First Principles Marketing: The 5-Point Playbook

Marketing Isn’t Magic, It’s Physics. Once you understand the forces, signal vs. noise, friction vs. flow, feedback loops, and leverage (plus a few we’ll uncover together), you can build machines that do the heavy lifting while you focus on ideas.

This newsletter is where I share those machines: first‑principles frameworks, automations, and battle stories that free your calendar for creativity sprints and revenue moves.

We opens with a five-part “playbook” that frees small teams to think more and click less. These core plays - Leverage, Centaur Advantage, Taste, Velocity, and Small-Team Power - lay the ground rules. From there, every new post riffs on, tests, or extends one of them with fresh data, templates, and real-world experiments you can deploy tomorrow.

Why This Matters

Picture Monday 9 a.m.: 37 tabs open, CPC creeping, boss pinging, coffee cooling. Hours disappear into bid tweaks while the real job, crafting stories customers remember, waits.

I’ve been there: cut my teeth in GroupM ad‑ops, honed planning chops at MightyHive, and then, solo as the first marketing hire at a seed‑stage SaaS, shouldered every growth metric and every midnight dashboard.

The root issue isn’t talent; it’s systems. Most playbooks assume fat venture wallets. Bootstrapped teams don’t have that cheat code. They need leverage over labor - systems that swap brain‑numbing clicks for insight.

Enter first‑principles marketing: break problems into atoms, rebuild with leverage, automate the rote.

The Five Plays

• Leverage over Labor: Systems compound output faster than head-count.

• Centaur Advantage: Human insight × AI precision beats either alone.

• Taste Is Currency: Clicks are cheap; taste and narrative win wallets.

• Velocity Loops Win: Fast, cheap tests snowball into durable edge.

• Small Team, Big Moves: AI lets lean crews punch way above their weight.

Small crews, paired with purpose‑built agents, can now orchestrate multi‑platform campaigns that once required whole departments.

Play 1: Leverage > Labor

Systems compound output faster than head-count.

The Archimedes Test: Moving Markets with Levers

Archimedes grasped what every industrial revolution since has proven: the biggest breakthroughs come from replacing human effort with systematic leverage.

• Henry Ford didn't build faster workers - he built an assembly line that made speed automatic.

• McDonald's didn't hire better cooks - they created systems so consistent that any teenager could deliver the same result.

Marketing is having its industrial revolution right now. The question isn't whether you'll build leverage - it's whether you'll build it before your competitors do.

The Pattern: Click Inflation & Diminishing Returns

Modern marketing is drowning in micro-clicks: toggling two-factor log-ins, duplicating ad groups, exporting CSVs just to pivot them. None of those clicks deliver value by themselves; they’re the overhead tax we pay to get to the work that does.

Physics translation: time spent on low-leverage tasks has a 1:1 payoff; time spent building systems compounds.

Playbook: Build Your Growth Levers

1. Inventory the Rote 80%

   • Open a blank doc and list every click-heavy chore you touched this week: CSV exports, bid adjustments, campaign duplications, performance report pulls.

   • Circle the ones that repeat ≥ once per month. That’s your “automation backlog.”

2. Automate One Chore End-to-End

   • Pick the highest-frequency job; script it in Python, Zapier, or Google Apps Script - even if V1 is ugly and saves only 30 minutes weekly.

   • Save the time delta in a “Leverage Ledger” so you see the compounding hours.

3. Bank the Time Rebate in Strategy Sprints

   • Block the freed hours on your calendar for experiments or narrative work.

   • Treat those blocks as untouchable; the lever pays off only if you reinvest.

4. Document the Recipe

   • Write a 1-page SOP or share the script. Systems grow stronger when they’re shareable.

Mind the Blind Spots

• Automation Theater: Fancy scripts that save seconds, not hours.

• Orphaned Systems: Levers nobody maintains break at scale.

• False Efficiency: Saving time is useless if you spend it on more low-leverage clicks.

What’s Next? Three Predictions

• Clickless Campaign Builds become table-stakes; storycraft decides winners.

• SaaS priced on hours saved outpaces seat-based pricing.

• Job descriptions will specify "automation portfolio required" - candidates must show systems they've built, not just campaigns they've managed.

My Mission

• Deconstruct every growth problem to its physics.

• Rebuild with code and clear thinking.

• Hand you templates and agents so you spend time on storytelling sprints, not pivot tables.