Josh Lowman 💈

I’m 56. From Michigan. Running my shop, Gold Front, in San Francisco.

And we just crossed $3M revenue for 2025.

Moeka, my wife, gives me the best business advice (like “don’t be so full of yourself”). Our company is 100% bootstrapped.

Here's exactly what I sell, how I sell it, and the tools we use:

BONA FIDES
I've written the strategy for 13 startups that went on to become unicorns ($1B+ valuation). Clients include Uber, Stripe, and Robinhood.

AUDIENCE (only some of which are my ICP)
36,165 LinkedIn followers
8,916 email subscribers

WHAT I SELL
Strategy Program: $30k to $90k
Brand Design: $30K to $90K
Website Program: $30K-$150K

WHAT I REALLY SELL
Conviction. Leadership. Greatness.

THE MARKETING
Teach CMOs and CEOs to think bigger
Post on LinkedIn 4-5x / week (when I’m not too busy)
Weekly build-in-public post
Case study stories from client work
Infographics that slap
Marketing funnel breakdowns

HOW I CLOSE
Most agencies complicate this.
What works for me:

Inbound from my posts
Referrals from past clients
VCs refer us
Weed out the randos before getting on a call
1 Discovery call - make it about them
1 Proposal call - make it about the transformation we offer
No free pitch work

THE TOOLS
ClickUp: Project management
Claude: Strategy writing and content
Make: Automation
Granola: Meeting notes
ChatGPT: Research and drafts
Google Drive: Everything else

THE TRUTH
2026 will be year 13 of Gold Front.

The first few years? Way messier than this breakdown suggests. And so much anxiety I drove my employees crazy.

I failed at marketing for 10 years. Revenue was shaky because of it.

And I definitely still struggle to figure itout.

But here's what I've learned: I don't need fancy. I need consistent.
Post every day. Share my truth. Answer every DM that's not spam.

The tools don't matter as much as showing up.

What else do you want to know?
…….

PS: I cribbed the exact structure for this post from the talented Matt Barker. You should follow him.

Let’s do this again… I spent 2 weeks breaking down Lovable’s marketing funnel.

In just 8 months, Lovable grew from $1M in revenue to $100M (!). And their website now gets 20 million visits every month.

They even outpaced Cursor in growth. How’d they do it?

✅ The right tech at just the right time
✅ Bold messaging around their product being “the last piece of software”
✅ A homepage that compels users to try the product immediately 
✅ A compelling visual brand that stands out from their overly-techy competitors 
✅ A strong founder brand presence

It’s a crazy successful mix we may never see again.

In this file, I’ve mapped Lovable’s entire marketing funnel—from videos with swagger to their streamlined product onboarding—and provided analysis across:

→ Website tech stack

→ Digital ads

→ OOH ads

→ Homepage & website

→ Event marketing
→ Branded content

→ Video

→ Social media content

And much more. I’m even including a breakdown of Anton Osika’s founder brand.

People say I should charge for these, but I’d rather go viral.

Want it?
Comment “Lovable,” and I'll send it right over.
(Must be connected.)

All killer, no filler.
……

Brand is where money goes to die.

Because to have a brand that actually makes money, you need the kind of focus that hurts when you commit to it. Most companies won’t do this.

You must be able to say “We do X, we don’t do Y”

That focus is where resonance comes from - and resonance is why customers give you their money.

To help you lean into what actually makes you different, I mapped out 6 archetypes of focused brands.

It starts with three fundamental forces: Some companies win on technology. Some win on moving culture itself. Some win on customer obsession.

Some mix the forces to land on their archetype. Here are the great archetypes:

THE INVENTOR
Creates new platforms, architectures, workflows. Think Salesforce inventing the CRM platform.

THE MAVERICK
Changes how we live and work. Like Uber rewriting the rules of transportation.

THE PAIN KILLER 
Obliterates things we hate. Like Slack killed email hell (sort of).

THE ADVOCATE 
Champions unmet, deeply felt needs. Patagonia fighting for the planet while selling jackets.

THE CULT BRAND
Galvanizes people around a way of life. Harley-Davidson isn't selling motorcycles.

THE REBEL
Challenges norms with a contrarian POV. Dollar Shave Club took on Gillette with a middle finger and a viral video.

And one bad one:

THE WAFFLER
95% of companies try to play here. They want to be everything to anyone so they end up being nothing to no one.

Most founders end up in that murky place - they want to be the Inventor and the Advocate and the Maverick all at once.

So their brand feels confused. Forgettable. Generic.

But this can all be turned around in an instant. You can decide right now.

Do this: Identify which archetype best fits your company. Then double down on that position with everything you’ve got - and stop apologizing for not being the others.
 
(Only do this if you like money.)
…….

Last month at Gold Front, we used AI to cut project costs by 27%.

Here are the tools we use:

1. CLICKUP
AI requires the right data structure. We codify every workflow in ClickUp. Every deliverable, every client presentation, every task.

2. CLAUDE
Our go-to LLM. Strategy work? Claude. Legal questions? Claude. Shoulder to cry on? Claude.

It doesn’t get everything right by a long shot. So we think of AI outputs sort of like clay that then needs to be molded by human expertise. Doing it this way is very powerful.


3. MAKE
Automations that ClickUp can't handle go through automation super-app, Make.  It connects to thousands of apps and makes them work together automatically. Saves us hours every week.

4. GRANOLA
Best AI note-taker. It doesn't actually make recordings so there’s no creepy AI bot joining your calls.  But it listens in on everything, making transcripts and notes. 
We use it to go back to any past conversation or to read between the lines and generate valuable insights.


5. CHATGPT
We use it for things Claude doesn't do well - certain types of research, data analysis, or when we need a different perspective on a problem.

6. GOOGLE DRIVE
We keep all our LLM instructions and knowledge base docs in Google Drive folders. Never just inside Claude or ChatGPT. So when a better model comes out, we have the ability to switch over instantly.

No vendor lock-in. No rebuilding everything from scratch.


What AI tools are working for you?
…….

PS: I cribbed the exact structure for this carousel from the amazing Nick Broekema. You should follow him.

This is the best AI trailer ever made.
And Kavan Cardoza made it with off-the-shelf AI tools for $0.

As if I don’t have enough to do, I made the poor decision of starting a podcast called How’d You Make That F*cking Awesome Thing?

In the first episode, I sat down with Kavan to get him to show me exactly how he made this amazing trailer.

We covered: 
- His AI stack
- His step-by-step process
- Prompting tactics you can steal
- Why sound is everything
- And the state of AI filmmaking

I learned a ton from this episode.

You can find it on Apple Podcasts but try to check out the video on Spotify or YouTube so you can see the tools he uses.

More episodes coming!
…….