Happy Sunday! Hope you are having a great weekend and that it's warming up where you are.

Several months back while I was out, Connor and Connor had Zach Stuck on the podcast and it was such a good episode, I just gave it a re-listen as I'm working through a few new funnel ideas. I decided to summarize it below, because I think Zach's playbook should be studied by every new or small brand looking to find product market fit, test messaging, and scale up. I'm even adopting this playbook for testing new persona funnels for our 9-figure brand, it's that good. Enjoy!

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From $0 to $100K/Month: Nail That Product-Market Fit

• Start Simple: Kick things off with static image ads. They’re cheap, they’re effective, and they let you experiment with different messaging, angles, and personas.
• Test then scale: Watch for those early signals that show you what works. When an ad starts pulling in results, double down on it.
• Repurpose for Impact: Once you have a winning ad, turn it into a “5 reasons why” listicle. This simple tweak can help double your ROAS.

Zach's playbook is simple. Start with a bunch of static ads and focus all of your time on testing core funnel features such as messaging, persona, and offers. At this stage you have no idea what is going to work, so you need to test a lot but you don't have a lot of budget. Static ads are your best friend here because you make make then cheaply and quickly. I'd add to his playbook by starting with AI research using your reviews and some deep research + Gigabrain. Then turn the top desires and problems into static headlines.

You can use someone like Statiq and or something like Creative OS to help you get going here. Once you crack something, double down on it by testing different static headlines and formats, and build out some 5 reasons why listicles around that persona and angle. No need to reinvent the wheel here; you can snag a template easily and get it in replo pretty easily too. You can also begin trying some offers here, but as you get more traffic later on you'll send more effort there. Also don't worry about cracking multiple personas now, you will only need one to get to $100k/mo.

$100K–$500K/Month: Time to Bring in the Content

• Go Video: As you scale, video content becomes a must. Your happiest customers can be your best advocates—have them share their stories.
• Keep the Message Consistent: Use the same winning hooks from your static ads to guide your video content.
• Experiment on Landing Pages: Try out shoppable landing pages, test different headlines and offers, and see what really sticks with your audience.

Now you have something "that works." It's time to lean into it. You don't need fancy production here, but videos are the next logical step. Often your best static headlines can build the way for your best video hooks and angles as well. You can ask customers for content, but I also highly reccomend sourcing UGC. Make sure to brief in a way that gets you hooks, plus b-roll and different lines you want to test and get rights to the content in perpetuity. You can then repurpose that content for tons of different videos in the future. For sourcing UGC, i reccomend Insense. Insense is an all in one influencer and UGC sourcing tool that combines everything you need to easily source UGC for ads. You can find creators, brief them, get content for videos and statics, pay them, etc all in one place. It's a great place to start at this stage of business. Check out insense here. and book a call before March 21st to get $200 off your first campaign. Sponsored.

You should also be leaning into testing more landing pages here. I really like the listicle with very specific personas; and you can use the assets you get from Insense on those pages. For example, if you sell an electrolyte powder, I wouldn't just do a listicle saying why the powder is good, I would pick a specific avatar like runners and do a 5 reasons why runners need this (better copy, but you get the idea). It's so easy to spin up copy and research with AI now, so in a day you can probably get 4 persona listicles spun up.

$500K–$1M/Month: Optimize Every Step of the Funnel

• Double Down on Conversion: Focus on your website and checkout process. This is where you tighten the funnel.
• Boost Your AOV: Implement upsell strategies—whether in the cart, via pop-ups, or post-purchase. For example, upsell a bundle of products (like turning a purchase of 1-3 pairs of socks into an offer for 10 pairs at a discount) to lift your average order value.
• Real Results: Simple tweaks like these have taken Hollow’s AOV from $75 to $105.

Ok, you found something that works. Now it's time to do more of it. You don't need to do a lot differently now; don't go running reach campaigns or launching TikTok ads. Just keep making more ads and landing pages. Make more statics and videos, and test messaging on all of it.

The one area where you will begin to do new things is CRO. You will have enough traffic to start testing offers, upsells, carts, PDPs, etc. Offers and copy will be your biggest levers here.

