You're Officially a Character - Tariff Wars

This Week at Ponto Beach Club - April 8th Edition

Author

Jeran Fraser
April 10, 2025

If it’s your first time here, welcome to the Ponto Beach Club.

If you’re not familiar with the name, it’s a beach in South Carlsbad and one of my favorite surf spots.

I am on a mission to connect great humans to create successful outcomes. IRL or In Real Life is my Modus Operandi…

Read on for my weekly slice of sneakers-on-the-sidewalk insight into the SD business community.

👇Where My Heads At This Week 👇

The winds of technological change… it’s blowing faster each passing day .

You got to keep up, so that you can understand where the world is headed before it gets there.

If you’ve been on social media this week, you’ve probably seen one these many characters below. ChatGPT just released an updated version of their image generation. It’s quite astonishing what it can create. It’s all about the prompt.

If you’re interested in seeing it in action here is a prompt that you can change and make your own for ChatGPT (simply copy, paste and add some info):

Create a collectible action figure titled “[Character Description]” in a sealed plastic blister pack with a cardboard backing. The figure is posed confidently inside the transparent blow mold plastic shell, surrounded by accessories that reflect their personality or profession (e.g., coffee cup, laptop, camera, etc.). They are dressed in [Outfit Description]. The characters style is playful, minimal and toy-like, with smooth surfaces and soft light that mimics the look of real plastic. The package has a playful, minimal, toy-like design with a [Style or Color Scheme] and bold letters at the top displaying the character name and the subtitle “ACTION FIGURE” beneath it.

Moving on, we’ve had one heck of week of tariff politics. I generally plead the 5th when discussing these tariffs, but since January I’ve been pretty adamant that this style of politics will drive us into an even higher inflationary environment.

In retrospect, most of what we’ve called inflation has been caused by poor decision making from our politicians on both sides of the aisle and big banks. Our only ability to combat where the world is headed with inflation is learning to spend on our needs vs wants. As a consumer driven nation, it will be a struggle for many and will negatively impact our economy. But to be completely honest, the mindset of living lean is a great life lesson.

My head has been down lately, so I haven’t posted in over a week on LinkedIn. Excuse my silence, I will get back there very soon.

A quick shout out to our main sponsor CAST Capital Partners. A bit of a shameless plug, but real estate is innate part of my background and CAST has played a huge part in helping advance some of my projects. If you’re in need of tenant representation for a lease/re-negotiation or interested in acquiring or selling a commercial property, let CAST help you out!


I will continue to stay on top of what’s happening in San Diego, specifically in North County. I am building a bit of a hit list of events in the coming days and weeks.

The No Agenda Event Series is in full force in 2025. I’ll be your host with one goal to make it a great experience. Each event series will have a focus on categories from sports tech to operations to marketing to AI. Each event has a cap and is industry specific, meaning we’re pretty strict on attendance to keep conversations at a high level.

📆 WHERE YOU’LL FIND ME THIS WEEK📆

We are back for our quarterly event at the end of the month!

🏅 North County, San Diego Spotlight 🏅

I amazed at how many talented people surround me. Demian Borba has become a close friend over the last few years and is probably one of the most invested people I know in understanding and building in this AI first environment. His extensive background at companies like Intuit, Adobe, Paypal and Blackberry has given him foresight in product creation.

Demian has a very unique company called Pactto, an AI software allowing designer’s to problem solve through video. He has found a way to adapt his AI technology to this ever changing environment and I look forward to seeing where he takes his company. Keep an eye Demian, he’s doing big things. And he also rips on a surfboard.

🌴What’s Next at Ponto Beach Club?🌴

I’m hosting a private meet up with friends of the Ponto Beach Club. Mark your calendars.

📅 DATE: April 29th at 5pm - 7:30pm

📍 LOCATION: Somewhere really cool in Encinitas

No sales pitches. Just good drinks, better stories, and maybe a wig if the mood strikes.

Until next week,

Jeran Fraser
Ponto Beach Club Ambassador