Creative Brilliance Means Nothing Without This.

Hello from a Delta flight Las Vegas → NYC bound! 

I hope you’re surrounded by the best energy today. If not, let’s change that. I’m Julia, and every week in this newsletter, I break down marketing insights I’ve learned building software and consumer products (bootstrapped + VC-backed) and lean into the organic, creator, and paid strategies that fuel viral growth. 

I was so inspired by my time at The Sphere in Vegas that it shaped my entire newsletter to you today. 

The raw scale of this building was captivating. It is the world’s largest spherical building, built to deliver the most intimate, personal experience. What an ironic paradox and flawlessly executed measurement of greatness.

When you are walking from the hallways near merch and food/bev into your seats, you pass through soundproof corridors. This intentionally lets you know the experience is starting because the outside world falls away. You're entering something else. Then, as you descend into the Sphere from the inside, you’re being lowered into an experience.

The visuals at The Sphere were so unbelievably realistic that the crowd audibly gasped and ooo’d throughout the show. Via the interior screen, the world’s largest and highest-resolution LED screen, these visuals brought you into another reality as they carried you from Dead & Co’s roots in SF into outer space. 

You can feel it all around you: an intersection of architectural, technological, and artistic greatness. Then the music starts.

Watching Dead & Co was like seeing people so enamored with their craft that their instruments were extensions of their bodies. The level of talent required to create the energy within that room is more than world-class. 

You know you are fully surrounded by greatness.

The collision of raw creative excellence, extraordinary vision, and business chops combined to create this unbelievable experience is something so powerful it now captivates ~20K people nightly. 

How can we all bring this combination of elements to what we build? 

During my 2018 internship at Live Nation’s HQ working in the global touring department, I first felt what it was like to be surrounded by the greats.

Here are 3 superstars/mentors who made me feel this way:

This team was by far the best in the business, led by Rapino and ruthless in the pursuit of global dominance by way of bringing live experiences to fans that only seemed to top one another. Watching the company’s stock price impressively rise since 2018 has been eye-opening to what real business growth looks like.

The greats only wanted to be surrounded by the greats.

This team booked the biggest acts and venues in the business across all genres, demographics, global locations, etc. To have a front row seat to how the largest global tours were built and booked….and then go after work to experience the output as a fan…..was the first time I ever truly moved through the motions of realizing your work comes to reality and impacts other people. 

How often do you watch millions of people become captivated, metaphorically elevate off the earth, merge energy, all because of a shared experience that still feels so individual? 

Feeling inspired by what others have built is one of the greatest feelings in the world.

Thank you to James Dolan (visionary), Live Nation (promoter), Dead & Co (artist), MSG Entertainment (primary owner and developer), Apollo Global Management and Vici Properties (real estate), Populus (architecture and design firm), Alpha (tech integration, LED visuals) for bringing this larger-than-life experience to reality. 

You should really click & check out some of the above companies — SUPER legends.

This is one of my favorite life hacks of all time, and I want to share with you everything I’ve learned that has made me completely captivated with work. Full disclaimer: Ups and downs are totally normal, and in fact, a byproduct of being obsessed. When things aren’t going right, it feels personal, hurtful, debilitating. It rocks you to your core emotionally, intellectually, spiritually.

But how beautiful to feel all these feelings and still persevere on a mission to bring something to life? 

I have found that being surrounded by the smartest people in the room and being jointly faced with an incredibly difficult problem is the best foundation for work. Collectively, you may all feel that you’ll only be satisfied by solving this by creating the best solution in the world, and that’s the intensity you need to tap into. 

If you aren’t surrounded by people in the pursuit of unparalleled greatness, check who you’re in the room with. At the same time, remember that greatness looks different to everyone in individual workflows, but having one leading vision is the joint energy needed to truly build. 

When the right part of my brain feels tapped into, it is all encompassing. It is truly a high (often countered by the lowest lows). 

What does all of this mean? You need to be intentional about who you’re building alongside. Only through different experiences will you know what feels right and wrong here. 

The energy I always look for makes my heart beat fast, but also allows me to excite and help others (in whatever version of my output is actually working). 

Once I know I’m in the right energetic state, I start to expand and spread out. What does this look like?

Well, for starters, you’re reading a product of that. This newsletter is me expanding my interest in my craft, thinking about it on a deeper level, and connecting with others in the pursuit of greatness.

I have so many people that I believe saw this version of myself at Citizen before I ever did — Darrel Stone, Morry Mitrani, John Kneeland, Andrew Frame, Stewart Easterby, and more…..These are people who reinforced and helped shape my self view on my “work self” (which inevitably merges with your POV of your “actual self”). 

They, too, are all in the pursuit of greatness. 

Expanding your interest will bring opportunities and connections you could have never imagined before. I highly recommend this one.

This is the ultimate must-have as a final conclusion to becoming obsessed with your work and turning it into something sustainable.

I’ve found that managing the channeling of my energy (still a work in progress here lol) is a practice. It takes time, facing challenges head-on, falling into failure, and getting knocked down by your own momentum. It’s messy. It takes bodying the explosion of creativity—whether it comes from within or someone else—understanding the vision, and learning how to shape it into something you can actually use.

I have visually seen my creativity existing outside of me like an aurora. Have you?

Sometimes I feel so creative that when I don’t have somewhere to feed this into, it becomes frustrating and brings my mood down. Setting up the right outlets (for me: peers to bounce things off of, journal to keep track of thoughts, newsletter to narrow in, and then the actual tools I need to build, etc), to guide my energy is a total work in progress! 

Here are a few ways you can figure out which channels work for you and set them up: 

I’ve heard people speak down about being obsessed with your work. This “too cool” mindset is lame, B.S., and not something worth surrounding yourself with. 

Everyone is on their own journey, and finding an incredible intensity about bringing something captivating to the world is a gift. 

I hope today’s newsletter helped guide you to tap into this gift. I know you have it within you! 

This week, I want you to try pausing for a few moments when something catches your eye. Whether it’s the architecture of a building, the rhythm of a sound, or product education that allows millions of people to flow through your software, know that someone out there built that in the pursuit of greatness. You can, too.

I hope you have an incredible week ahead. If you want to meet and build together in NYC, reply! I’m here.

Julia

REFER SOMEONE AWESOME, LMK WHEN YOU DO