What does it really take to build a business that grows, adapts, and survives? Recently, I sat down with Stuart Brent, a serial entrepreneur with over two decades of experience, to dig into the real stories behind the headlines. Whether you’re a founder, marketer, or just someone passionate about building things that matter, these highlights will give you practical, hard-won lessons you can apply today.

Validating Ideas Before Building

One of the most powerful takeaways from Stuart’s journey is simple but often overlooked: talk to your customers before you build. Too many entrepreneurs (myself included, at times) fall in love with their own ideas and start building in a vacuum. The result? Wasted time, energy, and money on products nobody wants.

Stuart shared stories of startups that flopped because he skipped validation, and others that succeeded because he asked, “Would you pay for this?” before writing a line of code. Pre-selling, gathering objections, and even trying to invalidate your idea can save you months—or years—of frustration.

The Power of Focus

“If you try to catch two rabbits, you’ll catch zero.” That saying came up more than once, and it rings true for anyone juggling multiple projects. Stuart described the chaos of being a parallel entrepreneur—spreading himself too thin and making little progress on any front.

The lesson: focus on one core initiative at a time. If you must switch between roles (like builder and marketer), do it intentionally—maybe even block off weeks for each mode. Multitasking may feel productive, but it rarely is.

Learning from Feedback and Iteration

Building in isolation is a recipe for missed opportunities. Stuart and I both found that user feedback is gold. For example, a single onboarding test with a fresh set of eyes led us to cut our sign-up steps in half, making the product more accessible and valuable.

Don’t be afraid to have others test your product, record their screens, and share honest feedback. Sometimes, the biggest breakthroughs come from the simplest observations.

Growth Channels: Cold Outreach & Community

With SEO traffic declining and ad costs rising, many entrepreneurs are shifting to cold outreach—email and LinkedIn—as primary growth channels. It’s not glamorous, but it works. Stuart emphasized the importance of technical setup (like proper domain authentication) and high-volume, well-targeted campaigns.

But there’s a psychological hurdle: the fear of rejection. You have to push through the discomfort, personalize your outreach, and treat it as both a numbers game and a learning opportunity. Community-building, cross-promotion, and networking within your niche can be just as powerful, especially when you’re starting out.

Quality Over Quantity in Lead Generation

Not all leads are created equal. Using massive, over-saturated databases can actually hurt your reply rates and deliverability. Stuart recommends seeking out niche or lesser-known sources and always verifying email addresses before launching a campaign. It’s better to send 100 well-targeted, verified messages than 1,000 generic blasts.

Harnessing AI and Automation

The future is bright for those willing to embrace new tools. We discussed the potential of AI agents to streamline onboarding and partnership-building—imagine an assistant that brings you curated opportunities on a silver platter, so you can focus on what matters most. The key is using automation to reduce friction and deliver value quickly, especially in the early days when every new user counts.

Overcoming Challenges: Mindset and Discipline

Entrepreneurship isn’t all wins and celebrations. Stuart was candid about the soul-crushing moments, the impostor syndrome, and the temptation to compare yourself to others. The antidote? Accept that the journey is hard, stay disciplined, and celebrate the small wins—like your first Stripe notification or positive user feedback.

Remember: comparison is the thief of joy. Instead of measuring yourself against others, focus on building your own skills, learning from your mistakes, and finding role models you genuinely respect.

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

Conclusion

• Talk to customers before you build. Validation saves time and money.
• Focus on one thing at a time. Multitasking dilutes your impact.
• Embrace feedback and iterate quickly. The best products evolve with input from real users.
• Leverage cold outreach and community. Don’t rely solely on SEO or ads—build relationships and experiment with direct channels.
• Prioritize quality leads. Use targeted, verified sources for higher engagement.
• Use AI and automation to your advantage. Streamline processes to deliver value fast.
• Stay resilient and realistic. The entrepreneurial path is tough, but perseverance pays off.

