I Turn 32 This Week. Here Are 32 Things I'd Tell Any Founder Growing Through Content.

Waddup y'all! Quick personal note before we get into it.

I turn 32 this week. And honestly, looking back at the last year alone, it's wild how much has changed.

31 was my golden year. Born on the 31st, turned 31. My wife calls it your Jesus year. And let me tell you, it lived up to the name. It was the TOUGHEST year I've ever had. I had my youngest son. My oldest became easier to manage, then a challenge, then easier, then a challenge. My wife and I moved into a house we bought. In business I tried, failed, tried, failed, tried, failed...until I found my footing. I wouldn't trade those last 365 days for the world.

So instead of a regular newsletter this week, I wanted to do something different. 32 things I've learned about content, business, and life. Some are tactical. Some are personal. All of them are real.

Let's get into it.

1. Patience is a virtue. But patience isn't sitting around waiting.

Your gut instinct will tell you when it's time to be patient. Your anxiety will tell you to cut the cord. Learn to tell the difference. I watch founders say they'll let an ad run for 7 days and $500 before making a call. Then at 24 hours and $150 in spend, the anxiety kicks in and they kill it. You can't learn anything from a test you didn't let finish.

2. Think of your company as a media company that sells products.

Not a product company that does marketing. The brands winning right now are the ones that think about content first and let the product be the solution their content delivers. This shift changes everything about how you hire, how you budget, and how you prioritize.

3. Founder-led content works because people are starving for real human connection.

In a world of AI bots and avatars, consumers want to feel connected to something bigger than themselves. They don't need you to sell them. They need your story. The good, the bad, and the ugly. That's what builds loyalty.

4. The best founder content is someone picking up a phone and talking like they're FaceTiming a friend.

It's uncomfortable. Not every founder wants to get in front of the camera. But it works. Every single time.

5. Your content doesn't need to be memorable. It needs to convert.

Stop trying to go viral. Stop trying to be the most creative. Study your competitors, see what's working for them, and remake it with your own spin. My best innovation lesson came from Nestle. We invested $10M+ into a manufacturing line for a product our CEO was convinced would be the next big thing. It flopped like somebody's uncle at a belly flop contest on a cruise. Our best innovation that year? A copy-cat of what our competitors were doing but with our own twist on it.

6. Once you find a winning format, don't abandon it. Scale it.

Find the hooks that work, the angles that convert, the creators who perform. Then build variations. Test new hooks on the same foundation. The biggest mistake I see is brands starting from scratch every single time.

7. But even when you have winners, keep testing.

The online game changes fast. I learned this as a creator. It took me a while to figure out that skits and rants were my winning combo. (Fun fact: I was the original creator of "Office Linda" which is now used widely across corporate humor creators.) But I never ONLY did those formats. I kept testing because the last thing you want is to be left behind by not innovating.

8. Your content can innovate in a day's work. Your product can't.

Content doesn't need to go through R&D, testing, product development, and a year of manufacturing. You can test a new angle tomorrow morning. That's the advantage of content. Use it.

9. Authenticity lets you sleep at night.

If you try to sell something, you can't convince me you feel amazing about it. But if you're just yourself, whether you get a sale or not, you can go to sleep knowing you showed up as the person you want to be. That matters more than any metric.

10. I failed publicly. It was one of the best things that happened to me.

When I was building Baldwin, my co-founders pressured me into posting founder content on my personal page. I knew in my gut it wasn't the right move. My audience wasn't there for scalp care content and the engagement showed it. I was used to my content performing and suddenly I was putting out stuff that fell flat. Publicly. Meanwhile, the Baldwin pages started taking off when I invested the time and energy into them. Two lessons from that: (1) listen to yourself when it comes to content because no one knows it better than you do and (2) don't force something that isn't a natural fit just because you want to please others.

11. Don't overcomplicate your messaging because you know too much.

Founders know every feature, every spec, every edge case. And they dump all of that into their content. Your customer doesn't care about specs. They care about the problem they're dealing with right now and whether you understand it. The best content makes someone go "ah yeah, that's me. I need that."

12. AI is not doing your job. It's making your job easier.

There's a reason you have a business and an amazing product. You came up with it in your mind and brought it to life. The moment you try to have AI do your thinking for you is when you start feeling like a fraud.

13. If your AI output sucks, it's you. Not the AI.

Most people type a vague prompt, get a vague response, and blame the tool. That's like handing a contractor a blank napkin and being mad the house looks wrong.

14. My prompts look like novels. On purpose.

I want 1-2 outputs then move on to the next thing. I give the AI ALL of the context. I don't want it to lie because it's missing information. I don't want to question if something is right or wrong. I want it to be nearly perfect so I can get the task done and move on.

15. Don't be afraid to ask AI to write the prompt for you.

My workflow: (1) explain to Claude what I'm trying to accomplish, (2) make sure it understands the job, (3) have it write the prompt for me, (4) double check the prompt to make sure everything is there and accurate, (5) execute. My output is typically 95% of the way there with very minor changes needed.

16. Build systems with AI. Not shortcuts.

I build custom dashboards for clients that track creative performance, rank hooks by cost efficiency, and auto-generate strategic recommendations. That's not "AI content creation." That's using AI to build operational infrastructure. There's a massive difference.

17. Patience and belief will carry you further than any strategy.

Last year I made as much money as I'm going to make in Q1 of this year. If I would've quit at the end of last year, when I realized I was going to have to use credit cards for Christmas gifts, I never would've seen this growth. The gifts weren't about the money. My kids won't remember that Christmas. But I still wanted to give them and my wife what they deserve because they make my life that much better.

