Thinks 1593

Sergey Davidovich: “Agentic AI has rapidly emerged as a focal point in artificial intelligence. Unlike traditional AI tools that primarily respond to user prompts, Agentic AI is designed to autonomously analyze data, predict outcomes, and execute decisions with minimal human oversight. According to Deloitte, 25 percent of companies using generative AI are expected to launch Agentic AI pilots by year end. Companies like Google, Salesforce, Microsoft, and HubSpot have already begun integrating Agentic AI. These developments signal a shift from static automation to dynamic systems capable of continuous learning and adaptation, just like human knowledge workers would. At its core, this revolution revolves around two key concepts: 1) Defining KPIs as actionable objectives for agents: By aligning agents with measurable business goals such as customer retention or revenue growth, organizations can ensure these systems focus on what truly matters, and 2) Enabling continuous improvement through real-time learning: This allows agents to refine their strategies dynamically based on evolving data and conditions.”

Chris Ware: “Everyone’s homes, especially one’s childhood home, form part of the structure of one’s memory and self; the corners, doors, drawers and floors all add up to a space which is instantly recallable both specifically but also ineffably, impregnated with associated feelings and sensations which can shift over time, but also somehow still always seem to make perfect sense, uniquely, to oneself.”

Pablo Altimiras: “Overall, our goals are simple: to protect the business that we have today, to maximize its potential value, and to look for new business opportunities. And we have three focuses for managing the business. First is a clear strategy—not a fancy one—based on a sound diagnosis of current conditions, with a direct line through to concrete, simple plans. Second is good processes—not just traditional operational excellence, but the ability to improve our processes, react quickly, and become more efficient. This is where technology is critical. Third, and most important, is people.”

Rita McGrath: “If having an impact on the world and getting ideas out there is the measure of effective and authentic thought leadership, I think we are already living in the reality that it’s not just books. Thought leaders are increasingly creating short, timely, easily consumable nuggets of ideas that shape ongoing conversations.” She mentions podcasts, audio books, videos, and social media.

FT: “Universities should not rely on technology spin-offs to fill budget gaps, as the returns are modest compared to overall income. While spin-offs can contribute to a university’s financial success, they should not be seen as a guaranteed income stream. Universities should focus on creating an ecosystem that encourages researchers to turn ideas into ventures, rather than trying to maximize short-term profits.”

Progency’s Problem-Solving Prowess (Part 2)

10 Defining Elements

Before we discuss the three problems and solutions (NeoN for reacquisition, NeoMails for reactivation, Neo360 for revenue upside) I asked Claude to summarise my past Progency writings in 10 points.

In today’s digital marketplace, brands face an unprecedented challenge: despite massive investments in marketing technology, they continue to waste 70% of their budgets—approximately $500 billion annually—on reacquiring customers they already know. This systemic inefficiency demands not incremental improvement but fundamental reinvention. Enter Progency, a revolutionary approach that transcends traditional agency and SaaS models to create a new category altogether.

  1. AI-First Agency of the Future: Unlike traditional agencies retrofitting AI onto legacy processes, Progency is built from the ground up with AI at its core—creating a “Department of One” capable of executing sophisticated marketing strategies at unprecedented scale and precision.
  2. Closing the Service Gap: Traditional SaaS martech has become “software without service,” leaving brands with powerful tools but inadequate expertise to leverage them. Progency adds a strategic layer of specialised talent and AI orchestration that transforms capabilities into outcomes.
  3. Performance-Based Economics: Breaking free from traditional pricing models (CPM, MAU, MRR), Progency aligns its success directly with client results through revenue sharing and performance-based compensation—creating perfect incentive alignment where we win only when brands win.
  4. Unlimited Upside Potential: By adopting adtech’s outcome-oriented economic model while focusing on retention and lifetime value, Progency creates infinitely scalable revenue potential without proportionally scaling human resources—a true paradigm shift in martech economics.
  5. PEAK Framework Implementation: Progency operates on the revolutionary PEAK framework, combining Platform technology, Expert talent, AI agents, and Kaizen continuous improvement methodology to systematically enhance performance over time.
  6. Problem-Solving Prowess: Rather than competing head-on with entrenched agencies or consultancies, Progency enters through specific problem-solving—targeting overlooked challenges and demonstrating immediate, measurable impact.
  7. Dual-Lock Strategy: Progency creates enduring client relationships through both Product Lock (proprietary technology that delivers unique capabilities) and Progency Lock (specialised expertise and AI orchestration that maximises the value of technology investments).
  8. Department of One for Segment of One: Through AI agent orchestration, Progency enables true N=1 personalisation at scale—treating each customer as a unique individual rather than a segment member, while requiring dramatically fewer human resources than traditional approaches.
  9. AdWaste Elimination Engine: Instead of accepting the marketing status quo of wasteful reacquisition, Progency systematically redirects spending from expensive platforms to owned channels and authenticated targeting, transforming inefficiency into profit.
  10. Transformational Rather Than Transactional: Unlike traditional agencies focused on campaigns or SaaS vendors selling access to tools, Progency delivers fundamental business transformation, shifting marketing from cost center to profit engine through deeper, more valuable customer relationships.

Progency represents nothing less than a complete reimagining of marketing services for the AI era—one that combines the strategic vision of consultancies, the creative capabilities of agencies, and the technological sophistication of martech platforms into a unified approach focused solely on delivering measurable business outcomes. By bridging the execution gap that plagues traditional models, Progency enables brands to finally break free from the costly cycle of continuous reacquisition while building deeper, more profitable customer relationships.

Thinks 1592

Shane Parrish: “Most people mistake discomfort as a signal to stop; the great ones see it as evidence they’re on the right track. Excellence is just pain tolerance disguised as genius. The real advantage isn’t talent but cultivating a perverse appreciation for the discomfort others instinctively avoid.”

Enterprise Tech 30 2025. “From AI agents to next-gen infrastructure, this year’s ET30 captures the biggest shifts in enterprise technology. The 2025 ET30 highlights the growing dominance of AI-native apps and agentic systems, alongside rising early-stage momentum and continued product-led growth. Founder talent remains concentrated in major tech hubs.”

AI 2027. “We predict that the impact of superhuman AI over the next decade will be enormous, exceeding that of the Industrial Revolution. We wrote a scenario that represents our best guess about what that might look like. It’s informed by trend extrapolations, wargames, expert feedback, experience at OpenAI, and previous forecasting successes.” NYTimes: “The year is 2027. Powerful artificial intelligence systems are becoming smarter than humans, and are wreaking havoc on the global order. Chinese spies have stolen America’s A.I. secrets, and the White House is rushing to retaliate. Inside a leading A.I. lab, engineers are spooked to discover that their models are starting to deceive them, raising the possibility that they’ll go rogue. These aren’t scenes from a sci-fi screenplay. They’re scenarios envisioned by a nonprofit in Berkeley, Calif., called the A.I. Futures Project, which has spent the past year trying to predict what the world will look like over the next few years, as increasingly powerful A.I. systems are developed.”

