🥒 Sora & Santa

Hey Pickle Gang, it’s Rob.

Here's what's in today's issue:

• OpenAI’s Merry AI Marathon - Sora & Santa

• How Tim Stoddart Built a $6M Empire

• Wayve lands $1B, takes aim at Tesla’s top spot

• And more…

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This Weeks Favourites

• Article: Google’s plan to put Android on your face (link)

• Article: Bitcoin ATM Giant Byte Federal Suffers Data Breach: 58,000 Users Affected (link)

• Article: Google launched Gemini 2.0 (link)

• Article: Microsoft launches Phi-4, a new generative AI model, in research preview (link)

• Article: Meta debuts a tool for watermarking AI-generated videos (link)

• Fun Stuff: Asian Jim - The Office (link)

• Book of the Day: Dotcom Secrets: The Underground Playbook for Growing Your Company Online with Sales Funnels (link)

Today’s Sugar Daddy

Feel Your Best on the Field With Nike Kylian Mbappé Collection.

Discover the Nike Kylian Mbappé collection, crafted for players ready to take their skills to the next level. Featuring standout styles like the Vapor and Superfly, these boots combine cutting-edge technology with eye-catching designs inspired by the pros. Experience the game-changing Air Zoom unit for explosive acceleration and a responsive touch, whether you’re making that perfect through ball or striking from distance. Treat yourself to a fresh pair from the collection and dominate the pitch. You deserve to feel your best on the field.

Shop the Kylian Mbappé Collection.

News

OpenAI’s Merry AI Marathon - Sora & Santa

It’s December, and OpenAI’s hitting ‘publish’ harder than a mall Santa’s “Ho Ho Ho.”

I swear I’m not trying to turn this newsletter into an AI-only fan club, but all the AI announcements are coming in hot and fast! (12 Days of OpenAI!)

Here’s what’s what they’ve been announcing:

Day 1: o1 & ChatGPT Pro (link)

Meet the premium membership that boosts your AI prompts with better quality and speed.

Day 2: Reinforcement Fine-Tuning Program (link)

OpenAI shows it’s serious about refining its models, helping AI learn from experience.

Day 3: Sora (link)

The big showstopper—Sora transforms your text prompts into crisp videos. With ChatGPT Pro, expect up to 20-second, 1080p clips. No watermark. Want to animate images or remix existing clips? Sora’s got you covered. Don’t have a subscription? You can still scroll through its community-made video feed, a perfect way to see what’s cooking.

Day 4: Canvas (link)

A brand-new way to visualize and shape your AI-generated creations, turning your screen into a creative studio.

Day 5: ChatGPT in Apple Intelligence (link)

ChatGPT snags a VIP pass into Apple’s ecosystem, making it even easier to get AI help on your favorite devices.

Day 6: Advanced Voice with Video & Santa Mode (link)

Now your AI can understand the world around it in real time, thanks to camera-enabled interactions. Point your phone at something, get insights back fast. Also, say hello to Santa Mode, a seasonal nod that lets you chat with the jolly old elf himself.

With half of the 12 Days unwrapped, OpenAI is clearly making December a month of fresh features and new possibilities. Stay tuned—there’s more under the tree!

Story

How Tim Stoddart Built a $6M Empire

Here's the deal on how one marketer turned a single $2,000 client into a multi-million dollar empire. Tim Stoddard built just another marketing agency, and then used SEO to create a business portfolio that now generates over $6M annually.

Through his flagship company, Stodzy Internet Marketing, he cornered the behavioral health industry with razor-sharp lead generation, but that was just the beginning of his journey. He bought Copyblogger (a content marketing blog) and built Recovery Local, a directory of addiction treatment resources.

Stoddard’s got a few directories which are crushing it, and he reckons these are the real prize winners. They combine marketing and product creation into one seamless process. Each new listing not only adds value to the directory but also promotes it by attracting more users and businesses through SEO. This creates a flywheel where increased visibility leads to more listings, and more listings generate even greater visibility. He makes money by selling featured listings, and also selling leads.

Do directories sound good to you? Well, why not grab yourself a backlink from the directory I just created? It’s free, and there’s no strings attached! Here’s the link to it.

Want to read more on Tim. Read more here!

Funding

Wayve lands $1B, takes aim at Tesla’s top spot

Wayve, a London-based AI startup, recently raised a record-breaking $1.05 billion in Series C funding, making it Europe’s largest AI funding round of the year. Founded in 2017, this ambitious newcomer is challenging Tesla by focusing on flexible, AI-first software rather than expensive hardware. Its approach lets existing and future cars tap into smart, adaptive navigation without relying on dedicated routes.

Smarter AI, Less Hardware While Tesla leans on hefty sensors and pre-mapped data, Wayve’s leaner, AI-driven model aims to simplify and scale self-driving tech. It’s all about adapting to ever-changing roads, not just cruising in ideal conditions. This strategy positions Wayve as a cost-effective, rapidly deployable solution for major automakers across Europe—and soon, the U.S.

Backed by Industry Heavyweights SoftBank, Microsoft, and NVIDIA have all thrown their weight behind Wayve’s vision. The startup is already testing over 50 autonomous vehicles on UK roads and partnering with Uber to integrate its tech into ride-hailing and delivery fleets. With ample funding, top-tier partners, and a global outlook, Wayve is quietly steering the conversation about who will shape the future of self-driving cars.

Read more here.

Growth

The Lazy Way to Get Leads: Auto DM’s

I’m lazy. I don’t like doing things manually.

So let’s talk about how you can use Auto DM’s (direct messages) to grow your startup.

It works for loads of different types of businesses…

• Marketing Agencies

• Service businesses

• Communities

• SaaS tools

• Newsletters

• All kinds of stuff.

The strategy is that whenever someone follows you on social media, you use an Auto-DM tool like ManyChat to direct message them instantly….whether you’re asleep….or on the toilet.

Sounds simple? Yeh. It is.

The main difficulty is writing a good message to convince someone to take action. Often times it can simply open the door to a conversation, which maybe could eventually be a customer/client of yours.

Let’s say you're a marketing agency. You could make it so that if someone follows you on Linkedin, you DM them automatically asking if they’d like a chat on their marketing strategy. You could include a Calendly link so they could book a time slot in your calendar.

It works. People build big businesses using it. Enjoy!

Recommendation

Run CTV Ads on Roku This Q5

Peak shopping season isn’t over yet! Two thirds of consumers plan to shop the week after Christmas, and “Q5” – the period between Christmas and mid-January – has become a significant shopping window.* Roku Ads Manager makes it easy to run self-serve CTV ads and reach shoppers where they’re streaming post-holidays. Get started for as little as $500 and find your next customers on the big screen. (*National Retail Federation, 2023)

Discover CTV performance on Roku

Meme of the Day

Hope you enjoyed today’s issue!

I won’t lie, it takes me a while to write, so I’d love it if you could give it a share! (just forward it to a friend if you’re lazy like me!)

Cheers,

Rob 🥒

Robert Benson-May, ACA

Get me a beer?