If you’re building, growing, or just dreaming of your next venture, keep these lessons close. The road is bumpy, but with focus, feedback, and a willingness to adapt, you’ll find your way.

Keep Growin’,  Stay Focused.

The post (New Interview) 8 Failed Start-ups to Profitable SaaS with Stuart Brent first appeared on Growbo.

Marketing has changed, and it’s not just a trend—it’s a tidal wave. AI-powered search and chatbots are rewriting the rules, leaving even the best strategies struggling to keep up.

For years, I poured my energy into building a business through SEO, content, and organic growth. It worked—until it didn’t. Overnight, the traffic dried up. The game changed, and the old playbook stopped working.

But there’s a way forward. This article offers a fresh solution: a smarter path that puts relationships and real partnerships back at the center of your growth. You’ll see how to adapt, thrive, and take back control, even as algorithms and AI shake up the landscape.

Curious about what actually works now? You need to read this.

What you’ll learn:

• The overlooked shift that’s draining your website traffic — spot the hidden trigger behind sudden drops and how it impacts your business.
• The partnership shortcut to growth no AI can copy — see how a simple collaboration formula can open new channels and bring in leads, even as algorithms change.
• The proven method to unlock untapped audiences — find out how to tap into networks you already have and multiply your reach—without spending more on ads.

Let’s dive in…

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

The Traffic Collapse

Here’s the gut punch: Our organic search traffic dropped by 85%—and it’s still falling. We built Growbo.com over 15 years ago.

I started as a solo founder, then built a team. We invested thousands of hours in SEO—writing hundreds of in-depth, well-researched articles. SEO was our bread and butter.

It drove leads and growth. But now, it’s like someone flipped a switch.

What happened? Transformers—not the robots, but the AI kind. Google published the original white paper, and OpenAI commercialized it.

ChatGPT became the fastest-growing app ever—allegedly. These AI models were trained on our content. And yours too.

They scraped the entire internet, crammed it into AI brains, and now everyone uses that data for instant answers. Google rolled out AI overviews at the top of search results.

Now, for 90% or more of informational searches, users see a synthesized answer instead of clicking through to our sites. Below is an example of Google AI Overview.

Our traffic—tens of thousands of visitors per month—is now a fraction of a fraction. This isn’t just us. HubSpot’s search traffic dropped 85%. Forbes lost 90%.

And this isn’t a new problem—it’s just become impossible to ignore. The chart below from Ahrefs shows that 90% of all pages on the internet already get zero organic traffic from Google, and another 8% barely get any at all. Most creators were fighting for visibility long before AI showed up.

Now layer AI Overviews on top of that shrinking visibility, and the little traffic we did have is being siphoned away. When Google answers the query directly, there’s no click, no visit, no chance to convert. The scraps just got smaller—and now even the scraps are disappearing.

Our content is copyrighted. We spent years creating it, and it was used to train AI models without our consent.

Now, those same models answer users’ questions—cutting us out of the loop. “First they took the data. Then they took the traffic.” And now, we’re forced to pay for ads just to reach an audience we once had.

There used to be an unwritten deal: We create content, Google sends us traffic. Now, Google just scrapes our sites, synthesizes answers, and the traffic is gone.

They’re moving to a fully AI-driven model, even integrating it into Android apps. Press a button—no need to visit a website. The data just gets synthesized. Sure, they cite sources. But what good is a citation if no one clicks through?

The Marketing Channel Crisis

So, what do we do? We try paid ads. We go to Meta (Facebook and Instagram), hand over money, and hope for customers.

Sometimes it works. But recently, ad rates spiked 50% to 200% in a single week. Customer acquisition costs become unsustainable. The leads are often low quality. Maybe ads work for some, but for most, it’s a money pit.

Next, we double down on organic social. We create videos, articles, newsletters, and daily YouTube Shorts.

Six weeks of diligent posting.

The results? “Allegedly” positive. But where we used to get 100+ views per video, now it’s a good day if we hit 30.

