Uncrowded Strategies #013: My viral videos flopped. My failures convert 20x better. Let me explain.

Hey, it’s Gabriel here again with this week's edition of Uncrowded strategies.

These are my private notes on building wealth, raising my family, and breaking the generational patterns I inherited. I write them for myself first — to document who I'm becoming. But I share them because I know I'm not the only one fighting this war.

Here's what happened this week.

(Current Focus: The Only Asset AI Can't Replace)

I need to say something uncomfortable.

None of our jobs is safe.

I'm not saying that to scare you. I'm saying it because I'm watching it happen in real time — from the inside. I'm literally trying to replace my entire agency with AI agents. I told you about the Architect, the Builder, and the QA. Three AIs. Cross-checking each other's work. Building software for my company while I sleep.

And I'm not special. Thousands of builders are doing the same thing right now. The tools are available to anyone with a laptop and an API key.

So the question I keep asking myself is: If AI can do the work... what's left that's actually mine?

The answer I keep landing on? Brand. And distribution.

Your skill can be replicated. Your knowledge can be scraped. Your process can be automated. But your name? Your story? The audience that trusts you? That can't be copied by a model.

And the fastest way to build that right now is embarrassingly simple: build in public.

Here's what I mean. I don't know if I'm going to succeed at replacing my agency with AI. I might fail spectacularly. But I'm documenting every step — the wins, the breaks, the ugly middle — and posting it as a series on Instagram.

And it's working.

My "building in public" content is converting followers at 2% of views. That might not sound like much until you see the comparison. I've had videos hit 500K+ views. Viral numbers. But those posts? The follow-to-view ratio was 0.1 to 0.2%. Meaning for every 1,000 people who watched... one or two followed.

This building-in-public series is converting at 10 to 20 times that rate. With a fraction of the views.

Why? Because viral content entertains. But raw, honest documentation earns trust. People don't follow polished. They follow real. They follow someone who's willing to say "I don't know if this will work, but here's what happened today."

The Uncrowded Take: Everyone is scrambling to learn AI skills. And they should. But skills have a shelf life now. What doesn't expire? A brand that people trust. A distribution channel that's yours.

Think about it this way: if two people build the exact same AI automation... the one with the audience wins. Every time. Because they can sell it. They can teach it. They can partner on it. The other person just has a project on their laptop.

Build in public. Document the failures. Post the messy stuff. Your raw, unfiltered content is the most valuable thing you can create right now — because it's the one thing AI cannot fake.

Even if I fail at replacing my agency... I'll have a brand. And a brand is a foundation you can build anything on.

I win either way.

I've been thinking about something that scares me.

My kids don't know what lack is.

They've never gone without a meal. They've never heard "we can't afford it." They've never worn hand-me-downs because there was no other option. They live in abundance.

And that's... what I wanted. I built this life so they wouldn't carry the scarcity I carried. So they wouldn't know the fear I knew.

But here's the tension that keeps me up: Can they understand gratitude without ever knowing lack?

This is a real question Zoey and I wrestle with. Because we've both seen it — kids who grow up with everything and appreciate nothing. Kids who never had to fight for anything and crumble the first time life pushes back.

We refuse to let that be our kids.

So we made a decision early on. We don't control what our kids have. We control the language around what they have.

In our family, we never say "we don't have money for that." We never say "that's too expensive." We never say "we can't afford it."

Not because those phrases are always untrue. But because they build an identity of scarcity. And identity is everything.

Instead, we say things like:

"We're choosing not to buy this right now."

"That's not our priority today."

"Let's plan for it instead of rushing."

Same outcome. Completely different identity.

The first set of phrases teaches a kid: We are people who don't have enough.

The second set teaches: We are people who choose wisely with what we have.

The "Uncrowded" Move: We anchor everything in one phrase that we repeat constantly — at meals, in the car, casually, whenever it fits:

"In this family, we always have more than enough... and we use what we have wisely."

