What's New

This week's additions focus on strategy, finance, and founder stories, with new digests from Ahrefs, Bill Gallagher, and Acquired. Highlights include Consistent backlinks require a documented pipeline, not just good tactics. Fewer than 3% of women entrepreneurs ever reach $1M in revenue.

SEO

YouTube

Link building at scale: a six-step system using Trello and outreach tools

Ahrefs December 19, 2018

SEO 9

Processes & SOPs 8

Growth hacking 6

Consistent backlinks require a documented pipeline, not just good tactics.
Broken link building offers the best outreach conversion rate of common strategies.
Zapier and Hunter can automate contact finding, freeing humans for judgement calls.

Identity & self-belief

YouTube

How women entrepreneurs can scale past the million-dollar mark

Bill Gallagher December 19, 2018

Identity & self-belief 8

Business models 6

Fundraising & VC 5

Fewer than 3% of women entrepreneurs ever reach $1M in revenue.
Perfectionism and self-reliance that built the business block its growth.
Women start with six times less funding than men — and get fewer loans.

Origin stories

Podcast

How Tencent built the world's most powerful digital ecosystem

Acquired December 17, 2018

Origin stories 10

Business models 8

Fundraising & VC 6

Selling digital clothing for avatars in 2002 funded a half-trillion dollar empire.
WeChat's four-hours-a-day engagement dwarfs every US social app combined.
NASPERS turned $32M into $175B — the strongest case for greatest investment ever.

Founder interviews

Podcast

How Mel and Patricia Ziegler built Banana Republic from $1,500

Founders December 17, 2018

Founder interviews 10

PR & media 8

Business models 7

Two journalists built a $250M brand with $1,500 and no business plan.
Their catalog won awards and drove 5x industry response rates.
Gap bought them — then tried to make them copy competitors.