In partnership with
Happy Friday! One thing I’ve learned this week (as someone who lives in the southeast and has survived this decade’s “snowpocalypse”) is that you can never be too ready… even though we were. Me and my wife stocked up on water, food, heaters, everything you can think of to last us at least a week with no power. Well, wouldn’t you know it, we never lost power… anyway - enjoy this week’s content!
🔥 Headlines of the Week
• What Dollar Shave Club Taught Marketers About Rejection
• Substack Launches Substack TV
• Three Quick SEO Wins to Apply Today
🧔♂️ What Dollar Shave Club Taught Marketers About Rejection
Dollar Shave Club had a Super Bowl ad turned down recently because it was a little too… honest.
Not unsafe. Not off-brand. Just unwilling to sand off the edges.
So instead of softening it to fit the room, they kept the attitude and ran it where their audience actually hangs out.
And that’s the part worth paying attention to.
Most marketing doesn’t fail because it isn’t optimized enough. It fails because it’s been polished into personality-free submission.
When you try to make a message acceptable to every platform, every policy, and every possible viewer, you usually end up with something that feels fine… and means nothing.
Rejection isn’t always a dead end. Sometimes it’s a signal flare.
It tells you you’ve finally said something specific enough, sharp enough, human enough to draw a line in the sand.
In 2026, the brands that stand out won’t be the safest ones in the room.
They’ll be the ones that sound like themselves, even when that doesn’t fit neatly inside the guardrails.
Ship the message as fast as you think
Founders spend too much time drafting the same kinds of messages. Wispr Flow turns spoken thinking into final-draft writing so you can record investor updates, product briefs, and run-of-the-mill status notes by voice. Use saved snippets for recurring intros, insert calendar links by voice, and keep comms consistent across the team. It preserves your tone, fixes punctuation, and formats lists so you send confident messages fast. Works on Mac, Windows, and iPhone. Try Wispr Flow for founders.