Colossus: “Today [Neil] Mehta is 40, and over its first 13 years, Greenoaks has played a legendary part in the rise of Coupang, Figma, Wiz, Carvana, Stripe, Discord, Rippling, Toast, Robinhood, and other unicorns led by N of 1 founders, generating over $13 billion in gross profits, a 33% total net internal rate of return, and only about a point of principal impairment. The firm is unusually small and concentrated: five funds of 55 core companies across nearly $15 billion of assets managed by nine investment professionals—with Mehta himself as one of the largest LPs in each fund. Henry Kravis, one of the first LPs, told me that at the top of the market between 2020–2022, Greenoaks probably returned more money to investors than anyone else. “Neil’s extremely disciplined, he’s gone against the tide many times, and he’s had exceptional timing,” Kravis said. “He’s the real deal.””

Ross Haleliuk: “Wiz isn’t a regular company. It is a one-of-a-kind startup that has redefined what it means to build a successful company in security. Wiz has been an exception to many rules so I have no choice but to also make an exception and share some thoughts about it. In this piece, I am diving deep into the reasons why it happened and the exact tactics the company used to get there.”

Progency’s Problem-Solving Prowess (Part 1)

Foundation

In my previous essay Progency: The AI-First Agency of the Future, I wrote: “What’s abundantly clear is that traditional agencies face an existential inflection point—consolidation merely addresses symptoms while ignoring the underlying disease. The Omnicom-IPG merger represents a defensive manoeuvre in an industry fundamentally threatened by both technological disruption and structural inefficiency. The path forward demands more than scale; it requires dismantling the acquisition-centric paradigm that has dominated marketing for two decades and replacing it with a retention-first model that eliminates the systemic waste of repeatedly paying to reach existing customers. The agency of the future will emerge not from incremental adaptation but from radical reinvention—one that transforms marketing from a cost centre driven by ephemeral impressions into a profit engine powered by sustainable customer relationships…[Progency] inverts the traditional marketing funnel by focusing primarily on keeping and growing existing customer relationships rather than the endless (and increasingly expensive) pursuit of new ones. This retention-first approach acknowledges a fundamental truth that adtech-oriented agencies have long ignored: acquiring a customer once and nurturing that relationship delivers far greater ROI than repeatedly paying platforms to reacquire the same customers… At the core of this new model lies the PEAK framework—a comprehensive approach combining Platform, Experts, AI Agents, and Kaizen continuous improvement methodology to deliver performance-based outcomes rather than just services or software.”

I also discussed three core services: NeoN (an email ad network), NeoMails (ZeroCPM emails), Neo360 (a parallel martech solution).

I ended the essay thus: “The Progency model fundamentally transforms the brand’s marketing from either a scattered agency approach or an overwhelmed in-house operation into a cohesive, AI-powered growth engine focused on maximising customer lifetime value while eliminating the massive waste inherent in traditional approaches…As we enter the era of NeoMarketing—the third major epoch following Traditional Marketing (1950s-1990s) and Modern Marketing (2000s-2020s)—Progency represents the ideal implementation partner. While NeoMarketing provides the philosophical framework for transforming marketing from a cost centre into a profit engine, Progency delivers the operational blueprint. Together, they create a pathway for brands to escape the $500 billion AdWaste trap and build sustainable, profitable customer relationships that drive genuine business growth.”

The key ideas are captured in this slide:

In this essay, I will demonstrate how Progency represents a revolutionary solution to marketing’s most expensive and persistent challenges. By addressing reacquisition through authenticated targeting rather than wasteful platform spending, enabling reactivation through interactive engagement rather than ignored broadcasts, and unlocking revenue upside through personalised experiences rather than generic messaging, Progency creates a comprehensive framework for marketing transformation. This isn’t merely about incremental improvement—it’s about fundamentally rewiring the economics of customer relationships to eliminate waste, maximise lifetime value, and transform marketing from a cost centre into the primary driver of sustainable business growth. The $500 billion currently wasted on Adtech is an opportunity to be seized through a radical reimagining of how brands build and monetise customer relationships.

Thinks 1591

WSJ: “India’s growth rates before and after 1991—when a financial crisis sparked a significant opening up of the economy—provided a real-world demonstration of the benefits of lower tariffs, easier rules and more foreign investment. But since about 2010, average tariff rates have risen about five percentage points. In addition, new standards and certification rules on imports, some of them imposed to keep out low-quality Chinese goods, are constraining imports of goods manufacturers need. These policies have often left manufacturing in the doldrums. Manufacturing’s contribution to India’s gross domestic product has fallen from around 17% two decades ago to 13% in 2023, according to World Bank data. Shoumitro Chatterjee, assistant professor of international economics at Johns Hopkins University, says India could grab a bigger piece of global trade if it used the opportunity provided by Trump’s shakeup to overcome domestic pressure in order to lower and simplify tariffs. “I for one really think this is almost like a ‘91 opportunity for us,” said Chatterjee. “These big reforms only happen when there is some kind of external stimulus for reform.””

FT: “Fitzgerald’s verdict on them at the end of Gatsby has become for many a definitive statement on unaccountable elites today: “They were careless people . . . they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.””

Altair: “AI-powered engineering is a breakthrough, but its value proposition is simple: do more with less. It empowers teams to recycle past experiences, data and expertise to design better products faster – with less effort, less compute power and greater confidence. What brings everything together is the convergence of simulation, data and HPC. No longer standalone technologies, they’re reshaping product design from the ground up together. Welcome to the new paradigm: an AI-powered, zero-prototype world.”

SaaStr on a survey done by Thoma Bravo: “Software spend will grow 19% a year the next 4 years. SaaS will grow 13% a year, still substantial but lower than some Gartner estimates. CIOs and enterprises are about 60% of the way in their digital transformation journey.  More than halfway onto the Cloud, but only just. And importantly, The SaaStr + AI Era will drive spending on software overall to 4.0%+ of GDP.” More: “We believe that — when combined with the data that sits within them — AI will benefit enterprise software customers in at least two key ways:
1) Democratize access so that more users can make use of deep business insights built from massive data sets; and 2) Enable customers to make real-time operating decisions at scale, with greater speed, precision and less labor input.”

