A Playbook to Engineer Virality

A Master Guide to Reverse Engineer Virality

Last updated by Zinnie Zhang on 1/8/26

Preface

Hello there! This project accidentally became an open-source document which contains the collective brainpower of the most cracked GTM folks at the fastest growing VC-backed tech startups in Silicon Valley. If you have edit access, you have permissions to add or alter substantive portions of the guide. Otherwise please leave comments/suggestions where:

1. You strongly agree and have a nuanced, expert opinion based on experience.  
2. You strongly disagree and have a nuanced, expert opinion based on experience.

Let’s begin.

Introduction to Startup Marketing

By the time you finish this startup marketing guide, you will have an intermediate understanding of all the forms of startup marketing.

The diagram below depicts the marketing funnel. "Rule of Seven" is a marketing principle stating customers need to be exposed to your brand 7+ times before they trust you enough to make a purchase. If you're reading this guide, you likely have a top-of-funnel problem. There are 8 billion people on Earth and the average person has no idea you or your company exists.

The table below is a high level overview of the most common forms of startup marketing. Most of these strategies should be combined so do not think of them as distinct marketing functions. If you are a Seed - Series A startup, choose only 1-3 from this list. A startup can reach Series B by doubling down, tripling down on one primary growth engine. By trying to do everything, you end up doing a lot of nothing.

Social media users ordered by descending IQ Level:

Every marketing channel eventually gets saturated. Therefore, you want to find alpha and exploit it before the strategy/channel gets saturated.

If building GTM team from scratch, you will need 6 people:

1. Simple is best.

1. Less decision makers to iterate faster at the start.
2. No over analyzing data, analysis paralysis is real.

2. 6 people

1. In-house copywriter for LinkedIn

1. Strong English writer, wide range of vocabulary.
2. If you can, find someone with a computer science background to translate technical concepts into 6th grade English.

2. In-house UGC Manager/Coach
3. In-house Creator/Influencer

1. Must be young and have viral sense.
2. Source from colleges.
3. Support paid ads.

4. In-house Paid Ads

1. Meta, subject matter expert or borrowed expertise.
2. All other channels are not as mature.

5. In-house Video Editor

1. It takes 2-3 years to find a good offshore freelance editor. You will have to burn through many of them.

6. Marketing Organizer

1. Creative people are disorganized, you need an organizer. (e.g. Wispr Flow, GTM team reporting to CEO did not work.)

If everything goes exactly to plan, this is how much you need to budget for 1 entire year.

1. $500k - $1M on payroll
2. $500k - $1M on marketing

1. If everything is profitable, the marketing budget will scale up.
2. Expect to burn capital for 6 months before reaching profitability on paid ads.

Hiring frameworks for GTM: Rebuilding the Fireflies Marketing Team

What is viral content?

When you truly experience virality, you'll be flooded with cold inbound from people sharing how your words alone moved them. You'll also receive backlash that has psychological and financial damages to you and your business. (Spoiler: psychological damages are harder to recover from). This is because viral content is powered by debate in the comments. Hate is the price of fame. If you truly experience virality, you’ll get addicted to creating great content.

Why should you trust Enttor?

Zinnie ghostwrote a singular LinkedIn post for the Fireflies CTO which generated 5M total impressions across social and earned media. The post became trending on X and Instagram and received 10 earned media placements (including Forbes) with $0 marketing spend.

To get you started, we will discuss LinkedIn Marketing

After implementing one simple framework, you’ll be able to get your first outlier post on LinkedIn (10x the impressions of your last post). The most common marketing misconception is virality is decided by the algorithm gods. Great content will always perform well regardless of what time it’s posted, if you use hashtags, or other virality gimmicks. As my good friend Will says, “Discovering viral marketing is like discovering fire.”

What to post? (Other than weddings, job announcements, and layoffs)

1. What do the masses want to hear?

1. Most beginner content creators make the mistake of treating content creation like their personal diary. They over use words such as “I” instead of addressing your audience with “You”. But true viral marketing is about digging so deep into the psyche of the masses. You can either be:

1. Popular viral - The story is inherently interesting and relatable to the masses.
2. Controversial viral - Or in other words, ragebaiting. You have a controversial take about a topic the masses find interesting. You will need to offend at least one group of people.

2. Are you credible?

1. Do you have the credentials and expertise to be speaking about X topic?
2. Do you have a unique personal experience or observation?

Writing Frameworks:

When in doubt, follow the storytelling or advice framework below. You can invent your own frameworks after you have gone viral at least once (1k+ likes and your friends called you to complain).

For LinkedIn:

• Keep it under 1800 chars or 22 sentences. This ensures the entire post fits on one mobile screen.
• Every word matters in the hook, every sentence matters in the post.
• The first 3 sentences should be short, punchy, and accessible to a broad audience.
• If you must, sneak in industry jargon after hook, credibility, and relatable problem.

1. Hook: 1 liner.

1. The hook is where most people get stuck. This is the first sentence of your post. If the hook is bad, you will kill your top of funnel and people will scroll past your content.
2. Do not invent your own hook until you have gone viral at least once. Read the “Hooks” section of this document Enttor: Short-Form Video Content Guide
3. A common option is to give the punchline of the story up front. E.g. “We charged $100/month for an AI that was really just two guys surviving on pizza.”

2. Credibility:

1. 1 sentence to establish you experienced the problem. Establish credibility upfront because most people on the internet do not know who you are.

