Date: 2026-09-24 (12:00 PM EDT) Attendees: Michael Houck, Ben Ornstein, Blake Emal Granola: https://notes.granola.ai/d/3d70c248-0e1d-4684-b473-035e1bef3533
Note: Internal team sync about Adam Gillman (adam-gillman) content strategy. Adam was NOT on this call. Brain-only; no client-call pipeline steps triggered.
Summary
Internal strategy alignment between Michael, Ben (ops), and Blake Emal (writer) for Adam Gillman’s Megaphone content and newsletter launch.
Content strategy (Blake):
- 3 long-form and 6 short-form pieces already drafted
- Haya story is recurring texture, not a standalone pillar
- Direction: longer-form, listy, actionable thought-leadership content for consumer audience (Greg Eisenberg style)
- Adam gave ~12 pillars on his onboarding call, providing minimal direction, so Blake is experimenting broadly within that
- Approach: closely mirror Adam’s historical X formats first to protect performance in month 1, then test
- Reference set: Greg Eisenberg’s best-performing content from the last 6 months filtered and used at ~40-50% copy
Newsletter structure (two options to present to Adam):
- Story-led: personal story -> principle section -> curated tweets/posts
- Principle-only: prose principle -> weekly checklist (e.g. consumer/e-com checklist), no story dependency
Story-led risks: stories live mostly in Adam’s head, not accessible sources; risk of weekly rewrites if Adam can’t supply stories. Mitigation: flag story candidates to Adam in Slack before writing. Adam’s 5 years of Granola meeting notes (in Hermes) are an available story source, including war stories (Haya stake agreement, etc.).
Newsletter goal: Build trust, credibility, and FOMO to drive purchases. Adam’s planned funnel: high-ticket mastermind/membership + lower-ticket broader membership (Jay Klaus model).
Operational setup (Ben):
- Seed list received: ~377 subscribers
- Ben can handle internally: content tags, one-liner, emoji
- Hold for newsletter name/direction: newsletter name, one-liner
- Non-blocking (confirm with Adam later): custom domain, sender name, reply-to email
- High-rated issue offer: Michael’s free lead magnet form
- Welcome email survey question: complement the 3-question website survey that routes readers to Adam’s offers
- Design: Michael creates; Ben to brief on common patterns
Principle for all clients (from this conversation): Minimize requests to clients in onboarding; bias toward autonomous decision-making. Clients should not experience their first weeks as a pile of tedious asks.
Michael out: Friday Sep 25 and Monday Sep 28.
Decisions
- Mirror-first strategy for month 1. Blake will closely replicate Adam’s historical content formats before experimenting. Quick trigger finger on experiments to protect early performance. -> See Adam Gillman Newsletter Content Strategy
- Two newsletter format options to present to Adam for him to choose direction: story-led vs. principle-only (with checklist). Michael will compile proposal from this transcript via Hermes and share in the channel.
- Newsletter cadence: weekly. Day/time TBD once direction is confirmed.
- Free lead magnet form will be the reward for high-rated newsletter issues.
Action items
- Michael: draft newsletter proposal from this transcript and share in the Adam channel
- Michael: send Ben the 2 PM call invite (same day, urgent)
- Michael: brainstorm welcome email survey question (complementary to 3-question website survey)
- Ben: prepare newsletter design brief with common patterns and design inputs for Claude Design prompt
- Team: complete newsletter setup by following week (Michael out Fri Sep 25 + Mon Sep 28)
- Blake: flag story candidates to Adam in Slack before writing story-led issues
Notable transcript excerpts
Michael on protecting month-1 performance:
“What I don’t want to have happen is […] over the first month or so that we’re working together, his performance goes down because we’re trying things that his audience isn’t resonating with. So I would say like quick trigger finger on experiments with him just because we know there is a format and formula that’s working for him.”
Blake on story sourcing risk:
“I still think we could probably hit some blockers with leading with a story for every single issue. […] I just worry about relevant stuff that he is okay sharing. What I don’t want to have happen is we pull in a story from Hermes and literally every week he’s like, yeah, we can’t use that, and then it changes the whole rest of the newsletter and I have to rewrite the whole thing every time.”
Michael on autonomy as a client principle:
“I want us to be as autonomous as possible. […] We don’t want to feel like their first week or 2 of working with us is just a bunch of […] tedious stuff that they’re like, why aren’t they just doing this?”
Michael on Adam’s meeting notes as a story source:
“We have his entire meeting notes from the past 5 years […]. There’s even stuff in there about his legal agreement with the company that is like taking a stake in Haya. […] There’s war stories in there for sure.”