Decision ledger: Read.ai backfill (Aug 2024 - May 2026)

Extracted 2026-08-06 from 492 Read.ai meeting transcripts. Decisions with financial detail live in Owner tier. Source transcripts in meetings/. [src] filenames refer to meetings/.

2024-08

• 2024-08-12: Megaphone V2 database migration (Airtable to AWS) must launch this week with firm go-live deadline of Friday night Aug 16; testing prioritized on core broadcast, user, and payment flows (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-08-12: Daily database backup setup deferred to after launch (not a launch blocker); Mehul’s groups work moved to next sprint (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-08-14: Move forward with Lyra for podcast video editing (Hunter’s option rejected as too expensive) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ethan Clift: TokBox Intro Call]
• 2024-08-15: TokBox campaign pivots to targeting only creators already onboarded to TikTok Shop, at much higher outreach volume; skip traditional flat-rate influencer posts (owner: Luca Washenko) [src: TokBox Next Steps]
• 2024-08-15: Onboard all commission-only creators immediately (initial batch of 7); Rye Valley side takes a cut of the commission through its TikTok Shop agency account [src: TokBox Next Steps]
• 2024-08-19: Client Preston Troutt: content production stays paused; September 2 renewal will be charged to cover the 30 delivered threads (August was not billed), then reassess in late September whether October continues or pauses (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Catch Up]
• 2024-08-22: Andrew Safranko assigned as dedicated account writer for Dan Feshbach’s account (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Zoom Meeting]
• 2024-08-22: Billing set to monthly invoicing starting the 22nd of each month, invoices sent by Michael’s assistant and processed by Keevin O’Rourke (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Zoom Meeting]
• 2024-08-30: EarnIn continues the content engagement for at least another month, driving toward results (owner: Janet Lee) [src: Megaphone <> Earnin Checkin]
• 2024-08-30: Adopted the simplified Notion board process: two review stages (team review, then Ram review), feedback delivered via recorded review sessions, Megaphone flags ready-to-post items in Slack [src: Megaphone <> Earnin Checkin]

2024-09

• 2024-09-04: Megaphone V2 rebuild (Airtable to new database) launch targeted for Wednesday September 11, with Michael testing staging Monday and bug fixes Tuesday (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-09-11: Megaphone will credit Alto Studios for 8 inactive creator accounts charged in August and September, applied as a reduction on the October invoice (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck + Rob Catch Up]
• 2024-09-19: Client Jennifer Kamara reassigned from writer Jacob to writer Qetsiyah Jacobson; remaining weeks of month two will be a trial before deciding on month three (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Next Steps]
• 2024-09-24: Megaphone V2 go-live set for the next night around midnight Eastern (9:30am India), with a maintenance banner and a dedicated Slack launch channel (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-09-27: Megaphone V2 shipped: production migration off Airtable executed (about 2,200 files changed, ~80% of backend replaced) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Launch]

2024-10

• 2024-10-07: Kicked off ghostwriting engagement for Sarah Allali (Flud, AI email executive assistant): Twitter-first founder-led content optimized for impressions and leads, Romesh Khatri as dedicated writer, weekday posting around 8:30am Eastern, Megaphone team posts from her account and handles replies plus thought-leader commenting (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Studios Kickoff!]
• 2024-10-08: Venture Scaler (Jake Huber) to start cold-email newsletter growth at 1,000 subscribers per month targeting founders only, with a ‘Scaling OS’ Notion resource as the lead magnet; Megaphone team to buy two domains with two inboxes each and begin warmup, targeting first campaign around Oct 22 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Jake Huber and Michael Houck]
• 2024-10-08: Preston Troutt reactivating Megaphone amplification now; ghostwriting re-engagement deferred to a follow-up call booked for Oct 30 (owner: Preston Troutt) [src: Preston <> Houck: Catch Up]
• 2024-10-11: Max’s email setup: max@foundingjourney.com becomes his main work address, a separate Mailforge-warmed domain inbox will be provisioned for cold outreach, and hauk.news stays open only for legacy reminders; no outreach from primary domains (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-10-11: Hold all Venture Scaler (Jake Huber) copy work until he pays the Stripe invoice; paid ads for Founding Journey deferred until Tibo delivers the SEO plan and budget is set (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-10-14: Ben Ornstein formally joins the Megaphone eng weekly and owns user-facing support triage; eng team to prioritize issues he raises (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-10-15: Repurpose the Founding Journey Tuesday send (opportunity of the week, trends, quotes) into short-form videos as a core format (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Daily] Content Jam]
• 2024-10-15: Set up a separate cold outreach inbox for Max on getfoundingjourney.com with DNS redirect to foundingjourney.com (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Daily] Content Jam]
• 2024-10-21: Stop using ClipWing slots for podcast clips and convert all 7-8 weekly slots to purpose-made shorts; existing podcast clip backlog kept as filler for busy weeks (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Daily] Content Jam]
• 2024-10-21: Noel Moldvai (secondary markets platform) kicked off as Megaphone ghostwriting client with Jacob Shipley as his writer (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Noel Moldvai: Megaphone Studios Kickoff]
• 2024-10-21: Compliance review handled via a dedicated column in the Notion review board; broker-dealer service content gets compliance review, general market/personal content skips it (owner: Jacob Shipley) [src: Noel Moldvai: Megaphone Studios Kickoff]
• 2024-10-23: Stay focused exclusively on YouTube shorts for the rest of the quarter; defer long form video despite shorts not counting toward monetization watch hours (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Daily] Content Jam]
• 2024-10-28: Kickoff for new client Bryndis Henrikson (We Work Remotely / Tiny): lead with her personal LinkedIn brand to build awareness for the new Walter offshore staffing brand, Jacob Shipley as writer (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Bryndis Henrikson and Michael Houck]
• 2024-10-28: November number one goal set: launch Megaphone Groups (inner circle MVP) plus referrals (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-10-28: Move Megaphone blog/SEO content from Strapi to Feather (notion-friendly, cheaper, run by a friend who also creates the SEO content) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-10-31: Pause Founding Journey Facebook ads for two weeks due to election-inflated CPAs, then restart with new creatives (owner: Max Palmer) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-10-31: Restart cold email newsletter growth using Apollo lead lists (24K/yr export limit), managed by Rina, targeting ~300-400 adds/day (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-10-31: Keep the Viral Examples newsletter focused on Twitter and LinkedIn only until Megaphone launches new platforms (owner: Max Palmer) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]

2024-11

• 2024-11-01: Advanced roughly 10 companies from a batch of about 120 Weekend Fund deal-flow submissions for further discussion with Ryan Hoover, remaining 5 of Ben’s picks to be debated async in Slack (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Investments Speedrun]
• 2024-11-09: Second newsletter for Nicole’s cannabis venture Cantella to get its own kickoff the following week with cofounder Tom, same Megaphone team (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Newsletter Kickoff!]
• 2024-11-15: Athena sponsorship deal treated as confirmed since it went to their payments team [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-11-15: Templatize the first batch of client content: intro post, mission post, and hot-takes listicle for every new ghostwriting client (owner: Blake Emal) [src: Studios]
• 2024-11-15: Create a content philosophy/manifesto doc to use on the website, in sales calls, and client onboarding [src: Studios]
• 2024-11-15: Set up a writer samples database so clients pick their writer, building buy-in (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Studios]
• 2024-11-15: Run an exit-interview style post-mortem with every churned client going forward [src: Studios]
• 2024-11-19: Shift client Multiple’s posting from founder Dan’s personal account to the Multiple brand account, using the approved backlog (owner: Keevin O’Rourke) [src: Multiple Content Update]
• 2024-11-19: Increase Multiple posting cadence to roughly once per day for the rest of November, with engagement ops 4-5 days a week run by Ben (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Multiple Content Update]
• 2024-11-19: Touch base after Thanksgiving (end of November / first week of December) to decide go-forward engagement [src: Multiple Content Update]
• 2024-11-19: Canntella’s accidental double subscription payment applied as a credit to month two instead of a refund (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Newsletter Kickoff!]
• 2024-11-19: Canntella newsletter engagement kicked off with Austin Schlessinger as the writer [src: Newsletter Kickoff!]
• 2024-11-20: AI Tool Report signed and paid invoice for delivery of 8,000 qualified subscribers via the email growth service (owner: Liam Lawson) [src: Liam Lawson and Michael Houck]
• 2024-11-20: Use HubSpot partnership lead magnets co-branded with AI Tool Report in a 3-4 email warmup sequence; Megaphone team gets Beehiiv access to handle segments and tagging [src: Liam Lawson and Michael Houck]
• 2024-11-21: Modest holiday bonuses will be paid this year on top of Max’s commission, to be finalized in December (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-11-21: No direct Beehiiv imports for email growth clients without their explicit go-ahead; default to cold campaigns with managed email infrastructure (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-11-21: Bookkeeping team to run month-by-month reconciliation between the portal and Michael’s Google Sheet, starting from the Stripe tab (owner: Derek Bungard) [src: Touch base w/ Michael Houck]
• 2024-11-25: Hire a dedicated part-time content operations person for client account engagement instead of transferring the process to Reena; Michael to reach out to Ben’s six candidates via ex-StoryArb contacts, expected resolution by end of year (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Content Ops Transfer Plan]
• 2024-11-25: Launch referrals independently ahead of groups once flow testing passes, since referrals does not depend on groups; joint walkthrough test targeted Thursday morning (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-11-25: Give user Yassin a free month promo code for repeated account issues (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-11-26: Megaphone takes over scheduling, posting, and comment replies for new ghostwriting client Walid by default; Tanmay assigned as dedicated writer, Ben handling content ops with X login access (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Kickoff!]
• 2024-11-26: Posting cadence set: a couple long form posts per week (consumer app breakdown format prioritized about twice weekly) plus shorter posts filling most other days, drafts in Typefully (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Kickoff!]
• 2024-11-26: Pass on the graphic designer whose samples were shared in Slack; Max to keep looking for better candidates (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-11-26: Offer Athena the December 28 ad spot as a long-term partner (or the extra April spot if they prefer) (owner: Max Palmer) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2024-11-26: Defer the Megaphone FAQ full review and pricing-model overhaul until after groups and campaigns launch, likely January; account-level pricing work in December but deposit-based subscription model deferred to Feb or Mar 2025 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2024-11-29: Rye Valley adopted Kick as its bookkeeping platform, transitioning off Michael’s Google Sheet system; existing bookkeeper kept through end of year and re-evaluated for Q1 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael Houck <> Kick Bookkeeping]
• 2024-11-29: Hold off on splitting transactions into per-entity books in Kick for a few days while Kick engineering explores a parent roll-up P&L; 2024 balance sheet to be filed under the parent Rye Valley LLC (owner: Andrew Roth) [src: Michael Houck <> Kick Bookkeeping]

