The last time we got my friend Jason in the strategy hot-seat, he shared the blueprint he was using at Product Hunt to turn his exec team + maker community into a social media mafia.

Once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it, and now I see it everywhere.

Fast-forward to today - a lot’s changed. He quit his job, launched a SaaS for creating memes, acquired a startup, and pulled off about 100 internet experiments that go viral each week.

When we got chatting about writing another breakdown, I challenged him to bridge 2 worlds that Strategy Breakdowns is wedged between:
→ tech growth playbooks and meme culture

Let’s see what the chef cooked up this time.

A quick word from our legendary sponsors that keep this newsletter free, then over to Jason.

Enjoy.

— Tom

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The what: A TLDR explanation of the strategy

Sup nerds

My name is Jason Levin and I’m the founder of Memelord Technologies, a software for marketers to find and create new viral memes.

Today I’m going to drop a case study on one of the best meme marketing brands of all time. 

Wendy’s? Nope, not as tasty. 

Duolingo? Nope, no cute owl either. 

Ryanair? Nope, it can’t fly either. 

In fact, it’s much more boring than either of these 3. 

It’s a boring, b2b finance company called Ramp. And the fact that the company is so boring is what makes their marketing even more valuable. 

It’s easy to make a fast food restaurant or silly language learning app funny, but how do you make a boring b2b finance company the talk of Silicon Valley?

You use humor and memes of course.

The how: The strategic playbook boiled down to 3x key takeaways

Ok, so you know how Marvel has the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

All the Marvel characters are part of that universe. Some are more prominent than others (ie. Iron Man is more prominent than HawkEye) but they’re all part of the same universe.

The best brands do the same thing. 

Think Barstool. 

Love it or hate it, Barstool did a great job building a cinematic universe.

There’s Dave Portnoy. He’s like the Iron Man or Tony Stark. But then there’s a bunch of other Barstool characters like the goofball Tommy Smokes. They all appear in sketches together, but at the end of the day it’s Dave’s show and everyone knows it.

Well, Ramp does the same thing.

The main character is Eric Glyman, the founder. He does a ton of founder-led marketing via tweets, podcasts, going on YouTube vlogs, and more. But then there’s a bunch of other “characters” which are both a mix of employees and influencers and investors.

There’s a funny young engineer at Ramp named Joowoon who everyday for the past 3 months has been posting “Day #_ of asking Ramp for a raise”. It’s gotten to the point where the founder even painted a meme based on Joowon. 

Then there’s David Senra, the voice behind the wildly popular Founders Podcast, who reads an ad for Ramp in every episode. And then there’s the Technology Brothers—John Coogan and Jordi Hays—who feature Ramp randomly in their episodes, make memes about Ramp, and even wrote a song about Ramp. And most recently, Ramp just added NFL star Saquon Barkley to their investor list and dropped a Super Bowl commercial with him.

There’s literally an entire Ramp Cinematic Universe.

Who’s in your universe? How can you turn your investors, employees, and of course yourself into an entire cast? The office (or Zoom) is the set. The day-to-day of the business is the plot. And you’re the star baby.

To put this into perspective, here’s some of the ways I do this: 

In 2024, Ramp “ramped” up their meme marketing.

Almost every day, their brand jumps on trends with new silly memes and sarcastic captions—all while still staying true to Ramp’s brand and core customers.

Ramp is a SaaS for finance teams, so they appeal to that ICP with goofy memes. For example, here’s 1 of a tiger looking annoyed with a caption appealing to CFOs.

And another one here. 

Again, they’re making memes for a very specific niche: CFOs. Marketers and engineers won’t find this funny, but CFOs will find it relatable. 

Ramp’s memes live and die by what I like to call “excluding the wrong people.” When you purposely exclude the wrong people, you focus 1000x on the right people. Your marketing should actually piss some people off.

It's like a strong magnet. 

You repel the wrong people (marketers, engineers, etc.) hard, but attract the right people (CFOs) equally as hard. It’s the same mentality as building a product. When you try to build a product for everyone, it ends up being for no one. Meanwhile, when you build a product for your people, you find people who are crazy in the same way as you.

When it comes to meme marketing, focus on your niche and forget about everyone else.

How me and other companies do this: 

The where: 3x high-signal resources to learn more

My meme marketing software. Find new meme templates, make memes, and go viral in minutes. Try FREE.

I write a weekly advice column on unhinged marketing tactics for startups. Join 15,000+ readers at a16z, Notion, Shopify, and more.

In my podcast, I talk with the coolest creatives on the internet—everyone from brilliant founders and venture capitalists to millionaire memelords and internet-famous TikTokers—all about how to blow up the internet.

That’s all from Jason. What do you think of the guest post format? Who should we get on next?

See you next week.

— Tom

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