LinkedIn impressions are up, but the quality of traffic is questionable. Everyone is doing the same thing—more competition for the same shrinking pool of eyeballs.

And it’s not just us feeling this. The chart below shows the top challenges marketers face today, and the first three say everything:

• 53% are struggling with constantly changing content formats
• 46% are trying to keep up with new platforms
• 35% are dealing with nonstop algorithm shifts.

When the landscape changes this fast, consistency alone isn’t enough. Even great content gets buried if the format, platform, or algorithm decides it’s not your day.

Now the experts say, “Just do AI SEO. Get cited by chatbots. It’s the new future.” 

But think about it: In a Google search result, you get a whole block of visibility. In an AI chatbot answer, you’re fighting for a tiny citation—if you’re lucky. 

There’s no long-tail traffic anymore. It’s a red ocean—everyone fighting over scraps. And the volume drop doesn’t make up for the supposed higher conversion rates.

Remember when building a Facebook page meant something? One of our first clients spent $1 million to acquire a million likes. Back then, 30% to 50% of followers would see posts. 

Now, it’s almost irrelevant. You have to pay to boost posts to reach anyone—even your own audience. It’s pay again, and again, and again.

Why AI Can’t Replace Human Partnerships

Let’s talk about AI marketing tools. Many are garbage. 

They promise the world, but most deployments are unreliable. Take WhisperFlow, for example. It fails 20% to 25% of the time. 

Even AI-powered customer service is frustrating—endless loops and no real help. Why? Because you can’t automate responsibility.

AI can’t be sued. AI can’t carry insurance. 

If you’re a lawyer and you mess up, you’re insured. With AI, there’s no accountability.

The image below captures this perfectly—a person peering into the “mind” of a robot while reminders surround them that AI still lacks emotional intelligence, empathy, creativity, and the ability to build real relationships. 

It’s a visual nod to the simple truth: no matter how advanced AI gets, it can’t form trust, understand nuance, or take responsibility the way humans do.

We need a human in the loop—for the foreseeable future. Relationships, trust, and responsibility can’t be automated.

The Growcial Network Solution

That got me thinking: Marketing partnerships are one thing AI can’t automate.

Relationships require humans. They’re built on trust, collaboration, and mutual benefit. 

What if we made it easy for business owners to partner up, cross-promote, and leverage each other’s distribution? What if it was free or pay-for-performance?

That’s what I’m building—the Growcial Network. A platform for businesses to find and manage partnerships. 

AI can help match people, but the relationships are human. It’s like a business owner ad network, but built for real collaboration. 

You can be a promoter, a seller, or both. Set your own terms. Upload assets. Full transparency. It’s designed to be scalable, flexible, and easy to use.

Google took our data. They took our traffic. 

Now, they want us to pay to reach our own audience. But we don’t have to accept that. 

The Growcial Network is a way to take back control—by working together. It’s a supplement to ads and AI SEO, not a replacement. 

If you’re doing well with ads or SEO, great. But you need another solution.

Action Steps for Survival

• Don’t rely solely on SEO or ads: The landscape is shifting, and both are becoming less reliable and more expensive.
• Invest in relationships: Human partnerships are the one thing AI can’t replace.
• Join the Gial Network: It’s free or pay-for-performance. Collaborate, cross-promote, and grow together.
• Stay agile: The only way to survive is to adapt and work collectively—not just compete.

Conclusion

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

As the marketing landscape rapidly changes—AI reduces organic traffic and paid ads become less effective—business owners need new strategies to thrive. Relying on traditional methods is no longer enough. 

Embracing done-for-you marketing, marketing automation, and authentic partnership marketing is now essential for sustainable growth.

