Date: 2026-08-21 Time: 1:30 PM EDT Attendees: Michael Houck (Rye Valley), Emil Barr (Candid Network / studio-emil)
Summary
Weekly sync covering Emil’s college campus tour initiative, WSJ article postmortem, LinkedIn algorithm changes, and monetization brainstorm.
College Campus Tour
- Danielle (American University) is enthusiastic and wants to champion Emil on campus. Expects to hear back next week once professors finish course planning.
- Key pivot: outreach should go to administrators (business school or university-wide), not professors. Professors can only offer single-class talks; administrators can unlock campus-wide events.
- New model explored: sponsored campus tour - have sponsors (e.g. Mercury Bank) fund the tour instead of colleges paying speaker fees. Opens up budget-constrained schools while potentially generating equal or more revenue. Emil’s sponsor contact will explore this.
WSJ Articles - Postmortem
- Three WSJ articles total. First and third performed well; second did not.
- Common thread in the two winners: Emil positioned as a Gen Z spokesperson calling out Gen Z to an older audience (WSJ skews older, capitalized gatekeepers). That framing resonates independently of Gen Z approval.
- Third article got fewer negative reactions than expected, which paradoxically dampened engagement (controversy drives it).
- Sponsored engagement postmortem: mid-range influencer accounts drove minimal traffic. $10k spent would have yielded ~200k guaranteed views via paid ads instead.
- Exception to the above rule: very large accounts (e.g. Unusual Whales) are worth it.
- Going forward: higher qualification bar for influencer accounts, especially on non-tech/business topics.
LinkedIn Algorithm
- Emil flagged a likely algorithm update ~2 weeks prior to this meeting.
- Posts using Megaphone engagement appear throttled in first-hour impressions; posts without Megaphone engagement have been outperforming in some cases.
- Michael’s read: LinkedIn has been moving toward dwell time over engagement signals for ~a year; could be topic selection + small sample size, not necessarily structural.
- Candid Network will monitor more broadly across managed accounts.
Monetization Ideas
- Sponsored campus tour - strong interest, pursue regardless of college budget outcomes.
- Founder dinners - similar to Andrew’s model (sponsors pay for curated founder room access). Emil personally dislikes the format but willing to redesign it from scratch. Would be run day-to-day by junior team.
- Rolling fund - quarterly management fees vs. angel syndicate carry; gives non-SF founders access to Emil’s network.
- Paid media placements - journalism fees now $200-400/article (down from thousands historically). Not a meaningful revenue lever.
Decisions
- No more mid-range influencer sponsored engagement spend. Didn’t move the needle; $10k would have gone further in paid ads. Only exception: very large accounts with proven reach (Unusual Whales tier). See No Mid-Range Influencer Sponsored Engagement Spend (Emil Barr).
- Shift campus tour outreach from professors to administrators. Professors can’t authorize campus-wide events or speaker budgets.
Action Items
- Emil: have sponsor contact explore Mercury Bank and similar sponsors funding a campus tour (financial brands wanting early-career entrepreneurial audiences)
- Emil: map out ideal founder dinner format - remove the parts he dislikes, define what would make him want to attend - before committing to the model
- Michael / Candid Network: monitor LinkedIn megaphone throttling more broadly across managed accounts and flag if structural changes needed
Notable Transcript Excerpts
On the sponsored campus tour model:
“We could open it up to schools who might be less willing to meet our fee, but still generate equal, if not more revenue from it.” - Michael
Emil on the founder dinner format:
“I will spend some time doing a little bit of like, okay, what do I hate about these things and what would like the perfect event look like in my mind… if we can improve upon the experience, I think then we could create something that’s like actually market-bowling interesting to founders.”
On WSJ article angle:
“The two more successful ones basically positioned you as a spokesperson for gen z who’s calling out gen z to an audience in the wall street journal that skews a bit older and might have strong feelings about that.” - Michael
On mid-range influencer spend:
“I don’t think it’s worth a 10k compared to like we could have just run 10k worth of ads and gotten… guaranteed like 200k views off 10k worth of ads.” - Emil
Full transcript in Granola (id: 19412695-a28d-4573-84b8-29fb3a19c613).