Josh Lowman 💈

Revenue looks ugly for the next 2 months. My shop, Gold Front, has been dodging the AI bullet for a couple years now. But today I am shook.

Be that as it may, there’s no fucking way I’m letting AI take my job. I love it too much - and I need the money.

I don’t know how I’ll figure this out, but I will.

What’s stupid about this moment is I need AI to beat AI. That’s my best guess after 5 months going deep in Claude Code, learning its ways.

Becoming an overnight software engineer made me see two very different futures.

One where imaginative humans guide agents to bring their strange, wonderful vision to life. And.. a second, slop-ified future where agents do all the work - and we all turn into day drinkers.

With god as my witness I’m going to do what little I can to make the first thing happen. And I’m pretty sure that means putting ‘good’ agents at the center of my business and well, going all in on AI.

That plus I’ll rage until my dying breath against the slop-ified future.

None of this pays the bills in June.
…

Welp, we just spent 3 weeks breaking down Perplexity's marketing funnel.

In just 3 years, Perplexity grew from zero to $150M in revenue (!) and up to 780 million monthly queries.

They're now valued at $20 billion. (And some say Apple wants to buy them.)

How'd they do it?

✅ An "AI answer engine" that hit at exactly the right moment in the AI search race
✅ A product so fast and clean that people ditched free Google for paid Perplexity
✅ A vibey brand that makes the internet feel cool again
✅ Founder Aravind Srinivas - building in public and calling out critics

Put it all together and you’ve got a monster company in the making.

In this file, I've mapped Perplexity's entire marketing funnel—from video spots with Eric André and Lewis Hamilton to their Chrome-fighting Comet browser—and provided analysis across:

→ Website tech stack

→ Digital ads

→ Partnerships
→ Homepage & website

→ Event marketing
→ Branded content

→ Video

→ Social media content

And much more. I'm even including a breakdown of Aravind’s founder brand.

It’s pretty much Marketing Funnel Nirvana.

Want it? Comment "Perplexity," and I'll send it right over.

(Must be connected.)

All killer, no filler.
……

I absolutely love Tatiana Sukhova's work.

I'm not alone. Her 'Solar Blur' post (below) racked up 6,700+ likes and half a million impressions.

Problem is, nobody knows what the heck SREFs are or how to use them.

So in the latest episode of "How'd You Make That F*cking Awesome Thing?", I spoke with Tatiana, and got her to show me exactly how she creates gorgeous imagery with Midjourney.

We covered:
- How to find the scroll-stopping SREFs
- Tatiana's "secret sauce" — her personalization code
- Animating and sharing SREFs for social

It was a wonderful conversation with an amazing talent.

You can find it on all the places, like YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

I'll put a link down below.
...

My intense desire to win makes me question everything.

Did I choose the right path?
Am I investing wisely?
Does my company - this team - have what it takes?
Am I even any good at this?

So I build ideas that let me see in the dark.

This one has been crushing it for me behind closed doors - helping my agency and clients level up.

I call it the Five Layers of Category Leadership. Here’s what it’s about:

In business, we’re taught to chase customers. But category leaders attract them.

When you truly own a category, the market starts orbiting around you. Customers seek you out. Competitors define themselves in relation to you. Press wants to talk to you first.

This gravity doesn't come from marketing tricks or growth hacks. It comes from working your ass off in five areas.

Central Idea - A single, clear sentence that answers the question "How will we become irreplaceable?" You’re looking for ideas that create differentiated value AND you that matter personally to you.

Mic Drop POV - Your strategic narrative. Fold in the customer, their great ambition, the enemy of that, and the thing you do that vanquishes the enemy. Make this simple narrative the north star for your entire company.

Irreplaceable Product - Story isn’t enough. Your product is where you prove it. And it must be categorically different, not 17% better.

Confident Brand - Show up like a leader. Surprise them with confidence, proof and things left unsaid. Play in visual culture, never marketing culture.

Visible Founder - You either have it or you don’t. A founder who welcomes the spotlight for all the right reasons. If so, get them to sell the vision, rail against the problem - and make it look fun.

Companies that stack all five, of course, compete on a different level.

And yes, what I just laid out is an almost impossible bar, but that’s the point - if it wasn’t so hard, winning wouldn’t mean so much.

The result is maybe, just maybe you become # 1.

Not because you claimed it, like the lazy people, but because you earned it.

–

Do you dream of leading a category - and are you ready to put in the work?

In a few days I’m opening the doors on a small 4-week Strategy Cohort. It will sell out.

Want early access? DM or comment “YES” and I’ll send it your way.
…..

These days I live in Claude Code because my shop, Gold Front, wins or loses based on my ability to master AI tools myself.

In middle school I gave my life over to all things computers and I managed to persuade the local college to admit me into their computer science program. So working in Claude Code feels surprisingly familiar.

My employees, on the other hand, are not so sure - I’m catching a lot of side-eyes on Zoom as I blather on about AI.

The unspoken question: “Am I going to lose my job here?”

I like money as much as the next person, but I’m at a place in my career (old) where money doesn’t have to be my everything. Plus I love my employees. Plus they are creative badasses.

There’s no way I’m throwing that out for a few bucks.

That said, if I was in their shoes, I’d be suspicious. So I made them a promise. As long as there’s no big downturn in revenue, everyone keeps their jobs. AI or not.

If we’re headed where I think we’re headed, our jobs will change. Because what we sell now is only the human stuff.

Differentiation, taste, changing minds, making things people love.

Everything else is just a commodity.

Scheduling.
Status updates.
Your list of high priority tasks.
Follow up emails.
Updating the CRM.
Finding that one file where we put that one thing.

The 10,027 little things that keep creative people from doing creative work.

For all of that stuff, we’re building agents. (Coded by me, a writer and designer at heart, so they may need a little extra QA.)

Put it all together and that’s my idea for how a creative shop, and maybe the world, makes sense of AI.  Maybe this moment is an invitation to be a little more human, not less?

It would be wonderful if it plays out that way.
….