Welcome to EP #2 of the “Just Built Different”

First, I want to thank everyone who engaged with EP #1 - your response blew me away. The energy is contagious and has inspired me to develop this into something bigger than just a newsletter (more on that later). Your support means more than you know!

In EP#2, we'll explore:

🌊 Surfing the Web (2 min) - Your weekly curated dose of internet gold, from inspirational podcasts to viral sensations that actually deserve your attention.

🚀 Big Marketing Energy (3 min) - Fresh strategies, unconventional tactics, and case studies that are reshaping how we think about online growth in 2025.

🛠️ Weekend Project (1 min) - A behind-the-scenes look at the side projects and experiments I'm building with AI, showcasing both the process and the potential.

🧠 Mindset Loading (1 min) - Evidence-based psychological insights, practical mental models, and proven techniques that help you level up your mindset and quality of life.

🎨 Art Loading (1 min) - A canvas for creativity where I share my latest artistic experiments and the stories behind them.

🎬 Just Wrap It Up (1 min) - A heartfelt thank you, some exciting announcements, and an invitation to shape what's next in this community of builders and creators.

• 🎧 Podcast of the Week: You will learn more about starting and growing a company from this podcast than you will in Entrepreneurship 101. Nick is a world class storyteller (the NZ accent doesn’t hurt) who runs a bootstrapped $2b+/yr business with 40%+ margins. Nick is #JUSTBUILTDIFFERENT. Listen here.

• 💿 Song of the week: Post Malone covering Smells like Teen Spirit.

• 🎥 Building In Public: These guys are live streaming themselves building in public for the next 90 days. Their goal? $1mm ARR. They have a solid track record building other successful apps including Cal Ai and UMax. Tune in here.

• 😣 Daily 9-5 Reminder: Hate your job? Trust me…it could be A LOT worse. Theres are billions of people in the world, literally billions that would trade their life for yours. Watch this viral TikTok channel next time you’re feeling uninspired about your life/job.

• 🖥️ Cool Website: Simply a master class in skeumorphism.

• 📚 Books: Just started “The 5 Types of Wealth” by Sahil Bloom. I met him in NYC circa 2021 and he left a profound impact on me. Will write a review in a future EP once I finish it.

Why You Need to Leverage LinkedIn Short-Form Video in 2025

Last week I briefly touched on my bullish sentiment about the future of LinkedIn (acquired by Microsoft in 2016) for short-form video content.

Due to popular demand, I’ll elaborate below why it’s a no brainer to build audience on LinkedIn right now.

The Numbers Don’t Lie: Short-Form Video is Eating the Internet

It’s no mystery short form video content has been the current digital content consumption trends for the past several years:

• Video content is projected to constitute 82% of all global internet traffic by 2025.

• 75% of consumers prefer videos over text for learning about products/services.

• People spend an average of 1 hour and 16 minutes daily watching short-from videos.

• Short-form videos receive 2.5x more engagement than long-form videos.

Microsoft’s $26B Bet: Why They Can’t Afford to Miss This Wave

The short-form video landscape is currently dominated by the big three platforms: TikTok, Instagram Reels, and Youtube Shorts.

With LinkedIn being Microsoft's biggest social network, they'd be leaving massive opportunity on the table if they squandered the chance to eat into this market share, especially considering the size of their existing professional audience. They have no chicken-and-egg problem compared to fledgling startups trying to build competition. They simply need to roll out features that compete with the big three.

That's why they introduced a beta feature offering a dedicated vertical video feed on their mobile app in 2024, with desktop video shorts allegedly coming soon. The beta test was a knockout success:

• Total video viewership increased by 36% YOY

• Short-form video is the fastest-growing content category on their platform

• Their success has inspired them to invest further, hosting workshops for their 500+ publishers and journalists to educate them on best practices.

This is all the traction they needed to validate their proof of concept & double down on making short-form video a staple of their platform.

The Creator’s Advantage: Breaking LinkedIn’s Status Quo

LinkedIn is simply stale in its current iteration: 99% play it safe because their next paycheck is tied to their current employer, avoiding posting anything meaningful or eye-catching.

Just because it's a corporate professional social network doesn't mean YOU have to publish corporate content.

Personally, I've noticed LinkedIn's algorithm heavily prioritizes video content over text-based or image posts. If you're a business owner, creator, or simply have a unique voice... use this to your advantage. This is an opportunity to stand out from the masses. While everyone zigs, you zag.

