TUNOMATIC Quarter Notes | Vol. 3

The latest & greatest hits since October 2024

Jan 09, 2025

Quick Note Upfront: I’m considering partnering with Maven to develop a paid customer acquisition marketing course for founders, PMs, and GTM leaders and would love your feedback >>here<< 

It takes less than 3 minutes - or your money back! 😉

Welcome to the latest edition of Quarter Notes, where I share what I’ve been up to and thinking about over the last three months. Let’s hit it!

I hope you all had a great holiday season shared with loved ones and lots of laughter. I was fortunate enough to spend quality time back home with friends and family, including jam sessions with my young niece and nephew on tunes like “Let It Be” and “Seven Nation Army” in the hopes they will someday become piano/drum/ guitar rock stars a decade from now! 🤞🤞🤞

COMPANIES

This quarter, I continued to support great brands from earlier in the year, as well as collaborated with a few more exciting companies, including:

Alix (Tech-Enabled Managed Service for Estate Settlements)
Charity:Water (International Clean Water Access Non-Profit | pro bono)

I also did a little clean-up on my consulting website (shoutout to fellow Hoosier alum Jamie Cox for the great feedback!) and launched a new “Testimonials” page on the website to share the positive feedback from those I’ve had the pleasure to work with so far.

I make it a point to seek consistent feedback from my partners to ensure I’m delivering value to them during our entire time together, so it’s nice to see that the impact has been validated in their own words a year into consulting. Highlights include:

“He provides us amazing outside perspective and isn’t just a typical consultant. Our weekly meetings feel more like deep workshops across various parts of our growth strategy, where we get into the details and have consistent actionable takeaways.” - Chris Porter, CEO, GoHunt
“His audits on our marketing channels were valuable in identifying opportunities to enhance targeting, creative, and onboarding flows, which ultimately led to more streamlined and impactful campaigns” - Leslie Shinn, Sr. Director, SurveyMonkey
“It’s incredible how much value someone can bring in just an hour a week when paired with founders eager to learn…What set Anthony apart was his ability to bring clarity to complexity. His insights spanned the entire customer journey – from optimizing our paid media channels to enhancing our first 30 days of user engagement.” - Caleb Frankl, Co-Founder, EarlyBird

Thank you to all the brands who have trusted me to help you in 2024. It’s been a privilege to support your growth. Let’s make 2025 even better! 🚀

CONTENT

Newsletter: Was featured in Fiat Ventures’ new newsletter as a case study highlighting my partnership with EarlyBird, which you can read here. Check out Fiat too!

Presentation: The Mobile Apps Unlocked (MAU) conference released the video from my presentation from last year on how to improve the efficiency within your paid acquisition marketing mix, which you can watch here. I’m planning to attend (and maybe even present) again this year and hope to see many of you there!

Lecture: Spoke (virtually) at my alma mater, Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business (now ranked #9 in the US! 🤯 👏), to current students about all things growth marketing analytics fundamentals. If interested in my presentation, let me know!

Chance Encounter: Shared on Linkedin my crazy story of literally ~~running~~ hiking into one of the founders I work with (Aabesh De, founder of Flora, and featured on Shark Tank 🦈) on a remote trail deep in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Bananas.

CLARITY

Back in 2023, I did the personal work to realize I was on a path that was not right for me. My career, my marriage, time for my other passions…things just weren’t working. Thanks to the support of friends, family, therapy, and lot of self-reflection, I committed to changing my future in really hard and scary ways. My wife and I decided to get divorced, I moved from NYC to Nashville, I decided I was going to move on from the great team at Acorns, and I started making more time for music in my life. It was a rocky year, but I felt I made solid traction in the right direction.

Going into 2024, my commitment to myself for the year was one word: “Courage”. During the year, I finalized my divorce, planted roots in Nashville by purchasing a condo, leapt headfirst into consulting, and finally started playing live music at local bars and venues across the city (e.g.; The Basement, The Cobra, and even Margaritaville for all you Parrotheads out there!).

It was the most uncomfortable I’ve ever felt. It was the most scared I’ve ever felt. It was also one of the best, if not the best, years of my life.

I delivered on nearly all the goals I set forth for myself and proved the risk was worth it.

I’ve gotten to help brands on literally every facet of growth, celebrating some incredible wins with them so far - creative experiments that have unlocked paid media scalability, implementing new measurement frameworks to reduce waste in their ad spend, optimizing their onboarding funnels to materially improve CVRs, CAC, and LTV, and more.

I’ve also created more space to pay it forward by conducting free seminars, helping non-profits, and speaking with students at my alma mater. I wholeheartedly believe there are no “self-made” people; every individual has a long list of folks critical to their success - whether they’re self-aware enough to admit it or not.

For 2025, to keep the theme going, my word of the year is “Presence”. I’m committing to appreciating the gains(v. the gaps) in my life more, being more intentional and committed to every moment I have to myself and with others, and focusing on the things within my control to nudge the world today towards a little better of a place than it was yesterday. I wish that for all of you as well.

COOL STUFF

Book: What’s Our Problem by Tim Urban, author of the “Wait But Why?” blog. Only 100 pages in so far, but I already have fallen in love with Tim’s clarity and frameworks. He is a master at distilling the way our society works (and doesn’t work). Check out all his stuff!

Band: Moga Family Band is Eric Fortaleza’s new group, based in Nashville, who I know is going to do amazing things. Eric is the founder of Pitch Meeting, a full-band open mic, that I can only describe as “secular church”. If you are ever in Nashville, make it a point to see one of his projects.

Song: Smell The Roses by Southghost is *chefs kiss*. Southghost aka Sean Zeitgeist is one of the most talented artists I know and a great friend. The man can play any instrument and has a knack for production. He also is a great designer too if you ever need to spruce up your website!

Video: Denzel Washington’s rapid fire wisdom while on promotional tour for Gladiator II. Needless to say he is of the GOATs.

Travel: GAdventures, one of the best small group travel organizations around. Thanks to them, I finally accomplished my dream of hiking in the Himalayas in Nepal in November. I traveled on my own to meet up with 14 strangers-turned-friends in Kathmandu for a 10-day trek hiking to the Annapurna Base Camp and Sanctuary. My group spanned 20-something Canadians to a 70-year-old Brit who all successfully made it. A truly amazing group of people all around. Can’t recommend the organization enough for well-run travel adventures all over the world!

Stay kind and stay curious,

Anthony