Main Takeaways:

1. Organic search traffic is declining as AI-powered search engines provide instant answers, making SEO less reliable.
2. Paid ads are becoming more expensive and less effective, impacting digital marketing ROI.
3. AI SEO is oversaturated, with businesses fighting for limited visibility in chatbot results.
4. Human relationships and partnerships remain irreplaceable—AI can’t replace trust, creativity, or accountability.
5. Your existing distribution channels (email, social, networks) hold untapped potential for growth and collaboration.

Growbo is not just your fulfillment team for unlimited marketing tasks—it’s also pioneering The Growcial Network. This platform makes it easy for business owners to connect, form partnerships, cross-promote, and leverage each other’s audiences. With transparent, flexible collaboration options, you can unlock new growth opportunities beyond ads and SEO.

Ready to simplify your marketing, build valuable partnerships, and reclaim your time? Visit Growbo.com to learn how our team can help you scale faster—without the headaches of traditional hiring.

How are you navigating these marketing changes? What strategies or partnerships are working for you? Share your thoughts, questions, or tips in the comments below.

Keep Growing, Stay Focused,

1. https://tse3.mm.bing.net/th/id/OIP.e-Z67ADgNYZ2ryujUx_mXwHaJu?pid=ImgDet&w=474&h=622&rs=1&o=7&rm=3
2. https://www.slideteam.net/media/catalog/product/cache/960×720/s/o/social_media_competitive_analysis_results_with_ratings_slide01.jpg
3. https://infografolio.com/products/five-reasons-why-ai-wont-replace-humans-infographic-template

The post Why Marketing as We Knew It Is Dead (And What I’m Doing About It) first appeared on Growbo.

Marketing keeps moving. What worked last year can fall flat in today.

Gary Vaynerchuk knows this better than anyone—and he’s built his agency’s success by staying a step ahead.

When search traffic started to dry up and ad costs kept climbing, Gary didn’t just hold steady. He leaned into a bold, high-volume content strategy. Instead of guessing what would work, he put more out there, watched what caught fire, and doubled down on the winners.

This approach didn’t just help his brand survive. It set up real, compounding growth.

This article breaks down how you can use the same strategy—no matter your business size or starting point. You’ll see how to turn content into your biggest asset, even if your audience is small or you’re new to the game.

What you’ll learn:

• How one high-volume content trick reveals your audience’s favorites — See which simple approach uncovers what your market actually wants to see.
• The smart way to turn your best posts into ad magnets — Get the inside scoop on using organic winners to make your paid reach go further.
• A repeatable method for outpacing your competitors — Find out the daily routine that keeps your brand growing while others stall out.

Let’s get started…

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

How Gary Vee Built a $300M Agency With the Vayner Volume Strategy

Gary Vaynerchuk is a marketing beast and he wants you to know one of his critical strategies that he used to build a $300 million a year agency. It’s called the Vayner Volume Strategy. 

He sometimes calls it Brand Performance. Either way, this approach is at the core of how he built VaynerMedia and helped many Fortune 500 and 1000 brands.

He’s been sharing this for years, always with passion and urgency. If you’re a business owner spending time on social media, chances are you’ve heard his name come up again and again.

The Traffic Crisis: Why Google’s Changes Just Erased Your Organic Reach

AI is disrupting everything. Google has made major updates to its algorithms.

 Zero-click searches are on the rise. Organic traffic has dropped for brands big and small—sometimes by 50% to 90%. HubSpot’s traffic dropped up to 85%. Forbes, around 90%, according to SEMrush and Ahrefs.

We’ve seen it ourselves. The organic traffic we worked so hard to build—tens of thousands of visitors a month—has vanished.

According to SparkToro’s 2024 data, nearly 60% of Google searches in both the EU and US end without a single click. That means most users find what they need right on Google’s results page — no website visits, no traffic boost.

It’s a visual reminder that the game has changed, and adapting your strategy isn’t optional anymore.

So what do you do? You adapt.

Rebuild Your Traffic Pipeline With Social Media

The tens of thousands of monthly visitors that once flowed in have vanished. We must adapt by investing heavily in social media to rebuild our traffic and customer pipeline.

