 5-page funnel

You can automate your backend all day long, but if your customer experience doesn’t feel intentional, you’ll always be leaking retention.

Think of your brand like a fine dining restaurant. Every touchpoint should offer a seamless, high-quality dining experience.

This doesn't mean perfection; it means consistency and care:
- Clear communication
- Thoughtful follow-up
- Clean handoffs between touchpoints
- Small moments that feel designed, not templated

Speed gets you in the room.
Experience keeps you in the conversation.

🤖 Use AI to your advantage

This was probably the biggest recurring theme throughout the trip.

Take content, for example.

You used to need a full team and a few weeks to script, shoot, and edit a product video. Now you can use something like HeyGen to record once and generate unlimited variations with different tones, different languages, and different hooks, all in a few hours.

Pair that with ElevenLabs for AI voiceovers, and it’s wild how fast you can scale content output without sacrificing quality.

The same thing applies to media buying. Meta is leaning all the way into an AI-powered campaign structure.

And yeah, if you’re only running Meta and you’re not adapting, it’s going to get tough. But Meta is just one dimension of the business.

If you're building a real brand, you’ve got email, SMS, partnerships, organic, retail, influencer marketing, community — it’s a flywheel. And AI is already helping every piece of it move faster.

🤝 Make More Bets

Almost every successful brand owner I talked to said the same thing:
“We try a ton of things. Most don’t work. But the few that do pay for all the ones that didn’t.”

So, whether it’s a funnel that flopped, a hire that didn’t work out, or a product that didn’t sell, it’s not a loss if it gets you closer to the one that does hit.

The risk now isn’t failure. It’s moving too slow to find what works.

🧠 Bite-Size Takeaways:

∙ Use AI to match the sharpest minds in the room.
The tools are out there: ChatGPT for messaging tests, HeyGen for automated video, ElevenLabs for voiceover, Durable for landing pages, Lovable for no-code dev.

If you're not using these to brainstorm, script, and launch faster, you're competing with people who are. You can be as fast and creative as someone with a 10-person team... if you know how to plug in.

∙ The pillars still matter, but you can build them faster now.
You still need content, product, retention, and paid. That hasn’t changed. But the way you execute on those is totally different now.

If you need 20 creatives, use AI to generate variations and test headlines before filming anything.

If you want to tighten your offer, run it through GPT, pair it with past comment sections or ad feedback, and reverse-engineer customer objections before you even write copy.

∙ It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being the first to adapt.
The brand obsessing over a single “perfect” video for three weeks is getting lapped by the one that uses HeyGen to launch five versions today, tests them on Meta, and optimizes based on performance by tomorrow.

The same goes for email, SMS, and even PDP copy. It's the fast iteration loop that wins now, not the polished playbook.

∙ AI is already eating paid
In a recent interview, Zuckerberg confirmed Meta is building toward full AI integration across campaign setup, copy, creative testing, and even budget optimization.

That doesn’t just “enhance” media buying; it replaces parts of it.

If your paid team isn’t layering in creative strategy, offer development, and brand intelligence, they’re on borrowed time. Media buying isn’t a superpower anymore; it’s table stakes.

∙ You need to build a higher tolerance for failure
Every founder at this event doing $50M+ said the same thing: They tested more, failed faster, and just kept going.

If you’re waiting for everything to be perfect before you try, you’ve already lost the race to the ones who’ve made 12 mistakes and learned from all of them.

See you next Thursday,
Arik