16 November 2020
This week's additions focus on mindset, marketing, and founder stories, with new digests from Noah Kagan, Joanna Wiebe, and Deep Questions with Cal Newport. Highlights include Letting employees choose their own goals took AppSumo from $4M to $30M. A Google search operator replaces hours of manual Amazon review reading
Showing 13 digests for 16 November 2020.
Seven books that shaped one entrepreneur's life and business
Noah Kagan
November 21, 2020
Goal setting
8
Delegation
7
Resilience & grit
5
Letting employees choose their own goals took AppSumo from $4M to $30M.
Energy, not time, is the resource that determines your best work.
One Hail Mary in ten pays off — that's enough to justify the other nine.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to speed up review mining with Google search operators
Joanna Wiebe
November 21, 2020
Content marketing
9
SEO
7
Customer discovery
5
A Google search operator replaces hours of manual Amazon review reading
Swapping 'tired of' for 'frustrated by' surfaces sharper emotional language
Star-rating filters exclude real VOC — the shortcut avoids this bias entirely
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Habit tune-up: teaching, emotional emails, and deep work with a newborn
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
November 19, 2020
Deep work & focus
9
Processes & SOPs
8
Work-life balance
6
Why leaving productivity to individuals creates an overload trap
Office hours beat email for emotionally charged program management
Keystone vs toolbox: the framework for sustainable leisure habits
Charles Schulz: 50 years of doing one thing obsessively well
Founders
November 19, 2020
Case studies
9
Resilience & grit
7
Deep work & focus
6
17,897 strips, every one drawn solo — never delegate your core work
Don't interrupt the compounding: slow growth over 50 years beats sprinting
Ideas come from sitting alone doing the work, not from inspiration
Growing a YouTube channel with a four-step subscriber framework
Ahrefs
November 18, 2020
Social media
9
SEO
7
Content marketing
6
Views are a prerequisite to subscribers — not subscribe buttons
A narrow channel theme compounds engagement and YouTube promotion
Keyword research tools reveal rankable topics before you film
Founder interviews
YouTube
From prison gang leader to global leadership coach: Andre Norman's story
Bill Gallagher
November 18, 2020
Founder interviews
10
Management
7
Culture building
6
A gang leader's epiphany: if you're king, why can't you walk out?
Gang loyalty mechanics repurposed into a corporate retention program
Give people genuine expectations of greatness — they rise to meet them
Content marketing
YouTube
How MrBeast built a 48-million-subscriber YouTube channel
Noah Kagan
November 18, 2020
Content marketing
9
Growth hacking
7
Case studies
6
90% of MrBeast's videos use just three repeatable formats
Reinvesting every dollar back in — the Amazon approach at YouTube scale
Commit to 100 videos before judging whether your channel can work
How Franklin Leonard built The Blacklist to surface overlooked screenplay talent
Masters of Scale
November 17, 2020
Case studies
10
Business models
7
MVP & prototyping
6
Hollywood's gut-feel pattern matching misses great scripts — data finds them instead
Open platform let a Staten Island kid sign with CAA within six weeks
Blacklist-sourced films earn 90% more revenue than the industry average
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Your life's purpose is something to create, not find
Bill Gallagher
November 17, 2020
Identity & self-belief
8
Motivation
6
Purpose is created by you, not discovered through searching
Three questions reveal direction: joy, pride, and fun
The same framework applies to your business purpose
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Purpose is created, not discovered
Bill Gallagher
November 17, 2020
Identity & self-belief
9
Motivation
6
Purpose is something you create, not search for externally.
Ask what you'd be proudest to say you did with your time.
The overlap of pride, joy, and fun defines your purpose.
Competitive analysis
Podcast
Building SaaS Through Focus, Competition, and Key Metrics
Startups For the Rest of Us
November 17, 2020
Competitive analysis
9
Funnels
8
Niche selection
7
Focus on one idea at a time; validate in weeks, not months, then ship fast.
Identify unserved customer segments competitors ignore; dominate those instead of fighting directly.
Fix retention and churn before optimizing traffic; measure and plug the biggest funnel leak first.
Influencer & partnerships
YouTube
How four product startups built million-dollar marketing engines
Noah Kagan
November 16, 2020
Influencer & partnerships
9
Growth hacking
8
Content marketing
5
Small influencers deliver better ROI than big names every time.
Free samples are a distribution channel, not a marketing cost.
News jacking earned Oura Ring NBA contracts and national TV coverage.
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Cal Newport on productivity, careers, and navigating turbulent times
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
November 16, 2020
Deep work & focus
10
Productivity & habits
9
Time management
8
BS jobs exist because knowledge work organization is still primitive
Agile's pull model beats email's push chaos for allocating brains
When the world spirals, turn inward hard — the deep reset