Gary Vee’s Brand Performance Strategy (also called Vayner Volume) is the approach he used to build his $300 million agency. This strategy helps you create content that earns distribution organically and predict what will resonate with your audience on social platforms.

The Problem: Ad Performance Is Unpredictable (And Getting Worse)

A couple of years ago, a marketing agency was struggling with its ad performance. Sometimes campaigns would hit, but mostly they missed. Nothing was predictable.

I’ve been there. We were running Meta Ads a few months ago. We started seeing results and wanted to try a new tactic. 

So we paused the campaign. Big mistake. When we went back to the original campaign, it didn’t work anymore. Why? The landscape is changing.

More people are flooding into social media and ads. Costs are up 50% to 200% for the same campaigns.

And the data backs it up. According to Sprout Social’s State of Social Media Report:

• over 90% of businesses plan to increase their social media marketing budgets in the next three years
• 45% expecting up to a 50% bump 
• 46% anticipating even higher growth.

It’s clear: competition (and investment) on social platforms is only going up.

The Three-Step Framework: Create, Test, Promote

Gary’s advice is simple, but it takes effort and courage. The Brand Performance model works in three steps:

1. Create massive amounts of content – Get in front of the camera and start producing
2. See what performs organically – Track likes, comments, shares, and views
3. Run ads only on proven winners – Invest in what’s already working

Take a piece of content that’s getting high visibility and turn it into an ad. Change the packaging to make it more transactional, like driving someone to opt in for a download or lead magnet with a clear call to action. 

You’re doubling down on content that’s already resonated with your audience.

As Gary puts it: “Put out as much as you can, different formats, different topics. If it hits, you know people resonate with it. Take it back, tweak the copy, and turn it into a right hook. If it hits, run ads against that. It’s going to work because the creative is already proven.“

How Algorithms Work Now: Interest Beats Follower Count

The algorithms are now based on interest, not just people. As Gary Vee explains, platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts reward content that gets engagement, regardless of your follower count.

The algorithm scans your content with neural nets, essentially simulating whether viewers would watch it through or drop off—testing if it’s valuable enough to deliver a positive experience on the platform.

It’s about earned distribution. You’re not just pushing ads with half-baked formulas; you’re earning attention and trust organically. This makes leads easier to close and more qualified because they’re coming to you through valuable content, not aggressive sales tactics that make your brand feel like a commodity.

Step-By-Step: Get Started

Start simple. Take out your phone and record short videos with tips. Talk about the problems you solve for customers, the common questions they have, and how you help them. 

The hardest part is just starting—you’ll get better as you go, and it will become easier and even fun with practice.

Here’s your action plan:

1. Post 3-5 pieces of content daily across your main platforms
2. Vary your approach – different topics, formats, hooks, and angles
3. Track engagement – likes, comments, views, shares
4. Identify top performers after 30 days (your best 3-5 posts)
5. Boost winners with ads featuring clear calls to action

Diversify Your Content Formats to Find Your Winners

You need diverse content—and Gary Vee emphasizes this word specifically because it’s easy to miss.

Vary your topics, formats, hooks, and angles significantly. Film in different locations. 

Record on your phone one day, in front of your computer the next. 

Change your appearance. Wear different things. Mix up your topics across the spectrum of what your business does.

You can’t predict what will resonate, so you need to test different approaches. Give the algorithm options to work with—the more variety you provide, the more data points it has to find your audience.

Here’s the part people often forget: the algorithm needs time. Sometimes a post takes off overnight. Sometimes it sits dormant for weeks, then suddenly explodes. 

We’ve seen this with our own YouTube content—videos from years ago still get tens of thousands of views because the algorithm eventually found the right audience.

You Don’t Need Followers to Start (The Algorithm Rewards Quality)

It doesn’t matter if you have few or no followers. The algorithm rewards quality and engagement, not just follower count. 

If what you’re saying is valuable and interesting, you will get earned reach—even starting from zero.