2024-12

• 2024-12-02: Launch a free basic tier so users arriving via groups can create an inner circle without creator network access; Rafael to build backend plus pricing page while the rest of the account-level pricing update waits (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-12-02: Groups / inner circle launch targeted for middle of the following week after Sunday handoff for testing; bulletins feature and dashboard group browsing deferred to groups V2 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-12-02: Adopt Linear to run content ops (tasks, sizing, labels, Slack notifications), with weekly planning anchored on the Saturday deep dive and the weekly long form YouTube video (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Content Planning]
• 2024-12-02: YouTube strategy settled: stay with startup-centric founder-focused content, goal is building a large YouTube channel as top of funnel for the businesses (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Content Planning]
• 2024-12-02: First long form video will be Startup Fundraising Explained, with the following week’s Saturday deep dive repurposing it as a fundraising playbook (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Content Planning]
• 2024-12-03: Client Sarah Allali continues for December (already paid) with a new writer replacing Romesh and new format experiments, under a default-cancel arrangement: engagement ends January 1 unless she sees results and opts to continue (owner: Sarah Allali) [src: Ghostwriting Checkin]
• 2024-12-03: Michael to send anonymized writing samples from other team writers so Sarah picks the best voice fit this week (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Checkin]
• 2024-12-03: Reduce Jade Cheng’s posting cadence from three to two posts per week with billing adjusted, effective going forward (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael Houck and Team Superhuman]
• 2024-12-03: Michael to talk candidly with writer Jacob the same afternoon about shifting to the punchier, edgier newsletter-style voice Jade wants, and to reconcile how long she has been receiving two posts while paying for three (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael Houck and Team Superhuman]
• 2024-12-03: Keep YouTube podcast thumbnails simple and titles one altitude level higher (drop niche details like the product category) based on CTR data showing simple formats outperform (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Video Sync]
• 2024-12-04: Jade renewal approach set: propose status quo shift to two net-new posts per week at the lower rate, holding fallback sweeteners (re-edited backlog posts, Megaphone credits) only if she pushes back (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Sync]
• 2024-12-04: Romesh pulled from recurring client work after reliability failures; kept in the wings for one-off posts, content queue work, or a possible newsletter client (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Sync]
• 2024-12-04: Add a post-kickoff strategy doc/deck compiled from kickoff notes to the client onboarding flow (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Sync]
• 2024-12-04: This month’s growth priority: start cold-emailing venture-backed startups within about two weeks to sell newsletter creation plus the growth service (Matt handles growth, Megaphone handles content) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ghostwriting Sync]
• 2024-12-05: First long-form YouTube video (startup fundraising explained) will be narrative-driven, animation-heavy but featuring Michael on camera, targeting a 9-14 minute runtime (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Video Sync]
• 2024-12-05: Second long-form video topic set: The Entire History of Silicon Valley, with Ben Ornstein starting research (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Video Sync]
• 2024-12-05: Scripts will be written in a backlog and recorded in batch days since editing does not start until January (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Video Sync]
• 2024-12-11: Ben Ornstein continues in a full-time-equivalent research and operations role at an increased hourly rate from Jan 1 through March, with a re-evaluation in March once the email growth business formalizes (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2024-12-11: Ben will be offboarded from Megaphone CX and ghostwriting ops (a hire needed for ghostwriting ops); his focus shifts to research and biz ops for the email growth business (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2024-12-11: Podcast continues with booked guests through roughly February, then gets evaluated; content budget priority shifts to long-form YouTube and the newsletter (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2024-12-11: Rye Valley LLC to be converted to an S-corp, targeted by end of year (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2024-12-12: Athena newsletter content style shifted from tactical playbook pieces to narrative Andrew Wilkinson style storytelling, agreed with Robert and Stephanie (owner: Michael Houck) [src: marco and Michael Houck]
• 2024-12-16: Inner circle (groups MVP) will not launch this week; scraper engagement-tracking fix takes priority, but testing and launch prep continue (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2024-12-16: Import flow changed so cold-imported subscribers receive regular newsletter issues first and only enter the welcome sequence after engaging; change applied same day for AI Tool Report and another client (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Liam]
• 2024-12-16: AI Tool Report’s subscription renewal (due Dec 19) paused; billing decision deferred until the ~8K subscriber delivery target is reached; engagement started as a one-time deal rather than recurring (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Liam]
• 2024-12-16: Michael to appear on Liam’s podcast the following Monday (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Liam]
• 2024-12-17: Stop producing podcast guest clips with ClipWing and reallocate those slots to 7-8 shorts per week (one per day), agreed with Lara at ClipWing (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Content Planning]
• 2024-12-17: Next long-form video research: How to Build an MVP; January lineup set as History of Silicon Valley, MVP, Fundraising Explained, and US vs EU (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Content Planning]
• 2024-12-17: Video research now stored in Linear as the single source of truth (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Content Planning]
• 2024-12-18: Midwestern deep dive slotted for the February 15 Founding Journey issue, with the founder interview to happen in January and a lead magnet landing page built by Midwestern; Matt to confirm by end of week (owner: Matt Johnson) [src: Advertising Call]
• 2024-12-19: With Jake’s go-ahead, his newsletter growth transitions from the SmartLead cold-email validation process to direct Beehiiv imports using the newbie segment process, starting with the coming weekend’s issue (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Jake huber and Michael Houck]
• 2024-12-20: Adopt a biweekly sprint retro and planning meeting at the end of every sprint, led by Rafael (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Bi-weekly] Sprint Retro + Planning]
• 2024-12-20: Release quality process adopted: written test checklists per release and multiple people testing each feature; Cypress end-to-end testing deferred until after this release (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Bi-weekly] Sprint Retro + Planning]
• 2024-12-20: CX messages to engineering will carry an explicit priority marker (alert emoji plus important) on the first line for urgent items (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Bi-weekly] Sprint Retro + Planning]

2025-01

• 2025-01-06: Megaphone 2025 growth priorities set: bank on product-led growth (Groups/Inner Circle) and Viral Examples newsletter as top channels; test Meta ads after research; SEO and affiliates get baby steps only; podcasts opportunistic; no cold email directly for Megaphone (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Growth Channel Prioritization]
• 2025-01-09: Max’s work email will be retained by the company after his departure to preserve long-term reminders and inbound sponsor threads (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2025-01-09: Podcast officially discontinued; final recorded episode (Sahil Chopra) airs the following week, replaced by weekly long form YouTube (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max <> Houck [Weekly]]
• 2025-01-13: Megaphone launch of basic tier, inner circles, and referrals set for Tuesday Jan 21, with Michael testing by end of day Thursday Jan 16 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-01-14: Client Jade churned from ghostwriting about two weeks prior; she declined to pay the second half of the 30 days notice and Michael let the relationship end (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Jacob Shipley and Michael Houck]
• 2025-01-20: Crowdsurf (Preston Troutt) re-engaged as a client for newsletter ghostwriting plus cold-email growth; Jacob Shipley assigned as writer, kickoff completed (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Preston Troutt and Michael Houck]
• 2025-01-20: Preston will handle newsletter branding assets (logo, banner, header) himself; Houck team handles all Beehiiv setup, welcome sequence, and ops (owner: Preston Troutt) [src: Preston Troutt and Michael Houck]
• 2025-01-21: New cold-email growth business structured as a joint venture: Megaphone Studios and Matt’s data company remain separate entities with permanent exclusive agreements to the new company; ghostwriting clients sourced through it pay Megaphone Studios minus a small referral fee; incorporation and legal work in progress (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Newsletter + Cold Email Sync]
• 2025-01-21: Usman Saleem signed on for the more extensive ghostwriting package; Stripe link, onboarding form, and Slack channel to be sent same day (owner: Usman Saleem) [src: Usman and Michael Houck]
• 2025-01-22: Gill Gross onboarded as newsletter growth client: first subscriber batch delivering Monday, weekly Monday cadence; reporting and updates via email rather than Slack at his preference (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Mantle Kickoff]
• 2025-01-22: Engagement criteria left at standard settings for now despite Gill’s above-average click rate; revisit only if incoming subscriber quality lags (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Mantle Kickoff]
• 2025-01-22: PLG feature ideas (streaks, comparison dashboard, dynamic insight banners, group challenges) to be added to Linear backlog and prioritized into spring sprints (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone PLG Audit Results]
• 2025-01-23: Max departing (last working day Jan 24) to join Austin and Alex from Morning Brew as head of sales and first employee of a new B2B creator talent agency; Ben Ornstein takes over sponsorship sales, Founding Journey Tuesday send curation, Viral Examples Thursday curation, founder library, and eventually Megaphone demos (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Handoff Sync]
• 2025-01-23: Ben to keep sponsorship replies in his ben@foundingjourney.com inbox rather than a separate address; mass cold outreach continues from lookalike domains funneled to the main inbox; Michael takes Megaphone demo calls until new positioning lands (February) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Handoff Sync]
• 2025-01-27: Launch Megaphone Inner Circle and basic tier changes Tuesday/Wednesday night once final invite-limit fixes and copy land; team on standby for launch bugs with overage hours approved (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-01-27: Tapfiliate referral conversions and payouts approved manually (daily, by Reena) for now; automation deferred to a backlog ticket later in the quarter (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-01-27: Test buying 1-2 LinkedIn accounts (via the Craigslist sourcing route) before scaling a full replacement of Accountify accounts, due to IP-mismatch block risk (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-01-27: Ben Ornstein takes over the Founding Journey sponsor and partnership pipeline from Max, owning email threads, scheduling, and follow-ups going forward (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Sponsor Process Sync]
• 2025-01-28: Noel Moldvai (Augment, Pulse newsletter) agreed to start the cold email newsletter growth service at 1,000 subscribers per month; Michael to confirm pricing with Matt and set it up (owner: Noel Moldvai) [src: Noel and Michael Houck]
• 2025-01-29: Founding Journey deep dive on Joe Walsh’s recruiting firm (angle: why search firms are broken) scheduled for the Saturday of Valentine’s week, Feb 15; Michael drafting within about a week (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Let's meet]
• 2025-01-29: Aura engagement kicked off: David leads X ghostwriting for founder usmansaleem, Ben handles account content ops (replies, engagement, profile optimization); context gathering starts now with first ideas the following week (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-01-30: Craig Brockie signs onto the Megaphone platform as a creator open to paid reposts/comments (health and positivity content), with his prior platform fee payment refunded and account set up by the team (owner: Craig Brockie) [src: Craig Brockie and Michael Houck]
• 2025-01-31: Workmate engagement makes David Lobo’s account the primary personal brand (over the more reserved CEO Will), covering both newsletter and social; Austin Schlessinger is the writer, Beehiiv setup starts Monday (owner: Michael Houck) [src: David Lobo: Megaphone Studios Kickoff]
• 2025-01-31: Cancel Waleed’s social content package: push him to the newsletter offering instead, otherwise run at most one to two more months and let him churn (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-01-31: Client content preferences will be documented publicly in each client’s Notion hub and captured during onboarding, rather than in a private internal doc (owner: Blake Emal) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]

