Date: 2026-08-24 Time: 3:00 PM EDT Attendees: Michael Houck, Blake Stewart (Founding Journey), Blake Emal (Megaphone Studio)
Summary
Covered Keycard retention strategy, Jeffrey Evans call prep, content interview quality improvements, Fasset/Rafi unicorn update, and Ben Gusberg account notes. Michael shared Jolt funnel progress and $2.3K SaaS cost savings from merging the Megaphone Creator Network.
Decisions
- Jeffrey comms move to email: Jeff Evans team is not on Slack; Blake to send weekly updates via email, CC Steve. (Decision page: Jeffrey Evans - Move Weekly Updates to Email)
- Blake Emal added to Brentan calls: Aims to join at least once a month.
- Content interview prompt shift: Move away from evergreen/standing questions toward net-new, timely prompts each week (what happened this week, meetings, personal details, react to trends surfaced by Hermes). Blake to drop a note in the channel after this week’s calls to flag how it’s working. (Decision page: Content Interview Prompt Shift - Timely Over Evergreen)
Action items
- Michael: Pitch Keycard retention ideas to Isaac this week - short-form volume shift, company account posts, NDA content ingestion (Granola/Notion/email/Slack), employee creator angle.
- Michael: Join Jeffrey Evans call Aug 25, re-pitch proactive engagements, extract content inputs, align on tone.
- Blake Stewart: Email Jeffrey weekly updates, CC Steve. Not on Slack.
- Michael: Update Hermes prompts tonight based on content interview discussion; review “recommended batch” feedback (Hermes feedback thread 821 in Megaphone).
- Blake Emal: Drop note in channel after this week’s content calls - flag whether timely/net-new prompt shift is working.
- Michael: Add Blake Emal to Brentan Alexander call invites.
Notable excerpts
Jolt funnel progress (Michael):
“We almost have the funnel stuff fully set up and the OS for Jolt… if that machine all works for Jolt, it’s going to be very easy to copy paste to Megaphone, copy paste to Lore… my personal goal is that we close 5 Jolt Deploy clients in September.”
Keycard situation:
“They are sort of finally realizing that they’re not getting enough value from it because they’re not engaging… we have 3 more months with them… I think we’ve posted what, like under 10 times for them.”
Blake’s proposal: shift to high-volume short-form (easier to approve, less reading), repurpose 100+ post backlog as raw material. Also pitch: company account posts (Isaac approves, not Ian), NDA content ingestion from Granola/Notion/email/Slack, build up a sales-facing employee as creator.
Jeffrey Evans (jeff-evans) call prep:
“The goal of Jeffrey’s account is not even to build a following. The goal of his account is to get Jeffrey in front of people who will invest in their fund - like high net worth people, people who are at family offices, capital allocators at hedge funds.”
Jeffrey is NOT the decision maker; Steve and Alex drive renewal/expansion. Steve 1:1 in 2-3 weeks. Renewal in about 6 weeks. Expansion target: add Alex’s account, Steve’s account, brand account. Proactive engagements: may restrict to lower-profile accounts only, or drop entirely if he’s uncomfortable.
Content interview quality (Blake Emal):
“If we’re asking evergreen questions, we tend to get evergreen answers… even the client’s evergreen inputs kind of just sound like AI to me.” Recommended batch idea: surface a batch covering all content pillars at once (from Hermes feedback 821) - more ideas to choose from, Blake picks 3 of 6.
Fasset/Rafi update:
“They raised a $51 million Series B in May. And now, like, literally 3 months later... $68 million at a - they’re a unicorn now.”
Zara’s issue was with David (unresponsive); framed Blake’s involvement as added attention. Blake has license to push back if recommendations aren’t being taken. Expansion potential: TikTok and Instagram via Tatum/Jolt.
Ben Gusberg note:
Blake: “He literally doesn’t care if what he’s saying is not true whatsoever. His response was, ‘does it even matter if it’s true or not?’”
Ben wants to repurpose proven posts only and doesn’t care about factual accuracy. Strategy is to apply his viewpoint to formats that work, with humanizing anecdotal details.
SaaS savings:
“Last week I was able to cancel 2,000, almost 2,300 worth of SaaS subscriptions related to running the Megaphone Creator Network… that’s like an additional $2K a month that we just have.”
See Granola for full transcript: meeting id 4484cfdb-3dfa-4ec6-99bd-9056d02578c0