Jason Lyman

Most family office principals don’t set out to become the operators of a complex institutional structure. Yet that's often what the role demands. Staffing, governance, vendor oversight, cost management—it compounds quickly. Understanding how to balance what stays in-house with what gets outsourced is foundational work, not a detail to revisit later. This article offers a look at how experienced principals are approaching that question: https://lnkd.in/eXjqWrRe

9

3 Comments

A client pulled up a renewal invoice on a Zoom call with my co-founder. One system, 40% of the marketing budget. She asked us to replace it. That's three now. Three executives, three unrelated industries, and all three raised it before we did. A COO. A managing director at a consulting firm. The founder of a clothing company. None of them was talking about the system that actually runs the business. It's the software sitting on top of it, the renewals that used to get approved without a conversation. People have been predicting this for years. What stopped it was the arithmetic: replicating one of those products meant millions of dollars and tens of thousands of hours of engineering. Coding tools moved that number, and they moved it a lot. The obvious objection still stands. Custom software rots, the person who understood it leaves, and there's no vendor to call. That's a live question and I'm not going to pretend we've settled it. My read is that the same tools making it cheaper to build are making it cheaper to maintain. The COO told my co-founder what actually worries him: his vendor is going to capture his data and lease it back to her at a sky-high rate. She doesn't want to be a tenant.

10

Whether an agency search is consultant led or handled by the brand, I think we all, myself included, take for granted the amount of orchestration it takes to arrive at a fruitful pitch. Not like, the logistics. Although calendar jenga, travel schedules, and making sure people show up on time, where they are supposed to, often in random cities/locations, is a feat in and of itself. I'm talking about the orchestration around the dissemination of information from brand to agencies, so that those agencies... a) know what they are doing + the challenge at hand b) feel confident in what they are doing (and that they are a great fit) c) arrive at a pitch where they finish and the brand says 'holy sh*t, that was great!'. I'm talking about the orchestration around the dissemination of information from agencies to brand, so that the brand... a) knows exactly what the agency does well and how they would work towards solving the challenge at hand. b) feels reallllllllllly confident in their final decision c) watches a few pitches and thinks 'wow, holy sh*t, we could work with all these groups!" Taking a brief or an RFP and running with it may seem easy. For some, it is. I've become numb to it. If you're in marketing, you probably have too. A friendly reminder that is sure as sh*t is NOT easy. Pitches are HARD. WORK. oh yea...and if you win...you get the distinct honor of getting thrown directly into the fire...usually immediately :)

15

1 Comment

Most people think their phones are listening to them (I'm among them). They’re wrong...but the truth might be more unsettling. On the latest Camber Creek Catalyst podcast, Head of Platform Lionel Foster sat down with Jeremy Hlavacek (former ad leader at IBM Watson, Experian, and The Weather Channel) to unpack what’s really happening behind the scenes in digital advertising. A few takeaways that stuck with me: - The data ecosystem is far more powerful (and predictive) than most people realize - The real question isn’t what companies can do, but what they should do - Every company, from retailers to AI platforms, is becoming an ad business - And for startups: copying the same paid acquisition playbook is a fast path to mediocrity If you’ve ever felt like ads are getting “too good,” this conversation will change how you think about privacy, AI, and the future of marketing. Worth a listen (link in comments). #podcast #advertising #AI #bigbrother https://lnkd.in/eGVFFw3C

18

2 Comments

One of my agentic commerce predictions for 2026 in this recent Forbes piece: Matt Nichols, General Partner at Commerce Ventures, notes that the mechanics are already in motion. Looking ahead, he predicts that this year, "Agentic commerce transaction volume reaches meaningful levels as consumers advance from research to buying on AI platforms. 2026 will be the year that transactions are completed in these platforms." To this prediction, Nichols adds another: retailers will be forced to build "super-feeds" specifically for AI platforms. “These data feeds may involve monetary transactions that could include payments to AI platforms or payments to the retailer/brand (depending on balance of power).” https://lnkd.in/g65RAerA

36

3 Comments