As the ancient Chinese proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree was 10 years ago. The second best time is right now.” Start today.

Track Patterns, Double Down on Winners, Kill What Doesn’t Work

After 30 days of posting, look for patterns in what’s spiking—more views, more engagement. Study those winning formats and replicate them again and again. Make them better and bigger each time.

This is the key principle even if you have no ad budget: whatever is performing best, copy that exact format. And just as important—stop doing what isn’t working. Cut the losers and invest that energy into more winners.

Personal Results: Proof It Works

We’re new to social media, but we’re already seeing results. We started with skepticism, but now we’re seeing real traffic.

On LinkedIn, for example, we’re averaging about 120 impressions per day, which should put us at 3,000 to 3,500 impressions per month—reaching 1,500 to 2,000 real people.

These are real visitors, opting into our email list, watching our demo video. This actually works.

Multiply Content, Multiply Impact

We use a hub-and-spoke model. One main video becomes 15 different posts: YouTube, blog, newsletter, YouTube Shorts, TikTok, Instagram Reels, Facebook, LinkedIn, and more.

This compounds results. It’s early for us, but we’re learning and improving fast.

Conclusion

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

If you’ve been skeptical about social media marketing, now is the time to give this strategy a try. Even with a couple of weeks of focused effort, you’ll begin to see results.

Start with one piece of content per day, then build up to three. Make it a part of your daily routine and you’ll see the impact compound over time. As the owner of your company, this approach is critical for securing growth and distribution.

You don’t want to be at the mercy of paid ads forever. When you’re ready to run ads, you’ll spend less and get better results by using proven, organic winners.

If you want help executing this, Grobo can provide a team of copywriters, designers, video editors, and more, all for less than the cost of a single full-time virtual assistant. There’s no long-term contract, and there’s a 14-day, 100% satisfaction guarantee.

To learn more, visit growbo.com. We also offer a PDF with 33 examples of projects you can delegate to Growbo right now—check the link in the description below.

Start creating, track your results, and double down on what works. The hardest part is starting. The second hardest part is not stopping.

If you do this, you’ll be ahead of the competition and ready for whatever comes next.

Keep Growing, Stay Focused,

Image Credits:

1. https://nowbam.com/gary-vaynerchuks-winning-ad-strategy
2. https://explodingtopics.com/blog/google-searches-per-day
3. https://influencermarketinghub.com/social-media-marketing-costs/
4. https://nowbam.com/gary-vaynerchuks-winning-ad-strategy-for-2023/

The post Gary V Built a $300MM Agency with His ‘Vayner Volume’ Strategy Beats the Algo Every Time first appeared on Growbo.

Mr. Beast, “the” YouTuber with 400M+ followers, spent 12 hours trying to cut a table in half with a plastic knife. It looked ridiculous. But you, I, and 3.5 million other people just can’t look away for some reason…

Most marketers think you need flashy tricks or a big budget to get noticed. The truth? Showing your perceived genuine effort is often what gets you watched, remembered—and trusted.

This article reveals how you can use input bias to make your own work stand out, even if you’re starting small.

What you’ll learn:

• The content strategy that turns boring into viral — Mr. Beast used it to get 3.5M views. And it’s simple and straightforward enough that you can start using it tomorrow.
• How to make people trust you before they even read your content — the website redesign principle that boosted our conversions every single time we applied it
• Why “I spent 400 hours on this” outperforms “Check out this detailed, indepth white paper report” — the secret psychology of costly signaling and how to apply it ethically.

Let’s dive in…

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

The Reason Mr. Beast Get’s 100+ Million Views PER Video

Mr. Beast creates scenarios almost like a reality show host. He’ll invite hundreds of people to play Squid Games in real life, with elimination rounds and high stakes. Right from the start, you’re captivated. There’s a lot of money and time invested. He has these quick emotional payoffs early in the video.

