Grey-Hat Growth Hacks and Owned Channels for Gen Z
ctjlewis · x · 2026-07-11
The discussion centers on startups like Phia, drawing parallels between Mark Zuckerberg's early Harvard email scraping and the grey-hat growth tactics used by young female founders today. Commenters argue that targeting teen girls makes building owned distribution channels—like podcasts—far more effective than paying Meta ad fees, effectively dropping customer acquisition costs (CAC) to near zero. Observers suspect Nikita Bier is mentoring them. Following Apple's decision to open mobile Safari extensions to developers, this represents a massive blue ocean market (previously, PayPal acquired a similar extension, Honey, for $4 billion). Against criticisms of them "playing house," supporters argue their strategy of building owned channels demonstrates sharp business acumen.
More from Venture
- Bullish AI-stock thesis says Tesla robotaxis could reach $50B EBIT at scale — JOBhakdi · 2026-07-21
- Repost: WSJ says Chinese open-weight models are squeezing OpenAI and Anthropic — kimmonismus · 2026-07-21
- Cheap Chinese open-weight models are pressuring OpenAI and Anthropic’s economics — kimmonismus · 2026-07-21
- AI cuts content creation from 4 hours to 20 minutes in a creator income workflow — aliscodes · 2026-07-21
- AI automation services with Zapier and n8n could become a semi-passive business — aliscodes · 2026-07-21
- An AI newsletter funnel turns tools and workflows into repeatable digital products — aliscodes · 2026-07-21