Here are the best things I read, watched, or listened to last week.

Be Obsessed 

The Science of Rapid Skill Acquisition

Mike Tyson - A Thread

Augustus - HTTOTW

Heat 🔥

One of the core jobs of a founder or CEO is to inject heat into the business. Let me explain.

Startups have a lot of things going against them. They are small, lacking in resources, little capital, weak products, inexperienced people, no real relationships, and not a lot of systems, tricks, or really anything advantageous for large companies.

It’s sad when you think about the reality of that statement, and it’s the reason why so many fail.

This begs the question: how do you push past those inefficiencies to grow? How do you acquire all that is lacking to build a great company that lasts centuries?

There’s a lot written about topics like this already, but one analogy I found helpful for Tenzo lately is the idea of “heat.”

H/t to @tobi at Shopify for this quote: “Companies run at Room temperature, but then, there are people that inject heat”

I couldn’t think of a better analogy for the job of the founder and CEO.

Have a mediocre product? Inject heat. Fix it. Now.

Sales team not closing? Inject heat.

It’s the simplest analogy and the most perfect. Most problems in companies can be solved. I don’t think I’ve ever come across something that cannot be solved.

Companies, especially young ones, need lots of heat to survive.

If your company is in trouble (stagnant, going bankrupt, suffering) - try injecting heat and let me know what happens.

Want to know what's hurting your UGC campaigns?

It's not your product. It's not your budget. It's the insane amount of time you're wasting trying to manage creators.

If you’re doing everything with email and spreadsheets, it’s super messy and comes with massive headaches.

Here's why:

• Endless back-and-forth creator emails

• Inconsistent content quality

• Managing multiple creator partnerships

Good news is I recently discovered Insense.

It’s an influencer management platform that could be a game-changer for DTC marketers who have hit a wall with their UGC.

Insense solves your headaches by centralizing everything: creator discovery, communication, payments, and rights management – all in one place.

What caught my attention:

• Access to 20,000+ vetted creators starting at just $50/video

• Automated contracts and payment processing

• Built-in creative briefs that actually work

For DTC brands trying to scale content without a massive team (I know that struggle), this could be your secret weapon.

They're offering my newsletter subscribers a special deal: Book a free strategy call by Dec 6 and get a $200 platform bonus for your first UGC campaign. Your content calendar (marketing team) will thank you.

Inject some heat this week! 🔥

Steve

Founder Tenzo & Commerce Chronicles

PS: If you made it this far, feel free to share it with friends!

PSS: If you want to sponsor Commerce Chronicles - we’re offering extremely good starting rates. Hit me up!