The Anti-Hack Mindset

Good morning. In this edition:

• ⚡ Why “tactics-only” marketers get stuck

• 🔥 What systems thinkers do differently

• 💥 5 questions to help you operate from first principles

• 🎉 A mini-framework to spot real leverage (not fake hacks)

💡Why “Tactics-Only” Marketers Get Stuck

One of the biggest traps in marketing today is thinking in hacks instead of systems. LinkedIn is littered with shiny new objects, growth hacks, swipe files, Figma breakdowns, dashboards, etc. The list goes on. Taken at face value, it seems like everyone on LinkedIn is crushing it with the latest and greatest tactics.

But here’s the problem….

📉 Hacks degrade over time.
📈 Systems compound over time.

Hacks embody the Law of Shitty Clickthroughs: over time, all marketing [tactics] result in shitty clickthrough rates. When a marketing channel or tactic works, everyone jumps in on them, and they start to decay like crazy as every new “hack” gets saturated. Initially, a tactic is novel, gets high engagement, and feels magical. But then:

1. Everyone copies it.

2. Audiences become blind to it.

3. Platforms adjust their algorithms.

4. Clickthroughs fall off a cliff.

Novelty wears off and performance tanks. We should call this the “law of diminishing hacks.”

AI adoption is a timely example.

• Everyone uses the same tools.

• Everyone shares the “killer” prompts that “triple your ROAS.”

• Everyone cranks out ChatGPT ad images.

• Everyone broadcasts the latest “cheat sheet.”

And everyone sounds…the same. Which is expected because the power of LLMs is in their ability to aggregate data and identify averages (i.e. “trends”). LLMs can look at big datasets and assemble the averages:

• It analyzes patterns

• It follows those patterns

• It predicts the most “average” result

But enough about AI for now. Let’s get back to marketing hacks that exploit short-term inefficiencies/novelty and will eventually course correct.

You can’t brute-force scale by duct-taping together the latest tip you saw on LinkedIn.

It’s tempting, though.

A new ad format here, a high-converting landing page swipe there. Some guru says “use this subject line” and suddenly you’re rewriting emails that weren’t the problem to begin with.

These aren’t bad ideas. But here’s the catch: they’re fragments of other people’s systems, stripped of context, disconnected from your customer journey, and often solving problems you don’t actually have.

At best?
You get a sugar rush: a temporary spike that looks like progress but doesn’t stick.

At worst?
You burn weeks or months optimizing something that wasn’t the bottleneck. You patch over symptoms instead of fixing root causes. You generate noise instead of clarity.

And that’s when marketing gets expensive, misaligned, and hard to scale.

What Systems Thinkers Do Differently

At its core, systems thinkers understand how things are connected. Instead of viewing outcomes as isolated events, systems thinkers recognize them as the result of many interdependent parts interacting over time.

Every marketer eventually faces the moment when their go-to playbook stops working. The ads that crushed last quarter start tanking. The cost per lead doubles. That shiny new tool doesn’t deliver the ROAS it promised.

Here’s what happens next:

👉 The hacks mindset scrambles.
👉 The systems mindset zooms out.

Let’s break that down:

The hacks mindset is reactive. It’s built on inputs like: “What’s hot right now?” “What worked for someone else?” “What’s getting likes on LinkedIn?”

But systems thinkers don’t chase the algorithm—they design one. They don’t just want results—they want repeatable, explainable, scalable results. Which is why their mental model is built around three core principles:

Reveal Where Things Break

Systems thinkers build structures that show where performance drops—so they can diagnose with precision, not panic. That means tagging campaigns cleanly, mapping journeys, and setting up dashboards that clarify the signal, not clutter it.

Reinforce What Works

When something works, they don’t just double budget—they ask why. Was it message-audience match? Was it better time-to-value? Was it a shift in offer or funnel velocity? Then they document it, replicate it, and apply it elsewhere. Success becomes scalable.

Make Scale Predictable

Most marketers scale what’s working until it stops. Systems thinkers create rules for when and how to scale. They know the thresholds: ROAS > X, CAC < Y, AOV > Z. They bake testing and margin buffers into their scale plan. They build on purpose, not out of hope.