One technique he uses is called the open loop. That’s when you start a story but don’t finish it, leaving the audience wanting to know how it ends. (Read more about What is an Open Loop in our article here.)

People are left on a cliffhanger. They want to know the answer or see the result, so they keep watching.

Years Ago, Mr. Beast Earned 3.5 Million Views for This Super Boring Video Idea (and Here’s The Tactic)

But before Mr. Beast was well known, he struggled to get views. He was trying everything—being funny, smart, whatever he could. 

Then he stumbled on something weird. One of his first viral videos was him cutting a table in half with a plastic knife. It took hours. 

The content was undeniably dull, yet it got 3.5 million views.

This was an “aha” moment. Why would people watch this? What principle was at work? 

The answer: input bias. People value things more when they see the effort invested.

Mr. Beast’s 12-Hour Table Experiment

This is how Mr. Beast described it:

“In high school, I put the plastic knife in my pocket for some reason. I don’t remember why. 

Then I just started scraping against the desk and I was like, ‘Oh wow, I could cut this desk in half.’

Did this for like 5 minutes. The teacher was like, ‘What are you doing? Stop.’ 

I was doing the calculations in my head. I was like, ‘It would take me like 10 hours to cut through this.’ I think that would be a video where people would be interested. 

So I went to the store on the way home and I bought the cheapest plastic knives I could find. Then I just got this $20 foldout table, went in my room, hit record on the camera, and I just went to town. I think that took 12 hours.”

The Copycat Who Got 988K Views

It was one of those moments where the struggle and commitment became the content. The audience saw the effort. They valued the video more.

To prove it wasn’t just a fluke, another YouTuber, Nick Kale YT, copied the formula. 

He did the same thing and got almost a million views. He played up the effort. 

He said, “It’s 5:30 p.m. on Valentine’s Day and I’m in my parents’ basement sawing a plastic table in half. Dude, what am I doing with my life?”

It’s ridiculous, but that’s what makes it worth watching.

Why Extreme Effort Gets Attention

This is a great example of input bias. When people see extreme effort, time, cost, or resources invested, they value the content more. The tactic here is input bias. 

Show the quality of your content through the effort, time, or cost you put in. It needs to be real and come through clearly. You can’t just write 10,000 words and expect people to notice unless you show the work.

How to Apply Input Bias

Now let’s bring this back to you in terms of implementation. Chances are you don’t have the type of budget that Mr. Beast has, but you can still leverage this principle to get more views for your social media content, blog articles, info products, or offers.

The simplest approach? Do something that requires ridiculous amounts of time, effort, and money—then make sure people know about it.

Emphasize the Input in Your Titles

With these title examples, you’ll notice they emphasize the input—the effort, time, and investment. Here are proven formulas:

• “I called 1,000 businesses to learn this one thing.”
• “I spent $5,000 testing ads to find the winning formula.”
• “I spent 40 hours analyzing our top 100 clients to find this pattern.”
• “We audited 500 landing pages to discover the one element that increases conversions.”

Pro tip: You can scale these numbers even higher for greater impact. Could be 500 landing pages, could be 5,000. Jack those numbers up to be 10 times as much and they’ll be even more impressive.

Create Stakes and Tension

Here’s what makes input bias so powerful: the investment creates implied stakes. When you show you’ve put in massive effort, viewers think: “What if it doesn’t work? Will it work?” There’s tension built right in.

But there’s also immediate implied value: “Okay, if they’re going to tell me what they learned from calling a thousand businesses, there’s perhaps something valuable here.”

Combine Input Bias + Open Loops

Notice how the example “I spent 400 hours analyzing our top 100 clients to find this pattern” creates an open loop? It begs the obvious question: What’s the pattern?

This pattern reference is a perfect example of an open loop because people have to click through and watch or read to find out. You’re combining two powerful techniques—input bias and open loops—to maximize engagement.

