Happy Thursday!

In 5 minutes, you'll be learning about the following:

1. Google just dropped a free gift: a built-in video team for every brand
2. ​How to turn one blog post into 60 pieces of content per day using AI
3. A scratch and sniff deodorant billboard that pulled millions of views (and mainstream press).
4. From finance to fashion: the story behind my Neat co-founder [Podcast]
5. Neat Build in Public Update: Turns out our website hero wasn't a hero at all

Jim Huffman, GrowthHit & Neat Apparel CEO
​(Want a friend? Let's connect on Twitter or LinkedIn)

​Google Just Gave Every Brand a Free Video Team​

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From product launches to sales decks, AI video just killed your excuses

Google silently just dropped something big: Vids, their AI-powered video editor, is now free for everyone. Until this week, it was locked up for paying Workspace customers. Now? Anyone can open a browser, drop in a product photo, type a script, and spit out a polished video. No studio. No actors.

This is a big deal because video is the thing every team wants more of but rarely has the time, budget, or energy to pull off. Product launches stall because creative takes weeks. Sales teams are stuck hacking together clunky Zoom recordings. HR wishes they had onboarding videos but never gets around to it. Vids blows all of that up.

Here’s what you can actually do with it:

• Launch a new product and turn one photo into an animated promo clip.
• Pick from 12 AI avatars and have them deliver your script like a brand spokesperson.
• Record yourself, upload it, and let Vids delete all the “ums,” pauses, and awkward silences.
• Export for TikTok, Instagram, YouTube - without paying someone to resize everything.
• Collaborate with your team just like you would in Google Docs.

And this isn’t just for eComm. Think about the ripple effects:

• Sales can crank out pitch videos that don’t look like they were shot in a basement.
• HR can finally build onboarding and training videos without begging for budget.
• Marketing can test twenty ad variations before the weekend.
• Leadership can drop video into decks to make updates actually engaging.

​From 1 Blog Post to 60 A Day Using AI ​

An AI Tool that researches, writes, and publishes hundreds of blog content for you.

Here’s the dirty little secret of growth marketing: everyone knows content matters, but almost no one does it consistently.

You want SEO traffic. You want blog posts that convert. But the reality is that content takes a back seat to launches, ad campaigns, and putting out daily fires. Before you know it, three months have gone by and your “content strategy” is a lonely Google Doc with bullet points.

That’s why we’re excited to test Tely AI. It’s basically a content engine that runs on autopilot - researching, writing, and publishing blog posts that are designed to rank and drive leads.

This AI tool doesn’t just churn out fluffy blog posts. It pulls from your website, your product pages, even competitor content to generate articles that sound like you. Then it builds a publishing schedule, optimizes every post for SEO, and even places calls-to-action to capture leads.

Instead of one-off content sprints, it produces a steady stream of 60–100+ articles per month - something that would normally take an entire content team (plus a big budget).

We’re adding it to our stack because consistency is everything. A single blog post won’t move the needle, but a library of optimized articles will. That’s what drives compounding traffic and long-term growth.

We’ll be testing Tely AI over the next few weeks to see if it actually delivers on that promise. If it does, it could finally crack the biggest challenge in content marketing: not creating ideas, but sticking with them long enough to win. We’ll report back in a few weeks.

​Want to Go Offshore? The Free Summit Starts Soon!​

A free 3-day event to help you move abroad, protect your wealth, and secure your future.

​The 2025 Expat Money Online Summit is a free, 3-day virtual event designed for individuals who are ready to take action and protect their future and freedom in a world that’s changing fast.

Hosted by Mikkel Thorup, the world’s most sought-after expat consultant, this event will feature dozens of offshore experts sharing practical, step-by-step strategies for moving abroad, legally eliminating taxes, and explaining why so many eyes are turning towards Latin America. 

At the Summit, you’ll:

• Learn how to secure a second residency and move your wealth legally offshore
• Discover the best Latin American countries for freedom, investment, and safety
• Find out how smart families are eliminating their tax burden by living abroad

Your journey to offshore freedom starts at the Expat Money Online Summit 2025.

👉 Get your ticket here​

​Turns Out Our Website Hero Wasn’t a Hero at All​

We ran heat maps on our site this week… and the results stung.

