Welcome back 🤝

I’ve been thinking about the word competition as I continue scaling the business.

Three weeks ago I booked a demo with a sales guy from a company whose AI tool is trying to take me out of business. A year ago, that company was doing pretty much exactly what Ink Equity does.

Nobody made me book a call with my competition - like I didn’t hear this on a podcast or through some viral Instagram reel.

I did this because I wanted to learn from who I’m competing against. Ironic sure, but hear me out.

I’ve noticed companies offering something similar to what I’m offering over the last 4 months since launching. Some are 2–3 years ahead of me and some are 2–3 months behind me.

Either way, competition in my space is something I’m starting to fall in love with. The reason is simple: I’m competitive AF.

It doesn’t matter if it’s the fantasy football league I run, playing H-O-R-S-E with a friend or two when shooting hoops, or that gun-shooting water game at a fair where you hit the bullseye and race your way to the top against 7 other people… whatever it is, I’m giving it 110%.

So today’s edition is about what the competition is teaching me, why I ran toward one of my direct competitors instead of running away from them, and the one thing that call made me realize about where I’ll never take this business.

If you’re new here: Ink Equity is a business I started that helps founders & execs create more brand value and revenue from written content on LinkedIn.

My hope is that you see competition as a good thing in whatever you’re building and you welcome it rather than run from it.

I’m more excited for this than I am for the ring ceremony tomorrow night at MSG before the Knicks kick off their season against LeBron.

Let’s jump in and LGK!! 🏀

There’s competition…so what?

I’ve seen more and more competition popping up and I’m absolutely jacked up about it. One because I want to win, but two your competitors can TEACH YOU A TON.

While I did my research on competition months leading into launching, I see competition more and morenow that I’m in the weeds and trying to grow.

I’m learning about what they offer, how they position it, and why they believe they’re the company to partner with.

And while I’m not suggesting you book calls with competitors, nor will I continue to do this, the time and place felt right to meet with this one company specifically.

The Call

3 weeks ago I came across a company named Blazel through a LinkedIn post.

The sell was, it’s an AI tool that interviews you, analyzes content you’ve put out on LinkedIn, and then helps you ideate and create future content from past posts and how you write.

So I booked a call with one of their sales people because I thought this was cool in theory…but was it?

When I got on the call, the sales guy told me something that changed the whole call for me.

A year ago, Blazel was basically Ink Equity. A team doing written content for founders and execs. They raised $10 million in venture capital to do what I’m doing right now.

Then the VCs realized something: a service like that takes a long time to scale to the point where it takes a while for the VC to get a BIGGER return on their investment.

So 8 months ago, Blazel shifted and there is no longer a team of writers handling content. Instead, an AI product gets embedded into a company to handle what their writers used to - ideation for content, creating LinkedIn posts, analyzing it, etc.

$10M bought a company that looked like mine and turned it into a tool built to replace the people it used to need. Sounds like the grand scheme of AI at times which…

But I actually hate it. Sorry Michael Scott.

I get the approach to use AI in certain areas, but then I thought about it more and I’m like wth is happening here.

Am I really trusting a 3rd party tool where it has access to my social content, data, and whatever else they don’t directly tell you that they’re using? Plus, they’ve been around for about a year. Can they even prove they’re secure yet?

Red alert: have you seen the Hugging Face dilemma? OpenAI was testing an experiment, their agents went rogue on a task, colluded with each other and hacked a company called Hugging Face. You have to check out the Netflix InstaDoc or the podcast episode Steven Bartlett hosts on the Diary of a CEO about it. It’s insane.

Anyway, this company is selling they save you hours when in fact you use their tools for hours. Plus, to use these tools efficiently, you have to understand storytelling, content, and all the rest that comes with it to trust the output you get. Letting a bot handle this is just absurd to me.

I’ve mentioned this tool specifically to founders before. They find it interesting, but they don’t have a care in the world because they don’t want their content to feel outsourced.

The tool’s argument is it can create and ideate content for you based upon your voice from the interview and past posts, which is great in theory.

However, you still have to have someone edit it to make sure it feels true to you. Editing takes a ton of time and the only way you get better at editing is by writing and going back to your writing and improving it…consistently…for a while…and understanding where it can be improved.

While I’m not anti-AI, outsourcing this to replace skilled writers who know the craft and can help you with storytelling is just dumb.

An AI that takes my meeting notes and turns them into bullet points and action items where Claude keeps me organized across my calls? Valuable. Using Claude and ChatGPT for deep research, with me cross-referencing and checking the sources? Huge time saver and valuable.

But content that is about an individual and their company needs to be treated with the utmost care, with a hands-on approach. The way you get that is human insight and human judgment. Not an automated magical tool.

This is where I am completely bearish on what they’re doing, and super bullish on what I’m offering.

Because here’s what that call made me realize. If I want to scale Ink Equity, I have to hire people. Writers who are experts, who are talented at storytelling, who have the human judgment on what will resonate online when they’re making content for a founder. That’s the version of scale I’m looking for. You think I want a bunch of sales people selling an AI product where no one ever works with anyone? It’s just human on bot, bot on human. Sorry, that came out wrong.

Personally, I will never rely on AI to do all the writing for me, and I would never build an embedded tool that replaces the need for those people. It can help and it can be proactive, but I could never get comfortable with the written word becoming an automated task.

So I approach Ink Equity with conviction despite this kind of tool.

My approach to content is two ways. You either do it yourself or you pay someone to do it for you. And by doing it I mean you actually write it.

But a lot of founders & execs don’t have the time and energy to handle a second job in content. And if founders understand the value of it, but don’t want to handle it, why would they force themselves to handle it through a bot, especially if they don’t enjoy it?

I think Blazel is decent for marketing teams who get the game, but certainly not founders and business owners.

Competition is what makes companies better. It’s what makes markets more interesting. It’s the fuel businesses need to constantly improve and get the ef after it.

It’s everywhere too — from writers competing with other writers to get their books published, to NYC restaurant owners competing with the restaurant a mile or 2 away, to the Knicks competing for back-to-back championships this year!

There is a ton of value you get from your competitors, especially if you act strategically about it. Like honestly, I had nothing to lose by booking that demo call, but so much to gain from it.

If you ever want to go after something, whether it’s a business, side-hustle or a new position at the company you work at: study your competition, understand what sets you apart and makes you unique. But most importantly, let the conviction of you outweigh the thought of your competition. Because that’s what keeps you going, the belief in you and that you will win.

I’m networking in NYC Thursday night and will be in the city all day Thursday and Friday. If anyone is down to meet for a 15 min coffee I’m down to meet. Just email me if you have a pocket of time!

On your way out…I have a question:

Last week’s poll: Would you ever buy a whiteboard? (3,759 subscribers)

Since this is the first time I’ve seen a poll at 100%, here is the link to the whiteboard I talked about from last week’s edition. It’s from Amazon. Took minutes to set up too. You won’t be disappointed.

See you next Tuesday!

To building together,

Dan

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