2025-02

• 2025-02-03: Fella Health newsletter engagement kicked off: Andrew Safranko writes the weekly newsletter aimed at converting busy overweight men into the program; binge eating course lead magnet will sign users to both the Fella main list and the weekly newsletter, with a segmented welcome automation offering the course chapter to everyone else (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Jamie Barnes: Megaphone Studios Kickoff]
• 2025-02-06: Blake Stewart hired to run Founding Journey sponsorship partnerships and sales motion, base plus 10 percent commission, start within days (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael Houck and Blake Stewart]
• 2025-02-07: Agency name simplified from Megaphone Studios to Megaphone Studio because megaphonestudios.com domain is owned by someone else; Notion docs to be updated (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Ops Handoff Plan]
• 2025-02-07: Tyler Denk (beehiiv) partnership agreed: he will refer newsletter ghostwriting leads to Megaphone Studio on an ongoing basis (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-02-07: Weekly Ben-Michael sync made a structured recurring weekly meeting with an agenda (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-02-07: Hold off pitching Pujun a newsletter sponsorship; prioritize converting him to ghostwriting later in the quarter (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-02-07: Kickoff for Create founder Dhruv Amin’s Twitter ghostwriting; Tanmay assigned as writer, content via Slack with samples and voice input from Dhruv (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Zoom Meeting]
• 2025-02-10: Kickoff for Max Marchione (Superpower) Twitter ghostwriting; Tanmay assigned as writer, focus on building-a-10-billion-dollar-company-in-public narrative, Michael to deliver a profile audit; Max keeps writing his own newsletter (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Max Marchione: Megaphone Studios Kickoff]
• 2025-02-10: Break up the Walid-Tanmay pairing; propose lower monthly frequency with Andrew as the new writer to try to retain Walid (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-02-10: Monitor Tanmay closely on his two new clients (Max and Dhruv) before trusting him with more [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-02-10: David (Auragold writer) approved to deliver biweekly batches ahead of schedule, capped at 30 days ahead per client commitment (owner: Blake Emal) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-02-12: Trial white-label partnership with Louis Shulman’s agency (Orbit): they write overflow newsletter clients at about 1000 dollars per month per weekly newsletter, informal no-MSA start, Slack Connect coordination channel (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck / Louis]
• 2025-02-12: Kickoff for Emil Barr LinkedIn ghostwriting; Jacob Shipley assigned, quality-over-quantity scope of roughly 3-4 story posts per month plus profile refresh and about section rewrite (owner: Jacob Shipley) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-02-12: Add Megaphone creator network paid engagements to Emil’s posts to juice follower growth; Emil not cost sensitive (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-02-13: Jacob Shipley takes over Michael Houck’s personal LinkedIn on the full account takeover scope, starting the following week; screenshot essays with a branded template from Celine, repurposing newsletter archive allowed (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-02-13: Mantle newsletter import work handed fully back to Matt; Rye Valley now takes a referral fee instead of splitting work 50-50, Ben stops doing imports (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-02-13: Client LinkedIn/X reply coverage will be paused March 3-5 while Ben is out; posts stay scheduled, clients to be notified around Feb 28 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-02-13: History of Silicon Valley YouTube video launch pushed a week because the mural group deep dive occupies that Saturday (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-02-17: Ben takes back over Intercom customer support for Megaphone (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-02-17: Inner circle bug-fix launch email to be written and sent Wednesday to all users, churned users, and leads (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-02-17: Kafka migration off Upstash deferred until Rafael reports AWS managed Kafka monthly cost; one-week free-tier rebuild not approved yet (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-02-18: Client Waleed committed to another month instead of churning at the end of his billing period [src: Walid Next Steps]
• 2025-02-18: Team will audit all Waleed posts to date in a Google Sheet (impressions, likes, reposts, comments), classify formats, and realign with him on the top 2-3 formats for about 80 percent of content; Ben to build the sheet within two days (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Walid Next Steps]
• 2025-02-18: Adopt a real CRM (likely HubSpot) for newsletter partnership sales; Blake Stewart to research and have it in place within about a month (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-02-18: WeFunder campaign founders approved as a sponsor category for ad placements (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-02-25: PointOne newsletter will run as an independent brand (not company-named), authored from Adrian Parlow’s POV, targeting go-live two weeks out (around March 11); Austin Schlessinger is the writer and Matt handles growth (owner: Adrian Parlow) [src: Megaphone Studio Kickoff]
• 2025-02-25: Newsletter’s primary conversion goal set as driving SMB law firm signups to monthly CLE-credit webinars (owner: Adrian Parlow) [src: Megaphone Studio Kickoff]
• 2025-02-25: Heavenly Health longevity newsletter kickoff confirmed: Andrew Safranko writing, Ben on ops, Warren to set up the Beehiiv account, target go-live roughly two weeks out; Warren prefers email over Slack as primary channel (owner: Warren Lentz) [src: Megaphone Studio Kickoff]
• 2025-02-25: Pull the trigger on migrating CRM/pipeline tracking (spreadsheets, Airtable, Salesforce) into HubSpot; Michael to get discount via contact Christine (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-02-25: No podcast or YouTube ad sales for now; pushed to second half of 2025 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-02-27: Neeraj Chouhan brought onto the Megaphone writing team to trial with one client, starting with an AI founder prospect if depth matches (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Neeraj and Michael Houck]
• 2025-02-28: Michael committed to angel invest in Airlast and help fill out the round (back-channeling, structuring advice); Airlast to open a new SAFE first (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Airlast / Houck catch up]
• 2025-02-28: Realworld newsletter will run on Customer.io (their existing platform) rather than Beehiiv, reassessed only if it fails (owner: Genevieve Bellaire) [src: Newsletter Kickoff]
• 2025-02-28: Newsletter audience kept identical to product ICP (quarter-life 25-35, skewing female) to prioritize premium conversions over broad awareness (owner: Genevieve Bellaire) [src: Newsletter Kickoff]
• 2025-02-28: Format: evergreen story-driven content with tool roundups, branded within Realworld but written from a personal voice; no news reactions [src: Newsletter Kickoff]
• 2025-02-28: Goal: first issue scheduled and ready within two weeks of the kickoff (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Newsletter Kickoff]

