Alessandro Michelle's 'Continuous Orgasm', Adderall, and How to Make a $1M with Pizza

A stacked newsletter indeed...

GM everyone happy Monday! Hope you all had a lovely weekend. I spent mine running, drinking wine at various locations between Williamsburg and the Lower East Side, and spending time in the sun. I also had the best chicken caesar wrap of my life at Milano Market.

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In Today’s Newsletter—

• Adderall Telehealth CEO Might Be Going to Jail

• How a Startup Generated $1M in ARR with Pizza

• Alessandro Michele’s Valentino Preview

• Unique E-Commerce Product Shots

• What Do CEOs Eat For Breakfast

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THE NEWS

• The CEO of an Adderall Company Has Been Charged with Drug Fraud. Ruthia He is the founder and CEO of Done, a telehealth company that has found major success post-2020 giving out over 40 million adderall prescriptions and generating hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. He, and the company’s clinical president allegedly, “exploited emergency flexibilities during the [covid-19] public health emergency to provide easy access to Adderall and other stimulants that were not for a legitimate medical purpose,”

  

  Essentially, during the pandemic the FDA laxed ruled, making it easier to get prescriptions online. Allegedly, Done exploited this, hiring doctors who were incentivized to see as many patients as possible, and using digital ads to promote how easy and fast potential patients could get an addy script using Done, and giving out prescriptions to those who probably just wanted it to perform better at work. I’ve been personally served these ads many times, and I can say with confidence so many mid 20s professionals are using adderall to get through long, stressful work days. Now, with Done being… done… nearly 75,000 people are at risk of losing their prescription. Are we going to see a massive drop in productivity reflected in GDP growth statistics? Time will tell…

• Antimetal Generated $1M in ARR with $15,000 worth of pizza. Antimetal is a new startup offering a monthly subscription to help companies trim their Amazon Web Services spend. If you aren’t in tech, those AWS bills can get pretty massive. To promote his new startup, Matthew Parkhurst (CEO), purchased $15,000 worth of pizza, and delivered them to potential clients and investors in branded pizza boxes in New York and San Francisco.

  

  I remember seeing this stunt on social media in April, and the online buzz it generated was insane. But I was curious to see if it actually worked. According to Parkhurst, the stunt helped Antimetal sign 75 clients, generating $1M in annual recurring revenue (ARR) I think this move is genius, and shows a clear ROI, and is incredibly beneficial to their brand. They are young, disruptive, scrappy, and on the come up. Their service is pretty boring, and this was such an inventive, fun way to get get out of the gate. I am stoked to see what they do next. If you’re a startup or new business, try thinking outside of the box with your marketing tactics.

• Alessandro Michele previewed his debut Valentino collection. In a surprise move at the end of Milan menswear week, Valentino shared a 200+ page lookbook filled with preview looks from Michele’s first collection.

  

  Michele joined Valentino just 2 months ago after leaving Gucci, where he was responsible with supercharging the brand in the late 2010s. Filled with gender fluid attire, this lookbook provides a preview into what he will be bringing to runway this Fall, and shows an early head start in his take on the Roman brand’s output. Michele is describing the collaboration in a way only he could—

“There’s a level of workmanship that I see for the first time in a company. I can ask for the impossible, you know?,” Michele said. “For someone like me, it’s a continuous orgasm. It’s a climax.”

• Animated Product Shots Are the Move. I love when a brand does something interesting with their e-commerce product shots. Upfront, a supplement and health product brand, animates their product shots when you hover over them, adding a delightful spin that 360s around the product. This is really well done and I want to see more brands use techniques like this to spice up their digital storefront.

• What Do CEOs Eat for Breakfast? I love this new Bloomberg series chronicling what high level executives start their day with. My favorite is, “I do not eat breakfast. I drink coffee.” Their is an immense fascination with CEO routines, whether it be former Theranos CEO, Elizabeth Holmes, propensity for green juice or Steve Jobs Issey Miyake/Levi’s/New Balance daily uniform, and I find it very interesting to know how rich, powerful people live their lives, down to the mundane details.

  

  Personally, I used to never eat breakfast, but considering the high intensity workout I have at Equinox prior to writing this letter every morning and working all day, I am now starting my day with either eggs and avocado or greek yogurt with blueberries and Kashi Go Lean granola (peanut butter of course) And of course black coffee with adaptogenic mushroom powder to help focus. Wow okay enough of my American Psycho routine ramblings LOL.

THE MANHATTAN PROJECT RUNNING UPDATE 🏃‍♂️

As many of you know, I am currently training to run the entire 31 mile perimeter on Manhattan in 7 weeks.

I am an avid runner already so I’m not starting from scratch, but my max distance thus far is just 15 miles.

So I’m leaning in, upping my mileage, and this past weekend I hosted the first Who Do You Know? run club. We did 5 miles down the West Side Highway. I felt good but got a bit gassed towards the end, which I am attributing to the burger, fries, and two martinis I had at J.G. Melon the night before.

But the next day, I set off on a similar route and felt incredible. The night before I ate a copious amount of sesame noodles at Win Son, and I think the carbs really helped. I ended up doing 8 miles, finishing at Happier Grocery, my fav place for smoothies and grocery store merch that protects against electromagnetic frequencies.

This week the goal is to hit 20 miles. I’ll be posting some more videos of the journey on my Instagram, and have a few brands I’ll be trying out.

If you have an athletic brand that does drinks, powders, clothing, etc. send me an email.

The next run club is this Saturday at 8am. TBD on the route so stay tuned. You can sign up on Strava here. If you love this newsletter, running, and live in NYC, I think this is a no brainer.

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Alright hope you enjoyed today’s letter. Go jump in the comments and let’s discuss.

I’ll be at

Emily Sundberg

’s Feed Me party tonight, so if you’re reading this and also pulling up send me an email so we can coordinate outfits.

Have a great day :)

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Jake Bell is a content marketing, creative strategist, and designer based in NYC. He specializes in brand building, content creation, branding, art direction, creative strategy, and making things cool.

Want to chat? Email me: jake@jb.studio