Kevin DePopas

Chief Growth Officer @ Demand Curve
Helping founders w/ traction & growth.

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

@RyanDictation Like the Turing Test for dictation

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

Just raw dogged some notes on my flight w/ no internet. Carpal tunnel almost got me.

*thanks for nothing Wispr Flow*

jk, I love you.

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

@geren8te You and me both!

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

I’ve had enough.

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

@iamgregbecker You got it buddy!

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

"You should give this to every startup founder or marketer you meet."

That's what I told Gil Templeton after reading his Startup Positioning Framework.

It breaks down how to structure value prop messaging that actually relates to your end users - not just for your website, but across every piece of marketing/sales messaging you produce.

We've condensed 8 years of experience teaching growth to 3,000+ startups at Y-Combinator, Techstars, and other top accelerators - and we've identified a pattern...

Most founders fall into what we call "The What Trap."

They obsess over explaining WHAT they do.
Their features.
Their process.
Their "innovation."

But your customers only care about one thing: "What's in it for me?"

And if you can't answer that in 5 seconds, you've lost them.

Here's what happens when you're stuck in The What Trap:

→ Your messaging is technically accurate but emotionally vacant
→ People read your landing page and still don't get it (or aren't compelled to convert)
→ Your CAC remains high because no one understands your value
→ It "seems" like paid media doesn't work for your business

No amount of growth hacks or AI tools will fix this.

✍️ The B.A.D. to B.E.S.T. Framework:

Instead of B.A.D. copy
→ Boastful
→ Abstract
→ Dry

Create B.E.S.T. copy:
→ Benefit-Led: What they get, not what you made
→ Empathetic: Show you understand their problem
→ Story-Driven: Anchor to a relatable moment
→ Transformational: Focus on how their life improves

Some transformations from the framework:

❌ "24/7 motion-activated cameras"
✅ "Feel safe at home, even when it's just you and a creaky floorboard"

❌ "Advanced AI-powered analytics"
✅ "Stop guessing which ads actually make money"

❌ "Science-based sleep optimization technology"
✅ "Wake up feeling human, not hungover"

The first describes "what."
The second answers "What's in it for me?"

I'm sharing Gil's complete 13-page guide that includes:

→ The full B.A.D. to B.E.S.T. methodology
→ Step-by-step exercises for B2B, services, and consumer products
→ Real before/after examples from actual companies
→ The "So What?" test to validate every line of copy
→ Tips for making the pivot from feature-focused to benefit-led

This is core curriculum from the @Demand Curve Growth Program.

Your company's messaging and positioning is the underpinning for all other growth efforts.

Fix your messaging first, everything else second.

Just leave a reaction, comment anything, and I'll send it over 👇

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

I vibe-coded for 72 hours straight
no sleep
Built an AI monster with 437 agents chained together

What took 10,000 employees last year?
Now takes this one system.

It scrapes every single comment on the internet.
Yeah, all of it.

Across 250+ platforms: TikTok, Insta, YouTube, LinkedIn, X, Facebook, Reddit, Pinterest, MySpace (for the nostalgia scrape), OnlyFans, and more.

→ analyzes sentiment down to the emoji level
→ predicts virality with 0.02% accuracy
→ generates content that's somehow worse than my drafts
→ books meetings I don't want
→ takes my sales calls (and loses all of them)

I'm pretty sure this thing is sentient now.

comment “behemoth” and I’ll send you the entire n8n flow.

[Justin Setzer @GrowthTactics]

Champagne and poker?
Nah. ChatGPT x Gmail x Attio.
How we 1.75x'd revenue in 30 days.

In June, Justin (our CEO) and I (@kdepop) had a realization:
Our newsletter sponsorship revenue stream was basically running itself.
→ 100% inbound inquiries.
→ Very little "selling" via email.
→ No sales calls, no outbound.

We decided to run a quick sprint.
Could we 2x our sponsor revenue in 30 days?
...with minimal effort.

Here's what happened:
📊 The starting point:
→ Basic Notion database as our "CRM"
→ No unified inbox
→ Comms scattered across email threads
→ No systematic follow-up process
→ No outbound (as mentioned)

🧭 Our 80/20 plan:
Instead of chasing new leads, we decided to focus on closing brands that already know us:

A. Previous sponsors
B. Warm inquiries that never converted

To reach these people, we'd need to do a couple things:

1. Get organized (select a real CRM to track comms)
2. Set up outbound campaigns
3. Personalize at scale
4. Actually follow up (novel concept, lol)

🛠️ Executing the plan:
First, I selected @attio as our CRM.
The AI-native features caught my eye.
Plus it feels like Notion (which our team uses).