2025-03

• 2025-03-03: Workmate (David Lobo) content strategy settled: focus exclusively on productivity/high-output content (people, process, technology) to drive waitlist signups; drop startup/fundraising content directions (owner: David Lobo) [src: Content Interview | Austin <> David]
• 2025-03-03: Kayla Barnes-Lentz newsletter themes will align with her weekly YouTube video schedule; content calendar to live in Notion set up by Michael (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Kayla Lentz and Michael Houck]
• 2025-03-05: Blake will be the reply-to for fundraising intro requests so he can upsell Founder Deep Dives, replacing Rena in that loop (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-03-05: Will feature Matt’s growth assessment offer in a featured newsletter slot when availability opens (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-03-07: Longevity newsletter will send Thursdays at 11:30 AM Pacific (owner: Warren Lentz) [src: Newsletter Launch Checklist]
• 2025-03-07: Newsletter will send from the brand name with no personal sender, keeping Warren faceless for now (owner: Warren Lentz) [src: Newsletter Launch Checklist]
• 2025-03-07: Buy a cheap decoding-longevity style domain rather than spending thousands on a premium .com; Warren purchasing on GoDaddy (owner: Warren Lentz) [src: Newsletter Launch Checklist]
• 2025-03-07: Reply-to set to support@heavenlyhealth.com (owner: Warren Lentz) [src: Newsletter Launch Checklist]
• 2025-03-07: Michael owns ops for the four newsletter clients currently onboarding; Ben takes full ownership of newsletter ops for the next batch of clients using the playbooks Michael is finishing (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Newsletter Ops]
• 2025-03-10: All infrastructure work unrelated to new feature development is banned from next sprint through end of April (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-03-10: CRM integrations (HubSpot, Salesforce) cut from initial scope of the competitor-response work; leads downloadable first, integrations a second release (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-03-10: Content queue launches this week after final fixes and review; it was targeted for mid-February (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-03-10: Upgraded Mehul to a Figma dev seat to speed up settings page frontend work (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-03-10: Rafael takes over the WhatsApp message delivery bug from Sid for speed since he built that system (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Eng Weekly Plan]
• 2025-03-12: Fella Health newsletter migrating from Beehive to Customer.io: Matt delivers subscribers via API, Megaphone delivers content in Notion, Fella team handles sends due to HIPAA; Andrew gets Customer.io builder access without customer data (owner: Jamie Barnes) [src: Fella Health newsletter sync]
• 2025-03-18: Ben Ornstein formalized as full-time Chief of Staff at Rye Valley, deployed across all businesses (owner: Michael Houck) [src: 2025-03-18-11-new-comp-plan.md]
• 2025-03-18: Rye Valley converting from LLC to S corp for tax treatment and health insurance; in progress with the tax preparer, expected done April or May (owner: Michael Houck) [src: 2025-03-18-11-new-comp-plan.md]
• 2025-03-18: Stop sending cold ad-sales outreach from the main Founding Journey domain immediately to protect newsletter deliverability; move to separate sending domains (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-03-19: Augment content workflow settled: Power Digital supplies SEO topics to Ty (Money Marketers) by end of prior month, Ty writes, PDM reviews, Jameson gives marketing approval, channel owner runs Hadrius compliance and publishes; Ty to get Webflow access to publish blogs end to end (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-03-19: Vendor working group will meet at least biweekly until cadence is established (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-03-19: Tanyo Goshev assigned as ghostwriter for Minh Pham’s X account (Invisible); weekly batches via Slack with Monday topics and voice-note answers by Tuesday-Wednesday (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-03-19: Rise and Roll direction reset: convert the existing cannabis newsletter (with rebrand) into a B2B marketing media property for stigmatized ‘frontier’ industries (credit, crypto, cannabis) rather than launching new or staying cannabis-only; monetize via referrals to Tom’s law firm, crypto company, and a possible consulting agency (owner: Nicole Jarbo) [src: Michael Houck and Nicole Jarbo]
• 2025-03-26: Jamie assigned as ghostwriter for the Tim Draper / Draper Associates engagement; weekly Slack idea batches with voice-note responses, first batch about a week after her kickoff (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Draper <> Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-03-26: Content scope fixed to VC and startup topics for the first few months to build clarity on Draper Associates’ investment positioning before edgier subjects (owner: Michelle Kwok) [src: Draper <> Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-03-27: Newsletter for Lee Schmidt’s personal finance brand will target a weekend send; social posts around 8:30am, newsletters around 7am Pacific (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Meet Meeting]
• 2025-03-27: Full existing audience of about 12,000 will be loaded into the new newsletter at launch rather than a gradual opt-in rollout (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-03-27: Newsletter branding will not be built around the Refresh name since a rebrand with a new one-word .com lands in 4-6 weeks; brand the newsletter ahead of that instead of rebranding twice (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-03-28: Megaphone to take over posting of Draper Decentralized daily videos on Tim’s socials, posting them natively per platform with proper hooks and metadata; strategy iterated with Mark’s team (owner: Michelle Kwok) [src: Draper Social Strategy Chat]

2025-04

• 2025-04-08: Run the audience-building webinar in-house without relying on Matt, targeting May 15 launch (fallback May 22 or later), using Matt McGarry’s webinar playbook as the base (owner: Michael Houck and Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-04-08: First webinar cohort will target non-YC accelerator founders (Antler, 500 Startups) to get reps in before pitching YC founders, who are seen as better long-term clients (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-04-16: Augment corporate account adopts the edgy meme-forward content strategy (the unhinged style proven on Noel’s personal brand) optimizing for impressions, with a risk-on mandate from Noel (owner: Noel (Augment) with Megaphone) [src: Augment Corp Account Strategy (Noel <> Megaphone)]
• 2025-04-16: Approval workflow set: Jacob Shipley (and Jack) can unilaterally approve and fast-track timely memes, compliance review happens as the last step and only on borderline content (owner: Jacob Shipley) [src: Augment Corp Account Strategy (Noel <> Megaphone)]
• 2025-04-17: Tim Draper’s digital twin content will be pushed to its own separate social account, with just one pointer post from Tim’s main account (owner: Michelle Kwok) [src: Michael Houck and Maxime Bucaille]
• 2025-04-18: Tanyo Gochev takes over as writer for Nicole Jarbo’s newsletters (Advance Genie and Off-Label), replacing Austin who steps back from execution (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Advance Genie Kickoff]
• 2025-04-18: Advance Genie newsletter starts on a biweekly cadence, with option to increase frequency as the list grows [src: Advance Genie Kickoff]
• 2025-04-18: First Off-Label issue targeted for the week of April 27; after Nicole approves, Michael updates Beehiiv branding for the rebrand from Rise and Roll (owner: Tanyo Gochev) [src: Advance Genie Kickoff]
• 2025-04-18: Plan to sell the ghostwriting agency in the second half of 2025 and use proceeds to seed a venture fund; Megaphone (the SaaS platform) will be folded into the agency before sale for software upside in the multiple (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-04-18: Valley writing styles will be built per ICP rather than per sender; start with one general ghostwriting product, experiment with newsletter and LinkedIn-specific products later [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-04-21: New weekly Growth Sync meeting established covering three buckets: Founding Journey ads (Ben), Valley outreach (Blake), and content (Michael) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-04-21: Take the AI-generated video ads live on Meta at 100 dollars per day, scaling to 150 then 200 if CPA stays under 200 dollars (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-04-21: Give up on recovering Michael’s suspended X account (device and ID ban confirmed unfixable via Sriram Krishnan’s contact with X); double down on LinkedIn and YouTube instead (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-04-21: Valley outreach campaigns to go live by end of week (one Sales Navigator list plus one or two post-based campaigns) (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-04-22: Sitch (Nandini Mullaji) signed and kicked off as a Megaphone ghostwriting client; Sarah Parr assigned as writer, Ben Ornstein runs content ops on the account for the first few weeks (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-04-22: Run content from Nandini’s personal X account, rebranding the handle to Dini from Sitch, with a profile audit Loom and launch support same day for the Business Insider exclusive [src: Megaphone Ghostwriting Kickoff]
• 2025-04-25: Move forward with a one-month paid meme test with Alan Thomas as a central meme creator across Megaphone clients, exact volume/amount to be set after Michael confirms with Blake (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Alan]
• 2025-04-30: Keep Augment’s new meme-leaning content strategy for the full quarter before evaluating a pivot, despite average performance dipping versus prior industry-insight content (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]

2025-05

• 2025-05-01: Stitch X ads will stop pushing app downloads; all ad traffic goes to the waitlist and the AI phone call flow, A/B testing waitlist-then-call versus call-only [src: Ads Sync]
• 2025-05-01: New X creative strategy: single-person auction style, text-based, mystery-forward ads run from Nandini’s personal matchmaker account rather than generic brand ads; Stitch to draft copy and give Michael ad account access [src: Ads Sync]
• 2025-05-07: Bring Dipesh Malhotra on as a Megaphone writer: added to Slack immediately, to be matched with a new client (likely AI niche) signing this month, with Blake reviewing his work (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Dipesh Malhotra and Michael Houck]
• 2025-05-07: Michael takes his personal social content back from Jacob and writes it himself in weekly batches, freeing Jacob for paying clients (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-05-07: New content ops hire starts Monday May 12 to take content operations over from Ben (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Houck / Blake]
• 2025-05-13: Andrew Cheng will take on the account manager role in addition to content ops, as long as scale allows (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-05-13: Adopt a shared engagement-tracking sheet with only date, client, and URL columns, filled at the moment of each proactive engagement; Venus handles the rest of the data (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-05-13: Proceed with the Context.inc creator amplification campaign: compile creator list ASAP with Venus and Rena, present sheet, quote, engage creators (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-05-13: Stop using the buggy X followers-from-post metric; instead split daily follower gains across same-day posts on both platforms, pulled via Typefully (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-05-13: Cash bonuses will be paid to team members from a Studio sale (LLC structure, no equity); equity reserved for any future C-Corp venture (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-05-14: Megaphone hired Alan as dedicated meme writer for the Augment account; meme performance vs compliance hit-rate report to be presented in about two meetings (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-05-16: Client Min churned for good (unhappy with content plus failed launch where they ignored Michael’s rewritten launch thread); feedback call pending [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-05-16: Client Venture Scalers (Jake) pausing/churning to fund his new company; expected to return or refer [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-05-16: Writer Jamie is winding down off the Draper account after giving notice; kept on one to two more weeks to avoid disrupting Draper expansion negotiations (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-05-16: Sell Megaphone Studio (with the Megaphone platform included) after roughly six weeks of growth push; no feelers to buyers until around end of quarter (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-05-16: Raise the bar for new writer hires; Michael to source B+/A- or better writers via direct DM outreach (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Client Health Checkin]
• 2025-05-19: Keep SparkLoop despite losing per-campaign acquisition source data in Beehiiv/Card integration; re-evaluate (Beehiiv Boost fallback pays worse) only if campaign-level retention analysis becomes necessary (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-05-22: Test cold email outreach as a channel alongside Valley: buy 5 domains with 2 inboxes each, warm up 2 weeks in HubSpot, start sending early June, then compare performance to decide on Valley by mid-July (owner: Michael Houck and Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-05-22: Combine Megaphone and Megaphone Studio into one packaged offering and one website ahead of a potential sale; new site copy finalizing, design build starting Monday, target live in about two weeks (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-05-23: Client Sitch (Nandini Mullaji): switch X workflow to repurposing her LinkedIn posts and Substack plus weekly marketing-activation voice notes from Charlotte on Mondays, instead of standalone X strategy; run one more month then jointly decide whether to continue (owner: Michael Houck and Nandini Mullaji) [src: Content Catch Up]
• 2025-05-29: Client Devan Sood kickoff: focus written content on LinkedIn (roughly 60/40 investment), save flashy video content for X; position Devan as ‘the AI marketing guy’; goal of 1M impressions by June 1, 2026; Tanyo Goshev writer, Andrew Cheng content ops (owner: Michael Houck and Devan Sood) [src: Megaphone Studio Kickoff]
• 2025-05-29: Client Arpan Nanavati kickoff: leads-only goal, LinkedIn primary with posts copy-pasted to the company Symphony X account, broadcast-only (no engagement, no reactions, no comments); pain-point-led content pillars; Andrew Safranko writer, Andrew Cheng content ops (owner: Michael Houck and Arpan Nanavati) [src: Megaphone Studio Kickoff]

