Founder interviews

Podcast

Levi Strauss: building a business empire from immigrant peddler to blue jeans

Founders August 12, 2018

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Founder interviews 10

Business models 7

Bootstrapping 6

• 20 years of dry goods expertise made the blue jeans opportunity instantly obvious
• Family-backed vertical integration let Levi survive panics that bankrupted competitors
• Rivets invented by accident — familiar product plus one small new thing captured the market

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Case studies

Podcast

Alibaba and Jack Ma: building China's internet empire from nothing

Founders August 9, 2018

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Case studies 10

Business models 8

Fundraising & VC 6

• Taobao beat eBay by being free, local, and built for Chinese merchants
• Jack Ma failed exams, got rejected everywhere, then founded three companies before Alibaba
• Ma secretly transferred Alipay — worth tens of billions — to his personal control

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Case studies

Podcast

Building the talent you need when you can't find it: Marissa Mayer on Google's APM program

Masters of Scale August 8, 2018

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Case studies 10

Hiring & recruitment 8

Culture building 7

• Why training raw graduates beat hiring experienced product managers
• Google's APM rotations created a hidden cross-company network
• Yahoo's Alibaba stake bought time then stole it

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Origin stories

Podcast

Xiaomi's IPO: hardware, ecosystem, and the China tech wave

Acquired August 6, 2018

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Origin stories 9

Business models 7

• Xiaomi caps hardware margin at 5% to force a services business model.
• Weekly software updates and a fan forum drove half a million users before launch.
• The ecosystem model: 100+ companies build products under the Xiaomi brand.

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SEO

YouTube

How to use keyword ranking history for SEO research and competitor analysis

Ahrefs August 6, 2018

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SEO 10

Competitive analysis 6

• SERP volatility reveals whether a keyword is worth fighting for
• Ranking velocity shows how long it realistically takes to reach the top
• Position history exposes keyword cannibalization and competitor link campaigns

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