GrowthCabin, AI community for leadersGrowthCabinGet The Ember
For business owners who are their own CMO

Big-company marketing. Small-business budget. AI just closed the gap.

The Ember is GrowthCabin's free weekly field report from a 25-year CMO and CEO testing what AI can actually do for a small business's growth: real experiments, real numbers, no hype. Written for owners who do their own marketing, and for the small teams doing it with them.

A group of business leaders in winter coats talking on the deck of a modern mountain cabin at dusk, warm light glowing from the windows behind them, snowy peaks in the distance.
The problem

The noise has never been louder.

Every feed is full of untested AI hacks, hype from influencers who've never carried a number, and vendor pitches dressed up as advice. Meanwhile you're the CEO, the CFO, and the entire marketing department, and nobody has time to run the experiments.

Somewhere between the hype and the fear, AI really is changing what a small business can do. Someone just has to test it and show the numbers.

Leaders comparing notes around a fire-lit table at dusk
What GrowthCabin is

A quieter room, with better signal.

Every week, GrowthCabin runs real marketing experiments with AI (on lead generation, funnels, content, and the tools themselves) and reports what actually happened, numbers included. It's free, and there's nothing for sale here: no course, no coaching, no membership tier. When we recommend a tool or a partner we'd use ourselves, we say so, and we disclose it.

The five pillars
  1. 01

    Get More Leads with AI

    Pipeline experiments an owner can actually run: outbound, inbound, and what they cost.

  2. 02

    Fix the Funnel

    Conversion, follow-up, and offers: plugging the leaks that cost owners the most.

  3. 03

    The Owner's CMO Playbook

    Strategy, positioning, and budget judgment for businesses that will never hire a CMO.

  4. 04

    The Toolshed

    AI and marketing tools, field-tested with plain verdicts: use it, skip it, wait.

  5. 05

    Leading Through the AI Shift

    Team, hiring, and leadership as AI changes what a small company can do.

Who it's for

Built for the people carrying the number.

The owner-operator

You are the marketing department, between everything else you run.

The owner with a small team

A few good marketers and a hundred ideas. This is fuel for your team; we're here to make it feel bigger, not smaller.

The AI-curious skeptic

You know AI matters. You've stopped trusting the people yelling about it.

One honest caveat: this isn't a get-rich-quick feed. We test, we show the numbers, and plenty of experiments fail. That's the point.

Jeremy Nosek, GrowthCabin founder
(Proudly AI-enhanced.)
Who's behind this

Started by an operator, not an influencer.

Jeremy Nosek has spent more than 25 years on the revenue side of the table. He cut his teeth in direct marketing at E*TRADE and Merrill Lynch, then spent sixteen years at Trading Academy, including seven as Chief Marketing Officer and two as President, building funnels, carrying pipeline targets, and leading teams through more than one platform shift. Today he's CEO of SurgeU and its subsidiary Life Surge. He's held the CMO seat and the CEO seat, and he writes The Ember's first field reports. But GrowthCabin isn't a personal brand. It's being built as a real resource and, in time, a community, with a growing circle of practicing marketers and operators contributing what they've learned carrying the number.

  • E*TRADE
  • Merrill Lynch
  • Trading Academy
  • SurgeU
Bring something to the fire

Pull up a chair.

The Ember is free. The Cabin, our community room, opens later, and readers get the first invitation.

Get The Ember