2025-06

• 2025-06-02: Client Preston (Crowd Surf) churned from Megaphone content services; he keeps newsletter growth, which Megaphone will bring in-house (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-06-02: Bring newsletter growth in-house for four newsletters (Crowd Surf, Advanced Genie/Off-Label, The Draw, Nutmeg Soccer) using TweetScrape imports, phasing out growth partner Matt (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-06-05: Client Minh Pham ended the ghostwriting engagement because his content is too deeply technical to ghostwrite; he keeps praising and using the Megaphone boosting product, and may revisit content for the company account in one to two quarters (owner: Minh Pham) [src: Content Catch Up]
• 2025-06-10: Client Durable churned after one month, citing a new head of marketing and a shift to SEO [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-06-10: Trellis Health and Aviation creator campaigns get one more week of follow-up DMs, with a go/no-go call on next Tuesday; Peerview AI list of 48 confirmed creators sent to the client now (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-06-10: Reena officially takes over Valley outbound conversations (writing replies and approving messages), with Blake reviewing over her shoulder for a few weeks (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-06-10: First Megaphone Studio webinar set: announce in Saturday’s newsletter, host on June 26, with cold email outreach starting when new domains are ready on the 15th (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-06-10: Shift sales targeting away from early-stage startups toward later-stage founders and VCs, who churn less; early-stage churns share a pattern of weak underlying products (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-06-11: QASource sponsorship CTA will be a free one-hour AI-in-QA advisory session feeding a nurture funnel, rather than directly selling the paid testing packages [src: Greg Stern and Founding Journey]
• 2025-06-11: QASource Founder Deep Dive podcast with CEO Rajeev pushed to early July so he can do a practice podcast first (owner: Greg Stern) [src: Greg Stern and Founding Journey]
• 2025-06-11: Akountify will keep Megaphone’s existing grandfathered pricing despite their price increases; the previously discussed additional discount is scrapped (owner: Manuel (Akountify)) [src: Michael Houck and Akountify]
• 2025-06-11: Akountify will consolidate Megaphone’s multiple Stripe subscriptions into one bill (owner: Manuel (Akountify)) [src: Michael Houck and Akountify]
• 2025-06-16: Pivot Valley outbound campaigns to promote the workshop for the next 10 days before the event (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-06-16: Pause Founding Journey and Viral Examples imports; revisit in about three weeks (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-06-16: Sponsors must pay before the team does hours of research on them (invoice pushed before deep dive, starting with QA Source) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-06-16: Made third and final contracted payment to Valley; about two more months of usage (added weeks included) before a renewal decision (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Growth Sync]
• 2025-06-20: Michael committed in principle to a paid pilot with Nathan May’s newsletter growth agency (pricing to match prior Grow Letter terms); plan to be finalized after Michael preps the funnel, follow up call set for July 7 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Nathan]
• 2025-06-26: Client Draper (Tim Draper digital twin relaunch): agreed pilot workflow where Michael’s team writes the script, Brett Kuprel generates the digital twin video, Megaphone’s editor adds B-roll and graphics, Draper Associates gives final approval (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Brett Kuprel and Michael Houck]
• 2025-06-26: First sample digital twin video will be about Oklo, first draft targeted for the following Friday to show Tim Draper [src: Brett Kuprel and Michael Houck]
• 2025-06-26: Michael committed to a small angel check (10k or under) in German Peralta’s heat pump / HVAC electrification startup round, likely via an AngelList vehicle (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael Houck and German Peralta]

2025-07

• 2025-07-03: Michael takes growth and outreach back from Blake Stewart for July; Blake focuses only on partnerships, to be re-evaluated at end of month (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-03: New offer strategy: launch AI self-serve content option at a couple hundred dollars per month with a higher-tier strategy package; new clients pushed to the AI offer, no new human-writer clients while existing writer clients are honored (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-03: Buy and warm new cold email domains because current ones are likely burned from lack of spintax (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-09: Samantha Gamboa takes blog content optimization tasks off Ty Aravazhi and routes them to David going forward (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-07-09: Megaphone will make cross-linking blog CTAs in Augment social posts part of the default content process, testing CTA in main post vs first comment (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-07-15: Emil personal brand project workstreams fixed: Jacob Shipley leads LinkedIn/X content, Tatem Lindner (Candid) leads TikTok/Reels, Greg Richters leads PR, Michael Houck leads strategy and VC-side positioning [src: KICKOFF: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-15: Weekly recurring Tuesday check-in call established, with deliverables ready the day before; Greg to project manage (owner: Grigorij Richters) [src: KICKOFF: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-15: Consolidate the cross-agency workspace into Michael and Jacob’s existing Notion hub for Emil, plus a shared Slack channel Michael sets up (owner: Michael Houck) [src: KICKOFF: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-15: Team will pitch Emil on a surprise micro-investment/donation viral play (writing 5-15K checks to struggling young founders) as the first big swing, pending his approval (owner: Michael Houck) [src: KICKOFF: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-16: Chris Worsey (SportsIcon/Hopkins) to sign Megaphone non-circumvention PandaDoc with BC Braggs carved out due to a prior relationship; Megaphone then builds a custom creator roster for the September 4 launch campaign (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Chris Worsey and Michael Houck]
• 2025-07-21: Client Rafi (Mohammad Raafi Hossain, Facet) engagement kicked off: David is dedicated writer and strategist for his personal X account, Andrew Cheng handles scheduling, posting, and reactions from the account; workflow via Slack and Notion (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Content Kickoff]
• 2025-07-21: Content direction set: serious but not formal tone, founder-led personal brand to build trust that flows down to Facet and the OWN token, no meme coin or degen framing [src: Megaphone Content Kickoff]
• 2025-07-22: Emil Barr approved handing posting control to Megaphone: Jacob Shipley gets full access to Emil’s LinkedIn and owns Twitter posting without per-post approval, starting roughly the following week (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-22: LinkedIn post boosting budget through the Megaphone platform capped at the current 800 dollars per month regardless of posting frequency; X posts not boosted until something works organically (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-22: Dinosaur branding deprioritized for the next 6-12 months; strategy focused singularly on FlashPass, the billion dollar raise, and the fighting AI-driven job loss angle [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-22: No email newsletter for Emil’s brand; CTA focus is driving social follows instead of email capture (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-22: Jacob writes captions for all TikTok content for the first 30-45 days, then Tatem takes over via templates; Tatem handles scheduling for all platforms other than Twitter and LinkedIn (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-22: Pull the trigger on pursuing both the Vatican AI advisory board seat and the Bhutan AI summit opportunities for Emil (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-07-22: Consolidate outbound tooling onto Lemlist: buy it around August 1, let Apollo and the Salesforce-based sequencing tool lapse at expiry, migrate by mid August (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-22: Founder retreat sales doc must be reviewed by Tyler before Blake starts outreach; Blake may send an early version to the SeedLegals contact after Michael’s edits (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-23: Boosted posts for Augment must include links and prioritize driving traffic to the Collective, Power 20, and other signup-driving pages rather than vanity reach (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-07-23: Andrew Cheng continues submitting compliance through the old Hendris process until Red Oak invites and workflow are sorted (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-07-29: Ben Ornstein starts a part-time VA-management role at Cape (offer made July 28 after Michael’s intro) while staying on Rye Valley work; Rye Valley remains his stated priority (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-07-29: Rye Valley’s 2025 ‘launch’ is relaunching Michael’s creator brand (YouTube, LinkedIn, Threads, Substack) with YouTube as the key project, instead of necessarily launching a new business (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-07-29: Megaphone will sign up for the engagement-automation tool (Jack Haymart’s) once its LinkedIn support ships in August, to automate content ops sourcing and reply drafting (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-07-29: Blake to bring a full H2 partnership pricing and packaging revamp proposal to next Tuesday’s meeting (rebalance away from main newsletter ads toward bundles, discounts, retreats, dinners, hiring products) (owner: Blake Stewart) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-29: Michael will pay Blake a referral bonus on the Mantis deal once Steve pays (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-07-30: Michael will take on setup work for the Cape Town founder retreat (co-run with Tyler of Beehiiv) starting in September, and plans to add Doug Freeman to Slack around September to collaborate on future larger events (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael from and Doug Freeman]
• 2025-07-31: Topanga engagement kicked off for CEO Page Schult’s LinkedIn: Sarah Parr assigned as writer, Andrew Cheng as content ops (scheduling, posting, replies, weekly reporting), with Blake and Michael reviewing all drafts (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Content Kickoff!]
• 2025-07-31: Content direction set for Page Schult: humanizing kitchen stories from her time on the ground, practical sustainability as business imperative, and non-technical founder lens on AI/data, shifting emphasis from reuse/packaging toward the Streamline kitchen-data narrative [src: Megaphone Content Kickoff!]