FT: “Thanks to potential AI breakthroughs, [biohacker Bryan] Johnson, 47, posits that we are part of “the first generation who won’t die”. He recently claimed to have reduced his biological age by five years, to 42, but “the goal is to make my body age 18”. To do this, he’s drawn up a strict regimen that borrows from existing medicine, as well as edgy or little-tested technology, drugs and scientific literature. He’s spending millions to measure everything that might make his body age faster, from water quality to food toxins. He’s also charting every health indicator in his body — from gut microbiomes to night-time erections — as he records his journey back to youth…”The enemy is no longer each other. The enemy is death.””

Zane Hengsperger: “i think we will look back in 25 years and realize that we misallocated time, talent, and capital at an absurd magnitude we built unicorns solving lazy problems like food delivery all while since 2000, US steel production has dropped 34% (108M tons to 71M tons), we lost 5.8M manufacturing jobs, and China now produces 57% of global steel vs our 4%.”

NeoMarketing’s Triad: NeoMartech, Progency, and MarCo

Published May 10, 2025

1

A New Order

As I’ve consistently argued throughout my essays, marketing urgently needs a fundamental transformation to end the $500 billion AdWaste crisis that continues to erode brand profitability. NeoMarketing—an approach centred firmly on retention rather than endless acquisition—offers the definitive solution. Representing marketing’s third great era after Traditional Marketing and Modern Marketing, NeoMarketing shifts the marketer’s focus decisively toward maximising Customer Lifetime Value (LTV), minimising Customer Acquisition Costs (CAC), and embracing Earned Growth as the North Star Metric.

Realising this vision requires a powerful new triad of entities: NeoMartech, an AI-native martech platform; Progency, an AI-first Agency of the Future; and MarCo, a martech consolidator inspired by the proven playbook of Constellation Software. While I’ve previously explored each element separately, it’s now essential to understand how they interconnect as a cohesive ecosystem, ushering in marketing’s transformative new era.

The Fundamental Problem

The NeoMarketing Triad represents a revolutionary framework poised to reshape the marketing landscape by addressing fundamental flaws that have long plagued traditional approaches. For decades, two dominant models have defined marketing: agencies and pure SaaS platforms. Both models, whilst once effective, now suffer from inherent limitations that prevent brands from fully harnessing their marketing potential.

Traditional agencies, even as they evolve, remain entrenched in a service-driven model reliant on billable hours, creative concepts, and human-centric execution. This structure inherently struggles with scale, agility and the deep technological integration required for true personalisation and measurable outcomes. Moreover, agencies have typically prioritised new customer acquisition over retention and reactivation, inadvertently fuelling the costly phenomenon of AdWaste—spending excessively to reacquire customers already in the brand’s database. In effect, agencies have become collection agents for Big Adtech.

Pure SaaS platforms, on the other hand, have proliferated by promising marketers robust technological capabilities. Whilst these platforms offer significant improvements in automation and data management, they frequently leave execution and outcome ownership entirely to the brand’s internal marketing teams. As a result, brands often underutilise SaaS platforms, leveraging only a fraction of available features due to limited internal expertise, inadequate resources or competing strategic priorities. This leads to a pervasive execution gap, preventing SaaS investments from translating fully into tangible business results. SaaS (software as a service) ends up becoming software without service!

The Interconnected Solution

The NeoMarketing Triad resolves these critical issues by integrating three innovative entities that work in concert:

NeoMartech, an AI-native Martech platform, forms the foundation of the triad. Unlike traditional martech solutions retrofitted with AI, NeoMartech is built from the ground up with AI at its core. It employs agentic AI systems to autonomously manage marketing functions—from dynamic content personalisation and predictive analytics to real-time customer journey orchestration. This transformative approach enables genuine one-to-one (N=1) personalisation at unprecedented scale and precision, fundamentally reimagining the marketer-customer relationship.

Progency, the second pillar, is an AI-first Agency of the Future, explicitly designed to close the execution gap by combining advanced martech platforms with specialist expertise, AI agents, and Kaizen (continuous improvement) – which I have termed as the PEAK framework. Operating on performance-based models tied directly to client outcomes, Progency shifts marketing from cost-driven activities to revenue-generating engagements. It offers the agility, scale and accountability traditional agencies cannot match, whilst also providing the hands-on execution often missing from pure SaaS platforms.

MarCo serves as a martech consolidator, inspired by successful models like Constellation Software. By systematically acquiring and integrating niche martech innovators, MarCo addresses market fragmentation and creates an ecosystem of complementary capabilities. This consolidation enhances data interoperability, optimises technological stacks and amplifies overall efficiency, providing marketers with a seamlessly integrated suite of best-in-class tools and insights.

**

Together, NeoMartech, Progency and MarCo form a cohesive, interconnected ecosystem—one that redefines marketing’s economics by maximising customer lifetime value, minimising acquisition costs and eliminating wasteful spending. This triad doesn’t merely improve existing approaches; it creates an entirely new paradigm, unlocking sustained profitability for brands and martech players, and ushering in marketing’s transformative new era.

2

A New Era

NeoMarketing represents the third great era of marketing evolution, following Traditional Marketing (1950s-1990s) and Modern Marketing (2000s-2020s). This revolutionary paradigm addresses the fundamental inefficiencies that have plagued brands for decades, chief among them the $500 billion annually wasted on reacquiring existing customers through expensive adtech platforms.

As I articulated in NeoMarketing’s 75 Theses, the core principles of this vision are clear: “NeoMarketing stands on three foundational principles that invert established orthodoxy: Retention before Reacquisition (prioritising relationship depth over constant acquisition), Trust before Transactions (building value-driven engagement before extracting revenue), and Individuals before Segments (recognising each customer’s uniqueness beyond crude groupings).”

The urgency of this transformation cannot be overstated. The current model—where brands continuously pour resources into reacquisition—creates what I’ve called “profitless prosperity,” where growing revenues never translate into sustainable profits. This stems from two fundamental marketing failures: the “Not for Me” problem (generic messaging that fails to resonate) and the “No Hotline” problem (inconsistent or ineffective engagement channels).

Solving these challenges requires a revolutionary framework—the House of NeoMarketing—with distinct, interconnected layers:

  1. Foundation Layer: Establishing unified data infrastructure and organisational alignment
  2. Intelligence Layer: Deploying AI-powered systems for customer understanding and decision-making
  3. Engagement Layer: Creating reliable daily hotlines between brands and customers
  4. Monetisation Layer: Converting engagement into sustainable revenue and profitability

Translating this framework into reality requires purpose-built entities that break free from traditional models. To implement this vision at scale, three new entities must emerge.