You're probably outgroing what you can do just by yourself here; so you're gonna need some help. But you're still relatively small so you don't have a huge budget or need a huge team.

I am a big fan of remote, outsourced work at all times, but especially now. You're not going to be able to hire a great agency at this size, so it's best to run ads and run "growth" yourself. You or someone on your founding team should be doing the growth work, but you're going to need help executing and creative. You will need a lot of design and creative support and those roles will directly bring in more revenue. You'll also have some video footage stacking up, so you should be able to create dozens of ads with that footage with a little bit of creativity and some video editing support. I'd probably hire a designer and a video editor as first remote hires. We've been working with Proppel to fill overseas roles from LATAM for us. So before anyone asks this is exactly what I would do. You can get an experienced, trained video editor for a few grand a month and just a small feee to Proppel. You can also hire experienced roles for a bit more, but way less than you'd be paying for US but the quality of the talent is just as good. We've been super happy with the 4 roles Proppel has filled for us; so much so that we have another 4 in progress right now to really help us scale our remote hiring. Highly recommend and I've gotten great feedback from everyone I've referred. Check them out here and inquire before March 21st to get 10% off their fee. Sponsored.

$1M–$5M/Month: Leverage Partnerships & Whitelisting

• Team Up with Creators: Work with influencers who are great on camera. Let them tell a story that naturally leads to the problem your product solves.
• Delay the Pitch: Don’t jump into branding too early in the video—let the story build before your brand comes into play.
• Incentivize Performance: Consider performance bonuses to keep your campaigns efficient, and you could see CPAs drop by 20–30%.

Now we're really starting to cook. Keep doing everything and scaling the volume of the funnels from above, but we're also going to start doing new things here. Now Zach is starting to run whitelisting/ partnership deals with creators and influencers to scale. He finds creators that match the persona he is scaling into and puts them on a multimonth deal that includes content + usage rights. He lets them do their thing and get creative with it, and they should be engaing and much more than just pushing product from the beginning. There are multiple ways to structure these deals, and you should try to build in an incentivie structure. These styles of content with whitelisting or partnership ads are a great way to reach new audiences. A lot of this style of content can come through Insense as well.

$5M+ /Month: Expand Your Channels

• Branch Out Beyond Meta: Once you’re spending around $1M/month on Meta, start testing other channels like Connected TV (CTV). Use your best creatives to craft 15-second clips.
• Stay Lean: There’s no need for a huge production budget. Adapt what works, and keep the process simple.
• New Platforms: Explore other platforms like Applovin—if they can hit rapid daily revenue spikes, they’re worth the experiment.

This is the fun part where yoy get to test and try new channels. Meta will still be your main focus, so don't neglect it. But you can reach new audiences and feed meta by testing Youtube, TV, Applovin, and more. You need to find the balance of testing minimum viable product (MVP) while also making sure you have the right creative for the new channel. A lot can be done with a proper editing, which is another reason to get a great editing team from Proppel. ​

Which channel you test first will depend, so I won't even give an answer here. But before you test, make sure you tap out on Meta and make sure you have the right creative, measurement strategy, and patience to give it a proper go. If not, it won't be successful.

Building a High Leverage Team

Zach’s setup is all about efficiency—a lean 7-person team that manages multiple brands hitting $3–5M/month. Here’s the breakdown:

• Head of Growth
• Head of Ops
• Operations Assistant
• Designer
• Director of E-commerce
• Director of Performance Creative
• Finance Assistant

Some roles, like design and finance, can serve multiple brands. But as you scale, having dedicated people for growth and operations (plus maybe a Head of Partnerships) becomes key.

Your team will obviously look different at different stages, but i would do eveyrthing you can to keep your team as lean as possible so you can sleep better and also put more into growth while staying profitable. Just another reason I would work with Proppel and source content from Insense.

If you enjoyed this, you should watch the whole interview with Zach on the Marketing Operators Youtube channel and subscribe to make sure you don't miss any.

I am super tired; still team no sleep with a newborn so please excuse any types or incoherrent sentances. Gonna end this now to attempt to get some sleep tonight. Have a great week.

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