This week at Neat™ (our sweat-proof shirt brand), we used heat maps to see how people use our site.
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And the truth hurts:
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We thought the homepage hero was the Liam Gallagher of our site.
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Turns out… it’s the stage hand nobody notices.
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👉 Only 1.7% clicked it.
👉 19% went straight to the burger menu (burgers > heroes, apparently).
👉 Everyone else? Straight to product tiles.
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Translation: nobody cares about the thing we obsessed over.
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So here’s our fix:
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✅ Big obvious button up top: Shop Sweat-Proof Tees
✅ Shortcuts under the hero (Best Sellers, Bundles, Sale)
✅ Move Best Sellers higher with prices + colors so you can buy fast
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Moral: People don’t want your “vision.” They just want to find the shirt.
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(Need help analyzing your site? Hit us up at GrowthHit)

​The Billboard You Could Actually Smell​

How Billie turned deodorant into an interactive stunt that people couldn’t stop talking about.

Billie has built its brand by flipping beauty marketing on its head - showing body hair, poking fun at taboos, and keeping things unapologetically real. So when it came time to launch their new Coco Villa deodorant, they didn’t just slap a glossy ad on a subway wall.

They asked: how do we let people experience the product before buying it? The answer: giant scratch-and-sniff billboards.

Here’s how it went down.

Billie’s internal team did a quick shoot of armpit visuals - some with hair, some without. They worked with a fragrance house to nail the exact deodorant scent, then partnered with H&H Graphics to print massive scented stickers.

Four billboards were placed in high-traffic Manhattan spots with bold, simple copy: “SCRATCH AND SNIFF THE PITS.”

To extend the stunt, Billie partnered with the IG account What Is New York, sharing reels of people scratching the billboards in public. They also mailed out scratch-and-sniff cards to influencers and press, turning a local out-of-home stunt into something the internet could amplify.

And the results?

The Instagram Reels alone pulled 57,000 likes and over 3 million views. On TikTok, the campaign racked up another 255,000+ views. Traditional press picked it up too, with coverage in Good Morning America, ABC News, and the New York Post. All from a deodorant launch.

By leaning into playfulness, multisensory design, and smart PR distribution, Billie turned an everyday product into a cultural moment - reminding us that sometimes, the best growth move is the one that makes people stop, laugh, and yes… sniff a billboard.

​Ugly Ads, Big Results: Why Your Worst Creative Might Be Your Best Performer​

Why your worst-looking ad might be your best-performing one.

We just hosted a session on one of the most uncomfortable truths in marketing: your prettiest ads might actually be killing your growth.

Think about it. That ad you’re embarrassed to test - the one with bad lighting, pixelated text, and Craigslist-level production value - might be the one Meta rewards. Why? Because it feels real. It feels like UGC. And that scrappy, “ugly” vibe is exactly what stops the scroll.

In this class, we unpacked:

• Why cost-per-share can be more valuable than ROAS
• How low-effort, UGC-style ads consistently beat polished creative
• The hidden signals Meta’s algorithm is picking up (that you’re not)
• Campaign examples where ugly crushed the pretty stuff
• How to stop killing winners too early just because they don’t “look on-brand”

If you’ve ever been stuck in the brand trap - cutting ads that don’t match your aesthetic but actually drive results - this replay is for you.

👉 Watch the full session on demand​

​Meet My Neat Business Partner: Claudio’s Journey from Wall Street to Apparel​

The behind-the-scenes of building Neat with Claudio Storelli
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​For those who don’t know, Claudio is my business partner on Neat - our sweat-proof Shopify brand and he has one of the most fascinating backgrounds of anyone I’ve ever worked with.

He graduated from Stanford at 20. Climbed to the top of Wall Street. Then pivoted into entrepreneurship - first with a soccer brand, and now with me in performance apparel.

In this conversation, we talked through the moment we decided to go all in on Neat. We broke down the actual negotiations that brought us together, why we decided to buy IP before launching, and how we thought about scaling the brand through content, storytelling, and founder alignment.

Looking back, it’s wild to see how much of that conversation still shapes how we run Neat today.

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​📋 What we cover:

• The power of complementary business partnerships
• How we negotiated (even when it was awkward)
• Why we bought IP before building the brand
• Why we decided to skip Amazon and retail—for now
• Claudio’s leap from Wall Street to founder life
• The “goalie mindset” he brings to our business
• How we planned to scale Neat through storytelling and content

👉 If you’ve ever thought about taking on a co-founder, starting a brand from scratch, or buying IP - this episode gives you the raw behind-the-scenes of how it really comes together.

Listen now wherever you get your podcasts

​Let’s Fix What’s Blocking Your Growth​

• My Agency - GrowthHit​
• AI Growth Strategies to Sell More On Shopify - GrowthSchool​
• The Sold-Out Shopify Playbook - Get the product​
• Podcast - The Shopify Growth Show​
• Proven AI Prompts for Your Shopify Success - Get the library​
• My Book: The Growth Marketer's Playbook​

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