NeoMartech serves as the technological foundation—an AI-native platform built from the ground up around agentic intelligence. Unlike traditional martech solutions that bolt AI onto existing frameworks, NeoMartech employs sophisticated AI agents (Content Agent, Journey Agent, Analytics Agent, etc.) orchestrated by an AI Co-Marketer to enable true N=1 personalisation at scale. As I wrote in AI-Native Martech: “The ultimate vision for AI-native Martech is nothing less than the “Department of One” for the “Segment of One”—where sophisticated AI systems replace entire marketing teams while delivering truly individualised experiences to each customer… Making it happen will unlock hundreds of billions in profits for brands—money currently wasted on repeatedly reacquiring existing customers through increasingly expensive adtech platforms.”

Progency addresses the critical execution gap through the PEAK framework (Platform, Experts, AI agents, Kaizen). Operating on performance-based economics aligned directly with client outcomes, Progency combines platform technology with specialist expertise to deliver measurable business impact. In Progency: The AI-First Agency of the Future, I explained how this model “inverts the traditional marketing funnel by focusing primarily on keeping and growing existing customer relationships rather than the endless (and increasingly expensive) pursuit of new ones.”

MarCo (Martech Consolidator) completes the triad by tackling the fragmentation plaguing today’s martech landscape. Inspired by Constellation Software’s proven approach, MarCo systematically acquires and integrates complementary martech capabilities, creating an ecosystem of solutions that work seamlessly together. This addresses the overwhelming complexity brands face when attempting to assemble disconnected point solutions into a coherent stack. As I wrote in Wanted: A Constellation Software for Martech: “While roll-ups of smaller martech vendors by the bigger ones is an obvious solution (and is already happening), the diversity of B2C/D2C/eCommerce/retail creates opportunities for a larger universe of companies under one roof. Exactly the way Constellation Software has done for vertical market software companies.”

Together, these three pillars transform marketing from an acquisition-driven cost centre into a retention-powered profit engine. Each plays an essential role: NeoMartech provides the AI-native technology foundation, Progency delivers the outcomes-focused execution, and MarCo creates the integrated ecosystem necessary for seamless operation. The synergy between these components creates a flywheel effect—MarCo’s acquisitions enhance NeoMartech’s capabilities, which powers Progency’s performance, generating profits that fund further acquisitions. This virtuous cycle accelerates as it scales, creating exponential rather than linear improvement in marketing effectiveness.

The ultimate goal is nothing less than a complete reinvention of marketing—one that eliminates AdWaste, maximises customer lifetime value, and creates sustainable profitable growth for both brands and technology providers.

3

A New Stack

Traditional martech platforms have evolved gradually, adding AI capabilities as bolt-on features to existing infrastructure. This approach, while incrementally beneficial, fundamentally limits what AI can achieve. In contrast, NeoMartech represents a complete reimagining of marketing technology—built from the ground up with AI as its core operating system rather than an optional enhancement.

The Architecture of Intelligence

NeoMartech’s foundation is a sophisticated ecosystem of AI agents working in concert, each specialising in distinct marketing functions while collaborating toward common objectives. This multi-agent system includes an AI Co-Marketer working with multiple agents. The Co-Marketer is the orchestrating intelligence that translates strategic objectives into tactical execution, coordinating all other agents while providing human marketers with insights and recommendations. Examples of other agents include Journey Agent, Consumer Insights Agent, Segment Agent, Content Agent, Design Agent, Scheduler Agent, Analytics Agent, and Merchandiser Agent.

Unlike traditional systems where humans manually orchestrate campaigns, NeoMartech enables autonomous execution with human marketers functioning as strategic guides rather than implementation specialists. As I wrote in Two Marketing Moonshots for Retention and Profits: NeoN and Progency: “It’s a fundamental reinvention of how marketing expertise is deployed, enabling brands to achieve levels of precision and effectiveness previously impossible with human teams alone. These specialised agents function as a collective intelligence, each handling distinct aspects of the marketing process while working in concert toward common goals—all without the resource constraints, cognitive limitations, or operational delays of traditional marketing structures.”

NeoSearch and Channels 2.0

NeoMartech’s transformative vision extends beyond its agent ecosystem to reimagine two critical marketing functions: search and customer communications.

NeoSearch: AI-Native Discovery

Traditional product search and discovery, typically built on keyword matching and basic filtering, fail to capture the nuanced way customers actually shop. NeoSearch represents a fundamental reimagining of this experience through AI-native architecture:

  • Visual Search enables customers to find products by simply uploading images, eliminating the need to translate visual concepts into text
  • Conversational Discovery replaces rigid filtering with natural dialogue, allowing customers to describe what they’re looking for in their own words
  • Intent Recognition identifies the underlying purpose behind searches, delivering results that satisfy the customer’s actual needs rather than merely matching keywords
  • Personalised Relevance surfaces products based on individual preferences and behaviour patterns, creating a unique discovery journey for each customer

This AI-native approach transforms search from a technical utility into an intuitive shopping assistant that understands customers as individuals rather than query-generators.

Channels 2.0: Interactive Engagement

Traditional push communications (emails, SMS, notifications) operate as one-way broadcasts—brands send messages and hope customers respond. Channels 2.0 fundamentally transforms this dynamic:

  • AMP in Email brings app-like interactivity directly into the inbox, enabling everything from product browsing to secure transactions without ever leaving the email
  • Interactive WhatsApp and RCS move beyond text to create rich, conversational experiences that build relationships through dialogue rather than monologue
  • Actionable Notifications allow customers to respond, purchase, or engage directly from within the notification itself

This transformation eliminates the “click-through penalty” that typically loses 80-90% of potential conversions when customers must navigate to landing pages. By bringing the entire experience into the channel itself, Channels 2.0 transforms engagement from a funnel with massive drop-offs into a frictionless path to conversion.

Together, NeoSearch and Channels 2.0 complete NeoMartech’s vision of a truly AI-native marketing ecosystem—one that reimagines every aspect of customer interaction for the intelligent, interactive era.

From Segments to Individuals

The transformative power of NeoMartech emerges through its ability to deliver true N=1 personalisation at scale—treating each customer as a unique individual rather than a segment member. This isn’t merely enhanced segmentation; it’s a paradigm shift where every interaction is precisely tailored to specific customer contexts, preferences and needs.

This capability is powered by AI Twins—digital replicas that model individual customer behaviours and preferences, enabling brands to simulate interactions before deployment while continuously learning from every engagement. The result is a system that doesn’t just react to customer actions but anticipates needs and delivers relevant experiences proactively.

Reimagining the Marketing Department

NeoMartech creates what I’ve termed a “Department of One for a Segment of One”—enabling small marketing teams to accomplish what previously required dozens of specialists. This transformation eliminates the operational bottlenecks that have historically prevented true personalisation at scale, allowing brands to focus on strategy and creativity while AI handles execution.

The economic impact is profound: lower operational costs, higher marketing effectiveness, and the systematic elimination of AdWaste by ensuring every customer receives precisely the right message at the right time through the right channel.

