I left a $1B company (here’s why)

Today at 9am, I should have been walking into the most incredible startup in Williamsburg NY City.

Instead, I'm writing this from a villa in Tulum, watching the sunrise paint the sky orange while my coffee gets cold.

And I'm still processing the decision that brought me here...

For the past six months, I had what most people would consider the perfect job.

Leading Performance Marketing at a $1 billion startup where the average age was 20-something, and most of the people there had already made their first million online.

The culture was phenomenal. Work whenever you want, from wherever you want - as long as you deliver results.

The team was brilliant. The growth was explosive. The learning curve was vertical.

I genuinely loved going to "work" every day.

We were shipping hundreds of ad creatives weekly, launching multiple funnels, and generating millions in revenue. The energy was amazing.

Most days, I forgot I was even working a job. It felt more like being part of a rocket ship with your best friends.

Which is exactly why walking away from this opportunity which could’ve been worth $50 million in equity opportunity was one of the hardest decisions I've ever made.

But four specific turning points during my time there changed everything...

The first happened during an impossible deadline.

We had four days to script, film, and launch a complete funnel. The team was executing at their usual breakneck pace, so we decided to push the boundaries with AI integration.

And to be honest - I was skeptical. How could artificial intelligence match the creativity and intuition of our team?

Then the results came in.

Millions in sales. From a funnel where AI handled everything from market research to copywriting to a small portion of design to split testing.

Sitting in our office, watching those numbers, I realized I wasn't just witnessing a successful campaign...

I was watching the future unfold in real-time.

And finally I turned from skeptical to bullish on the power of Ai.

The second turning point came from solving a challenge that was driving me crazy.

Every month, we were investing hundreds of thousands in paid advertising with great results. But there was one piece missing that kept me up at night.

With dozens of sales reps taking hundreds of calls across multiple campaigns, gaining real-time clarity on what was actually working was critical.

In general the success of a campaign depends on clarity.

You need crystal-clear insights on buyer psychology, objections, the most profitable customer avatar, and conversion triggers to optimize ad spend effectively. Without that feedback loop, even the best media buyers are somewhat blind.

So I built a ridgid automation workflow that changed everything.

An AI system that automatically analyzed every sales call transcript, extracted buyer patterns, and fed actionable insights to a live dashboard.

Suddenly, I could see which traffic sources delivered quality prospects, who the most profitable customers were, what objections killed deals, and which messaging resonated most powerfully.

Our already impressive ad performance went through the roof.

Then it was only a workflow but after some reflection, conversations, and research I found out that this was a burning problem for small businesses and even enterprise companies.

And that’s when the third moment hit me.

I shipped this idea around to a bunch of different CEOs from other startups. 

And they all loved it, and were ready to pay me without even having the product ready.

I realized this wasn't just solving our internal challenge. This was addressing a massive market blindness that every business running paid traffic faces.

Being at this company I had few encounters with investors, and many encounters with a surplus of cash.

Coming from a background of info-marketing you tend to think small, I’d say it’s fair to say that most people within that industry view $1M/mo as the holy grail.

And there’s very, very few companies who reach that level of growth.

However I’d come to realize that there’s so much more money in other markets in comparision to info products.

For example in most cases you’re not going to obtain generational wealth through an info product as it holds zero enterprise value, and investment capital is almost non-existent.

However software is much different, not only can you acquire cash flow (if you know what you’re doing), but you can also exit that company for hundreds of millions of dollars.

I’ve personally seen the power of investment capital, and enterprise opportunities first hand.

And now it’s never been easier before due to artificial intelligence.

Obviously there’s a higher bar now because of AI, investors aren’t just going to throw money any and everywhere considering anyone and their grandma can launch a product now.

Your market, competitive landscape, product, profit, payback period matter more than ever.

But in my humble opinion it’s a much better vehicle than selling a course online.

And that's when the last turning point came I had to ask myself a hard question, that honestly took months to figure out:

What do I value more than money outside of the obvious things such as god, and family.

The conclusion?

Freedom, full autonomy, and control.

So, this is why I’m currently secluded in a villa in Tulum opposed to in the office as usual.

I’m building towards something bigger.

Over the past few weeks I’ve been developing my own Ai software that I plan to turn into a $100M company.

I control my destiny, my time, and I have full autonomy to grow my business how I see fit.

And if you guessed that this product has something to do with that workflow I mentioned you’d be right.

The MVP is complete. Beta customers are onboard. And I’m talking to a few investors on the topic of raising capital.

And I'm going to share the entire journey with you.

I’ll be keeping you guys updated on the progress of this product as you may find it valuable.

You’ll get an inside sneak peak into my paid advertising system, my inbound and outbound sales process, product management, and more.

Even if you’re currently working in the info product industry I’m sure these coming emails will be fitting for whatever you’re doing.

I'll share the wins, the failures, the late-night doubts, and the breakthrough moments.

Talk tomorrow, Malcolm

P.S: As I begin a new arc, my info product run is over. I’ve generated over $20M in sales but I’m out of the game. I’m in Tulum with my boy DT Thomas, the best advertiser I’ve ever met and we’re contemplating making a joint product together and it’ll be the last course I’ll ever sell.

P.P.S: It’ll likely be very limited open for 7 days or so before it closes, I’ll keep you guys updated on this.