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If you’ve been on the internet in the last two weeks, you’ve seen every man and his dog creating Studio Ghibli photos of themselves via ChatGPT.

For us as business owners, there is a better way to use this tool to create ads for free.

Here is how we’re doing this for our clients at K&J:

1. Head to ChatGPT and make sure you are using the 4-o model

2. Grab a screenshot of any ads you like from competitors or brands you love to find these go to:

> Meta Ad Library
> Type in the company name of the ads you like
> Grab a screenshot of their still image ads (example below)

3. Head back to ChatGPT and upload the photo and a picture of your product or company (example below)

4. Use this prompt:

“Please recreate this ad for (insert your product or business name)

I want to use this as a mock-up for ideas

Please generate the image”

Here is the final result:

In less than 2 minutes, you have an ad that you could present to a client or use today.

If you do try this shoot the end result over - I’d love to see them.

Relational Business

When the government opened its wallet post-COVID to kickstart the economy, a big part of the plan was trickle-down economics. They handed out millions to groups tasked with dispersing the money down the chain from national to regional to local.

The merit in this approach was fine. Those closest to the action would have the best perspective for making decisions.

But there was a nasty side effect.

Much of that money became relational. The minister gave it to Jim, who he trusted, who gave it to Jayne, who he trusted.

The money trickled down, but not as intended. The old boys' and girls' networks lit up. Large amounts of it never reached further than two degrees of separation.

In other words, cronyism.

In non-government industries when this happens, we don't view it as sinister. It's just business. But you might question: is relational business the best way to do business? It certainly doesn't sound like the free-market rationalism that capitalism has supposedly been founded on.

And maybe I'm an a**hole, but I think it's dumb.

Venture capital is a classic sucker of this relational game. They're supposed maximise their ROI for investors. Yet the companies they invest in are heavily influenced by their relationships. They see these endorsements as risk reduction "Well, if Janey recommended him, he must be good." But what they're actually doing is killing their returns, over-weighting their capital on entrepreneurs with strong social climbing abilities rather than executional ability.

People talk a lot about how under-funded female entrepreneurs are. Maybe this is why. It's not even "men supporting men" - it's just VCs sticking to their networks.

They rely on discretion, proximity, and personal judgment, rather than models and frameworks. An inefficiency that is tolerated, even celebrated in domains like venture capital under the banner of "judgment."

But it's the wrong type of judgment. Instead of judging the person, which we're horrible at anyway. Just ask a VC if they're good at picking "entrepreneurs." They'll say yes. But then follow that by asking about their hiring record and see if they're still so confident.

No, you want to limit your judgment to your assertion of the facts, not your assumptions about a person. A standardised system, with some rules to guide you. Kind of like the court system tries to do. It takes the facts, makes a judgment, and then based on a set of rules, hands out a "reward."

Isn't it ironic, given how data-heavy some VC decision-makers are, that they're so blinded by this bias? With all that data, why haven't they figured out how to codify some basic investment strategies? Why haven't they realised that there might be a flaw in their approach? Y Combinator, almost by accident due to mechanisms like Demo Day, has managed to rid itself of some relational inefficiencies. And their returns show it. Some say they're the world's most successful venture capitalists.

Anyway, I digress. The point of this ramble wasn't to shit on VCs, they don't need my help. It's to point out an opportunity, large and small, across hundreds of industries: the inefficiency of relational business. Wherever relational business exists, by default so does bias, friction, and inefficiency.

It's an uncomfortable pill to swallow, given that I'm calling into question the wisdom of relational judgement and our instinct to help out our mates. I'm at fault too.

But for anyone willing skip these rituals, there are opportunities everywhere, waiting to be taken.