Frank Growth

About Frank Growth

Frank Growth is a sharp, execution-first podcast about how companies actually grow. Hosted by Jason Shafton, it features candid conversations with founders, operators, and investors who are in the work right now. The focus is real decisions: distribution, demand, pricing, org design, incentives, and what breaks once the early playbooks stop working. No hype. No recycled advice. Just clear thinking from people accountable for outcomes.

Publisher

Jason Shafton

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

30 Apr 2024

Latest episode

20 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

48 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   20 Oct 2026

   Why AI Slop Backfires with Nicole Cassese

   Episode #242: Nicole Cassese — Scaling brand voice without burning out the people behind it How to keep a brand voice consistent across 1,600+ assets and still protect the team writing them. For marketing leaders, creative directors, and copywriters running high-volume content with AI in the workflow. Nicole Cassese is the associate creative director owning Quicken's narrative end to end, after more than a decade building brand voice at Disney, Headspace, and Instacart. At Instacart she pushed out more than 1,600 assets inside a highly templatized CRM system, and at Quicken her team drove a 24% preference lift among new and switcher audiences by putting one research-backed unmet need in the website hero. Jason and Nicole cover where personality fits when copy is limited to a subject line, a headline, and one sentence; how to spot creative burnout before it gets bad; why brands are turning to local heroes over influencers and AI slop; and why only 2% of S&P 500 companies can say what AI actually earned them. What you’ll hear Why a messaging narrative is not a channel strategy, and how the rules change by funnel stage and channel The Instacart CRM formula: incentive front and center, partner brand rules first, personality only in subject lines and headlines The AI mistake Nicole sees most: unchecked output and 10-page decks sent to answer one-sentence questions The burnout signal to watch for (feeling unable to step away for a 30-minute walk) and why she gives stressed team members time off, no questions asked Chapters 00:00 — Cold open: the 2% AI ROI stat 00:35 — Why content factories burn out creative teams 01:53 — Meet Nicole: Disney, Headspace, Instacart, Quicken 03:09 — Why a messaging narrative isn't a channel strategy 04:13 — Keeping voice consistent at Instacart scale 05:27 — How Quicken drove a 24% preference lift 06:14 — Human-centered creative for a legacy finance brand 07:35 — Making time for music, poetry, and pottery 08:22 — The early warning sign of creative burnout 09:13 — Keeping side projects separate from the day job 10:38 — What leaders should change for burned-out teams 11:31 — Local heroes vs. influencers and AI slop 13:25 — Agency briefs vs. community building 14:10 — Instacart's pet month campaign 14:47 — How AI changed the creative workflow 15:46 — Rising AI costs and proving ROI 16:43 — The biggest AI workflow mistake 17:35 — Lightning round 19:45 — Top three takeaways and this week's action Links & resources Guest Nicole Cassese — Associate Creative Director, Brand & Copy, Quicken Website (https://nicolecassese.com/) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/nicole-cassese/) Quicken (https://quicken.com/) Band (Fabular) (https://fabularmusic.com/) About Frank Growth Frank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow—real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois (https://wf.team/podcast) Subscribe / Follow Jason (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonshafton/)

2. 

