Hey Reader —

Ever built the world’s most profitable store on top of a volcano?

That’s what we did.

Didn’t know it at the time.

Picture this.

Day three of a $10k/day spend streak.

Dashboard’s on fire. And not the good kind.

CPAs are spiking. ROAS is cratering. The client’s blowing up our Slack.

I'm staring at the screen like… WHAT IS HAPPENING. WTF WTF WTF is this.

24 hours earlier, everything was beautiful.

48 hours earlier, we were high-fiving.

Now we’re panic-pulling budgets back to $1,000/day just to stop the bleeding.

As you contemplate this trainwreck, dear reader, allow me to rewind.

Three weeks before this DISASTER, we took over an account doing $300/day.

Product was strong. ROAS was solid. Healthy across the funnel.

So we started scaling. Carefully.

$300 to $600. Strong.

$600 to $1k to $2k. Still strong.

$2,000 to $5,000. Feeling great.

Every step, the numbers held. So we were confident.

Pushed to $10k.

And for two days, it worked.

Hence aforementioned high-fives.

Day 3? The volcano erupted.

All our numbers CRASHED and burned.

OUCH. WTF.

You didnt need to be a genius to figure out what went wrong.

All that beautiful scale?

It was sitting on one ad set. One creative. One winning concept.

That single ad had carried everything.

And when it fatigued? The whole account collapsed underneath it.

We had built a mansion on a single pillar.

One crack and the whole thing came down.

That experience seared into my mind how we structure every account.

Now we run three tiers. Almost always(with some low-budget exceptions).

Tier 1: Your proven winners. Scaled. This is where most spend lives.

Tier 2: Warm-up ads. Graduated from testing. Showing promise. Getting room to grow.

Tier 3: Fresh tests. New concepts. The pipeline.

When Tier 1 fatigues, Tier 2 steps up.

When Tier 2 needs backup, Tier 3 is already feeding it.

Three tiers. Always running. Always warming up the next wave.

Creative diversity isn’t just about reaching different audiences. Or pleasing the Andromeda-gods.

It’s insurance.

It’s making sure you never build your entire business on top of a volcano again.

If you spend $50k+/month and want to build a profitable business in Times Square and not Mount Vesuvius, on the foundation of diversified creative, hit reply with ‘VOLCANO’ - and we’ll talk.

Later,

Shamanth

PS: Some goodies from our socials

​𝐖𝐞 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩 𝟏𝟎𝟎𝟎𝐬 𝐨𝐟 𝐚𝐝𝐬 𝐦𝐨𝐧𝐭𝐡𝐥𝐲: 𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞’𝐬 𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥 (𝐛𝐨𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐠, 𝐧𝐨-𝐀𝐈-𝐬𝐥𝐨𝐩) 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐩𝐫𝐨𝐝𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭.​

​AppsFlyer state of creative report confirms: the brands losing in 2026 will lose because 𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐲’𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐮𝐭-𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐧𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐭𝐞𝐚𝐦𝐬 𝐬𝐡𝐢𝐩𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝟓𝐱 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞.​

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​Duolingo can get away with this. Your app can't. ​

​I analyzed 40+ Noom ads that power their 9 figure biz. Every subscription app founder planning Q5 should use these 5 psychological patterns in their ads.​

​I turned one winning ad into 6 formats last week.​

​𝗜 𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝟱𝟬+ 𝗕𝗮𝗯𝗯𝗲𝗹 𝗮𝗱𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲-𝗯𝘆-𝗳𝗿𝗮𝗺𝗲 with AI. Every subscription app founder going into Q5/Q1 should internalize these 5 learnings.​

​Andromeda punishes this mistake. ​

​Babbel(~$443mm valuation) ads subtly attack Duolingo(~9b valuation) in 3 different ways. Here is their playbook.​

​These ads we made for Bumble ran profitably for 267+ days.​