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Welcome to Volume 260 👋
Happy Thursday!
In this week’s newsletter, we cover:
- 🧱 Databricks Transformed a Private Subreddit Into a Powerful Community Engine
- 📉 ChatGPT Citations of Reddit and Wikipedia Plummet
- 👀 The Latest in B2B SaaS This Week
- 🧠 This Week’s Brain Food
- ➕ The Best Content Across the Web
Let’s get into it.
🧱 How Databricks Transformed a Private Subreddit Into a Powerful Community Engine
While most enterprise brands treat Reddit like kryptonite, Databricks took over an abandoned private subreddit and transformed it into their most valuable source of unfiltered customer intelligence.
The r/databricks community now generates 10,000+ monthly organic visits and ranks for 300+ keywords. But the real value isn’t in the traffic metrics.
Their community strategy reveals how modern B2B brands can leverage Reddit beyond basic social listening:
- Voice of customer pipeline where users openly discuss frustrations or fascination with product features
- Crowdsourced support system that reduces ticket volume as power users share cost-cutting strategies with enterprise architects
- Content-market fit testing where employees iterate on documentation based on real-time user feedback
The most valuable insights come from their harshest critics. One thread asking “What do you dislike about Databricks?” generated 100+ comments detailing specific product friction points. That’s the kind of qualitative data product teams usually spend months collecting through expensive formal research.
Instead of controlling the narrative, Databricks embraces the chaos. They’ve deployed anonymous employee accounts alongside official representatives, creating authentic dialogues that build trust while mining intelligence.
Want the complete playbook for turning Reddit critics into your best product advisors? Check out the full analysis on Foundation Labs.
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📉 ChatGPT Citations of Reddit and Wikipedia Plummet
Since early September, ChatGPT citations of Reddit and Wikipedia have dropped significantly across industries and geographies, according to data from multiple SEO and GEO tracking platforms.
Thomas Peham, CEO of OtterlyAI, reports that while overall web citations decreased, Reddit and Wikipedia declined disproportionately compared to other sites.
The timing coincides suspiciously with Google removing its num=100 parameter, which previously allowed access to search results beyond the top 20. As SEO strategist Lily Ray points out, this would theoretically prevent ChatGPT from citing URLs ranking in positions 20–100 — where Reddit and Wikipedia frequently appear.
There are countless theories about why this is happening, but here are a few prominent ones:
- OpenAI is either cutting costs by triggering fewer web searches (especially for logged-out users)
- They’re correcting what may have been an over-reliance on these two domains.
As Ross pointed out in the comment section of Peham’s post, the AI era hasn’t changed the fundamentals. Algorithms shift constantly, but brands that invest in authority across multiple platforms will outlast those chasing short-term search wins.
👀 What’s the Latest in B2B SaaS This Week? 👀
📱 OpenAI is launching the Sora app, its own TikTok competitor, alongside the Sora 2 model | TechCrunch
🤳 Meta will soon use your AI chats to personalize your feeds | The Verge
🤖 Mira Murati’s Stealth AI Lab Launches Its First Product | WIRED
📈 Google sends 831x more visitors than AI systems: Report | Search Engine Land
💰 Better Tomorrow Ventures closes $140M, remains bullish on fintech | TechCrunch
The Team Takes Zero Click in New York: Come Meet Us!
Ross is heading to NYC next week to speak at Profound’s Zero Click conference where the world’s top AI search experts are gathering to decode the future of search.
The speaker lineup reads like a who’s who of search innovation, from Reddit’s Global Head of Insights to leaders from Omnicom, WPP, dentsu, and Edelman.
Meghan McKenzie, our VP of Growth, will also be in NYC for the event and is scheduling meetings with brands ready to level up their Reddit marketing, GEO/SEO, and content distribution strategies.
If you’re planning to attend or will be in NYC that week, reach out to connect with Meghan on LinkedIn or at meghan@foundationinc.co. She can take you through how brands can leverage Reddit’s SERP dominance and build community-driven content engines.
