Build Systems before your Brand
🔧 The unglamorous work of growth and the effortless power of Gemini decks

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Welcome to today's edition, bringing the latest growth stories fresh to your inbox.
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In Partnership Syncly Social
The conversations your brand is missing are costing you.

Every day, thousands of TikToks mention brands, but most tools can’t hear them. Traditional social listening only scrapes captions, missing 90% of real conversations that happen in video.
Syncly Social changes that. It’s the first AI social listening tool that actually hears every spoken brand mention on TikTok and connects it to context, sentiment, and creator data so you see what really drives attention.
- Instantly find tagged or untagged brand mentions across TikTok.
- Detect emerging trends before they hit mainstream.
- Engage creators already talking about your products.
- Analyze competitors’ tactics, influencers, and audience reactions.
Top brands like Kosas, Burberry, and Calvin Klein use Syncly Social to turn noise into early signals and own cultural moments before anyone else.
Book a demo to get a free in-depth TikTok analysis of your brand today!
💼 Build the System Before the Brand
Foster Coulson’s mantra is simple yet powerful: “You can only scale to the size of your infrastructure.” Most founders chase flashy marketing before building the systems that support growth, and that’s where they fail.
Lessons from the Ground Up
Foster didn’t start in DTC. He started in the lumber business, learning every part of the operation before running it. When he launched his first product, he made zero sales. Why? He had a great product but no distribution system.
So, he built the system first, targeting architects, sending thousands of samples, and creating demand before retailers noticed. That strategy eventually placed his products in major stores and laid the foundation for his later success running multi-brand companies, generating nine figures in revenue.
Why Infrastructure Beats Growth Hacks
Infrastructure is more than software. It’s fulfillment, customer service, inventory, and team structure, the backbone that supports scale. Founders obsessed with acquisition burn out when systems break under growth pressure.
The unglamorous work compounds. Fulfilment optimisation cuts costs forever; viral ads only boost revenue today.
Why He Walked Away from Meta
Foster avoids programmatic platforms like Meta and TikTok. He believes attribution models distort real profitability, pushing brands to chase “fake” conversions. Instead, he invests in harder, underutilized channels like TV and direct mail, where competition is low and long-term payoff is high.
Balancing Purpose and Profit
Foster builds with values first. His philosophy: help people, act with integrity, and reinvest profits into impact. Profit sustains purpose; purpose keeps profit meaningful.
The Takeaway
True scale starts with systems, not ads. Build your foundation before chasing growth, and success compounds naturally.
🎨 Turn Any Document into a Presentation with Gemini
Gemini’s newest capability is changing how professionals and creators build presentations. Instead of manually designing slides, you can now upload a document, prompt Gemini, and get a complete, editable presentation in minutes, complete with structured text, visuals, and charts.
So Gemini can now generate complete presentations?!
— Paul Couvert (@itsPaulAi) November 5, 2025
You can transform any document into an editable slideshow with images, charts, text, etc.
- Upload a file or a GDocs document
- Ask Gemini to create a presentation
- Wait just a few minutes
Done.
And you can either download… pic.twitter.com/2oxj8krB3C
Steps to Create a Presentation with Gemini
1️⃣ Upload Your Source File
Start by uploading a document, which can be a PDF, Word file, or Google Doc. Gemini reads the content and prepares it for transformation.
2️⃣ Prompt Gemini to Build a Presentation
Once your file is uploaded, simply prompt:
“Create a presentation from this document.”
Gemini automatically extracts key points, organises them into slides, and adds supporting visuals, icons, and layouts.
3️⃣ Review and Customize
In just a few minutes, you’ll have a polished presentation ready for review. Gemini generates:
- Structured slides with headers and bullet points
- Relevant images and icons aligned with the topic
- Dynamic charts and data visuals if your file includes numbers or analysis
4️⃣ Export and Edit
You can either download the presentation directly or export it to Google Slides for further customization. Once in Slides, you can edit text, swap visuals, or adjust themes just like any other deck.
The Takeaway
Gemini transforms presentation creation from hours of manual design into minutes of intelligent automation. Whether you’re prepping client decks, educational slides, or internal reports, Gemini bridges the gap between writing and presenting, turning your words into visuals instantly.
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