How to build *unfair* marketing taste 💋

The #1 most important skill (BY FAR) + how I've built mine over 10 years

Forbes named me to 30 Under 30 a few years back.

Part of the tradition is being invited to a gala dinner with all the other honorees.

The room was crazy: every founder, scientist, artist, and investor you’ve read about. Dozens of people who’d built amazing things before 30.

I figured it was my only shot at that kind of exclusive access, so I spent the night running a tiny experiment. I’d find an opening in every conversation and ask each person the same thing:

“What do you think is your unfair advantage?”

I expected a mess of different answers. Hustle, network, timing, luck. The usual stuff.

But what I got was the most unanimous answer I’ve ever heard to anything:

Taste 💋

Their answer was humbling -- and impossible to argue with. After 10 years of doing marketing, I can’t think of a job where it’s more true.

Let me explain why.

Taste is the #1 unfair advantage in marketing 🧠

Since 2022, every marketing craft has been automated or commoditized. Copy, design, research, analytics, targeting. All of it is now available to anyone with a $20 subscription and good context.

The result is a sea of marketing slop that’s technically valid and emotionally sh*t. Taste is what cuts through it.

The clearest proof I have is from hiring:

I’ve interviewed hundreds of marketers at Wiz and given take-home assignments to dozens. Almost all of them use AI now. (Which is great! I do too.) The ones I end up hiring share one thing: better taste. Same prompts, same tools, but they got sharper judgment about which of the 10 AI drafts is actually worth shipping.

That’s the whole marketing job now.

The lie the marketing industry sells you ❌

The industry has been selling us the same lie for decades: “taste comes with experience”. Put in 10 or 20 years, ship enough campaigns, and eventually your gut gets sharp.

Wrong. Taste is trainable. ✅

In this playbook, you’ll get:

→ The 4 daily habits that build the taste muscle + how to start
→ 7 quick rules I’ve stolen from people who are 10x smarter than me
→ The 5-pattern framework I use to reverse-engineer great marketing
→ The Notes system I use to calibrate my taste against reality every week

Do it for 30 days and you’ll know whether a piece of marketing is going to work BEFORE it’s published.

Here’s the full playbook 👇