By Jason Levin
Here’s a modern startup truth: For better or worse, if you want people to care about your startup, you have to be terminally online.
You can’t rely on boring ChatGPT blog posts about the hottest trends in 2024 when it’s May 2025. There’s just too much competition out there for consumers’ attention — it’s your ChatGPT-written blog or laughing at a funny TikTok. That’s why you have to find a way to stand out and insert your brand into the hottest trends and narratives.
I call this “trend-jacking” and I built an entire seven-figure software empire around it.
Maybe you’ve seen it with popular meme narratives — like the recent “100 men vs 1 gorilla” trend. Once the trend started, brands started hopping on it like crazy.
100 fries vs. 1 girlfriend who said she wasn’t hungry
— Wendy’s (@Wendys) April 30, 2025
100 men vs 1 gorilla 🤔 pic.twitter.com/zdNm4qgiGH
— UFC (@ufc) April 30, 2025
100 men vs. 1 Gorilla
Shaq, Chuck, and Kenny have entered the chat 🦍😂 pic.twitter.com/IxcHitSGFV
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 30, 2025
You might think, “Oh, they got traction because they already have established brands.”
But brands like Wendy’s became popular online because their team is fluent in internet culture (it sure wasn’t the chicken sandwiches 🤮). They’re trend-jacking constantly.
And it’s not just the fast-food brands and weird crypto companies trend-jacking with memes anymore. Serious software companies ranging from startups like Polymarket, Beehiiv and Ramp to public companies like HubSpot, SEMrush and Coinbase are posting memes (proof is right here.)
Even the government is posting memes.
If you’re an early-stage startup and don’t have a big audience yet, trend-jacking with memes is the fastest way to gain traction and attention. In this post, I’ll break down how to trend-jack and go viral using the most powerful weapon the internet ever invented: memes.
How do you trend-jack? With memes!
Trend-jacking is simple: insert your brand into a trending topic while people still care.
Here’s how I did it.
When the vibe-coding idea was just taking off, I jumped on with some quick, dank memes. They took me seconds but got me thousands of views and new followers.
Whatever marketing genius switched “bots” to “AI agents”” pic.twitter.com/nOhsTolliX
— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin) January 10, 2025
“I have no coding ability. I have no design background. I make software based on my intuition and taste.” pic.twitter.com/Eg3I4KGXAg
— Jason Levin (@iamjasonlevin) December 21, 2024
The challenge?
You have to be fast. If you’re too late, no one cares. There’s not enough time to write a treatise on AI agents and vibe coding. You gotta bang out a meme! The internet moves faster than ever these days (and it’s only increasing).
That’s why memes are the best way to trend-jack: fast, familiar formats that are easy to consume and share. It’s what the algorithm loves.
That’s why I built a software company specifically for trend-jacking that sends you daily alerts for new viral meme trends and narratives so you can jump on trends and go viral faster and more easily.
Here are three things I’ve learned you have to hit to go viral with trend-jacking:
- Fast: You have 24 hours to jump on a trend. If you’re late, the internet has moved on. Some memes last longer, but the earlier you jump in, the better.
- Fluent: Don’t use outdated meme templates. If you’re still using “Overly Attached Girlfriend,” you’ll look like a boomer to your audience.
- Fun: Don’t limit yourself to static image memes. Use videos, face-swap yourself into memes with Al, play around. I promise it’ll be the most fun marketing of your life.
If you nail all three, you’re not just going viral — you’re building brand equity in people’s feeds.
Once people start seeing you regularly, it’s just about keeping the momentum going with more memes. People don’t scroll social media to read about why your startup is the best B2B payroll platform. They scroll to laugh and be entertained. (That’s how Ramp turned their boring B2B payroll company into the hottest startup in Silicon Valley).
If you jump on a trending moment with a clever meme or take, you ride the wave instead of fighting the algorithm.
Startups that do this well aren’t just posting memes. They’re participating in internet culture and having real conversations where their customers already hang out. If you’re in the same space as your users, you’re golden.
What expensing things feels like pic.twitter.com/TtB95ZqT4U
— Brex (@brexHQ) April 14, 2025
be honest how many cold brews are you having today pic.twitter.com/BJtAOm8Qvb
— beehiiv 🐝 (@beehiiv) October 19, 2024
Startup founder with $0 revenue on twitter pic.twitter.com/EDPsoQf2CI
— David J Phillips (@davj) February 28, 2025
But wait: does this actually drive growth?
Short answer: yes.
Longer answer: Obviously, no one is buying your product because you made a good SpongeBob meme. But if you have a good product, the meme gets the eyeballs on your site and that’s all that matters.
See, here’s the thing.
I wrote the book “Memes Make Millions,” and people got it twisted: the memes don’t make you millions. They make you relevant and stand out among all of the slop content other companies are producing. It brings eyeballs to your product.
Your product or service is what makes you money.
It’s not about chasing creator payouts on Instagram or X. It’s not about chasing advertising dollars. And it sure as hell isn’t about memecoins. The real game is about using humor to sell high-margin products like software.
And if you have a mediocre product to sell, the funniest memes in the world won’t make you successful. Memes won’t save you. Seriously, I tell pre-PMF founders not to even touch memes. Focus on making a good product before the dank memes.
But if you’ve got a good product, they’ll get you more eyeballs fast and cheap. And that’s all that matters in today’s world where distribution is the only moat left that matters.
Jason Levin is the founder of meme marketing software startup Memelord Technologies. He writes about unhinged marketing every week in his free newsletter, Cyber Patterns and is the author of “Memes Make Millions.”
Illustration: Dom Guzman
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