NeoMartech vs Traditional Martech

Attribute Traditional Martech NeoMartech
AI Implementation Bolt-on features and point solutions added to existing architecture AI-native with intelligence embedded throughout the entire architecture
Personalisation Capability Rules-based segmentation with human-defined parameters True N=1 personalisation through AI Twins and dynamic adaptation
Operational Model Human-led workflows with technology assistance AI-led workflows with human strategic guidance
Data Utilisation Periodic analysis of structured data with predefined queries Continuous processing of all data types (structured and unstructured) with autonomous insight generation
Marketing Scale Linear relationship between team size and marketing capacity Exponential capacity through AI orchestration, regardless of team size
Decision-Making Reactive, based on historical data and manual analysis Predictive and prescriptive, based on real-time signals and pattern recognition

NeoMartech doesn’t simply improve upon traditional platforms—it reimagines what marketing technology can achieve when built around AI’s capabilities rather than human workflows. The result is a transformative system that finally delivers on martech’s long-promised potential: truly individualised customer experiences at global scale with unprecedented efficiency.

4

A New Agency

Traditional agencies have long struggled with a fundamental misalignment: while their clients seek business outcomes, agencies primarily sell time, talent, and creative concepts. This model—rooted in billable hours and media commissions—has remained essentially unchanged for decades, even as the marketing landscape has transformed dramatically. Progency represents a revolutionary alternative that reimagines the agency-client relationship from first principles.

The PEAK Framework: Beyond Service Delivery

Progency operates on the PEAK framework—an integrated approach combining Platform, Experts, AI agents, and Kaizen methodology:

Platform: Unlike traditional agencies that rely on third-party tools, Progency builds upon proprietary martech infrastructure with deep integration capabilities. This technology foundation provides complete control over execution while eliminating dependency on external systems.

Experts: Specialist talent focused on strategy, creativity, and relationship management rather than routine execution. These professionals collaborate with AI systems rather than competing with them, applying human judgment where it adds the most value.

AI agents: A sophisticated “Department of One” that handles complex marketing operations at scale. These agents work collaboratively to execute campaigns, optimise performance, and deliver personalised experiences without proportional staffing increases.

Kaizen: Continuous improvement methodology ensuring relentless optimisation across all facets of marketing performance. This systematic approach guarantees that results improve steadily over time rather than peaking early and plateauing.

Performance-Based Economics

Perhaps the most revolutionary aspect of Progency is its compensation model. Rather than charging for inputs (time, resources, media), Progency aligns its economics directly with client outcomes through performance-based pricing:

  • Revenue share on incremental sales generated
  • Performance fees tied to retention and engagement metrics
  • Success bonuses for measurable reductions in Customer Acquisition Cost (CAC)
  • Value-based pricing linked to improvements in Customer Lifetime Value (LTV)

This approach transforms marketing from a cost centre into an accountable investment with measurable returns—creating perfect alignment between agency and client incentives.

The BRTN Customer Focus

Progency specialises in activating overlooked customer segments through the BRTN framework:

Best customers (top 20%): Receive highly personalised retention strategies to maximise lifetime value and stimulate referrals.

Rest customers (middle 50%): Become the primary focus for reactivation efforts, preventing them from slipping into dormancy through AI-powered engagement.

Test customers (dormant 30%): Benefit from precision reacquisition strategies via authenticated identity rather than expensive adtech platforms.

Next customers: Convert efficiently through personalised welcome journeys that establish strong foundations for lasting relationships.

This targeted approach ensures resources are deployed where they create maximum impact, dramatically improving overall marketing ROI.

Core Service Offerings

Progency delivers its retention-focused approach through three interconnected service pillars:

NeoN: An email-based advertising network leveraging authenticated identity to transform reacquisition economics. NeoN enables brands to reach dormant customers through partner brands’ active engagement channels, creating a marketplace where one brand “prints money” by monetising their engaged audience while another “saves money” through efficient reactivation—all without the expensive intermediary “tax” of traditional adtech platforms.

NeoMails: AMP-powered interactive email experiences that establish reliable daily hotlines between brands and customers. Through Atomic Rewards (Mu) for gamified engagement, Microns for “brain gain” experiences, and SmartBlocks for zero-party data collection, NeoMails transform static communications into immersive, interactive touchpoints that command attention and drive action.

Neo360: A comprehensive customer lifecycle optimisation service that combines platform capabilities with expert strategies and AI orchestration. Neo360 provides end-to-end management of customer journeys, enabling N=1 personalisation at scale while ensuring seamless cross-channel consistency and continuous performance improvement.

These offerings can be deployed individually to address specific challenges or combined for maximum impact across the entire customer relationship lifecycle.

Progency vs Traditional Agency

Attribute Traditional Agency Progency
Business Model Billable hours, media commissions, retainers Performance-based with revenue sharing tied to outcomes
Technology Approach Uses third-party tools and platforms Owns proprietary martech stack with AI agent orchestration
Team Structure Large teams with hierarchical management layers Lean strategic teams working alongside AI “Department of One”
Primary Focus Campaign creation and media placement Customer lifecycle maximisation and relationship optimisation
Measurement Campaign metrics (impressions, clicks, awareness) Business results (LTV, retention rates, profit improvement)
Client Relationship Vendor/service provider Growth partner with aligned incentives
Operational Philosophy Project-based, campaign-driven Continuous optimisation through Kaizen methodology

Progency doesn’t just deliver services more efficiently—it fundamentally reimagines what an agency should be. By combining proprietary technology, specialist expertise, AI orchestration, and performance-based economics, it creates a new category that transcends the limitations of traditional agencies while addressing the execution gap that plagues pure SaaS platforms.

The result is a true partner in business growth—one that accepts accountability for outcomes rather than merely delivering services on demand.

5

MarCo

The martech landscape has become increasingly fragmented and challenging. Scott Brinker’s 2025 Martech report lists over 14,000 companies competing for attention and budget. While consolidation and churn occur constantly, the rate at which new startups launch consistently outpaces exits. This fragmentation creates significant challenges for brands attempting to build cohesive marketing stacks, while simultaneously putting pressure on martech vendors struggling to differentiate themselves in an overcrowded market.

Beyond Traditional Consolidation

In this complex environment, MarCo (Martech Consolidator) emerges as a revolutionary approach inspired by Constellation Software’s proven model of strategic aggregation. Unlike traditional mergers and acquisitions that often focus on absorbing competitors or entering new markets, MarCo represents a systematic approach to building an integrated ecosystem of complementary martech capabilities.

