22 April 2019
This week's additions focus on marketing, customer, and finance, with new digests from Founders, StoryBrand With Donald Miller, and Y Combinator. Highlights include Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber but died $200,000 in debt Your marketing job isn't done until the invoice is paid.
Showing 10 digests for 22 April 2019.
Charles Goodyear: obsession, debt, and the invention of vulcanized rubber
Founders
April 28, 2019
Origin stories
10
Resilience & grit
8
Cash flow management
7
Goodyear invented vulcanized rubber but died $200,000 in debt
Perseverance without financial discipline produces suffering, not success
Trial and error beat trained chemists — ignorance of limits was his edge
Closing techniques
YouTube
Make customers excited to pay by detailing invoice value
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 26, 2019
Closing techniques
8
Customer experience
6
Your marketing job isn't done until the invoice is paid.
Customers can't feel value they can't see — so show them.
Add emotional deliverables to invoices: what you saved them from.
How de-escalating drama earns lasting respect at work
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 25, 2019
Communication
8
Resilience & grit
6
Respect comes from competence and trust, not likability.
Escalating drama wins short-term but costs you long-term.
Ask: what is the least dramatic solution to this problem?
MVP & prototyping
YouTube
Why dev shops are a trap for early-stage tech startups
Y Combinator
April 25, 2019
MVP & prototyping
9
Long-term planning
5
Dev shops cost more and take longer than founders expect
Early investors fund iteration speed, not finished products
A technical co-founder beats a dev shop on every metric
How Pinterest grew from a failed shopping app to a $16B IPO
Acquired
April 24, 2019
Origin stories
9
Fundraising & VC
6
Pivoting
5
Pinterest was built by pivoting a doomed mobile catalog app called Tote.
Women bloggers, not tech bros, delivered Pinterest's initial product-market fit.
Pinterest priced its IPO conservatively and popped 28% on day one.
Ahrefs Content Explorer 2.0: key features and use cases
Ahrefs
April 24, 2019
Find broken link opportunities by topic, not just single pages.
Trends charts reveal competitor PR spikes worth reverse-engineering.
Filter old content with fading traffic to target skyscraper candidates fast.
Referral programs
YouTube
Strategic gifting as a referral and relationship engine
Bill Gallagher
April 24, 2019
Referral programs
9
Retention & loyalty
7
Branding
5
Logo gifts go in the bin — personalisation beats branding every time
Gifts sent outside holidays get 10x the emotional impact
One $600 mug can generate years of unsolicited million-dollar referrals
Conversion rate optimisation
YouTube
Why passive calls to action cost you sales
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 24, 2019
Conversion rate optimisation
8
Copywriting
7
"Learn more" signals you don't believe in your own product
Customers arrive ready to be pitched — direct CTAs convert them
Swap passive buttons for specific actions like "Schedule a fix today"
Limit your company to three core values
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 23, 2019
More than three core values means your team remembers zero
The human brain reliably retains only three items at once
Repeat three values constantly and team behaviour actually changes
Great marketing is an exercise in memorisation
StoryBrand With Donald Miller
April 22, 2019
Customers choose offers they remember, not the best product
Compress your offer to a bumper-sticker phrase and repeat it
A memorable offer spreads itself through word-of-mouth