23 November 2020
This week's additions focus on strategy, mindset, and founder stories, with new digests from The Daily Stoic, Joanna Wiebe, and Deep Questions with Cal Newport. Highlights include Why Epictetus's life as a slave perfected the dichotomy of control A cold pixel wastes budget — warm it up first with cheap video-view ads
Showing 12 digests for 23 November 2020.
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Seven stoic lessons for navigating crisis and uncertainty
The Daily Stoic
November 29, 2020
Resilience & grit
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Why Epictetus's life as a slave perfected the dichotomy of control
Cato's rigid principles accidentally accelerated Rome's collapse
Memento mori isn't morbid — it sharpens focus on what's in front of you
How to warm up your Facebook pixel before a campaign
Joanna Wiebe
November 28, 2020
Paid ads
10
Conversion rate optimisation
7
A cold pixel wastes budget — warm it up first with cheap video-view ads
Leave the ads completely untouched; interference resets the learning phase
Winning warmup creative and audiences carry directly into your main campaign
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Cal Newport answers five habit tune-up questions on focus and productivity
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
November 26, 2020
Deep work & focus
9
Productivity & habits
8
Vague work labels invite distraction — specificity defeats rumination
Idea capture and task management need separate systems and review cadences
Elite athletes lose cognitive edge to social media, not physical conditioning gaps
How JetBlue balanced data and gut feeling through COVID-19
Masters of Scale
November 25, 2020
Why gut feeling matters as much as dashboards in a crisis
A 95% revenue drop forces brutal clarity on what actually matters
Leisure travel rebounds fast; short business trips may never return
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Finding and living your life purpose using simple frameworks
Bill Gallagher
November 25, 2020
Identity & self-belief
10
Motivation
9
Culture building
6
Two questions reveal your core purpose faster than years of reflection.
Purpose is a daily spectrum, not a switch — build a ladder to navigate it.
Company values emerge naturally when founders map their individual purposes together.
Customer discovery
YouTube
How to validate any business idea in a weekend
Noah Kagan
November 25, 2020
Customer discovery
9
Market research
7
MVP & prototyping
5
Test if any idea is a million-dollar opportunity before building anything
TAM formula: Facebook audience × 5% × price reveals true market size
Three customers in 48 hours proves demand — or saves you months of wasted effort
Founder interviews
Podcast
How to learn from rejection and build an idea no one else can see
Masters of Scale
November 24, 2020
Founder interviews
10
Niche selection
8
Fundraising & VC
7
A polarised investor reaction means you have a genuinely contrarian idea
Tristan Walker built Bevel after spotting a century-old shaving problem ignored by industry
Hard nos are a gift; vague maybes are the real threat to founders
How to set a BHAG that truly inspires your team
Bill Gallagher
November 24, 2020
Vision & mission
9
Culture building
6
Motivation
5
A real BHAG must demand transformation, not just more of the same
Financial goals fail to inspire anyone outside the ownership group
Tie your BHAG to purpose and what your business does best
Bootstrapping a commodity SaaS: GeoCodeo's path to $1M+
Startups For the Rest of Us
November 24, 2020
Case studies
9
Bootstrapping
7
Business models
6
How a simple geocoding service landed Amazon, Deloitte, and Fortune 100 customers
Why free trials and freemium tiers unlock enterprise growth even in commodity markets
Building integrations and data appends to charge 10-100x in enterprise tiers
Five Black Friday marketing campaigns worth stealing from
Noah Kagan
November 23, 2020
Branding
8
Email marketing
6
Content marketing
5
Patagonia told customers not to buy — sales rose 30%.
REI closed on Black Friday and got 2.7 billion social impressions.
Pre-commit lists consistently outperform blasting your full list on the day.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Brad Stulberg on burnout, career pivots, and building a life with autonomy
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
November 23, 2020
Founder interviews
10
Resilience & grit
8
Pivoting
6
Passion follows mastery — not the other way around
Redefining wealth as autonomy unlocks better career and life decisions
Burnout is the predictable result of stress without recovery, not weakness
Long-term planning
Podcast
Jeff Bezos: core principles from his shareholder letters and speeches
Founders
November 23, 2020
Long-term planning
9
Decision-making
8
Business models
6
Most decisions are two-way doors — treat them that way
Build around what customers will always want, not what changes
Cleverness is a gift; kindness and bold choices define you