3. Relatable problem/pain point 

1. Relatable pain to the audience you are speaking to.

4. Context:

1. “Before I get into how to actually X… you need this context…”

5. Unobvious answer:

1. Emphasis on unobvious. No generic platitudes like “AI is taking your job. ”

6. Explanation.

1. 2-3 sentences to explain the answer because it does not make sense upon 1st read.

7. Specific example:

1. 3 sentences showcasing concrete example(s). Use colorful and precise language to paint the picture.

8. Sum it up:

1. What is the takeaway in 1 sentence?

9. CTA: 

1. Invite the reader to follow or comment.
2. A strong CTA promises a future emotional or intellectual reward for taking the action. It should feel like an invitation, not a command.

Simple Writing Checklist:

• Do the first few lines feel naturally relatable?
• Does the ending leave the reader with a feeling or realization, not just words?
• If the post is “top of tunnel”, did you remove all industry jargon and use plain English?

Advanced Tips:         

1. Read your hook 3 times before posting.
2. The photo matters because a good % of LinkedIn users don't actually read. Always include a photo, preferably 16x9 horizontal, so it does not take up the reader’s entire screen when scrolling on mobile. Select a clickbait image, which includes:

1. Photos with faces (typically outperform photos without). Pick photos where human emotions are extreme such as smiling widely.  
2. Ensure the photo is not only related to the post, but actually adds additional context.
3. Use Higgsfield to save you time editing photos to fit the context of the story.  

3. If you have time, reply to 25% or more of your comments to positively reinforce your community to engage.
4. Em dashes are a tell tale sign of AI and many people have AI blindness. Even if the post is good, they won’t read it.

When to post?

Monday to Friday morning in your time zone. Don’t overthink the posting time. Great content goes viral regardless of posting time, as long as it’s not in the middle of the night.

How to manufacture virality?

The easiest way to go viral is to use the “Kelly Clarkson” method. Kelly Clarkson would often cover another artist’s song and do it better.

Research and use a proven viral hook and format. No need to reinvent the wheel. This is because the topic, hook, and structure are already market validated. If you’ve not gone viral yet, research the last 10 posts of a LinkedIn influencer with your job title and adapt the outlier hook. A viral post should have 1k+ likes, preferably more.

Example:

John Hu viral post 

• “9 years ago, I started what I thought was my dream job at Goldman Sachs.”

Zinnie’s re-creation link 

• “When I was 21, all I wanted was to work at Goldman Sachs.”
• More impressions and engagements than the original hook.

Viral Hooks

Examples of market-tested hooks. There are certain controversial topics in your industry that are guaranteed to go viral (e.g. YC in the startup niche). These are distinct from topics the masses find controversial (e.g. college is a scam).

Great LinkedIn Writers

AI Prompts

You are an expert LinkedIn writer for the CEO of Fireflies. Understand this framework and wait for my instructions. Keep your responses concise.

Hook: 1 liner. If you’re not sure where to start, use a generally relatable question or problem. If the hook is too niche, it will not go viral or give the punchline of the story.

Credibility: 1 sentence to establish you experienced the problem.

Relatable problem/pain point to the average person, to the masses, not to you.

Context: “Before I get into how to actually X… you need this context…”

Unobvious answer: Emphasis on unobvious.

Explanation: 2-3 sentences to explain the answer because it does not make sense upon 1st read.

Specific example: 3 sentences showcasing concrete example(s). Use colorful language and precise language to paint the picture.

Sum it up: What is the takeaway in 1 sentence.

CTA: Invite the reader to follow or comment. The CTA should feel like an invitation.

Viral example of this framework which generated 5M impressions and got us earned media in Forbes:

We charged $100/month for an AI that was really just two guys surviving on pizza.

We scaled Fireflies to a $1B valuation after 6 failures from our original crypto food delivery idea.

Nothing motivates you more than the pressure of living month to month with no safety net.

Before I explain how 2 broke guys validated a $1B idea, you need to understand we were couch surfing while desperately chasing our entrepreneurial dreams. An AI notetaker was our last hope after 6 ideas our friends claimed were “genius”.

The best way to validate your business idea is by becoming the product yourself.

We told our customers there's an "AI that'll join a meeting.” In reality it was just me and my co-founder calling into the meeting sitting there silently and taking notes by hand.

When customers scheduled a meeting, we'd manually dial in as "Fred from Fireflies.ai" We'd sit there silently, take detailed notes, and send them 10 minutes later. After taking notes for 100+ meetings (and falling asleep in many), we were finally able to make enough money to pay the $750/month rent for a tiny SF living room. That was the point when we said let's stop and automate everything, in 2017. Since then, security, privacy, and data protection became foundational to everything we built (see my other posts).

The best prototype was 2 guys surviving on pizza. Validation before automation saved us from our 7th failure.

Follow for more unconventional stories about how we built Fireflies to what it is today.

1482 chars

Follow-up AI Prompts:

1. I've written a hook for a short-form video about [X topic]. I need help increasing the clarity and the framing of the sentences I used. I want the meaning to be the exact same, but can you rewrite this in a 6th grade reading level so that there's no misunderstanding from the viewer.
2. There is a lot here but we want to tell 1 story and 1 lesson. Let's first find the lesson and the unobvious answer.
3. Give 3 hook options.

Additional Resources:

What does Enttor software do?

Enttor Software Setup Guide

Examples of LinkedIn/Instagram scripts:  

Zinnie Content Scripts

Instagram Short-Form video:  

Talking Head Music

Editing Zinnie's Video Start to Finish

Don’t hesitate to contact Zinnie on email, Slack, or text if you have additional questions about startup marketing. Tag zzhang@enttor.ai if you need feedback on a LinkedIn post and she will see it.