Furthermore, corporate America is increasingly attempting to be less 'corporate' and hiring creators to speak at events, conferences, create content, & more. This is a great opportunity to get in front of them and land new partnership opportunities.

Work Smarter, Not Harder

If you’re already publishing on one of the other big three platforms, I recommend you start repurposing content on LinkedIn as well. What do you stand to lose.

👇 TLDR and Key Takeaways

1. Short-form video will be responsible for 82% of global internet traffic in 2025, and LinkedIn's 36% YOY video growth shows they're positioned to capture this shift

2. Microsoft is going all-in on video features (mobile now, desktop allegedly coming soon) with their existing 900M+ professional audience—no growth from scratch needed

3. The platform's video-favoring algorithm + most users playing it safe = perfect timing for creators to stand out

4. Already creating for TikTok, Instagram, or YouTube? Repurpose that content for LinkedIn while competition is low

Weekends are for Building

Some of my most game-changing projects started as weekend side quests. Why? Simple - weekdays are chaos with day-to-day ops. But weekends? That's when the real building happens. Whether it's launching your first startup, writing that screenplay that's been living in your notes app, building your first website, or in this case, building software that's about to save our team from hundreds of hours of tedious work.

This weekend's mission: Building a low-code tool that automatically scans newsletter RSS feeds, parses them by section, reformats the content, and schedules it across all social platforms. Think of it as your content distribution system on autopilot.

At T Minus Studios, we help clients streamline their content distribution (ads, newsletters, social, you name it) to drive net new business. This tool isn't just a nice-to-have - it's about to be a crucial part of our tech stack for eliminating manual busy work for our team and our clients.

Starting as an internal tool, but who knows? If we keep iterating and building out features, it could evolve into a proper SaaS product for SMBs and creators.

👉 Key Takeaway: AI is turning what used to be weeks of development into weekend projects. If you aren’t learning how to build with AI, you’re simply going to fall behind.

Are you working on any weekend projects? Would love to hear what you have cooking…

Document Your W’s

Last year I started an experiment: documenting every win, ‘miracle’, moment of immense joy, and those can't-make-this-up serendipitous encounters.

But here's the thing - it's not just about collecting gooooood vibes. The science behind gratitude practice is actually WILD, which has been scientifically proven to improve physical and mental health:

• A meta-analysis of 70 studies involving over 26,000 participants found a strong association between higher levels of gratitude and lower levels of depression and anxiety.

• Individuals who regularly engage in gratitude practices report increased life satisfaction and happiness.

• Participants with higher gratitude scores had a 9% lower risk of developing hypertension over a four-year period.

• Engaging in gratitude exercises has been associated with decreased activation of the amygdala, the brain region responsible for processing stress and fear, leading to lower cortisol levels and reduced stress responses.

• Christina Costa speaks at TED about how gratitude rewires your brain.

But here's the real secret sauce: On those days when you’re just feeling mehhh…simply pull up your collection of wins. Scroll through those W's. Step back into those moments and relive them. Let them remind you just how far you've come…

How it Looks in Practice

I'm already using this gratitude hack for the newsletter. Because I know there's gonna be days when writer's block hits or imposter syndrome tries to enter the chat.

For those moments? I've got screenshots on deck of all the support you day 1’s blessed me with after EP #1.

⚡️ My challenge to you? Start documenting your W’s - watch how your life begins to unfold in new ways.

Polychromatic Conversations

I was hyped to see all the positive feedback about the art segment in EP #1. Originally, I wasn't sure about including it, but your responses convinced me to keep sharing some of my passion projects.

This piece, "Polychromatic Conversations," was inspired by those magical moments with the right people - you know the ones, where time melts away and hours feel like minutes.

🎨 I’m thinking about professionally digitizing some of my art - my iPhone camera just isn’t cutting it. Reply with your address and I'll send you a print of your choice, or maybe even an original if you're lucky ;)

Before I go - a genuine thank you to this incredible community. Your comments, ideas, and DMs have shaped where we're heading next. This newsletter is evolving into something bigger than I imagined, and I'm stoked to reveal some of the collaborations and features we've got cooking.

👉 Want to be part of what's next? Hit reply if you're building something innovative, have insights to share, guest post, want to highlight something you’re creating, or simply want to get involved at some capacity. We have exciting plans and I’d love for my early believers to be apart of the movement.

With gratitude,

Justin