🚨 New Podcast Alert: Why Pressing Publish Isn’t Enough 🚨
In the latest episode of The Ross Simmonds Show, Ross sits down with Rich Brooks to expose the uncomfortable truth that kills most content strategies: treating “publish” as the finish line instead of the starting gun.
Most marketers measure success by how often they publish. The winners are measured by how many people they actually reach. This fundamental misunderstanding is why 90% of content dies in obscurity, never reaching the audience it was created for.
Ross breaks down his battle-tested framework that transforms one-and-done content into compound marketing assets. Here’s what he covers:
- The Three R’s that multiply content ROI: How to systematically Repurpose, Remix, and Reshare your way to 10x more reach without 10x more work.
- The video-first reality check: Why B2B brands clinging to text-only strategies are already losing tomorrow’s visibility war.
- AI as your distribution co-pilot: Using tools like Distribution.ai to scale promotion without losing your brand voice.
- SEO’s evolution, not extinction: Why “SEO is dead” advocates miss that people search everywhere — LinkedIn, Reddit, YouTube, not just Google.
- The Disney reboot strategy: How modernizing evergreen content delivers better ROI than constantly creating new.
- Content format hierarchy: Why video beats audio, audio beats text, and ignoring this costs you audience trust.
Listen to the full episode on Apple Podcast or Spotify to learn why the real work starts after you press publish.
🧠 This Week’s Brain Food 🧠
Yesterday, the world lost one of its most transformative scientists, inspirational women, and positive forces for change — Jane Goodall passed away at 91.
Jane is most famous for her ethnographic studies that shattered the barrier between human and animal that had defined scientific thought for centuries. When Goodall observed a chimpanzee using a blade of grass to fish termites from a mound in 1960, her mentor Louis Leakey famously responded:
“Now we must redefine tool, redefine Man, or accept chimpanzees as human.”
Goodall’s genius extended far beyond her discoveries. It was in her approach. She named her subjects instead of numbering them. She spoke of their emotions, personalities, and cultures. She was ridiculed by the scientific establishment for anthropomorphizing animals until her meticulous observations proved them wrong.
Even at 91, she remained obstinate about hope for a better future. “I’m not going to give in,” she told The Guardian in 2021. “I’ll die fighting, that’s for sure.”
She kept that promise, championing conservation and hope until the very end.
Want to sponsor our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS founders and marketers today.
🏅 Reddit Post of the Week
What AI tools in 2025 actually make your job 10x easier as a marketer? In r/DigitalMarketing
🎖️ LinkedIn Post of the Week
SEO News: Google is now testing out a new type of AI-generated description for some pages. by Brodie Clark
🤳🏽 Nice Finds You Should Binge
- Social Media Metrics: What Brands Should Be Measuring In 2025 | Ross Simmonds
- Rethinking the funnel with LLM tracking analytics | Search Engine Land
- Google says adblockers caused YouTube views count to drop – this is what adblockers told us really happened | Tech Radar
- Applicants say AI is making the job market ‘hell’. OpenAI wants to help. | Mashable
💻 Job Postings Worth Checking Out
Looking for a new opportunity? Here’s a round-up of some exciting job openings in the B2B SaaS space.
- Foundation Marketing | Account Executive (Growth)
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Manager
- Foundation Marketing | Director of Strategy
- Foundation Marketing | Senior Account Coordinator
- Foundation Marketing | Data & Insights Analyst
- Foundation Marketing | Fractional Recruiter
- Foundation Marketing | Executive Assistant
- Foundation Marketing | Reddit Specialist
- Foundation Marketing | Content Creator
Want us to include your job postings in our next issue? Reply to this email, and we’ll share how you can reach more SaaS professionals today.
🎧 What We’re Wired Into This Week
Radiohead – In Rainbows From the Basement (April 2008)
This SaaS news smattering is brought to you by Ethan Crump!
If you have any feedback, suggestions, or ideas you want to see in this newsletter, feel free to email me at ethan@foundationinc.co. We’re always looking for ways to improve and provide the best B2B SaaS marketing resources.
Have a great weekend!