18. Credibility matters more than hustle.

I walked into 15-20 dental offices a day for 30 straight days trying to sell a social media workshop. I had the skills, the research, the pitch. But nobody knew who I was. Hustle without credibility is just noise.

19. Don't let a bad deal break you. Turn it into a net positive.

I entered a business partnership where I brought in both clients and my partner wanted a 50/50 revenue split while bringing in zero. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I went directly to both clients, pitched them on a bigger vision, and landed my first VC-backed brand. That bad deal became the best thing that happened to my business.

20. The moment a client becomes uncomfortable is the moment most contractors back down. That's when I lean in.

I ask questions. I challenge assumptions. I'm not intimidated by anyone. But I'm also 100% myself. Authentic. Open to different ideas. And fun to work with. That last part sounds soft but it's everything.

21. You don't need months of brand immersion to create great content.

Day 2 at Suckerpunch, I went on the Tennis Channel in front of 2 million people. I had been with the company for 48 hours. Knocked it out of the park. Not because I memorized the brand bible. Because I know how to tell a story.

22. Agencies find quick winners using templates from other clients.

That gains your trust. But it doesn't last. They're not building something unique to your brand. They're running the same playbook they ran for the last 10 companies. Eventually it stops working and you're left starting over.

23. Test, analyze, iterate. Be open to being wrong.

Founders who are open to being wrong and learning quickly find long-standing content that wins. The ones who think they know everything keep restarting from zero.

24. If you're going to study anyone, study creators. Not marketers.

Creators understand audience. They understand hooks. They understand what makes someone stop scrolling. Most marketers understand strategy but can't create content that anyone actually wants to watch. The best content leaders are both.

25. Marry someone who believes in your crazy ideas before anyone else does.

My wife pushed me to start Baldwin. When I'd come home and say "I think this is going to work," she never once said "be realistic." She supported every crazy idea. Took care of our son so I could build. Celebrated me when one small thing went right. I'm so fortunate to be married to this woman and to raise two boys with someone who constantly challenges me and loves me regardless of what goes on during the day.

26. My wife taught me there's no one-size-fits-all solution to anything.

We approach things completely differently. Where I go left, she goes right. But we end up at the same place. She's taught me not to judge anyone, including her. Watching how she does business, how she builds relationships, how she goes above and beyond for people she cares about. She's the most authentically herself person I know. She actually taught me how to sell my services for Social Playbook. Not through a course or a template. Through conversation and through me watching how she operates.

27. Being present is the hardest thing I do every day. And the most important.

My kids don't give 2 shits about whether dad got a big business deal or lost one. They just want me to love them and have fun with them. From watching Tiny Desk on YouTube in the morning to tackling them in the playroom to going on walks. I spend 70% of my day in the office. I need to take advantage of the other 30% and the 100% on weekends. When I'm not present at work, tasks slip and it trickles into family time. I check Slack and email way more than I should. But the truth is, it can wait. One day I will regret it if I don't give my boys my all every single moment. I won't get these moments back. That thought drives everything I do. (They don't actually wait to see me after work though. When they see me it's like I just got back from a war lol.)

28. Faith is not sitting on your ass waiting for God to do things for you.

These are just my beliefs, but I think they're worth sharing. Blind faith is when you believe in something so much that you're okay just putting one foot in front of the other, not knowing the outcome, but trusting you're headed in the right direction. When I lost my job, I thought Baldwin was my calling. God brought me to my co-founders not to launch a scalp care business, but to teach me skills on an accelerated timeline that I never would've learned otherwise. Those skills are what built Social Playbook into what it is today.

29. Don't get too high or too low about things that happen.

Faith taught me this. Wins are temporary. Losses are temporary. The work is permanent. Show up every day regardless of what happened yesterday.

30. The people you lean on during hard times define your trajectory.

I called my best friends in between dental office visits because I needed a little inspiration. My wife kept me grounded every night. Without those people, I wouldn't have kept going. Find your people and don't be afraid to lean on them.

31. Everything stacks. All I knew was winning. Then I didn't. And that was the best thing that ever happened to me.

I won every championship growing up. Played D1 football. Graduated with a job in hand. Starbucks, Nestle, Nordstrom, Amazon. Then I got laid off, my business failed, and I couldn't sell a workshop to save my life. The unknown humbled me in a way I never would have guessed. But every failure, every pivot, every humbling moment stacked into the next. The dental offices taught me credibility matters. Baldwin taught me timing matters. The bad partnership taught me to bet on myself. Each thing pointed me closer to what I was supposed to build. If you're in the middle of something messy right now, keep going. It's stacking.

32. Don't stop. Even if it's slow. Even if you can't see where it's going.

That's the whole thing. That's what 32 years taught me. Keep moving forward regardless. It's all about the journey, not the destination. I don't even know what my destination is. But I know the pit stops I'd like to make along the way. One of them is coaching my sons in sports. (Unless they hate it, then I'll watch from the sidelines and be their biggest fan anyway.)

Happy birthday to me I guess lol. Thank you for being here. Thank you for reading. And thank you for being part of this journey.

If any of this resonated with you, share this with a founder who needs to hear it.

And if you're building a brand and need someone who gets in the trenches with you on content, reply to this email. I'd love to hear what you're working on.

Talk soon,

Appreciate you being here,

Chase