As I wrote in Wanted: A Constellation Software for Martech: “MarCo is about bringing three ideas together: the business model of Constellation Software, the partnership of an anchor martech vendor with a fund, and the scale-up of the addressable market by tapping into AdWaste… Over time, MarCo can create a playbook like Constellation Software has done to simplify the acquisition process. It can also create a business system that ensures management and operational efficiencies. The growth by acquisition model has been used in many industries. What is new here is its application to a single software domain (martech) to build and realign one of the most important industries of our times – selling to billions of customers digitally and making money from them.”

MarCo’s vision extends far beyond simple consolidation. By targeting the estimated $500 billion in AdWaste—money brands currently spend inefficiently reacquiring their own customers through expensive adtech platforms—MarCo aims to fundamentally reshape marketing economics while creating unprecedented value for acquired companies, customers, and investors alike.

The MarCo Advantage: Six Strategic Pillars

MarCo’s model leverages six interconnected strategic pillars that transform traditional M&A approaches into a sustainable engine for growth and innovation:

  1. Operational Centralisation: Moving backend operations of acquired companies to India, dramatically reducing costs while maintaining product quality and innovation.
  2. Cross-Selling Synergies: Leveraging the customer base across the entire group to create efficient distribution channels for all portfolio companies.
  3. Progency Layer: Adding performance-based marketing services delivered from India at significantly lower costs, providing clients with both software and execution.
  4. AI-Native Rebuilding: Transforming legacy solutions into truly AI-native platforms to create competitive advantages.
  5. API Integration: Enabling seamless interoperability across the entire portfolio through standardised APIs, allowing each solution to leverage capabilities from other group companies.
  6. AdWaste Targeting: Focusing innovations specifically on helping brands redirect money wasted on reacquisition toward more efficient retention strategies.

These pillars create powerful network effects and economies of scale that individual martech companies cannot achieve independently, transforming the traditional zero-sum competition into a positive-sum ecosystem.

MarCo vs Traditional M&A

Attribute Traditional M&A MarCo/Constellation Model
Strategic Intent Eliminate competition or enter new markets Build complementary ecosystem of vertical specialists
Integration Approach Full absorption and standardisation Decentralised management with shared best practices
Investment Horizon Medium-term (3-5 years) with planned exit Permanent capital with no intention to sell
Value Creation Cost synergies and market share gains Network effects through cross-selling and data sharing
Technology Strategy Standardise on acquiring company’s platform Maintain product uniqueness while enabling interoperability
Competitive Moat Scale and market dominance Data network effects and distribution leverage
Growth Model Organic growth post-acquisition Continuous acquisition with operational enhancement

The MarCo approach creates significantly more sustainable value by preserving what makes each acquired company special while enhancing performance through shared resources, distribution channels, and technology integration.

The Data and Distribution Moat

Perhaps MarCo’s most powerful advantage comes from the compounding benefits of data and distribution:

Data Network Effects: Each acquired company brings unique customer data and insights. When combined through AI systems, this creates a continuously improving understanding of customer behaviour across the entire marketing lifecycle. As the portfolio grows, the AI capabilities become increasingly sophisticated and valuable—creating a moat that competitors cannot easily replicate.

Distribution Leverage: The combined customer base across all portfolio companies creates extraordinary distribution efficiency. Each acquisition not only strengthens the overall offering but instantly gains access to the entire customer network, dramatically reducing customer acquisition costs while accelerating growth.

This twin moat of data and distribution grows stronger with each acquisition, creating a self-reinforcing cycle that transforms the economics of the martech industry.

The Path Forward

MarCo represents a revolutionary approach to consolidating the fragmented martech landscape while simultaneously expanding the addressable market by targeting the $500 billion AdWaste opportunity. By combining Constellation Software’s proven acquisition playbook with the strategic advantages of an anchor martech vendor and a fund structure, MarCo creates a model where everyone wins—struggling martech companies find a permanent home, brands gain access to integrated solutions, and investors participate in value creation at an unprecedented scale.

As the martech industry continues to evolve, those who embrace this model of strategic consolidation will be positioned to lead the next wave of marketing transformation—one that finally delivers on martech’s promise of making marketing more efficient, effective, and profitable for brands worldwide.

6

A New Future

The NeoMarketing Triad—NeoMartech, Progency, and MarCo—represents far more than incremental improvement to existing marketing practices. Together, these three pillars usher in marketing’s long-awaited Enlightenment era, just as Classical Liberalism transformed economics from explaining poverty to creating prosperity.

From AdWaste to Marketing Prosperity

For too long, marketing has operated in its own Dark Ages—where brands accept the massive $500 billion AdWaste as an inevitable cost of doing business, where growth invariably means rising acquisition costs, and where the relationship between marketing spend and business profitability grows increasingly tenuous.

The NeoMarketing Triad fundamentally rewrites this narrative. By shifting focus from acquisition addiction to retention excellence, it transforms marketing from a cost-driven function into the primary profit engine for business growth. Just as enlightened economic thinking replaced a scarcity mindset with one of abundance, this triad replaces AdWaste with marketing prosperity.

The Self-Reinforcing Growth Flywheel

When implemented together, NeoMartech, Progency, and MarCo create a virtuous cycle that compounds in effectiveness over time:

  1. Value Creation: NeoMartech’s AI-native capabilities enable personalised experiences that build deeper customer relationships and increase lifetime value
  2. Value Capture: Progency’s performance-based approach ensures these capabilities translate into measurable business outcomes
  3. Value Amplification: MarCo’s systematic consolidation creates network effects through data sharing and distribution leverage
  4. Value Reinvestment: The profits generated fuel further acquisitions, innovation, and client success

This self-sustaining flywheel transforms marketing economics—creating sustainable profitable growth where previously there existed only “profitless prosperity.”

Marketing’s Return to First Principles

Perhaps most significantly, the NeoMarketing Triad represents marketing’s return to its fundamental purpose—building lasting, profitable customer relationships. The industry has strayed far from this mission, becoming obsessed with metrics that measure activity rather than outcomes, platforms rather than people, and impressions rather than relationships.

By placing LTV, CAC, and Earned Growth at the centre of marketing strategy, the triad realigns marketing with genuine business impact. As Fred Reichheld powerfully articulated: “There is only one way to grow a business profitably. You make sure your customers are treated so well that they come back for more and bring their friends.”

The Four Freedoms

The NeoMarketing Triad delivers four essential freedoms that transform marketing’s future:

  1. Freedom from Ad Platform Dependence: Breaking the costly cycle of paying Big Adtech to reach customers brands already know
  2. Freedom from Execution Constraints: Eliminating the operational bottlenecks that prevent true personalisation at scale
  3. Freedom from Integration Complexity: Resolving the fragmentation that forces brands to cobble together disconnected point solutions
  4. Freedom from AdWaste: Redirecting the $500 billion currently lost to inefficient acquisition toward value-creating activities

These freedoms don’t merely improve marketing; they fundamentally transform it—creating space for innovation, creativity, and genuine customer connection that the current model makes impossible.

