Hey all,
Happy Sunday from NYC.
I’m currently chilling + working with one of my friends Cara and her cute pup Tate in Soho.
Yesterday, I had the nicest walk in the rain on the West Side Highway. I swore it was the quietest place in all of NYC at that exact moment.
Today’s newsletter topic was a special request from Dan Krenitsyn. Yes, that Dan. Baller COO at beehiiv, overall cool human, fun coworker. People are obsessed with beehiiv, and the team has spent years cultivating this relationship with the world.
What do you do when it’s the opposite?
The premise:
You are slowly discovering that people hate your brand.
Congrats, you’ve now found yourself in a perfect storm.
The backlash, the violent tweets, the eye rolls in disgust and annoyance….are the most powerful combination of growth levers if you know what to do with them.
The average person will call up their PR bestie and apologize.
For most cases, your problems are not that extreme and that’s a lame chess move.
Today, we’ll walk through exactly how to ride the wave of hate and use it to fuel growth and revenue.
P.S. If you’ve been subscribed to this newsletter for the past year, you’ll know I approach things from a place of being very comfortable taking risk and weighing that against the possibility of virality in marketing.
I know i have fabulous leaders from top public companies here…please note today’s newsletter is tailored to startups, but please read if you’re looking to adopt a challenger mindset!
Own The Hate ASAP
No, that doesn’t mean you have to admit to doing something you don’t actually feel like you did.
But, if people are saying you did X and you actually meant Y, tell them they misunderstood. It’s your job to spell things out for people.
Defend your actions and choices when the time is right.
After all, CEOs today move super fast and top leaders (specifically in tech and politics) post on X immediately in response to things.
Examples:
Alex Karp: Palantir CEO launched a neurodiversity fellowship after his viral interview jumping up and down on a couch
Application is here for anyone interested — I have a ton of college students from my lectures at UW Madison School of Business reading, please!
It’s honestly more embarrassing not to have an opinion and conviction as a CEO now.
Remember, the larger your company gets, the more stakeholders you have to make happy. Board members, shareholders, customers, FTC, etc.
This means that the larger you get = the more careful you have to be.
That being said, the best CEOs and founders didn’t grow huge companies by being quiet.
They loudly own who they are, move quickly, and build a brand that evolves and grows through hate.
Example: Interestingly, makeup YouTubers have almost all faced this. James Charles, Jeffree Star, Mikayala…and are also known for feuds between each other with dueling fanbases
Example: Bobbi Brown Has the Best Reaction to Influencer Who Went Viral for Negative Jones Road Beauty Review
Your product needs to be 10x better if you own up to the hate and try to use it to capitalize.
This is very tricky.
Even top leaders with tons of reps under their belt are incredibly challenged by this.
Example: Starbucks CEO Brian Niccol, appointed in late 2024 from Chipotle. Spoke really loudly about his plans to bring Starbucks back to the vibes that people want: a coffee shop to hang out at that has good drinks.
I’m waiting for that to happen…..
He cut a bunch of menu items, and still, no one goes to Starbucks to hang out.
The stock price completely reflects the flat line.
Starbucks NASDAQ today: Jan 11, 2026
When you own the hate, you need to be able to defend your actions and be confident that the product you’re offering in return is better.
Owning it only makes sense if you can articulate why and back it up with an incredible product.
Create a Storm & Turn It Into Profit
Awareness is the top of the funnel, which means controversy is an incredibly cheap CAC.
People burn hundreds of millions of dollars to create a storm.
Massive ad budgets, OOH placements, influencer videos, all in pursuit of one thing: attention.
So, when a storm comes to you, even if it’s negative, lean into it.
If you can’t defend your turf, your company will fail anyway. Someone hungrier, louder, or more polarizing will eat you alive.
So, you better learn how to do this.
Here’s what you need to know: Chaos attracts attention → which, in turn, attracts buyers.
When the buyers come, investors start to circle.
Here’s how to impose direction on hate and win:
Figure out what people are mad about (e.g., pricing, ethics, messaging, AI-usage, et.c)
Segment who’s mad: customers, haters, competitors, board members, employees, press
Translate the hate: They are mad we did X because it clashes with their belief of Y
Figure out your response: Make sure you have conviction and a product to back it up
Here are my favorite secret strategies to shift perspective:
Find where your audience lives + lean in with a trusted 3rd party source. Trust shifts, so when people don’t trust your brand they will turn to another trusted source for direction.
Example: Affiliate marketing and traditional PR
Example: I’ve paid for meme accounts to post tweets that look totally organic but aren’t. 60M+ combined impressions and no one would ever know its coming from the brand because it looks so organic.
Move quickly: I personally like jumping in right when the storm starts to happen when everyone is still forming an opinion. It’s kind of like bug bashing but….better?
Example of how to profit: In-product modal or discount code that leans into the storm and is on-brand
Make the storm yourself and attract new audiences
What a perfect opportunity to connect with new customers
Example: Jake Paul launched Betr and totally uses the controversy of him fighting the world’s top athletes to drive traffic to his app. He used this same controversy to launch in the F&B space too.
His VC firm is literally called “Anti-Fund” and btw, their website is a Notion page (badass and not just because KV’s website is also a Notion page)
When people are arguing about your product or even your founder on X, that’s emotional energy.
Emotional energy, when redirected, creates velocity.
The smartest CEOs understand that hate and virality vibe.
Well, How’d I Do?
If you can impose direction on hate, you win.
If you can craft hate and THEN impose direction, you’re unstoppable.
When you’re building epic things and taking risk, haters are part of the price.
You can spin the hate into anything you want: new product lines, pricing tiers for your haters, merch.
Free will is an amazing thing!
I hope you have a relaxing Sunday night and a great week!
Julia
