Last week, Notion released faces.notion.com — an extremely viral tool that turns your photo into its iconic black & white cartoon style.
But here’s what makes this actually interesting:
Until now, only Notion employees had these avatars. It was like a secret club badge. When you saw someone with that cartoon style on LinkedIn → you knew they worked at Notion.
Suddenly, everyone has them.
💡 The marketing idea
Build a “Profile Picture Generator” that gives people an instant status upgrade. 📈
🤫 The secret = “Status Marketing”
When you give people a way to look more successful (through their profile picture) → they’ll do your marketing for you.
The trick is understanding what “higher status” means for YOUR audience:
💻 Tech people want to look like they work at cool startups (e.g. Notion)
🌈 Creators want to look artistic/creative
👔 Consultants want to look professional/successful
🎨 Which profile pics should you generate?
Here are your options (pick one that fits your brand):
👨🏻🎨 Transform their current photo
Minimalist line drawings (like Notion)
Watercolor portraits
Comic book hero versions
3D character renders
Custom emoji style
Pixel art avatars
Draw people as a specific animal (Duolingo could do that 🦉)
🌈 Add specific decorations
Achievement badges
Glowing auras
Floating symbols
Signature brand/industry elements
Status indicators e.g. as trophies
🌫️ Upgrade their background
Professional environments
Industry-specific settings
Abstract brand patterns
Dynamic effects
Custom color schemes
Even a simple frame on top of their current photo could work. I liked what Sweet Security did for their employees:
🛠️ How should you build your generator?
You basically have three options:
⚙️ Build an AI generator: Let people upload their current pic and immediately get an instant AI-generated transformation. Fast and easy but less personal (less IKEA effect).
💦 Manually edit profile pictures yourself: Ask people to send you their current profile pictures and do the transformation for them, one by one. This is great if your audience is relatively small!
💚 Create a Sims-style builder: Let people customize every detail themselves (like Notion does). More time-consuming, but people love making it their own.
It’s like Apple’s Memoji creator for iMessage - people love customizing their digital identity. They’ll spend time getting it just right.
🎯 What's the perfect 3-week launch strategy?
After you build a profile pic generator, I suggest doing the following:
Week 1: Seed the trend
Get your entire team to switch pics simultaneously
Create that first “big splash” moment
More profiles = more FOMO
Week 2: VIP early access
Pay influencers to change their profile pics (like Notion did with Snoop Dogg)
Send secret access codes to thought leaders
Build a waitlist
Week 3: Open the gates
Release to waitlist first
Share the best transformations from your brand account (it’s super flattering!)
Let it spread naturally
🥊 Why profile pictures > viral posts
A few months ago, I wrote about mini tools being 10x more powerful than free trials.
I believe this is the ultimate mini-tool. Why?
Because every time someone with YOUR branded profile picture likes, comments, or posts anything online → your brand spreads. Not for a day. Forever.
And unlike one-time viral hits, profile pictures compound. The more people switch = the more others want to join (because of the FOMO). That’s a viral loop.
⚠️ The only rule that matters
Your profile picture style must be instantly recognizable as your brand — even without a watermark or logo. The magic happens when people choose your brand’s style not because it promotes you… but because it makes them look good.
Smart, right?
See you next week ✌️
Tom
P.S. Apple just released a Severanceprofile picture generator for Season 2. This trend is just getting started…
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