Second, I started building my two campaigns.
Drafting email copy can take longer than it needs to.
I decided to try my hand at vibe-coding a solution.
Built a Gmail scraper in 20 mins.
Pulled 2 weeks of my REAL sales convos.
Fed them to Claude to write campaigns that sound like me.

Third, I launched the campaigns.
Every email had a custom P.S. line based on the company's actual product.
(Research from @WillAllred117 at @lavenderhq shows this can boost replies by 35%)

📈 Results (as of today, 7/15):
→ 32% reply rate
→ 24 deals initiated from outreach
→ 4 package deals closed so far
→ 9 deals in active conversation
→ July/August revenue up 1.75x vs May/June
(tracking towards 2x revenue)

💡Some things I learned:

→ Tools like Attio can consolidate your sales stack
We went from Notion + spreadsheets + 3 other tools to just Attio. Meeting recordings, enrichment, sequences all in one place.

→ Email scrapers are really powerful
And everyone can do it.
You don't need to be technical.
ChatGPT will literally write the code for you.

→ We need to ramp an "always on" outbound motion
This experiment proved we're leaving cash on the table.
Setting up recurring campaigns now.

→ Your "perfectly fine" systems might be broken
We thought our sponsorship process was solid.
Turns out we were operating at 50% capacity.

So the old adage, "if it ain't broke, don't fix it"
Actually seems like pretty terrible advice.
With minimal effort, we nearly 2x'd our sponsor revenue.

This same approach can work for any revenue stream you've been ignoring.

So, what'd you do last night?
Party or dig for revenue?

Want the full case study + my Gmail scraper code?
💬 Drop a comment or shoot me a DM.

---

Full transparency: @attio sponsored this post, but this was a real project we'd already set out to tackle. We still use Attio as our CRM.

[Justin Setzer @GrowthTactics]

Notion Mail is NOT what you think it is.
Here's the growth strategy no one is talking about.

@NotionMail launched in April 2025.
A clean email client with some impressive AI features.

But while everyone's focused on the product, they're missing the strategic growth implication of Mail.

🧠 The insight:
Project management software market is cooling:
• Asana: 59% → 67% → 45% → 19% YoY growth
• Monday: 91% → 68% → 41% → 33% YoY growth
• Interest in "Notion" plateauing since mid-2023

📊 The multi-door strategy:
→ Acquire best-in-class tools (Cron, Skiff)
→ Launch as free, standalone apps (Calendar, Mail)
→ Create multiple entry points for diff user segments
→ Build bridges for late majority adopters

(25% of SMBs still don't use project management tools)

💰 The business upside:
→ Direct revenue:
Premium AI email clients command $25-37/month

→ Higher ARPU (if Notion starts charging):
Following their Notion AI model ($8/mo add-on)
Even charging $5/mo for Mail + $5/mo for Calendar could 2X revenue per-user

→ Increased switching costs:
Each new tool makes Notion's ecosystem stickier

→ Trojan horse:
Get into companies already using competitors

This approach is particularly clever because email is:
→ A daily habit with high engagement
→ Familiar even to change-resistant users
→ Zero switching cost (works with existing addresses)
→ Mission-critical but contained risk

What's next for @NotionHQ?
Video conferencing...
AI Notetaking assistant...
Loom-esque screen recording...

What do you think?

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

Final Note:
Both company landing pages I reviewed (above) did a great job getting me to open their cold emails!

I'm merely pointing out areas for improvement that could boost their already successful outreach efforts.

Hope this helps!

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

The 10-second landing page test:

1. Show someone your homepage for 10 seconds.
2. Then ask:
- What does this company do?
- Who is it for?
- What action were they supposed to take?

If they can’t answer...
Your visual hierarchy probably needs work.
(Could be your copy too.)

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

🔎 I analyzed two companies that cold-emailed me this week:

(I bounced off of both pages because of bad visual hierarchy)

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

If you don’t show your product UI on your landing page, I assume:

1. You’re hiding it because it’s bad
2. You don't have a self-serve PLG option
3. You don't have enough funds to invest in UI/UX
4. You have a competitor who's farther along

→ In other words, you're not worth my time.

No UI shots = I bounce 99% of the time.

To fix it, try this...

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

I'm not a designer by trade, but I've learned visual hierarchy is simply how you arrange and weight elements to guide where people look 1st, 2nd, and 3rd.

This principle applies to EVERYTHING you do:
→ emails
→ websites
→ resumes
→ pitch decks
→ ads
→ everything...

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

When someone lands on your site, you have 5–10 seconds before they decide if you’re worth their time.

Bad visual hierarchy = I don’t understand / trust you
→ Bounce = Wasted outbound rep.

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

A lot of early-stage founders obsess over cold email copy but ignore what happens AFTER the click.

[Kevin DePopas @kdepop]

Bad visual hierarchy is destroying your outbound sales.

Non-designers need to understand this: 🧵👇