The Internet collapse, my 5-funnel digital blueprint, avoiding bad PR

Digital noise is completely unbearable now - how to avoid stepping on a landmine and stick to B2B principles

As a technocrat who built his first website back in 1999, I’ve been advocating for an open and accessible web for as long as I can remember.

And facing the deep, dark reality of what the Internet represents today (for B2B) is unsettling.

• 61% of Gen Z and 53% of Millennials prefer AI search to Google
• TrustPilot reviews can’t be trusted (G2 questionable too)
• LinkedIn is outright embarrassing (common even among tech employees)
• Virtually every algorithm chases virality, engagement, likes, clickbait, flame wars, controversy, conspiracy theories (anything but education)
• The vast majority of the web revolves around info materials, courses, or DFY services to “perform better on social”
• Google prioritizes reddit search and Quora articles even for critical topics like health or legal cases (arbitrary opinions and bots farming entire threads)
• Platforms chasing in-house engagements, then suppressing reach - think of Facebook pages back in the day or building a network of 1st level connections, only to reach sub-5% of them later on
• AI cold email tools working on autopilot, resulting in tens of thousands of agencies doing radical blasts at scale, polluting inboxes like crazy
• Video-first content positioned everywhere: that’s alright in some cases, but not for B2B professionals and their day-to-day involving research, conversations, emails, charts, stats, spreadsheets, summarizing opinions, scraping Slacks and Teams, and sitting in meetings (not scrolling video feeds for a living)
• Video promotions being flaky at best, too - when it comes to ads, YouTube promotions fail at view rate and retention (wildly concerning)
• Propaganda, programmatic SEO articles flooding the Internet, AI-driven comments and self-engagement mechanisms and pods, and everything else in-between.

It’s easy to crash your company into a tree with the current state of the web. And on a serious note, here’s a thread going over the top 10 reasons why startups fail:

If I have to enumerate the networks and channels I believe in right now, physical beats digital in every single dimension. As for digital, this is what I prioritize today:

1. The newsletters (yielding the best signal ratio right now)
2. Podcasts - because interviewing B2B professionals is a great networking exercise that yields content you can’t find in ChatGPT
3. Slack communities - the most honest and open conversations happen behind closed doors (same goes for Skool and Circle)
4. Intentional conversations - straight DMs/emails to 1st level connections or asking for warm intros
5. Targeted ads to sign ups - no fluff or long funnels, straight into offers, email subscribers, video views, Slack sign ups

Here’s a pretty Napkin visual representing this playbook for reference:

Don’t fall into the digital influencers’ trap

Failing to unlock a working funnel for ongoing growth and network expansion is likely to stumble you and lead you to the dark corners of the Internet - namely:

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