2025-08

• 2025-08-05: KPI tracker structure settled for the Emil Barr project: contacts KPI split into billionaire contacts and tier-one investor contacts (measured against curated target lists), influencer connection requests demoted to a background task, influencer collabs added as a KPI, and a budget-spent tab added for accounting since spend will be an add-back on the P&L before a private equity sale (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-05: Billionaire-centric media initiative will lean into Greg’s column rather than spinning up a podcast or book, deemed too inconsistent for now [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-06: Augment IPO-themed live stream scheduled for August 28 with Adam (co-founder) as the focus; a deep-dive stream with Jack deferred to later (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-08-06: Introduce Megaphone’s in-house designer for breaking-news social graphics instead of relying on Augment’s designer David, whose turnaround is 3-4 business days and who is product/site focused (owner: Andrew Cheng) [src: Augment Content Team Meeting]
• 2025-08-13: Influencer collab outreach shelved and removed from the KPI tracker until Emil’s positioning and TikTok base are established; revisit in about two months [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-13: Pollfish survey will target college students specifically, with each team member drafting five candidate questions in the team channel (owner: Grigorij Richters) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-14: Augment posting on Noel’s channel cut from ~5 posts/week to 1-2 high-quality posts, memes cut entirely, CTAs made specific and in-depth; team has the remainder of August to course correct or Noel may end the social engagement (owner: Samantha Gamboa) [src: Augment Socials Realign]
• 2025-08-18: Rather than an exclusive partnership up front, both sides agreed to a discounted multi-placement test over about two months; HireHarbour to send a short bullet-point proposal that evening and Founding Journey to respond within 2-3 days (owner: Aman) [src: Founding Journey x HireHarbour]
• 2025-08-19: Team committed to using Slack threads for all press pieces and follow-up discussion at Michael’s request [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-19: Fox and Friends chosen over America’s Newsroom for Emil’s TV appearance (the next day); plan set to script an Elon-referencing soundbite for clipping, ask the segment producer to clip and tag Elon, and route the clip to Elon via Vivek rather than Steve Jurvetson [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-19: LinkedIn strategy: test harder-hitting hot-take short-form posts before abandoning the high-frequency approach, after aggregate impressions dropped ~80% since ramping frequency; revisit in 2-4 weeks (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-25: Stop posting reactions to each of the 15+ articles covering Emil’s WSJ piece; too self-promotional. Use Fox video clips only, on X, no thank-you posts (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Quick brainstorm, Emil PR]
• 2025-08-25: Say no to small press going forward; focus next PR wave on startup-world media (A16Z podcast and similar) that investors actually consume, Michael to reach out to A16Z podcast contact (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Quick brainstorm, Emil PR]
• 2025-08-26: Raise end-of-year published-articles goal from 25 to 100 (44 already hit vs original 25 goal) (owner: Grigorij Richters) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-26: Raise tier-one network contact goal to 20; keep focus on PR spikes over billionaire networking through end of Q3, reevaluate in October (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-26: Adjust X goals to 2M impressions as stretch and 25,000 engagements (owner: Jacob Shipley) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-08-27: Institute recurring client strategy alignment calls post-kickoff to recalibrate strategy per client; this was the first one (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Client Strategy Alignment]
• 2025-08-29: Keep producing Symphony’s newsletter despite total client silence since they are still paying and have not terminated; if they terminate, a 30-day wind-down applies (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Client Strategy Alignment]

2025-09

• 2025-09-02: Frame the program as roughly one moonshot per month, about 30 over the 2.5-year fundraising timeline; weekly meetings reserved for moonshot strategy, tactical work moved to Slack and ad hoc huddles (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-09-02: September moonshot targets set: Lucy Guo, Kevin O’Leary, Mark Cuban; Michael working a warm intro to Lucy Guo through a Launch House friend (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-09-02: Build a tier-one and billionaire contact CRM tab plus a media-mention alert pipeline (Google Sheet flag to Slack via Zapier) with Michael’s assistant Rina tracking in Notion (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-09-08: Big Human engagement kicked off with Megaphone: brand-building and thought leadership content (X-first plus LinkedIn) with Andrew Safranko writing and Andrew Cheng on scheduling and engagement (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Kickoff] Megaphone <> Big Human]
• 2025-09-09: White-label GEO offering launched through a friend’s SEO company, resold at double their price; becomes part of the Megaphone growth pitch ahead of a targeted Q1 sale of the agency (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-09-09: Keep Founding Journey and Megaphone unentangled (Product Pass stays Founding Journey only) to keep Megaphone clean for a Q1 sale (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-09-09: Build a Lenny-style Product Pass: Blake to compile about 50 candidate AI/founder tools, Michael to build the financial model and ask Lenny for opt-in benchmarks (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Blake <> Houck]
• 2025-09-11: Megaphone campaign process changed: clients state budget and pay upfront before creators are contacted, with contractual refund of any unspent difference, to protect creator relationships (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-09-11: Megaphone V3 pricing migration settled: existing account and deposit subscriptions get merged into a single deposit subscription at the same total price, no extra charge, handled by Raphael on the back end (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben <> Houck]
• 2025-09-22: Michael decided (the prior week) to raise a new fund, likely launching in January with logistics set up in Q4 2025 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Nathan <> Houck]
• 2025-09-22: Founder house partnership with Tyler Denk in Costa Rica confirmed: house booked, a sponsor involved, roughly 10K price point, planned as a recurring Founding Journey format with hosts like Greg Eisenberg and Alex Lieberman (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Nathan <> Houck]
• 2025-09-23: Paid rescheduled street-interview creators 50 percent upfront to hold goodwill after a last-minute cancellation caused by Emil’s personal emergency (owner: Tatem Lindner) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-09-30: Emil will continue funding the personal-brand team for a few more weeks despite ROI concerns, but demands startup-level intensity instead of client-vendor cadence (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]
• 2025-09-30: Fundraise documentary content will be filmed during the SF raise but held back and only posted once the raise is clearly on track, potentially compressed into a shorter narrative [src: Recurring: EMIL´s BILLION DOLLAR PROJECT]

2025-10

• 2025-10-03: Chris Hall engaged to produce MAI’s product launch video, delivery by October 12 for the October 14 Twitter launch; Chris and Michael to review raw footage same day and call a reshoot ASAP if needed (owner: Michael Houck) [src: MAI launch video kick off]
• 2025-10-09: Mantis VC engaged Megaphone for Jeffrey Evans’s LinkedIn ghostwriting (Austin Schlessinger), content ops, engagement and DM management (Andrew Cheng), plus two newsletters; contract and Stripe to be executed same day (owner: Stephen OBrien) [src: ZOOM: Mantis Content Kickoff]
• 2025-10-09: Newsletter cadence set: portfolio-company newsletter quarterly starting October, co-investment/LP newsletter starting November, quarterly then ramping to every two months in 2026 (owner: Stephen OBrien) [src: ZOOM: Mantis Content Kickoff]
• 2025-10-09: All Mantis-Megaphone comms via email rather than Slack, per Jeffrey’s preference; scheduling through Jeffrey’s assistant Melissa (owner: Jeffrey Evans) [src: ZOOM: Mantis Content Kickoff]

2025-11

• 2025-11-24: Founding Journey engaged The Feed (Nathan May) for paid subscriber acquisition, optimizing for qualified high-ticket leads rather than CPA or open rates; trial goal is 3-4 winning concepts in 6-8 weeks (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> The Feed kick-off]
• 2025-11-24: First ad concepts due Wednesday-Thursday of the following week, live within 5 business days of approval; biweekly syncs set for Thursdays (owner: Nathan May) [src: Houck <> The Feed kick-off]

2025-12

• 2025-12-16: Mantis co-investor newsletter titled ‘Mantis LP Exclusive’; no emojis in subject lines for this audience (owner: Stephen OBrien) [src: Steve <> Megaphone]
• 2025-12-16: Mantis portfolio newsletter titled ‘Mantis Portfolio Updates’, quarterly cadence; first drafts of both due Friday, Monday at latest, before the holidays (owner: Stephen OBrien) [src: Steve <> Megaphone]

2026-01

• 2026-01-12: Big Human LinkedIn cadence set at minimum 3 posts per week, repurposing X posts with adjusted voice allowed to bridge the gap (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Big Human & Megaphone - LinkedIn Strategy]
• 2026-01-12: LinkedIn strategy fixed on case-study content, image and visual forward, driving direct to the contact-us page rather than the case study blog page (owner: Kelley Louise) [src: Big Human & Megaphone - LinkedIn Strategy]
• 2026-01-12: Ben Ornstein to audit boost budget usage and add budget to upcoming posts so Big Human’s full monthly boost budget (500-700) is spent (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Big Human & Megaphone - LinkedIn Strategy]
• 2026-01-26: Wellput continues the Megaphone Studio GEO/SEO engagement for another month instead of pausing; monthly review call set for March 2 and weekly metric updates dropped (owner: Craig Swerdloff) [src: Megaphone X Wellput Catch Up]

2026-02

• 2026-02-11: Emil writes the campus talk himself from the team’s outline by Saturday; Tatem builds slides Sunday in visual-first style; a social CTA (likely Instagram, answer-all-DMs promise) added at the end (owner: Tatem Lindner) [src: Emil Campus Talk Prep]
• 2026-02-13: Portfolio case-study LinkedIn posts will be done company by company: Jeffrey picks companies from the LP updates, gets founder approval, then posts complimentary profiles without internal metrics (owner: Jeffrey Evans) [src: Seed Fundraising and Case Studies]

2026-03

• 2026-03-02: Wellput GEO/SEO strategy shifts from publisher-side keywords to advertiser/demand-side terms (performance marketing, vertical newsletter searches, beehiiv competitor and comparison content) (owner: Craig Swerdloff) [src: Megaphone X Wellput Review]

