Everything about how this site is built — and a lot about how I now run MarkitAds — traces to Dennis Yu, who has spent years teaching founders that reputation should do the first three touches of every sale.
The frameworks, credited: the Topic Wheel (people discover you story-first, expertise second, offer last — this site’s blog is literally organized that way); the Dollar-a-Day strategy (amplify only what already works, kill the rest without sentiment); the Content Factory (capture everything, process it into proof, publish, promote); and MAA — Metrics, Analysis, Action — the weekly loop that keeps it honest (“analysis is 10x more important than metrics”).
The deepest lesson is the standard behind the mentions tracker his team built for me: if a claim can’t survive verification, it doesn’t ship. A super-connector’s instinct is to sell with charm; Dennis’s discipline is to make the record sell first, so charm only has to close. I’m 23; having a mentor whose SOPs are public means anyone can check whether I’m actually running them. Good. That’s the point.