The Path Forward

The future of marketing belongs to those who recognise that true disruption doesn’t come from incremental improvements to existing approaches but from fundamental reimagining of what’s possible. The NeoMarketing Triad—comprising AI-native technology, performance-based execution, and strategic consolidation—provides this reimagining.

By addressing the root causes of marketing inefficiency rather than merely treating symptoms, this triad creates unprecedented opportunities for brands to build deeper customer relationships, eliminate wasteful spending, and drive sustainable profitable growth. In the process, it transforms marketing from a necessary expense to the primary engine of business value creation.

This isn’t just a better way to market—it’s a complete paradigm shift that finally delivers on marketing’s true potential: building enduring, mutually beneficial relationships between brands and the customers they serve.

7

Summary

I asked Claude for an outline of the ideas discussed.

Introduction

  • Marketing urgently needs transformation to end the $500 billion AdWaste crisis eroding brand profitability
  • NeoMarketing represents marketing’s third great era after Traditional Marketing (1950s-1990s) and Modern Marketing (2000s-2020s)
  • The contemporary marketing landscape is dominated by two flawed models with fundamental limitations
  • The NeoMarketing Triad offers a comprehensive, interconnected solution that addresses these systemic inefficiencies

Core Problems in Current Marketing Models

  • Traditional agencies remain entrenched in service-driven models reliant on billable hours and creative concepts, struggling with scale and technological integration, while prioritising acquisition over retention
    • Agencies have effectively become collection agents for Big Adtech, channelling client budgets into expensive platform advertising
  • Pure SaaS platforms promise robust capabilities but leave execution to internal brand teams, creating a significant implementation gap
    • “Software as a service” has devolved into “software without service,” with brands typically leveraging only 30-40% of available features
  • AdWaste phenomenon: 70% of digital marketing budgets are squandered on reacquiring existing customers through expensive adtech platforms

The NeoMarketing Triad Components

  1. NeoMartech: An AI-native platform built from the ground up with artificial intelligence at its core
    • Multi-agent architecture with an AI Co-Marketer orchestrating specialised agents (Journey, Consumer Insights, Segment, Content, Design, Scheduler, Analytics, Merchandiser)
    • True N=1 personalisation through AI Twins that model individual customer behaviours and preferences
    • NeoSearch revolutionises discovery with visual search, conversational interfaces, and intent recognition
    • Channels 2.0 transforms push communications into interactive experiences, eliminating the “click-through penalty”
    • Creates a “Department of One for a Segment of One” that enables small teams to achieve unprecedented scale
  2. Progency: An AI-first agency designed to close the execution gap through the PEAK framework
    • Platform: Proprietary martech infrastructure versus third-party tools
    • Experts: Specialist talent focused on strategy and creativity
    • AI agents: Sophisticated automation handling complex operations
    • Kaizen: Continuous improvement methodology ensuring ongoing optimisation
    • Performance-based economics tied directly to measurable client outcomes
    • BRTN customer segmentation focuses on Best (retain), Rest (engage), Test (reactivate), and Next (convert)
    • Three core service pillars: NeoN (authenticated advertising network), NeoMails (interactive email experiences), and Neo360 (comprehensive lifecycle optimisation)
  3. MarCo: A martech consolidator inspired by Constellation Software’s proven approach
    • Systematically acquires and integrates complementary martech capabilities
    • Six strategic pillars: operational centralisation, cross-selling synergies, Progency layer, AI-native rebuilding, API integration, and AdWaste targeting
    • Creates data and distribution moats through network effects
    • Permanent capital approach versus traditional exit-focused M&A

Benefits & Future Impact

  • The triad creates a self-reinforcing growth flywheel that compounds in effectiveness over time
  • Delivers four essential freedoms: from platform dependence, execution constraints, integration complexity, and AdWaste
  • Returns marketing to its fundamental purpose—building lasting, profitable customer relationships
  • Transforms marketing from a cost-driven function into the primary profit engine for business growth
  • Establishes marketing prosperity by eliminating inefficiency and maximising customer lifetime value

Thinks 1590

Sridhar Ramaswamy: “What I tell people is that the most celebrated companies of the 21st century, like Google, like Meta took data almost as seriously as they took their main product. In fact, it’s those feedback loops that have created greatness and I tell our customers that it is our vision and my dream that Snowflake is that data partner for them to become that efficient and that insightful with their data as these great companies were. To me, fulfilling that mission with more and more customers is, I think, reward. But yes, monetarily or in terms of just growth, aspiring to things like mid-30s growth for a decade, that compounds.

David Brooks: “We use cost-benefit analysis when we are operating in a prosaic frame of mind. But I don’t think anything great was ever accomplished in a prosaic frame of mind. People commit to great projects, they endure hard challenges, because they are entranced, enchanted. Some notion or activity has grabbed them, set its hooks inside them, aroused some possibility, fired the imagination. The moment of enchantment can be so subtle and soft — a baseball player hits a double and Murakami contemplates writing a novel; he has a track by his house, so maybe he’ll take up running. But, unbidden, almost involuntarily, a commitment has been made — to some activity or ideal — a quiet passion has been inflamed. Some arduous journey has begun.” He quotes Henry Moore: ““The secret of life is to have a task, something you devote your entire life to, something you bring everything to, every minute of the day for your whole life. And the most important thing is — it must be something you cannot possibly do!””

Fortune: “Our inability to understand how LLMs work has made some businesses hesitant to use them. If the models’ inner workings were more understandable, it might give companies more confidence to use the models more widely.  There are implications for our ability to retain control of increasingly powerful AI “agents” too. We know these agents are capable of “reward hacking”—finding ways to achieve a goal that were not what a user of the model intended. In some cases the models can be deceptive, lying to users about what they have done or are trying to do. And while the recent “reasoning” AI models produce what’s known as a “chain of thought”—a kind of plan for how to answer a prompt that involves what looks to a human like “self-reflection”—we don’t know if the chain of thought the model outputs accurately represents the steps it is taking (and there’s often evidence it might not be.) Anthropic’s new research offers a pathway to solve at least some of these problems. Its scientists created a new tool for deciphering how LLM’s “think.””

NYTimes: “Reasoning just means that the chatbot spends some additional time working on a problem. “Reasoning is when the system does extra work after the question is asked,” said Dan Klein, a professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and chief technology officer of Scaled Cognition, an A.I. start-up. It may break a problem into individual steps or try to solve it through trial and error. The original ChatGPT answered questions immediately. The new reasoning systems can work through a problem for several seconds — or even minutes — before answering.”

Life Notes #65: Yeses Matter, Not the Nos

I was speaking with a friend recently who sought advice about his struggling business. Facing constant rejection, his confidence was flagging. I shared a pivotal story from my own entrepreneurial journey that transformed his perspective.

