Ethan Phan

co-founder CTO @plotworkspace | ex-@microsoft | ex-@trialspark

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

Daily reminder for AI builders:

You don’t need a better model.
You need a better system.

Systems beat raw models 9 times out of 10.

(Proper RAG + agentic systems routinely outperform raw frontier models by 20-60% in real tasks.)

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

all the clouds ☁️ are down, I guess it’s sunny 🌞 now

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@k3fernan soon 🤣

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@deedydas @0xSigil @O1Visa @garrytan @kirillzzy @ycombinator @SteveMaggilaw anyone who’ve been through US visa application know how much they love throwing a dice.

[Megan Duong @_byMegan]

I analyzed over 3000 organic videos to uncover which brands and products were actually worth buying about the @Sephora sale—separating real reviews from sponsored content in a few short hours using @PlotWorkspace Video Social listening.

Our AI deeply analyzes video data from: transcripts, object product detection, the action, comments, captions, and sentiment to gather the most comprehensive UGC (this means no brand tagging required).

I created a detailed report breaking down the top 10 organic brand winners from the Sephora sale. The results:

Top Brands by Organic UGC (Oct 25 - Nov 9):

@CTilburyMakeup - 605 posts Star product: Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray. Overwhelming positive sentiment. Strong positive sentiment in quality.
@MakeupByMario - 498 posts Star product: SoftSculpt Transforming Skin Enhancer. Overwhelming positive sentiment. Strong positive sentiment in quality.
@HourglassMakeup - 496 posts Star product: Airbrush Flawless Setting Spray. Overwhelming positive sentiment. Strong positive sentiment in quality.

Top Brands by Organic Video Views (Oct 25 - Nov 9):

Charlotte Tilbury - 37M views Star product: Pillow Talk Lipstick + Liner. Overwhelming positive sentiment
Makeup by Mario - 33.1M views Star product: SoftSculpt Transforming Skin Enhancer. Overwhelming positive sentiment. Strong positive sentiment in quality.
@patricktabeauty - 30.9M views Star product: Headlines Double-Take Blush Duo. Strong positive sentiment in quality.

It makes me wonder....what's more important for a brand: total UGC or video views?

Most surprising—@Natasha_Denona ranked 9th in total video views (25.1M) while placing 40th in total Sephora UGC—showing a significant gap between viewership and content creation.

Comment "Sephora" below and I'll DM you the report!

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@keepinitrhea @PlotWorkspace @_byMegan @Givingli wow time flies! It’s great to have you on the team @keepinitrhea

[Megan Duong @_byMegan]

But really someone needs to build a CRM that’s heavily integrated with LinkedIn. Not just from a sales process POV but even track lead interactions from LinkedIn etc

I’ve closed a ton of customers simply because I saw them engaging with my content or Plot’s which is considered a high quality lead and want to funnel that engagement into my CRM from LinkedIn

Thanks for the write up @loriberenberg!! 🎉🎉

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@k3fernan too painful to watch …

[Sophia Amoruso 3.0 @sophiaamoruso]

@Plotworkspace's latest drop AI Video Social Listening is something I wish I had when I was building Nasty Gal! It’s a new kind of AI Video Social Listening to help brands engage their communities at a scale that's never been possible before. CONGRATS TEAM this is incredible. 

Learn more:  https://t.co/s8C1iHnFzw

[Alexis Ohanian 🗽 @alexisohanian]

1/3 This is wild @plotworkspace just dropped AI Video Social Listening they analyze video transcriptions, captions, comments, and detect products/brands on videos so brands can engage with your community at scale and unlock powerful insights on any topic beyond your brand.

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@andruyeung wow affording 5k apartment on a 120K salary, in NYC? What alternate universe is this? Is NYC finally a no-income tax state?

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@nikitbobba @OpenAI i can’t wait till something like SAO becomes reality 😂

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@growing_daniel This must be an early April Fool joke.

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

NYC has been getting so unsafe lately. Taking care out there yall

[parth @parth220]

Last night, I was targeted for a sophisticated phishing attack on my Apple ID.

This was a high effort concentrated attempt at me.

Other founders are being targeted by the same group/attack, so I’m sharing what happened for visibility.

🧵 Here’s how it went down:

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@debarghya_das All technical interview need to be conducted with fully "open LLM" policy. The problem just need to be adjusted accordingly.

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@JackieT_97 lost an election, then call for violence. Wait, this script is a bit familiar 🤣

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@_AHariharan @debarghya_das That is so far from the truth imo. In NYC you can meet people with real diversity. From tech bros to artist, from people who’ve made it to people who are pushing hard. Sf are primarily tech bro who likely then become Airbnb landlord/ real estate agent 🙃

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@mengxi pretty sure that’s not how profit margin is calculated

[Ethan Phan @ImTheEthan]

@k3fernan @stephmui the real reason I go to the office 🤣