That's the core identity. Not "we're rich." Not "we're blessed." Not "we're lucky." We have more than enough. And we choose well.

We're not a "we can't afford" family. We're a "we choose what's best" family.

Will my kids ever fully understand what it means to go without? Maybe not the way I did. But they'll understand stewardship. They'll understand intentionality. They'll understand that abundance isn't about having everything — it's about choosing well with what you've been given.

That's the generational pattern I'm building. Not wealth. Wisdom with wealth.

Last week I shared my thesis on two companies I was watching. This week I put money where my mouth is.

I opened positions in both UiPath (PATH) and Cloudflare (NET).

Small positions. 1-2% of my portfolio each. But I'm in.

Here's why:

UiPath (PATH) — This is the riskier bet. UiPath was an old-school automation company that pivoted hard into AI Agent orchestration last year. They built a platform called Maestro that helps big enterprises manage and deploy AI agents at scale.

Here's my thesis: everything that happened with OpenClaw — the viral explosion, the millions of people suddenly seeing what AI agents can actually do — that wave is about to hit the enterprise. Hard.

Big companies move slower than indie builders. But they also spend bigger. And right now, enterprise FOMO is real. Boardrooms are watching Block fire 4,000 people. They're watching competitors deploy agents. And they're terrified of being left behind.

UiPath is one of the few companies already positioned to help them make that transition. They have 10,000+ enterprise customers. They just hit their first-ever profitable year. And the stock is still down roughly 85% from its 2021 highs. If they execute this pivot well... the re-rating could be significant.

Cloudflare (NET) — This one is based on the thesis I shared last week about the layers underneath the obvious.

When millions of AI agents start browsing the web, making API calls, and interacting with services around the clock... who handles that traffic? Who secures it? Who decides which agents get through and which ones get blocked?

Cloudflare handles over 20% of all internet request traffic globally. They're already building the infrastructure for an agent-driven internet — classifying agent traffic separately from human traffic, launching AI security products, and creating tools that let website owners control how agents interact with their content.

This isn't a bet on AI directly. It's a bet on the plumbing of the agentic internet. And Cloudflare is laying the pipes.

(Same disclaimer as always: I am not a financial advisor. These are small positions in my own portfolio based on my own research. Do your own due diligence. I am mentally prepared to be wrong on both of these. You've been warned.)

No new biohacking experiments this week. But I'm fighting a different kind of battle.

Doomscrolling.

I've been catching myself doing it more and more. Open Instagram. Scroll. Open X. Scroll. Put the phone down. Pick it up again 45 seconds later. Scroll.

It's the exact opposite of the "Operator Off" protocol I told you I was building. I preach digital disconnection... and then I catch myself burning 30 minutes on Reels without even realizing I picked up my phone.

So I went looking for something that could actually help. I've tried screen time blockers before. They all do the same thing — they lock you out, you get frustrated, you override it, and nothing changes.

Then I found an app called Unrot. (Not a paid sponsor. I just found it and liked it.)

Here's what makes it different from every other blocker I've tried: it doesn't just punish you for using your phone. It gamifies earning the right to use it.

You earn coins by doing real-world actions:

Working. Going outside. Spending time with family. Reading. Exercising.

Those coins are the only way to unlock time on the apps you choose — Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, whatever your poison is.

So instead of "I'm blocked and I'm angry," it becomes: "I need to earn 20 more minutes of scroll time. Let me go for a walk first."

It flips the entire dynamic. You're not depriving yourself. You're trading up. You're choosing between a walk with your kids or 15 minutes of Reels. And when you frame it that way... the walk wins more often than you'd expect.

The Experiment: I'm running Unrot for the next 30 days.

The Hypothesis: If I have to consciously earn every minute of social media, I'll naturally redirect that time toward things that actually matter — deep work, family, movement.

The Honest Part: The fact that I need an app to stop me from picking up my own phone is humbling. But I'd rather be humbled and improving than proud and scrolling.

See you next week,

Gabriel

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