🧠 Bottom line: Hacks are short-term wins. Systems are long-term leverage.

So next time performance drops or a new shiny object appears, don’t ask “What’s the latest trick?” Ask: “What’s the system behind this and how do we make it stronger?”

🛠 5 Questions To Help You Operate From First Principles

When performance drops, most teams instinctively go straight to tactics:

• “Let’s pause underperforming ads.”

• “Try a new hook.”

• “What if we just change the landing page?”

But a systems thinker resists that urge. Instead of immediately changing the output, they investigate the structure.

Here's a simple but powerful debug stack you can use the next time something isn’t working (or is working unusually well):

What’s our actual goal?

Before you tweak anything, get laser clear on what success actually means in this moment.

• Is it lower CAC?

• Higher LTV?

• Better margin contribution?

• More conversions at the same spend?

📌 If you don’t define the goal clearly, you risk optimizing the wrong thing. “More leads” sounds good—until you realize they’re unqualified and tanking downstream metrics.

What are all the components feeding into that result?

Break the system down. This is your mini ecosystem of inputs, decisions, constraints, and feedback loops.

For example, your CAC isn’t just driven by ad creative. It’s shaped by:

• Targeting (audience quality, match type)

• Funnel (page speed, clarity of offer)

• Conversion incentives (pricing, urgency, trust)

• Sales ops or coach availability (supply-side friction)

• Even seasonality, weather, or news cycles in certain verticals

📌 A weak result is usually not a single weak link. It’s a chain reaction. Map it.

Which part of the system shifted recently?

Look for delta. What changed?

• Did your CTR suddenly drop? (Creative fatigue?)

• Did CVR dip while traffic stayed flat? (Landing page misfire?)

• Did CPC jump up without a bid change? (New competitor? Auction pressure?)

• Did segment performance change? (Your highest LTV geo might be oversaturated now.)

📌 Systems change over time. What worked two weeks ago may be breaking silently under new conditions.

What assumptions are we making that might be untrue now?

This is where you challenge your defaults.

• “People click but don’t convert because of the offer” — or is it the mobile load speed?

• “That audience segment always works” — or are you running out of fresh eyes?

• “The new tool improved our CVR” — or did another change in the funnel carry the weight?

📌 Ask: What would make this obviously not work anymore?
Test those edges. That’s where insight lives.

What feedback loops are in play?

Systems either reinforce or degrade over time. Look for the loops.

• Is performance improving because more people are sharing the product? (Positive loop)

• Is performance worsening because your offer isn’t differentiated, and your best prospects have already seen it? (Negative loop)

• Are your experiments compounding or cannibalizing?

📌 The goal is to identify whether the system is quietly trending upward or downward—and why.

🚨 Reminder: None of this starts with “Try a new ad format.” Tactics can still matter, but only after the system has been understood. Otherwise, you’re just changing the color of the buttons on a sinking ship.

⚡ Pro tip: Turn this stack into a Notion doc or recurring Monday-morning ritual. It’ll shift your entire team from “reaction mode” to “diagnosis-first.” And when everyone’s aligned on how the system works, the right answers get a lot easier to find.

🎯 A Mini-Framework To Spot Real Leverage

Here’s a hot take: if your system is working, it should look a little boring from the outside.

• Predictable.

• Scalable.

• Repeatable.

• Almost too dialed-in.

That’s how you know it’s a system, not a flash-in-the-pan tactic.

Your creative can still be bold. Your positioning can still punch. But your operations should be structured. Your data should guide you. Your strategy should hold, even when the channel shifts.

Every marketing team eventually has to decide:

• Do we want to react faster than everyone else?

• Or do we want to compound better than everyone else?

One looks good in the moment.
The other wins over time.

Pick your side.

This newsletter is for you. What marketing challenges are you facing in your startup journey? Reply directly to this email with your questions or topics you'd like to see covered in future issues.

Until next week,

Adam

P.S. Found this helpful? Forward it to another founder who might benefit—we're all in this together.