11 May 2026
This week's additions focus on strategy, marketing, and mindset, with new digests from Alex M H Smith, Andrew Huberman, and Matthew Volkwyn. Highlights include Creating value and collecting value are fundamentally different activities It's estrogen, not testosterone, that directly triggers aggression in the brain.
Showing 34 digests for 11 May 2026.
Why entrepreneurs need mentors, not coaches
Cameron Herold
May 13, 2026
Communication
9
Resilience & grit
5
Coaches ask questions; mentors give shortcuts from real experience
Founders hide their worst struggles — payroll, firing friends, embezzlement
Map your specific gap, then find a specialist who has solved it
Founder interviews
YouTube
From four failed co-founder splits to a $66M solo startup
Solo Founders
May 13, 2026
Founder interviews
10
Pivoting
8
Prospecting & outreach
7
Why $40K left and no co-founders forced the right idea to surface
Filing 100 Delaware tax returns for free landed the first 10 customers
AI tools have removed the last real excuse to wait for a co-founder
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
How to choose the right home for your AI workflow
Dylan Davis
May 13, 2026
AI strategy & adoption
9
Automation & tools
6
AI defaults to building apps — that's usually the wrong choice
85–90% of workflows belong inside a project or skill, not deployed code
Deploying an app triggers per-token API costs that subscriptions don't cover
Business operating systems
YouTube
Should you go to Silicon Valley, and how can Stockholm thrive as a startup hub?
Y Combinator
May 13, 2026
Business operating systems
8
Bootstrapping
5
Identity & self-belief
5
Serendipitous meetings in startup hubs drive outsized life outcomes
Going to Silicon Valley then returning is the best thing for Stockholm
Critical mass for a European Silicon Valley is still up for grabs
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
How to build a self-running AI company in five layers
Silicon Valley Girl
May 12, 2026
AI strategy & adoption
9
Processes & SOPs
8
Business operating systems
6
A tool-agnostic data layer is the foundation everything else depends on.
Scheduled agents gave one producer 75% of her week back.
AI search visibility is now a real channel — most sites are nearly invisible to bots.
Founder interviews
YouTube
The real cost of avoiding hard conversations in leadership
EOS Worldwide
May 12, 2026
Founder interviews
10
Hiring & recruitment
8
Identity & self-belief
6
Wrong team members wiped out half the profit margin — visibly.
Losing your entire leadership team can be the best thing that happens.
Founders confuse being nice with being kind — and pay for it.
Five levels to turning your knowledge into a $100K business
Sunny Lenarduzzi
May 12, 2026
Business models
10
MVP & prototyping
6
Content marketing
5
More expertise alone never breaks the income ceiling — packaging does.
Pre-sell a bare-bones program before building it to validate demand first.
Sequence is everything: skip a level and the whole system collapses.
Productivity & habits
YouTube
Self-control is a learnable skill, not a fixed trait
Andrew Huberman
May 11, 2026
Productivity & habits
9
Motivation
7
Willpower training barely works — a toolkit of strategies does
Keeping your 'why' vivid at the moment of choice beats grit
Intrinsic enjoyment is the only reliable engine for long-term effort
Resilience & grit
YouTube
Stress comes from stillness, not from having too much to do
Brendon Burchard
May 11, 2026
Resilience & grit
9
Motivation
8
Productivity & habits
6
People with nothing going on have the most problems
Most stress is a planning failure, not a capacity failure
Mastery means taking on more stress, not less
Be More Pirate: three lessons on reputation, disruption, and flat teams
Business Book Club
May 11, 2026
Pivoting
8
Branding
8
Management
7
Pirates built the world's first super brand 150 years before Coca-Cola.
Piracy always reveals demand the market hasn't caught up with yet.
Removing hierarchy can make your business 30% more efficient.
How to help a team get unstuck using forward talk
Coaching for Leaders
May 11, 2026
Communication
9
Resilience & grit
5
People stay silent not from fear, but from believing nothing will change.
Unspoken conversations accumulate like debt, compounding silently into dysfunction.
Courage means owning inaction's consequences — not waiting for perfect conditions.
Five steps to building a personal brand that makes money
Dan Martell
May 11, 2026
Branding
9
Content marketing
8
Pitching investors
6
Build audience first — monetizing too early destroys trust permanently.
Your hardest life experience is your most powerful content asset.
7,800 followers done right can generate $1M in year one.
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Blocking mobile internet for two weeks measurably improves focus and wellbeing
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
May 11, 2026
Deep work & focus
9
Productivity & habits
8
Automation & tools
5
A two-week phone internet block halved screen time and boosted mental health fast.
Human instincts default to sleep and socialising once engineered distractions are removed.
Making AI writing faster flooded one journal with unreadable, desk-rejected papers.
Automation & tools
YouTube
How to schedule AI tasks in Claude Cowork and Codex
Dylan Davis
May 11, 2026
Automation & tools
9
Processes & SOPs
6
AI output left inside the tool is output nobody reads.
Automations with more than four steps fail far more often.
A heartbeat and watchdog tell you when everything else breaks.
Why core values must drive hiring, firing, and culture
EOS Worldwide
May 11, 2026
Culture building
9
Hiring & recruitment
7
Toxic top performers always cost more than they contribute.
Core values only work when leaders model and enforce them.
Recognition beats compensation for keeping values alive.