   13 Oct 2026

   What AI Still Can't Do with Will Sartorius

   Episode #241: Will Sartorius - AI didn't kill the creative job, it moved it How to split ad creative work between AI and people so your ads stop sounding like everyone else's. For founders and marketers running paid social who launch plenty of ads but learn little from them. Will Sartorius, CEO of Selfmade, took over the performance creative agency after a failed acquisition left it with very little money in the bank, and rebuilt it with AI tools as GPT came out. He and Jason Shafton break down which parts of creative work AI now handles well, like tagging reviews and running time series and gap analysis on a Meta account, and which still need people: copy that makes someone feel something and angles no one has tested yet. Will walks through his "cover the logo" test, the multi-agent system Selfmade uses to write and review static ads, and why he tells lean brands to spend 50 bucks a month on a hundred AI statics before investing in storytelling. What you’ll hear How to tell activity from strategy: run a time series analysis on your ad account, correlate persona, angle, and emotion to ROAS or CAC, and relaunch winning cohorts you haven't run in months. How Selfmade's static ad system works: it scrapes a brand's website, picks untested formats from 15 to 20 static types, runs copy through multiple copywriting agents (including one built on Daniel Kahneman's heuristics), and has 10 more agents review each image before a human signs off. The common mistake of copying competitors' creative, which Will says leads to "spend purgatory," and what he learned when his own top ads failed his cover-the-logo test. Where to start: connect the Meta API (not the Meta MCP) to Claude, tag a year of ads by persona, angle, and emotion, correlate them to ROAS and CPA, and ask what you're missing. Chapters 00:00 - Intro: what's left for marketers when AI can build the strategy 01:28 - Will joins: taking over Selfmade after a failed acquisition 03:45 - What working every role at Selfmade taught him 05:28 - Automating review tagging, and the one skill AI can't replace 06:49 - Activity vs. strategy in your ad account 09:06 - The cover-the-logo test and "spend purgatory" 10:50 - Failing his own test 11:50 - Where humans show up: the dumbbell model and the last 5% 14:48 - "80% is fast, 100% is what ships": AI statics and storytelling 16:22 - Inside Selfmade's multi-agent static ad system 19:12 - New York's AI disclosure law for ads 20:52 - A landing page for every angle you test 21:32 - First fix: pull a year of Meta data into Claude 22:29 - Lightning round 24:26 - Jason's top three takeaways Links & resources Guest Will Sartorius - CEO, Selfmade Selfmade website (https://selfmade.co) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/willsartorius/) Twitter (https://x.com/will_sartorius) Newsletter (https://www.selfgen.co/sub-home) About Frank Growth Frank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow - real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois (https://wf.team/podcast) Subscribe / Follow Jason (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonshafton/)

3. 

   6 Oct 2026

   Commerce for Weirdos with Bryan House

   Episode #240: Bryan House - Tearing up the enterprise GTM playbook as a challenger brand Elastic Path cut its website to two forms, its marketing team from 13 people to 3, and its implementation bids to a third of the price of competitors. For B2B leaders at challenger brands whose activity metrics look busy while growth stays flat. Bryan House is CEO of Elastic Path, a composable commerce platform competing with Shopify, BigCommerce, and Commerce Tools in a market where nearly every company already has a commerce platform. Looking at the data, he found little to no correlation between sales and marketing activity and outcomes, and not one downloaded analyst report form fill had ever turned into an opportunity. He and Jason get into cutting the top of the funnel down to two forms, putting competitors on the homepage, bringing implementation in-house to remove the incentive gap with systems integrators, and using AI and better product to move commerce implementation toward six weeks and $100,000. What you’ll hear Why Elastic Path replaced BDR cold calling, nurture campaigns, and gated content with two forms on its site: get in touch or request a demo How marketing went from 13 people to 3, with Claude and product managers covering messaging, positioning, and sales training The trap of falling back on proven sales systems, like swapping BDRs for AI BDRs, when the underlying motion isn't working Bryan's test for contrarian moves like naming competitors on your homepage: what's the downside risk, and is it catastrophic? Chapters 00:00 - Why enterprise B2B go-to-market is stuck 02:00 - Bryan joins: rewriting the classic enterprise GTM playbook 04:13 - No correlation between activity and outcomes 06:29 - Being ready when buyers raise their hand 07:51 - Commerce for weirdos 09:45 - Finding the right customers as a challenger brand 11:52 - Putting competitors on the homepage 13:52 - Taking implementation to six weeks and $100,000 16:06 - Bringing implementation in-house and the SI incentive problem 17:56 - Cutting marketing from 13 to 3 and letting Claude do product marketing 20:31 - Expansion vs. new logos 21:46 - Where the growth is: mid-market B2B e-commerce 24:17 - Lightning round 26:37 - Jason's top three takeaways Links & resources Guest Bryan House - CEO, Elastic Path Website (https://www.elasticpath.com/) LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhouse/) About Frank Growth Frank Growth is a podcast about how companies actually grow: real operators, real constraints, real decisions. Hosted by Jason Shafton. Promotional links Work with Winston Francois (https://wf.team/podcast) Subscribe / Follow Jason (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonshafton/)

Who has been a guest on Frank Growth

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Nick Lafferty
• Dave Steer
• Jesus Requena
• Andrew Mok
• Philip Lowe

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

5 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

6 ratings

Contact Frank Growth

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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