Date: 2026-08-18 Time: 3:45 PM EDT Attendees: Michael Houck, Caroline Dell (CEO/Co-Founder, Goodword), Geo (Megaphone), Blake Stewart (Megaphone)
Summary
Discovery/pitch call with Caroline Dell of Goodword. Current state: 700 users, target 5,000 fast. Fall growth matters for a January fundraise. Best performing Meta creative is UGC video (team member Lara, ~$40-50 cost per trial). This week: hook testing 15 variations of the first 3 seconds of the same video. Michael pitched Reddit (answer engine strategy) and multiple video routes. Caroline interested in Reddit but uncertain on ROI path. Michael internally concluded video-first is the better pitch.
Decisions
- No services signed yet; follow-up proposal to be sent by Michael covering Reddit Q&A thread + all three video routes.
- Reddit recommended test: Q&A thread at ~$2,500. Success = visibility in answer engines + Google ranking for target keyword clusters, not Reddit engagement.
- Video routes offered: (1) UGC creators + paid Meta spend, (2) creator partnerships, (3) Caroline’s founder brand build (she films ~30 min/week, everything else handled).
- UGC route can be scoped as a short test; founder brand build requires minimum 3 videos.
- Strategic framing for Reddit test: gives Goodword concrete answer-engine data to walk into January fundraise with.
Goodword Context (for future calls)
- 700 users today, target 5,000 ASAP
- Channels today: organic, light Meta paid spend, occasional events
- Best performing Meta creative: “ditch LinkedIn” messaging + UGC video (team member Lara); $40-50 cost per trial
- This week: hook testing 15 variations of same video’s first 3 seconds
- Caroline’s LinkedIn: 11K followers, almost entirely static posts, no video
- Goodword TikTok: tried team-written scripts previously; did not perform well enough to double down
- Fundraise target: January 2026; fall growth matters for the narrative
- Caroline brought in a GTM consultant (Emily); also has committee including Laura and Chris
Action Items
- Michael: Send Caroline email with Reddit Q&A thread test (budget, what success looks like, framed around January fundraise).
- Michael: Include all three video/UGC routes + case studies in the same email; include recommendation on biggest bang for buck.
- Caroline: Share best-performing Meta UGC video in Slack so Michael can inform UGC scripting and creative direction.
Notable Excerpts
“[On Reddit] It is the most trusted source for answer engines today because it’s incredibly hard to market on Reddit in traditional ways… these communities will ban you and kick you out… as a result answer engines trust it more.”
“[On Goodword’s Reddit relevance] There is a conversation happening there that we’re not part of.”
“[On UGC at Goodword] This is the most DIY UGC process I’ve ever heard.” (Michael, responding to Caroline describing the friend-sourced video approach.)
“[On Caroline’s founder brand] All you would have to do is film and we’d provide examples like how to hold the camera… most people it takes about 30 minutes a week.”
“[On the January fundraise hook] You can walk into those conversations and they can be like, are you going to be part of the answer engine conversation? You can say yeah, we’ve run a test, here’s what we’ve seen.”