In December 1994, while building what would become IndiaWorld (India’s first Internet portal), I sent nearly 100 letters to every publisher and media company whose postal address I could find. My proposition was straightforward but ambitious: I needed free content for IndiaWorld. (Having failed in a few ventures previously, my financial resources were severely limited, limiting my ability to pay for content.) In exchange, I offered global exposure to non-resident Indians and the promise of future monetisation opportunities.

As expected, most letters disappeared into the void of corporate indifference. However, a handful of visionaries responded positively—India Today, RK Laxman, Amar Chitra Katha, and Cybermedia among them. These few believers provided the foundational content that powered IndiaWorld’s growth. This experience crystallised a profound truth: success isn’t built on avoiding rejection but on recognising and nurturing acceptance when it appears.

I explained to my disheartened friend that rejection is the default response in a business’s early stages—it’s the background noise of entrepreneurship. The transformative mindset shift comes when you stop counting the rejections and start celebrating the affirmations. Those rare individuals who answer your email or return your call become the cornerstones of your venture. Cast your net widely, maximise your chances of meaningful connection, and build deliberately on those relationships.

Entrepreneurship demands that we transcend our ego and conquer our fear of failure. The marketplace doesn’t remember the hundred doors that remained closed—it recognises only the doors you successfully opened and the opportunities you maximized. Every “yes” carries exponentially more weight than a thousand “nos.”

The most successful entrepreneurs aren’t necessarily those who face the fewest rejections—they’re the ones who remain undeterred by them, who maintain unwavering focus on possibility rather than limitation. Each “yes” represents not just an isolated success but a portal to new networks, opportunities, and growth trajectories that weren’t previously visible.

My friend left our conversation with renewed determination. He understood that his rejections weren’t personal indictments but simply part of the entrepreneurial landscape. By shifting his attention to cultivating his supporters rather than lamenting his detractors, he could transform his business trajectory—just as those few content partners helped lay the foundation for IndiaWorld.

Remember: History celebrates the Yeses that built empires. The Nos are just footnotes in your journey to success.

Thinks 1589

Vivek Wadhwa: “Instead of trying to catch up on yesterday’s models, India can leapfrog into tomorrow’s platforms — and build the same types of trillion-dollar monopolies that Silicon Valley has. Remember that Apple and Microsoft didn’t build any foundational systems, they simply built great solutions on top of what already existed — and they are amongst the most valuable companies in the world. Moreover, the AI landscape is evolving so rapidly that today’s leaders can be eclipsed in months. LLMs will soon be yesterday’s news and AI agents may dominate the next wave — but something even more disruptive will follow. Innovation is accelerating at an unprecedented pace, and those who build adaptable platforms — rather than static models — will be best positioned to ride these exponential curves. By focusing on building the platforms and applications that others rely on, India could not only leapfrog the current wave but rise above the turbulence of constant disruption.”

Dean W. Ball: “Simply put and in at least the near term, agents will be LLMs configured in such a way that they can plan, reason, and execute intellectual labor. They will be able to use, modify, and build software tools, obtain information from the internet, and communicate with both humans (using email, messaging apps, and chatbot interfaces) and with other agents. These abstract tasks do not constitute everything a knowledge worker does, but they constitute a very large fraction of what the average knowledge worker spends their day doing.”

Aeon: “With roughly 35 million people, Kerala, which sits along India’s southwestern tip on the Indian Ocean, is among the smaller Indian states, though it is densely populated. In the 1970s, Kerala’s average income was about two-thirds of the Indian average, making it among the poorest states in India. This difference persisted through the 1980s. In the coming decades, a miracle occurred. Kerala, one of the poorest regions in India, became one of the richest. In 2022, Kerala’s per-capita income was 50-60 per cent higher than the national average. What happened?”

NYTimes: “Many people use a smartwatch to monitor their cardiovascular health, often by counting the number of steps they take over the course of their day, or recording their average daily heart rate. Now, researchers are proposing an enhanced metric, which combines the two using basic math: Divide your average daily resting heart rate by your daily average number of steps. The resulting ratio — the daily heart rate per step, or DHRPS — provides insight into how efficiently the heart is working…The higher the ratio, the stronger the signaling of cardiac risk.”

WSJ: ““Tune Out the Noise” is the story of radical ideas that became powerful enough to move trillions of dollars, and the main characters are renegade investors and unlikely titans who created the revolutionary financial products that we have come to depend on…[It] a nerdy and genuinely engrossing documentary about investment strategy.”

Life Notes #64: An Evening with Accidental Friends

Some friendships begin with chance encounters that seem insignificant at the time, yet bloom into lifelong connections. Such is the story of Bhavana and my friendship with Ram and Nirmala.

It started in March 1998 during a vacation to the United States. Bhavana and I were at Universal Studios in Los Angeles when we struck up a conversation with an Indian couple living in America. We spent the entire day together—visiting Muscle Beach, taking photos for each other at the Hollywood sign overlook, and sitting side by side during the evening laser show. As the day concluded, we parted ways, though we exchanged contacts.

What seemed like a one-time encounter surprisingly evolved into correspondence when Ram sent a Diwali greeting email just months later. Then came the truly serendipitous moment—after my Sify deal made headlines in late 1999, Ram sent congratulations. He mentioned he would be traveling to India on December 31st, 1999. By remarkable coincidence, we spotted each other at Mumbai airport that very night—Ram on a late-night transit from Lufthansa to a morning Jet Airways flight to Chennai, and me also headed to Chennai on business. Our chance reunion in the airport sparked a friendship that has endured through the decades.

Though our meetings are infrequent, each reunion dissolves the intervening time, allowing us to continue our conversation as if we’d never been apart.

I was at their home in the US when I learned Bhavana was pregnant in August 2004, following years of IVF treatment. It was one of the happiest moments of my life and I had them to share it with me.

Recently, while in Chennai for a SaaSBoomi presentation, I spent an evening with Ram and Nirmala (though Bhavana couldn’t join us). Those three hours were precious—reminiscing about shared experiences, updating each other on our now-grown children, and savouring Nirmala’s exceptional Pongal, a dish whose distinctive flavour has remained consistent through the years.

As I returned to my Chennai hotel that night, I realised I had neglected this cherished relationship. What separates us now is merely a few hours of travel. There was no justifiable reason for allowing several years to pass between our meetings. Life grants us only a handful of truly meaningful connections, and it’s our responsibility to nurture them with intention and care.

In our increasingly disconnected world, these authentic friendships—especially those formed through chance and sustained through choice—become even more valuable. They remind us that human connection transcends distance and time, providing continuity and comfort in our ever-changing lives.