Join me as I chat with Chris Josephs, Co-Founder of Autopilot, as we discuss his frameworks and strategies for growth hacking startups. Learn his step-by-step formula to building and converting attention, affinity, and authority into brand loyalty and startup growth. Timestamps: 00:00 Intro03:20 Chris’s Viral Formula Overview08:13 Step 1: Build Niche Meme account with Authority 14:36 Step 2: Find Creative ways to build loyalty and vitality19:18 Step 3: Getting free press23:54 UFC Sponsorship Retrospective28:23 How Chris would build a meme account40:49 Startup Idea: Twitch for Online Shopping46:52 SIP success stories 1) Chris doesn't see himself as a marketer or growth guy. He's a SOCIAL ENGINEER.• His focus? Reverse engineering virality and creating formulas for content that EXPLODE on social media. 2) The Pelosi Tracker origin story:• Built meme pages with millions of followers• Focused on politician stock trades• Translated virality into a real product (Autopilot app)Key insight: Memes + Authority = Powerful combo 3) Chris's framework for building viral meme pages:a) Create an account with a clear, catchy nameb) Engage as a "reply guy" on relevant topicsc) Do deep, investigative journalism to build credibility• Marry memes with authority to become THE go-to account in your niche. 4) The UFC sponsorship case study:• Sponsored the event (base layer of credibility)• Sent a fake Nancy Pelosi to the fight• Drove a Cybertruck with "Pelosi 2024" around Vegas• Goal: Maximize surface area for virality and build brand loyalty5) Chris's viral formula:• Each additional stunt increases chances of going viral:a) UFC sponsorship alone = 10% chanceb) +Fake Pelosi = 15% chancec) +Cybertruck stunt = 20% chance• Keep adding elements to boost your odds! 6) Key to monetizing meme pages:• Don't just post funny content. Mix in authority-building posts to be taken seriously.• High engagement does not mean High monetization• Authority + Engagement = winning formula7) Startup idea alert: Live shopping streams for Gen Z women • Imagine: The Twitch of online shopping, where influencers livestream their browsing & purchasing decisions.• Huge potential here. Who's gonna build it? 8) Growth hack: Build relationships with journalists• Create an email list of reporters in your niche• Regularly send them high-quality, relevant info (no selling!)• Become their go-to source for stories• Free press = Priceless marketing 9) Remember: Consistency is key in building your brand.• Find your angle (like Autopilot's "Pelosi 2024 - Invest like a politician") and double down on it.• Create moments, build loyalty, make people LOVE your brand. Want more free ideas? I collect the best ideas from the pod and give them to you for free in a database. Most of them cost $0 to start (my fav)Get access: https://www.gregisenberg.com/30startupideas 🎯 To build your own portfolio businesses powered by community you might enjoy my membership.You'll get my full course with all my secrets on building businesses, peer-groups to keep you accountable, business ideas every single month and more!Spots are limited.https://www.communityempire.co/📬 Join my free newsletter to get weekly startup insights for free:https://www.gregisenberg.com/70,000+ people are already subscribed.To improve your rankings your business on Google and using AI for SEO, sign up tohttp://boringmarketing.com/FIND ME ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergInstagram: https://instagram.com/gregisenberg/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gisenberg/FIND CHRIS ON SOCIALX/Twitter: https://x.com/ChrisjjosephsAutopilot: https://www.joinautopilot.com/Pelosi Tracker: https://x.com/PelosiTracker_
Full Episode
Today I want to talk about something that I think you're one of the best in the world at, which is getting attention and going viral. So many people don't know Chris Josephs and that's okay because They have seen the Nancy Pelosi tracker or the Michael Burry tracker, or they've seen what you've been, you know, the recent thing you did with the UFC and getting a lot of attention there.
So what I want people to get out of this episode is by the end of this, they'll be able to internalize their own Chris Josephs and whatever they're able to do, they'll be able to come up with viral ideas and to get millions of people to engage with their stuff. Do you think we can do that today?
Yeah. Yeah. I'll try and kind of unveil the curtain and I've been on your podcast before, and I think the theme of that one we did a while back was, we call it trend hacking. The analogy I like there was, you have a river of conversations going on on social media, and there's different boats that go along that river. As a brand, if you can throw a life jacket or a
Any sort of thing to hook onto that boat and let that trend take it with you your brand you can kind of get growth with that I think with this one. It's a little bit more of um like This idea of and this will kind of set the conversation. Well is I don't see myself as a marketer I don't see myself even as a growth guy.
I see myself more as like a social engineer and like what I mean by that is Social media is all built on algorithms and it's just one people one kind of side of the marketplace of the attention span and then the other side and On our side, it's like, how do we algorithmically and scientifically come up with a formula around our content that would work on kind of both sides?
So as a social engineer, like the things that go into it, reverse engineering, viral ideas, reverse engineering, a tweet that is kind of written a certain way so that it gets 20,000 retweets as opposed to 15,000.
reverse engineering like if you're going to sponsor the UFC what's one thing to do you can kind of put autopilot on the on the banner or you can kind of really think through like how do we get this thing to get even more viral which I have a full-on kind of calculation I'll get into and um how do I add in the different variables for that one piece to go viral so as you kind of mentioned um
We have the Pelosi Tracker Autopilot. It's the first app that allows you to automatically copy politician stock trades. That's kind of a viral idea in itself. I've personally built that Pelosi Tracker with the help of my team. It's not just me. But to around like 750,000. On Instagram, we have another account called the Politician Trade Tracker, which is around 750,000.
And our app has around like 1.2 million downloads, $300 million invested, things of that nature. So... The story on the UFC was a lot of people know the idea of the Pelosi tracker, but not as many people know that autopilot is the company and the product that powers the Pelosi tracker. So say a hundred people know Pelosi, maybe 20% of them know that autopilot is the team behind it.
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