I’m writing this to you from the co-working space in my new apartment. It’s 6.37am. Just starting to get light outside. I’m tired, but I’m filled with this deep sense of ambition, excitement and urgency. It’s giving me energy.
It’s a weird feeling but I keep coming back to one word: momentum.
When you’ve got momentum on your side, it’s like having the wind behind you. No matter how tired you are, you don’t stop running for fear that one day the wind will change direction. And it will. There will be a headwind, but right now, if you’ve got the wind behind you, keep running.
2 months left of the year. 2 months to make those Jan 01st goals come true. Get after it.
Now… time for this weeks Success Clues from my millionaire interview: The Wallpaper Effect.
The Wallpaper Effect: Why ‘Great’ Content Gets Ignored
Jamaal and Khareem — better known as The Venture Room — have interviewed over 1,000 entrepreneurs, racked up 100 million+ views, and built a 350K+ following across platforms.
And it wasn’t by luck.
They did it by mastering something most creators never even think about…
The Wallpaper Effect.
They explained it perfectly on this weeks podcast:
“If you walk into a room, you’ll notice the wallpaper the first time.
By the fifth time, you won’t even see it.”
That’s how audiences treat content.
The 1st time it’s novel.
The 5th time it’s background noise.
So if your conten looks and sounds like everyone else’s, people’s brains simply tune you out.
It’s why so many creators say: “My content is good, but nobody cares.”
Maybe you’ve said something similar yourself before?
Is it really that good if no one cares though? What you mean is “I have valuable things to say but they’re not packaged in a way that makes people consume them”.
The Venture Room is a great example:
People giving advice - not eye catching
Rich people giving advice - cool, but been done before
Millionaires in the middle of the street - uncommon pattern interrupt
Let’s look at how to use the Wallpaper Effect in your own content:
But what’s even more genius is what that means for his acquisition strategy.
Let’s look at one fundamental rule of business:
If LTV > CAC, you will make money.
In laymen’s terms, if you can acquire clients (CAC) for less than what they pay you over their lifespan (LTV), you’ll grow.
Fame win clients easily (because it’s a no brainer to work with them) so their cost of acquisition is low (they spend less than 1% of their revenue on ads and they don’t need a big sales team to close).
They keep said clients longer, and they end up paying more, because they’re not questioning the value of the service every month (Fame operate a recurring revenue model).
It’s simple for Tom…
Cheap acquisition + customers that keep paying = consistent growth, healthy margin and a relatively stress free life.
The question is… What actionable steps can you take to do the same?
Let me show you.
How to Use the Wallpaper Effect (Like The Venture Room)
Here’s the mindset and method shift every founder or operator should make:
Here’s how to do what Jamaal and Khareem do instinctively and make your audience stop scrolling:
Create contrast.
Put something unexpected together. The Venture Room filmed millionaires on London streets. You don’t expect to see millionaires in that context. That contrast stops thumbs.2. Make Retention the Company Metric