EP33 - Vanity metrics

November 7, 2025 · 2 min read

Serial entrepreneur. Always maximizing shareholder value.

I saw a 19-year-old founder posting about his new product on X.

It's not a banger, but I liked the post.

In fact, I spent $10 on a bot farm and gave him 14 more likes.

Not enough to look fake. Just enough to feel like organic traction.

Then I went to his landing page and bought a subscription.

He posted on X and LinkedIn about his first customer. He was ecstatic.

I dont think he understands.

I didn't do this out of generosity or to express encouragement.

In fact, I will cancel the subscription 60 seconds later.

He won't know his revenue is actually $0 until the end of the month.

This isn't about the money. It's about the dopamine.

I'm giving him just enough validation to make him fatally confident.

Every time he clicks the notifications? 5 minutes of distraction from him shipping.

Even worse, he doubles down building stuff no one wants, but what was validated by my bots.

The real poison is for the algorithm.

It now thinks his ideal customer is in Mumbai, not in Manhattan.

And it will keep pushing his product to the wrong continent. His future ad spend is now worthless.

For $10, I didn't just buy likes. I bought his focus. I poisoned his data. And I've ensured he will burn through his seed money chasing ghosts.

I've successfully removed over hundreds of competition doing this trick.

Follow me for more financial advice.

Context

The botfarm destroying ad spend trick is really a dirty one that I've seen working too well.

This is why vanity metrics sucks. Those impressed by it don't understand the game and get distracted.

In majority of the cases, vanity metrics are net negative.

Improve. Not prove.