TUNOMATIC Quarter Notes | Vol. 4
The latest & greatest hits since January 2025
Hi all,
I hope your year has started off great (scott)! Time has really McFlied for me if I do say so myself. Excited to share the latest updates, so let’s hop in the good ol’ DeLorean!
FIRST…THE FUTURE
🤠 ➡️ 🍎 I’m traveling to NYC next week for Fintech Week.
For all those fellow New Yorkers*, I will be back for Fintech Week on the 21st - 22nd. You can find me at one of the great events below. Hope to see some of you there!
I’ll be on a panel discussing Fintech’s Great AI Awakening sponsored by Clevertap & Fiat Advisors on April 22nd at 5pm local time with other great marketers like Adam Hadi (VP of Marketing | Current), Tyler Munson (VP of Marketing | Moneylion), and Joana Moroz (Chief of Staff | Super.com).
I’ll also be attending the Fiat Growth, Valli Ventures & ResilienceVC Fintech Week Kickoff Party happy hour on April 21st at 6pm local time.
* The general rule I've heard is that you must live in NYC for 10 years to be allowed to call yourself a "New Yorker", and while I only lived there for 8 years technically, I stuck around during all the COVID years (which I count as dog years) so I'm going to claim it 😉🤠 ➡️ 🎰 I’m traveling to Las Vegas in May for MAU (Mobile Apps Unlocked) Conference.
I’m excited to make it to my third MAU in a row this year and present on May 22nd at 1:30pm local time alongside GOHUNT Marketing Director Lane Colyer on the winning strategies and outcomes we’ve accomplished since the start of our partnership together. TL;DR: Subs ⬆️, CVR ⬆️, LTV ⬆️, CAC ⬇️. AKA all the good things.
NOW LET’S GO BACK IN TIME
🎂 TUNOMATIC Turned 1!
I’ve officially wrapped one full year of consulting and advising. Thanks to all those who’ve mentored, taught, supported, and partnered with me along the way!
🎤 I Shared Career Horror Stories on “Delivering Value” podcast.
I chatted with product leader and coach Andrew Capland about my scariest career moments & lessons I learned along the way. When you’re 23, work for a Fortune 250 company, and a senior legal colleague calls you at your Severence-esque cubicle to say "People are going to ask, who’s getting fired over this", you find out what kind of person you are really quickly…
🧑🏫 I taught a Maven “Lighting Lesson”.
This last quarter I conducted a “Lighting Lesson” on how to segment your data to acquire more customers (watch it for FREE here) and intend to run a broader course on my B2C Customer Acquisition Marketing Playbook near the end of the summer.
📍I joined the Nashville Entrepenuership Center’s Advisor Network.
As I continue to invest in the Nashville community, I’m excited to help local founders here navigate their GTM and growth marketing strategies, starting with mentoring leaders like ForOurLastNames founder Ray’chel Wilson’s great mission in the latest NEC Project Fintech cohort.
🤯 I found an old notebook that reminded me of the keys to a strong interview.
Back in 2019, I was interviewing with NYC-based startup Fundera, which had all the things I was looking for in my next role:
Great customer value proposition & marketplace model
Strong traction and organic growth loops already established
Uncommon financial health (already profitable…what a crazy concept, right!?!?)
Amazing people & culture!
During the process, I prepared for every interview with a slew of questions to better understand the business, the role, and the growth opportunity. As I collected information from the team, I wrote out a basic model of the funnel that helped me identify key areas where I could help (pardon the terrible handwriting):
I’ve come a long way since the moment the pen hit this specific piece of paper (and would design it a little differently now) but looking back at this artifact, I was reminded of some critical interviewing skills that served me so well:
Ask good questions: The best way to appear confident is to be confident. The best way to be confident is to know things. The best way to know things is to learn things. The best way to learn things is to ask good questions to those who know things. So ask good questions. Plus, asking good questions demonstrates your level of interest, curiosity, preparedness, and insight into how you you think.
Have your “STARS” ready: For all those behavioral interview questions, be ready to recall your most impactful & relevant experiences with ease by memorizing the Situation you faced, Task at hand you were responsible for, Actions you took, and Results you drove. Having 5-6 STARS ready to go ahead of an interview will nearly guarantee you have an experience to recall that can apply to most questions you’ll face.
EXAMPLE: The situation was that the CEO really wanted to highlight the audio bluetooth capabilities of the company’s brand new television set-top box. My task was to find a way to leverage customer incentives to drive incremental sales, product feature awareness and product feature adoption. So I took the actions of sourcing cost-effective and cool-looking bluetooth headphones that I then promoted them as a free incentive to prospective customers in my upcoming direct mail campaigns, resulting in a 20% increase in response rate and 15% reduction in CAC (when accounting for the costs of the headphones).Map the business model out on a piece of paper: Write out how you think the company makes money, its cost structure, what incentives are at play in the business model and industry, and work through a SWOT analysis. Don’t rely on AI tools for this work (to start at least); while helpful and practical, you want to be able to demonstrate and recall you understanding and mastery in a live setting. The more you internalize the model & levers, the better you can connect it all to the impact the role you are applying for, and speak to it off-the-cuff.
BACK TO THE FUTURE PRESENT
So what have I been doing today?
Asking questions. Countless questions. Better questions.
One set of questions has been to AI, where I’ve been experimenting with some of the latest tools - asking, prompting, and “vibe coding” (an admitted 🙄 phrase that’s recently popped up) to accomplish what was impossible just months ago.
So far, I’ve created mockups of responsive micro-sites with Lovable, working mobile app tests with Bolt, interview-transcripts-turned-LinkedIn-posts for a brand via Gemini & ChatGPT, analyzed data with Claude, created paid social ad concepts with Opus, and more.
The times, they are a changin’...and this is just the start. More than ever, the need to stay curious and continue learning is critical. Those who don’t will be sadly left behind.
The other (and more important) set of questions I’ve been asking has been to actual humans. When reflecting on the last year, I realized I probably asked more questions over the last 12 months to those I work with than than ever in my life. The book “The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More, & Change The Way You Lead” by Michael Bungay Stanier definitely helped. It has had a lasting impact on how I show up for brands I partner with ever since and I cannot recommend it enough!
Additionally, I’ve been asking more questions to myself. Where can I have the most impact? What work gives me energy? What may I regret in 5, 10, 20 years?
I’m currently reading “The 5 Types of Wealth” by Sahil Bloom and I’m already hooked on how he frames making space for the most important things in a balanced and sustainable way.
By continuing to look inward & commit to 2025 as my year of “Presence” (see prior updates), I’m slowly doing a better job to protect space for the those other important things in my life, including my passion of music - leading to more live performing at local venues like The Five Spot & Fins, and with Musicians on Call (DONATE HERE).
To extend a metaphor Simon Sinek pointed out so well a long time ago, we are living a finite life in an infinite game, and the goal is simply to stay in the game and keep playing.
So play on!
Stay kind and stay curious,
Anthony
P.S. You can listen to to more of my friend Sean’s beautiful music here!