I Made An Album That Teaches You Marketing [Season 1 Recap]
Listen now on YouTube [https://www.youtube.com/@NateDesmond], Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/show/2mGUIdO9DwwHQ5XOIwH9LQ], and Apple [https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/horizons-pod/id1788814434]. (I recommend catching this one on YouTube to get the full experience [https://youtu.be/ONzei_mDY3k].)
What’s one marketing framework from Season 1 that actually stuck with you?
If you’re like most people, the answer is... fuzzy. Maybe you remember a guest name. Maybe a general concept. But the specific framework?
Gone.
That’s why I turned all 45 episodes into songs.
Not because I think I’m the next Grammy winner. But because you probably still remember jingles from commercials you saw 20 years ago.
And because it seemed like an insanely fun way to celebrate the first season.
Here’s a sample of the frameworks from Season 1, now impossible to forget:
* Stories persuade, facts inform (Lydia Davey [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RosIS879FQ]): Why “the king died of a broken heart” beats “the king died”.
* Monthly billing reveals truth (Joe Wilkinson [https://youtu.be/AJ72EJ7rd3I]): Annual plans hide churn. Monthly plans force you to earn customers every 30 days.
* Behavior > surveys (Ryan Delk [https://youtu.be/GbHOKwr2Q_c]): What people SAY vs what they PAY are two different things.
* The 5 Whys (Pete Sena [https://youtu.be/ySbGNJZ4HZA]): Ask “why” five times to reach emotional buying triggers.
* Don’t let great get in the way of good (Stephen Stouffer [https://youtu.be/Zr_VNzOoTOM]): Perfect is a moving target. Ship now, iterate later.
* Simple tools beat complex software (Sundar Swaminathan [https://youtu.be/Eouu736Xyyo]): Google Sheets ran Uber’s growth for 5 years. You don’t need fancy tools.
* Strategic friction increases conversions (Alexey Komissarouk [https://youtu.be/EML5DbvdQxk]): Why Masterclass adds a quiz before checkout, and it works.
* Master one channel (Sherry Jiang [https://youtu.be/ienL0gJ8qMk]): Better to have 500K views on one platform than 50 views on ten.
* Content is a volume game (Andrew Littlefield [https://youtu.be/gmN0eePS6jY]): Baseball players who hit .333 make the Hall of Fame. Keep swinging.
* Build around existing habits (Kevin Xu [https://youtu.be/KdPAQFRr63s]): AfterHour became #1 by being the “bathroom app”. Join existing habits; don’t fight behavior.
* Network effects are AI-proof (Adam Miller [https://youtu.be/aaqQYV1B808]): The only moat AI can’t compete away.
Plus another 34 beats.
Listen to the songs. They’re available everywhere:
Or better yet watch the recap video for a sampler (I recommend starting here):
I’ve had way too much fun filming season 1.
Sitting down with people behind the growth of Uber, Masterclass, Flipkart, and so many other companies that have literally changed the way we live.
To each guest who has let us behind the curtain: thank you for opening your world to us.
And to each listener who has come along for the journey: thank you for joining me on this crazy ride.
I don’t know when (or if) I’ll film a second season, but I’m so glad that I finally got around to bringing this dream to life. (Literally 10 years after I first considered podcasting in 2015!)
If you, dear reader, have got a fun idea burning a hole in your pocket, please do it! I can guarantee you that it will be 100x harder than you ever imagined, yet also more fulfilling and enjoyable.
What side quest will you bring to life in 2026?
Signing off,Nate
P.S. If even ONE of these frameworks changes how you work this week, hit reply and tell me which one. It would make my week.
PPS. Want to hear how exactly I managed to create 45 songs without ever playing an instrument? Here’s a little behind-the-scenes for AI nerds like me. :)
Just 5 years ago, a project of this size would be impossible, or would at least take years + a large team.
I managed to pull it off solo during my weekends and evenings thanks to the incredible boost of AI.
It’s been my creative partner in everything from drafting song lyrics, to creating the songs themselves, to crafting music videos (some are really funny, don’t miss them!), to editing this note you’re reading right now.
Here’s what I’ve learned about AI: it can create some really dreadful slop.
But with the right human in the loop, you can also find some real diamonds in the rough.
As an example: when creating the songs, I used Suno AI and gave incredibly detailed prompts describing the genre of music I wanted (+ the exact lyrics to use). Even still, it probably took 4-8 song generations on average to find the one that made me go “oh, that’s epic”.
The secret to creating with AI comes in two parts:
1/ Detailed prompting: Generic prompts create AI slop. Mindblowing prompts* create… well still probably 70% AI slop, but 30% fantastic results.
2/ Tastemaking: Pretend you’re a judge on “AI’s Got Talent”. Your job is to separate the slop from the spectacular.
It really is that simple, but it takes hundreds of hours of practice to get it right (or maybe that’s just me).
*And what is a “mindblowing prompt”? So much of this is experimentation + stealing ideas from other AI users. But the single most powerful tip I’d share is to give your AI a role (“You’re a YouTube consultant who’s grown 3 channels to 100M subscribers, and you’ve been paid $1M to grow Horizons Pod.”).
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Obligatory disclaimer: I've worked at YouTube and Google for about a decade in various marketing teams. Nothing I say in my personal spaces is necessarily endorsed by them.
This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit horizonspod.substack.com [https://horizonspod.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]
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