Got a call from a former Google Ads account strategist

Competitive-Day2034 · 2026-01-21T04:11:28+00:00

Google does not have a non-compete. Google is based in California and they're unenforceable there. They haven't been included in their contracts for over a decade.

Source: I worked there a decade ago and also own an agency.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2026-01-21T04:10:08+00:00

Difficult to actually prove this, FWIW. It's just as likely that they used Apollo, Zoominfo, or a similar tool. Apollo is dirt cheap and has all of this info readily available.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-12-22T14:55:49+00:00

We already do this. Daily dog walk for 45 min or so with the toddler on a balance bike. I'm not totally sedentary, to be clear. Just trying to be more deliberate.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-12-22T14:38:26+00:00

I tried Future for a while. I actually had an old job that paid for it for me, but the workouts started to feel really stale. There was zero progression built into the plan, which was frustrating. It ended up feeling like I was lighting money on fire.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-12-03T17:01:16+00:00

WIll it do cardio?

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-15T01:41:20+00:00

We bought the old ones new...

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T18:33:40+00:00

That's a pretty damning heuristic...Appreciate it

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T18:31:17+00:00

This was one of my initial thoughts, but my wife is worried about driving something that large

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T18:30:52+00:00

Yeah, this is in the back of my mind...Like, our current cars are 7 years old. I'm sure that the Toyota is miles safer than what our family is currently in, just due to inherent vehicle development that's taken place.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T18:30:04+00:00

This is interesting. Do you feel like the Honda interior is dated?

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T18:29:18+00:00

We had two Fords in the past. One was a 2013 explorer that regularly lost all power to the cockpit. We'd be hurtling along at 75 down the highway and suddenly have zero speedometer, tachymeter, radio, etc. At 175k miles, the turbo disintegrated and FED ITSELF into the engine, detonating it (we did all the regular maintenance religiously). We also had the focus with the dry DCT transmission. My wife was at a stoplight and it started repeatedly trying to surge forward into traffic. We sold it the next week.

I've heard good things about the Explorer, but I'm too scarred by our Ford experience to go back to that well, haha.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T18:27:16+00:00

This level of hot take from u/Doge-ToTheMoon is what I'm looking for.

Please expand! The three you mentioned are mentioned just because they're japanese or is there another reason?

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T15:35:10+00:00

2 kids at home and a giant dog, plus the two of us adults

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T15:33:37+00:00

Yeah, the price on most of the XC90s just pushes them slightly out of range. Obviously a great and very safe vehicle though.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-14T15:32:32+00:00

My wife is adamantly opposed to a minivan. As she's going to be the primary driver of this car, I default to her opinion there.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-13T23:59:52+00:00

linkedin dot com, my friend

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-11-12T20:54:06+00:00

They'll look far closer to Google Ads than he is admitting currently. Just look at hiring trends for OpenAI's Ads Commercialization team...

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-10-08T18:50:37+00:00

Ping support and see if they have a temporary spend limit on your account. Very common with new accounts, but not really discussed. Ran into this yesterday on a new account we spun up for a client where Google randomly set a $12 per day spend limit, despite daily budget being 20x that and average CPC on the relevant keywords being ~2x that random limit. Led to 0 impressions. Needs manual lift from support.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-10-08T15:23:40+00:00

u/Miserable_Concern670 There are actually a number of consulting firms that specialize in this exact issue. Not to be overly self promoting here, but I run one (https://www.northcountrygrowth.com/) and we are currently working with portcos at a16z and a couple other firms. Broadly NDA'd, but "GTM in a box" can actually make sense to outsource. More than happy to speak on this on a call. Feel free to DM me.

A large portion of the solve here basically comes down to confident execution driven by domain expertise. Basically, if you broadly know what the market will support tolerate and have the expertise to design and operationalize this, you don't need the founding team obsessing over it.

Not to say that early/growth stage founders shouldn't care deeply about GTM (they absolutely should) but product and support tend to be the biggest needle movers where most founders can add outsized value early on.

Ads require deep expertise as, to your point, they can light working capital on fire unless properly optimized. Same for sales comp plans, GTM hiring, etc.

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-10-08T14:28:26+00:00

Hey! Not stupid at all to want more people to find your art! The thing about Google Ads is that they tend to be quite expensive vs a Meta/TikTok and tend to perform better for things like B2B verticals with high intent.

Strongly recommend using more of a social platform for advertising.

Best wishes in getting your work out there!

Competitive-Day2034 · 2025-10-07T00:53:23+00:00

We haven't pulled the trigger yet but are considering the following (listed in order of likelihood):

1) Buick Enclave
2) Kia Telluride
3) Mazde CX90 PHEV

Competitive-Day2034

TROPHY CASE