Website Wealth, with Philippa Gamse
Funnel Reboot podcast
One of the best known events in the modern Olympics is the High jump. Since its dawn in 1896 all jumpers used the same technique. They would run towards the bar, then begin their vault by putting one leg over, or trying to go head-first over the bar. But someone came to the 1968 Mexico City games, who couldn’t win on physicality, but who did have a hack no one had thought of. That person was 21 year old American Dick Fosbury, who you wouldn’t find anything notable looking back at his track career. Back in high school he’d struggled to master all the motions used...
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The Path to AGI with John Thompson
Funnel Reboot podcast
Artificial General Intelligence is a term that most of us have heard, a good number of us know how its defined, and some claim to know what it will mean for the average marketer. Here’s what OpenAI’s Sam Altman said “It will mean that 95% of what marketers use agencies, strategists, and creative professionals for today will easily, nearly instantly and at almost no cost be handled by the AI.” What nobody knows for sure is when it will be here. Some said that GPT5 would herald the dawn of artificial general intelligence. This episode is airing In mid-2025, and GPT5...
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Books for the Summer Break
Funnel Reboot podcast
Hey, Glenn here. It’s the middle of summer when I’m recording this; a time we don a pair of shades, a beach towel and a good book. Funnel Reboot usually shares talks with marketing book authors, but for this show I’m going to share some reads that go a little farther afield. Come along with me through six books that are all amazing. The subjects range between business, humanities, technology and science fiction. Chapter Timestamps 0:00:00 Intro 00:01:44 The Discoverers 00:12:43 Blindsight 00:19:05 How Big Things Get Done 00:24:12 Private Truths, Public Lies 00:27:41...
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Optimizing Marketing with Statistics, with Ateeq Ahmad
Funnel Reboot podcast
Sometimes, to reach a solution, we must take unfamiliar paths. In the early 1940s, a brilliant mathematician named Abraham Wald left his homeland in Hungary fleeing the spectre of war. He moved to the United States, and became part of a team at Columbia University tasked in 1942 with an aspect of the war where the Allies were losing badly to the Nazis. It involved the many Allied planes that would leave from England but never return to their bases, having been shot down somewhere over Europe. These B‑17 and B‑24 bombers had 10-man crews, weighed up to 30-32 tonnes, had wingspans of...
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Unorthodoxy, with Gil Gildner
Funnel Reboot podcast
We as consumers do a lot of things just because the people around us are doing them. For proof, look no further than some historical examples—from the 17th-century tulip bulb craze in Holland to doomsday cults and prepper movements in the lead-up to Y2K. Buying fads such as pet rocks, fidget spinners, Beanie Babies, and NFTs all show how easily prevailing thoughts influence individual behavior. The science behind this is well understood. The evolutionary drive to fit in with our peers is very strong. When a group of people’s purchases are plotted as a histogram, we always see the...
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Gen AI Activation in Marketing & Sales
Funnel Reboot podcast
Most of the leading AI companies tell us how wonderful their technology will make our lives. In a recent post put out by OpenAI’s head, Sam Altman called The Gentle Singularity, he says “We will figure out new things to do and new things to want...Expectations will go up, but capabilities will go up equally quickly, and we’ll all get better stuff. We will build ever-more-wonderful things for each other.” Of course, these new things need to be marketed and sold. Sam has good news there too, saying: “Generally speaking, the ability for one person to get much more...
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From Armageddon to GA4 Alignment, with Neil Shapiro
Funnel Reboot podcast
Since July 1st, 2023, the world of web analytics has undergone a seismic shift—and if you're still reeling from the transition to Google Analytics 4, you're not alone. In this episode, we unpack what many are calling the 'Armageddon' of digital measurement. You'll hear why GA4 isn’t just a new version of an old tool, but a completely different ecosystem In human years, GA4 is still a toddler. But it is growing rapidly and some are giving it a chance to mature. Many marketers took their licks in the forced transitioning to GA4 and there are still some raw emotions about how this...
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Deeper Clarity - Better Results, with Nilufer Erdebil
Funnel Reboot podcast
Episode 209 When it comes to initiatives humans undertake, we only need to look at a few to see how they can fail spectacularly. One example: The iconic came from a competition won by a young Danish Architect. The board who’d commissioned him to build it was told it would be completed by 1963, but things were so chaotic and so behind schedule, he had to be fired. It is truly a marvel of design, but it’s a posterchild for poor projects because it didn’t open until 1973. Another example: Out of a desire to research high-energy particles and potentially solve the...
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The Data Storyteller's Handbook, with Kat Greenbrook
Funnel Reboot podcast
Episode 208 People resist change. They only stop resisting when they’re convinced the change is needed. They’re only convinced change is needed when they grasp the truth. The best way to present them the truth is with data. You might think that what works on people is a dry statistical presentation of the data in all its Indisputable, inscrutable glory. Nope. Those avoiding change give themselves offramps by arguing about your data. History shows that to persuade people to take an action, it takes taking them through data in a way that grabs them emotionally. Some...
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The Smart Advertising Book, with Dan White
Funnel Reboot podcast
Episode 207 Those of you who know me outside of this podcast, know that if I’m doing anything that involves advertising, whether it be in a classroom or a consulting setting, I think of ads as a complicated puzzle that is never fully solved. While it may not have a predictable outcome, there are a few key principles about it that are always true. I’ve picked up these lessons one at a time, either by studying competitors or through the brands that entrusted me to run their ads—sometimes through painful trial and error. The models and principles that emerge from this process become a...
info_outlineIn 1985, Robert Fulgham published a book that has gone on to sell 7 million copies. That puts it in league with nonfiction books like the biographies of Princess Diana, Nelson Mandela & the Diary of Anne Frank. In "All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten," Fulgham lays out a handful of rules we all internalized on our way to adulthood. They include…
- Share everything.
- Play fair.
- Clean up your own mess.
- Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
- When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
You’ve probably noticed the problem with Fulgham’s syrupy homespun advice. It’s not the world we live in. kindergarten class bear no resemblance to Capitalism— which is more like what you see in recess on the playground. From a marketing perspective, there are critical qualifiers we must add to Fulgham’s rules to make the applicable to the Big bad world out there:
Share everything? Sharing sounds noble… but capitalism says if you come up with an idea and patent it, those whom it’s shared with have to pay you for its use. Sharing doesn’t automatically mean you lose your competitive edge
Play Fair? Sure, play by the rules. But know that the biggest rewards go to whoever understands the rules best. If your competitors are using a playbook, you should change how the game’s played, and beat everyone else in the process.
Don’t take things that aren’t yours? You shouldn’t steal, of course… but marketing is literally the legal appropriation of someone else’s audience. History’s full of greenfields where pioneering R&D created a category…only to see it harvested by a fast moving disrupter.
To sum up, being a producer in this system is trying to outdo your fellow producers to win a consumers’s business, you should use every exploit capitalism allows to win.
Our guest has been in and worked with many startups, showing them how to bend the rules in their favour. He has run conferences that have brought thousands of companies together to share these unfair advantages. He’s also co-authored a book showing how to identify growth hacks using analytics. And in 2025 he and his co-author released the book “Just Evil Enough”
Let’s go to Montreal to talk with Alistair Croll.
For full notes on concepts mentioned, go to the Funnel Reboot site and check episode 218.