3 Ways to Show Your Work

It’s not enough to just do the work—you need to convey it. Here’s how:

1. Document the entire process. Show how long things actually take. For example, in my own business, when I created our Proven Sales Conversion Pack, I spent hundreds of hours building a database of credible A/B-tested case studies organized in a searchable format.

We curated real case studies (avoiding the BS ones), wrote original strategic interpretations, classified them by implementation time—many tactics take as little as 5 minutes but can have an outsized impact on conversion rates.

2. Highlight the struggle, the hours, the investment. When I made videos going over our 53-point conversion checklist or breaking down how we made $138,000 from a simple digital marketing funnel, I recorded for over an hour. The depth and time invested shows, and people notice.

3. Use it across all formats. This works for ads, content, blog articles, info products, and white papers. In my business, the more time my team and I invested in polishing our web design—making it simple, clear, and professional—the higher our conversion rate went. 

Every single time we did a redesign, conversions went up. Why? Because it shows money and time have gone into the design, which is a direct reflection of our service quality.

How Input Bias and Costly Signaling Work

According to a HubSpot analysis of Mr. Beast’s tactics, they identified two related principles:

Input bias: People value things more when they see the effort invested.

Costly signaling: The more money and resources someone spends to market their products and services, the more trust people will have in the brand.

It’s essentially the same concept—one way you can stand out is to simply put in more human effort in terms of time, overall effort, and money. People are going to notice.

What Visible Effort Proves

When you show your work, you’re proving you’re not lazy. You’re working hard because you care about the end result. You did the work so your audience doesn’t have to.

This builds immediate credibility and trust because people can see you’ve invested real resources—not just thrown something together quickly.

How to Build Trust That Lasts Beyond the First Click

Here’s the critical rule: You need to both set up the expectation AND then fulfill it.

If you purely set up the expectation but then it flops in terms of the payoff, you’ll probably still get a decent amount of views initially, but in terms of building a long-term brand and trust, it won’t pay off that much.

This is about building trust over time. Set up the expectation with your input-heavy titles and content, then deliver genuine value that justifies the effort you claimed.

Don’t just claim effort—show results. If you say you audited 500 landing pages, you need to share the actual insights you discovered. If you spent 40 hours analyzing clients, reveal the pattern you found.

When you consistently deliver on your promises, you demonstrate that your time investment translates to real value for your audience. That’s how you build a loyal following that trusts your content and keeps coming back.

Conclusion

Want to delegate all your marketing and funnel work done—without the headaches of hiring? Download our free guide: 33 Marketing Projects You Can Delegate to Growbo and discover how to save 100+ hours a month, grow faster, and scale without the overhead.

Input bias works because people notice effort and commitment. When you show your audience the work behind the scenes, you build trust, credibility, and engagement. 

But you might be wondering how to put these ideas into practice without burning yourself out. That’s where Growbo comes in.

With Growbo, you get an all-in-one marketing fulfillment team for less than the cost of a full-time virtual assistant. Delegate web design, copywriting, video editing, and ad management to specialized professionals—no hiring headaches, no management overhead. 

There’s no cap on monthly tasks, just a limit on concurrent projects based on your package.

This means you can have multiple high-effort, high-impact projects moving forward simultaneously, amplifying your brand’s perceived value without personally investing all the hours.

Download our free 33 Examples PDF for actionable project ideas you can delegate right now. These examples help you showcase effort, polish, and quality in your marketing—proving to your audience that you go above and beyond.

Key Takeaways:

• People value content more when they see genuine effort invested
• Show your work—document the process, hours, and investment
• This principle works for anyone, not just big-budget creators
• Leverage a team like Growbo to multiply impact without burnout

If you found value in this article, please like, share, and comment below. 

Go apply input bias today.

Keep Growing, Stay Focused,

Image Credits:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0e3GPea1Tyg
2. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/HkXM-vQ2jNM3 http

The post How Mr. Beast Made Boring Content Go Viral Using ‘Input Bias’ [3.5M Views on Cutting a Table] first appeared on Growbo.