Building Leverage On The Internet [Aug 29th edition]
Hi there,
Writing this from Atlanta after turning 32 this Thursday. Most people on Twitter don’t know my age and wrongly assume I’m in my mid-twenties. Well, I should but I don’t correct them 😉
Hope you’ve had a great week. I’ve enjoyed an abundance of love, warmth, and support from friends around the world on my birthday. I must say I’m one lucky dude! Some sent me surprise gifts, some gave social shoutouts, and others offered creative gifts while one friend who knows me very well sent me pizza 🍕
I’ve never felt this great and all I could do was revel in a state of gratitude for having a kind caring community around me. Thankful for it!
Anyway, since the last edition, this newsletter subscriber count has gone up from 187 to 198 people so join me in welcoming the new readers :) 👋
Let’s get rolling with this edition:
䷉ TOP ESSAY ON MY RADAR:
To me, online content consumption seems to exist on a pendulum of sorts: we love content to the extreme — Unbundle!! Give us more! — until we are overwhelmed with choice and analysis — It’s too much!! Bundle it back up again! — and swing to the opposite side. In the end, we always end up somewhere in the middle… but it’s a lot of swinging back and forth on this creation/curation pendulum until we get there.“There are only two ways to make money in business: One is to bundle; the other is to unbundle.” — Jim Barksdale
Having said this, and looking at the current information overload we all face on a day-to-day basis, I think there’s room for a new market of creators as curators. So, with that said, what does this look like for an influencer or brand?How Do You Curate — and Why?There isn’t one sole motivation behind why creators, influencers, and brands may want to curate. In fact, curation can:1) Build a personal brand or audience.2) Fulfill a need in a particular market. For example, Femstreet is a weekly digest of timely posts from female investors and operators. It’s racked up thousands of subscribers and has been featured in Fortune, Forbes, and Crunchbase.3) Create an extra category within an existing business.4) Become an additional revenue source. As we saw with The Browser example, it’s possible to monetize free content if it’s curated well — consumers are willing to pay someone who has good taste, and it’s an easy way to add a revenue stream to your business.Source: "Curators Are the New Creators" from Gaby Goldberg🐦 TOP TWEETS ON MY RADAR:
With a heavy heart, paying tribute to a legend we lost this week. Chadwick Boseman. The real Black Panther. Watch this incredible video:
💰 TOP RESOURCES ON MY RADAR:
Open Startup, the most complete list of open startups.
The Ideal Round, a great resource by Sahil for founders looking to raise VC so they can weigh all the options and make a smarter decision
Where To Post Your Project, a list of places where you can post your project/startup for free. It will help you to get your first link and your first users!
[I’m introducing the below new section to my newsletter!]
🚀 TOP LAUNCHES I’M STOKED ABOUT:
Supernormal, Cancel your meetings 📅
Daily standups, team syncs, weekly cross-functional OKR risk-factor check-ins. You know the ones. Send video updates instead.
Bad Unicorn, bringing the worst startup ideas to life 🦄💡
Ideas worth forgetting. The newsletter that brings the worst startup ideas to life every (other) friday.
👀 HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK:
The big news this week on my side project LetterDrop is that I’ve landed a technical co-founder to help me take it to the next stage. He is an old friend from the #nocode space and a very talented developer. We’re excited to partner and build a better version than the current one using Bildr.
LetterDrop’s beta is going strong with the early user count reaching 187. [not catching fire much but it’s steady!]
I’ve learned a ton in the last 10 days of this beta around the consumer pain points and areas where we still need to innovate and add unique value
The daily newsletter is going well and I’m stoked about the 1st LetterDrop’s weekly newsletter which has received a lot of demand from our users
I’m also excited to meet with the new people joining our Newsletter Mastermind group tomorrow
For the next week, I’m planning to ship my 5th interview for Build In Public on Wednesday.
I always love sharing my playbooks openly and answering any specific questions about building in public or building an audience so feel free to DM me anytime. One such DM led to a Zoom call today and here’s a highlight thread on our conversation:
That’s all for now. Hope you have a fantastic week!