2026-05

• 2026-05-07: Lore front-end offer will be a free, contact-gated automated site audit (queries, trends, gaps) on a Lore subdomain with lead-warmth tracking; Emma builds it within a week for a walkthrough the following Thursday (owner: Emma Sivess) [src: AI Agent Jam!]
• 2026-05-07: Meta ads for the funnel stay paused until the branded Lore landing page is live (designer starts week of May 18, target live by May 22, launch before end of May) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: AI Agent Jam!]
• 2026-05-22: FlashPass speaking site changes finalized to go live by Monday: nav Product replaced by Resources (Ohio TechCred, jobs-lost tracker), careers links to LinkedIn jobs, press to Greg’s email, contact is info@ email; DNS to be hooked up (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Site Launch and Brand Strategy]
• 2026-05-22: Blog and job-loss tracker integration deferred roughly 30 days; success story page leads with rags-to-riches individual stories with B2B corporate training pushed down-page, documentary video placeholder until June 15 (owner: Emil Barr) [src: Site Launch and Brand Strategy]

Addendum: Ben Ornstein import (added 2026-08-07)

• 2024-11-05: Raghav Gupta’s case study will be embargoed until after his company publicly announces its Accel-preempted round and rebrand, targeting Q1 2025 publication (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Raghav Gupta and Ben Ornstein]
• 2025-05-15: Start newsletter partnerships with a small test of one or two partners before scaling, with success measured on new subscribers plus downstream engagement; Ben to have a partnership criteria doc and target shortlist drafted by end of week (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: External Meetings , Ben Ornstein]
• 2025-10-21: Campaign scope starts with social only (LinkedIn plus X cross-posting); newsletter and podcast placements deferred to a later conversation [src: Isis Decrem and Michael Houck]
• 2025-10-21: Perplexity engaged Megaphone for a high-volume creator campaign promoting the Comet browser on LinkedIn and X, aiming for hundreds of sponsored posts going live within about a week; Megaphone to send the PandaDoc (non-circumvention agreement) same day and a priced creator roster, with a shared Slack channel for ongoing coordination (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Isis Decrem and Michael Houck]
• 2025-10-28: Big Human content pillars broadened immediately beyond design to include engineering/app builds, startup thought leadership, and marketing/content/SEO topics (owner: Andrew Safranko) [src: Megaphone x Big Human | Bi-Weekly]
• 2025-10-28: Boost strategy for Big Human settled: boost the best-quality posts (regardless of content type) via the Megaphone creator network within the first hour, and test new content types organically; Kelley will flag high-potential posts during Friday reviews and tag Ben, otherwise Ben chooses (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Megaphone x Big Human | Bi-Weekly]
• 2025-11-03: Emil is removing Jacob from his account; Tatem (Emil’s TikTok person and girlfriend) takes over his social channels with Houck coaching her, a replacement writer hire is paused until January 1, and Emil’s contract is bumped with Jacob’s portion removed (net financial positive for Rye Valley) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-11-03: Legacy premium subscriber caught in the Beehiiv tier migration will be upgraded to free lifetime access as a goodwill fix (he had paid for three years, more than the lifetime price) (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-11-03: Podcast production priority switched: Cape podcast edited first (client paid) ahead of Keeper (a make-good), targeting intro/voiceover recording over the coming weekend and live the following Saturday (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2025-11-04: Rejected offering a cheap AI-generated content taste of ghostwriting as a front-end offer because a generic first impression contradicts the premium positioning; also rejected one-off advising as a back-end offer since it does not scale Houck’s time (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Jam on Ad Funnels + Products]
• 2026-01-08: Launch timing set: NVIDIA posts and Megaphone boost at 9am Pacific Tuesday, standalone creator posts between 9am and 12pm Pacific same day [src: Ben Ornstein and Dylan Condensa]
• 2026-01-08: NVIDIA-side campaign with Dylan Condensa confirmed at 5K starting budget to build a creator list, Pandadoc going out; Ben starts creator outreach immediately (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Ben Ornstein and Dylan Condensa]
• 2026-01-13: Pursue selling Megaphone/Megaphone Studio if the offer is reasonable; Michael to pitch staying on part time 6-12 months to build the marketing funnel with earnout escalators, and to covertly solicit other bids (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-01-13: Roll out the LinkedIn Sales Navigator plus Claude proactive-engagement delegation system (run by VA Venus) to all Megaphone clients (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-01-20: No memes on Big Human’s LinkedIn (higher-caliber content only); memes stay allowed on Twitter/X (owner: Kelly (Big Human)) [src: Megaphone x Big Human | Weekly Content TB & Brainstorm]
• 2026-01-29: Adopt Mindy AI (Slack-native image generation on nano banana) at the 29 dollars/month tier (500 images, 50 videos) instead of building a custom Higgsfield/Lindy agent; upgrade to 99 dollar unlimited tier only if usage exceeds it (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-01-29: Draper Associates expanding: adding more people at the firm and possibly Instagram with Tatem, per Michael’s call with Tim Draper (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-01-29: Image generation stays an internal process (writers tag Ben, he runs prompts) with a prompt template library before ever going self-service for writers (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-01-29: New Megaphone Studio client signed (Mantis referral): founder social plus possibly 1-2 more team members and likely GEO/SEO (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-02-04: Proactive engagements deferred for Redpoint until the brand voice is established, unlike the usual founder playbook [src: Redpoint <> Megaphone Kickoff!]
• 2026-02-04: Redpoint engagement kicked off: Jacob Shipley writes/manages content, Ben runs ops, Michael is primary point of contact and interviews one Redpoint partner per month; weekly cadence starting with one main post per week reviewed via voice notes (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Redpoint <> Megaphone Kickoff!]
• 2026-02-12: Go direct to the founders for all reviews rather than centralizing through Laura, redirecting only if it stalls (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Keycard: Kickoff!]
• 2026-02-12: Keycard kickoff scope confirmed: GEO/SEO via Emma and Nina (brand guidelines, keywords, 90-day plan, first three articles by mid next week) plus ghostwriting for founders Ian and Jared (and Matthew) with Andrew writing; quality-over-quantity lens (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Keycard: Kickoff!]
• 2026-02-12: Keycard reporting cadence set: social spreadsheet report and GEO/SEO reports both delivered Mondays to match Keycard’s internal meeting day; SEO calls monthly with async Slack [src: Ben (Megaphone) <> Keycard GTM Ops]
• 2026-02-12: Proactive engagements for Keycard start later, once voice is established and founders are comfortable (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Keycard: Kickoff!]
• 2026-03-12: Ben keeps his full week off after his May 16 wedding despite deal-close crunch; contingency plan later (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-12: Priorities reordered: content agent build first, getting more campaigns second, Founding Journey changes deprioritized because the acquisition deal is on the table (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-12: Target workflow for the Clawdy content agent settled: clients submit topics/links/voice notes in Slack Connect channels, Clawdy drafts in the client’s voice, pings an internal review channel tagging Blake, approved drafts go straight into Typefully for scheduling, removing client review and eventually replacing writer drafting (30 drafts instead of 3, editors pick best) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-18: Mantis newsletters will be worked ongoing in the Megaphone Notion content board using quarterly templates (LP exclusive and portfolio/co-investor), linked from Mantis’s staff meeting wiki, replacing Steve’s siloed Google Doc workflow (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Mantis Newsletter Chat]
• 2026-03-23: Adopt a two-week sprint roadmap in a Google Sheet with P0/P1/P2 priorities, t-shirt scope sizing, and impact ratings for all OpenClaw work; Ben drafts, Michael does final prioritization (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-23: Augment is dropping Megaphone’s social writing (new hire Paul bringing it in-house) while keeping the video work; Michael messaging Paul before the switch (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-23: Ben approved to repost the Structify sponsored post from Michael’s LinkedIn account (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-23: Treat Clawdy (the OpenClaw agent) as an internal product for the team only, not a client product, so it is excluded from any acquisition discussions (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-03-27: Dominic Forth (Thought Leaders of America) added the LinkedIn social package on top of the newsletter engagement: social at 1995 discounted about 10 percent to roughly 1795, with the newsletter also discounted 200, about 400 total package discount; social run from Dom’s personal account, not the brand account (owner: Dominic Forth) [src: Megaphone Content Kickoff]
• 2026-03-27: Keep the newsletter branded Thought Leaders of America rather than Media Millionaire for launch, starting from an essentially zero list (about 40 CES guide downloads) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone Content Kickoff]
• 2026-03-30: Content strategy set for Project Omega: build the company account and Staff Sheehan’s personal account in tandem with complementary voices (Staff more visionary/edgy, company measured), other team personas woven in later; follower growth of the right niche audience is the top success metric (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Hold for Meeting with Megaphone]
• 2026-03-30: Megaphone (Ben and team) will handle reactive comment replies on Staff’s posts and monitor for a couple hours after posting (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Hold for Meeting with Megaphone]
• 2026-04-02: Ben will not get direct access to Tim Draper’s accounts; all Tim account actions go through Michelle (owner: Michelle Kwok) [src: Michelle <> Megaphone: Kickoff]
• 2026-04-02: Draper Portco fundraising announcement process set: Michelle forwards announcements to Ben, each Draper team account makes an individual post in their own voice (not copy paste), Tim’s posts routed back through Michelle for approval, plus comments on the founder’s own post (owner: Michelle Kwok) [src: Michelle <> Megaphone: Kickoff]
• 2026-04-02: James Walker will start a fresh X account for work rather than reviving his 10-year-old lurker account; Ben collecting credentials for X and LinkedIn (owner: James Walker) [src: James <> Megaphone: Kickoff]
• 2026-04-06: Ben Gusberg will batch-record short form videos on Sundays (his no-meeting day), filming on his phone with mic and ring light, starting the coming Sunday (owner: Tatem Lindner) [src: Cape <> Megaphone: Kickoff!]
