u/Fragrant-Love5628

Unpopular take: the quality of creative briefs for corporate video has declined significantly in the last few years and I think it's directly connected to the compression of timelines and the expectation that production companies will figure out the strategy that clients used to bring to them.

A good brief tells the production company who the audience is, what the single most important thing the viewer should feel or know after watching is, what success looks like, and what the constraints are. A bad brief says "we need a brand video, here is our website, make it feel premium."

The production companies that are actually excellent push back on bad briefs and ask the questions that force the client to think, the ones that just accept whatever they're given and start talking about visual language are setting the project up to fail from day one.

I've started treating how a production company responds to a vague brief as one of my primary evaluation signals, if they start talking about cameras before they've understood the strategy, I'm already skeptical.

Panicking a little if I am being real. Banker wants ASC 606 compliance with two prior years restated and our team has zero framework for allocating transaction price across performance obligations. Has anyone resolved this mid-raise without losing the deal?

I've been on Mounjaro 10mg for diabetes. My A1C was 6.5 which is good but not great. My endo added metformin ER 500mg daily. For weeks 1-2 on combo, I experienced some brutal fatigue. Worse than when I started Mounjaro and because of that I almost quit. But by weeks 3-4: Fatigue slowly lifted. Started having more energy than before. For weeks 5-8 though, my energy levels were now higher than on Mounjaro alone. A1C dropped to 5.9 and my weight loss resumed after a 3-month stall.

So my personal theory is that metformin and Mounjaro work through different pathways and that the initial fatigue was my body adapting to new metabolic demands. Once adapted, the synergy just kicked in.

paid two influencers in the past 6 months for promotional content and both times the results were essentially nothing. the first had 80k followers and delivered a post that got 300 likes and zero trackable traffic. the second had great engagement metrics but the audience was completely wrong for what i was selling.

i did my homework or i thought i did. i checked follower counts, looked at engagement rates, reviewed past content. but clearly i missed something because the ROI was basically zero both times.

is there a proper framework for vetting influencers before you commit money or is this just inherently unpredictable?

I have been managing 3–4 accounts lately and honestly the most annoying part is juggling everything content planning, posting, replying, analytics, etc.

I have tried a couple of tools but they either feel too basic or way too complicated.

What I really want is something where I can:

schedule posts easily

manage multiple accounts in one place

maybe get some help with captions/content ideas

and track performance without digging through 10 tabs

Is there any tool you guys actually stick with long-term? Not looking for agency services, more like a platform/tool.

I have been trying to explore different sourcing options lately because relying on just one platform started to feel limiting. Most people always talk about Alibaba, but I recently came across Made-in-China and decided to check it out.

From what I have seen so far, it looks more structured towards manufacturers rather than just trading companies, which I found interesting. The product listings also feel a bit more detailed in some categories, especially industrial and tech related items.

I have not placed any large orders yet, just had a few conversations with suppliers to test responsiveness and communication. So far it has been decent, but I am still trying to figure out how reliable it really is compared to what people usually recommend.

I am curious if anyone here has actually used Made-in-China for real orders. How was your experience in terms of quality, shipping, and supplier transparency?