• 2026-04-06: Cape (Ben Gusberg) kicked off across LinkedIn plus TikTok and Instagram: Blake Emal owns LinkedIn content, Tatem Lindner owns short form video, Ben Ornstein owns engagements and ops; Megaphone takes over content within a week, client keeps writing his own only as buffer this week (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Cape <> Megaphone: Kickoff!]
• 2026-04-07: GoodWord signed with Megaphone for a dual engagement: bi-weekly newsletter (Andrew Safranko writing, Ben Ornstein ops) plus SEO/GEO/AEO program (Emma Sivess and Nina Lea); agreement and Stripe link sent to Caroline same day (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Goodword: Kickoff!]
• 2026-04-07: Newsletter will be a separate related brand rather than GoodWord-branded, to feel authentic rather than a sales channel; naming to be worked out that week (owner: Caroline Dell) [src: Megaphone <> Goodword: Kickoff!]
• 2026-04-10: Maxime Bucaille (Draper Associates partner) kicked off as a Megaphone client: David writes his X content, Ben runs ops, proactive and reactive engagements turned on by default to start (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone: Content Kickoff for Max!]
• 2026-04-10: Megaphone team will purge Maxime’s X following list (starting with oldest follows) to fix his roughly 2 to 1 following-to-follower ratio which penalizes reach, taking a before screenshot of account analytics first (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Megaphone: Content Kickoff for Max!]
• 2026-04-16: Ben takes the full week of his May 16 wedding off (back Wednesday May 20, not logging in through the week); Michael covers VA management that week (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-04-16: HawkBot idea added to the backlog: a Slack-installed Michael Houck agent that onboards FJ subscribers, reads their Slack, and organically pitches white-labeled services as a high-trust marketing channel (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-04-16: Next month’s OpenClaw agent priorities set: V2 onboarding first (Ben builds now), outlier content agent, and design agent, with trend spotting folded into outlier content; research, client advocate, filmmaker, and partnerships agents deprioritized; Michael to scope onboarding flow, outlier plan, and find a design expert (likely paying Celine a consulting fee) (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-04-22: GoodWord newsletter named Good Company (emoji also chosen); launching on the default Beehiiv domain with a custom domain deferred to the backlog until the newsletter proves out (owner: Lara Kuhn) [src: Goodword Newsletter Catchup]
• 2026-04-22: Initial subscriber import will include previously unsubscribed contacts (permissible under US rules per Megaphone guidance), with dormant non-openers auto-unsubscribed by automation after a set inactivity window (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Goodword Newsletter Catchup]
• 2026-04-27: Doctours (Maurice Landers III) kicked off as a paid Megaphone client: Jacob Shipley writes, Ben Ornstein runs ops; posting on Maurice’s X account with cross-posting to LinkedIn, and both proactive and reactive engagements turned on (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Doctours: Kickoff!]
• 2026-05-05: Megaphone (the boost product) subscription fee waived for Pierce as a content partner; he only pays creator boost budget (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Content Kickoff!]
• 2026-05-05: Pierce Freeman kicked off as a Megaphone client: X-only strategy (no LinkedIn cross-posting for now), leaning into native shitposting and tech hot takes; Jacob Shipley writes, Ben Ornstein runs ops and engagements (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Content Kickoff!]
• 2026-05-05: Pierce will set up a VM so Megaphone posts from his own IP address, avoiding device fingerprint flags on his X account (owner: Pierce Freeman) [src: Content Kickoff!]
• 2026-05-11: Adopt a doc-first agent build process: Ben and Michael align on an in-depth architecture doc (like the Trent doc), then hand execution to Raphael, with Ben reviewing his changes via GitHub pull requests (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Agent Team Next Steps]
• 2026-05-11: Change the Casper workflow so the writer confirms the post angle first, then Casper drafts and routes through Eddie, with drafts surfaced in Slack instead of forcing review in Notion (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Casper & Friends Feedback Sesh]
• 2026-05-11: Trial Blake Stewart as the client-facing account management layer for Megaphone, starting while Ben is out for his wedding week; Michael will float it to Blake and introduce him to clients (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Agent Team Next Steps]
• 2026-05-12: Blake Stewart covers Megaphone account management while Ben is out for his wedding week: added to client channels, introduced by Michael as main ops contact, leaning on writers, Rena, and Venus rather than running processes himself (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Ben/Blake Acct Mgmt Chat]
• 2026-05-13: Give Raphael SSH access to the agent Mac Mini and DM access to all three agents so he can serve as backup and future builder; Michael to brief him on agent roles (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-05-13: Keep the proactive engagement cron timings (7.30am and 11am passes) unchanged for now and tweak after Ben returns, since the 11am second pass just started working (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-06-02: Book a follow-up call with George Blackman in July to review implementation of his packaging and scripting feedback (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Scriptwriting Strategy Session between George Blackman and Michael Houck]
• 2026-06-02: Reposition the Founding Journey YouTube channel to target in-the-culture, VC-backed SF/NY founders rather than aspirational founders, accepting a smaller addressable audience in exchange for higher-value viewers who buy services and drive deal flow (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Scriptwriting Strategy Session between George Blackman and Michael Houck]
• 2026-06-03: Ben to build a client-facing Trent workflow that surfaces trending topics directly in one or two amenable clients’ channels (client replies with their take, Casper drafts internally, writer posts final), prioritized before other agent work since it is quick (owner: Ben Ornstein) [src: Michael <> Alan: Catch Up]
• 2026-06-08: Nuon (Jon Morehouse) upgraded from strategy-only to full content creation with Megaphone: about five tweets a week, 1-3 X articles a month, LinkedIn syndication 3-4x a week, with Blake Emal writing, Blake Stewart as account manager, and Michael sending the updated Stripe link same day (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Nuon: Content Creation Kickoff]
• 2026-06-10: Proceed building a meme agent experiment: pair trending memes from the Meme Lord69 database with breaking events, prioritize recency windows, with Alan Thomas as unpaid alpha tester and consultant; Michael to ask Jason (Meme Lord69) about API access (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Michael <> Alan: Catch Up]
• 2026-06-11: Polar (Kevin Jiang) kicked off as a Megaphone ghostwriting client: LinkedIn-first with X cross-posting, near-daily shorter posts to start, Jacob Shipley writing, Blake Stewart as account manager; Megaphone takes account credentials for scheduling, posting, and engagement, and Michael delivers a profile audit within a day (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Megaphone <> Polar: Kickoff!]
• 2026-06-29: Move the quick links section to the top of the Authority Brief newsletter and add a today-at-a-glance agenda, modeled on Houck’s Founding Journey format (owner: Dominic Forth) [src: Dominic x Megaphone]
• 2026-06-29: Pause Dominic’s podcast guest push through September (summer timing deemed poor for launch) (owner: Dominic Forth) [src: Dominic x Megaphone]
• 2026-06-29: Rework the rejected doctors newsletter post into an attorney example and ship the Wednesday issue in the current format, with Tanyo editing async from the call transcript and Dominic reviewing next morning (owner: Dominic Forth) [src: Dominic x Megaphone]
• 2026-07-01: Pause the Authority Brief newsletter for July and regroup the second week of August to workshop 2-3 new formats aligned to the CPG ICP (owner: J Christine Feeley) [src: Dom New Direction]
• 2026-07-22: Hard deadline of August 1 set for the Megaphone writers acquisition decision; final stage is add-backs valuation, otherwise Rye Valley drops the writers except Jacob staying on Draper (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-07-22: Keep the Upwork Webflow contractor contract open rather than closing it, for future reuse (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-07-22: One more Founding Journey Tuesday send, then FJ rebrands to Hard Calls (FJ Plus reskinned as Hard Calls Pro), targeting launch by mid-August with Lore site live around July 24-27 (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-07-22: Viral Examples expands to two issues per week, one X issue and one LinkedIn issue, run to separate ad funnels and sub lists (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-07-27: Start Julius’s growth push with the cleaned SuperReturn/SuperVenture investor list (about 1,500-2,000 contacts) using a 3-5 page ownership-culture lead magnet PDF tied to his upcoming book, before going broader (owner: Julius Bachmann) [src: Julius Bachmann and Michael Houck]
• 2026-07-30: Rebuild the Casper agent system on Hermes instead of OpenClaw, using Fable for comments; estimated cost under 100 dollars per client per month for 100 comments a week, testing with Ben first (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Casper Product Direction Sync]
• 2026-07-30: Set up a combined internal-only Notion request board so clients stop seeing unfinished AI backlog drafts (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Casper Product Direction Sync]
• 2026-07-30: Transfer Megaphone Studio clients to Blake Emal starting the following Monday, consolidating the content workflow around him (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Casper Product Direction Sync]
• 2026-07-31: Ben is officially off all Megaphone Studio accounts; Charlene takes over Jeffrey replies with Ben reviewing for about a week (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-07-31: Ben’s chief of staff workload will shrink near-term; his durable role becomes the human review/interface layer between clients and the AI systems, with Houck taking AI building in-house, next steps TBD (owner: Michael Houck) [src: [Weekly] Ben : Houck]
• 2026-08-06: Replace AWS and Accountify (2,000-2,500 dollars per month combined) with Apify-based automation if the one-week shadow run hits 95 percent or better accuracy in the August 12 report (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Ben 1:1 Weekly]
• 2026-08-06: VA restructure finalized: Angelica offboarded, Charlene retained on Jeffrey for scale-up headroom, Venus handles all other accounts including Houck’s, Rina gets an updated task list (owner: Michael Houck) [src: Houck <> Ben 1:1 Weekly]

Note (2026-08-07): “Clawdy” is the correct spelling of Ben’s original name for the OpenClaw content agent later known as Casper (hence the clawdy-architecture repo). Read.ai transcribed it as “Claudie” in some raw transcripts; derived docs use Clawdy.

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