19 July 2021
This week's additions focus on strategy, founder stories, and finance, with new digests from Silicon Valley Girl, Masters of Scale, and Noah Kagan. Highlights include Investors fund founders they trust, not the best ideas Why J.Crew's biggest problem is customer neutrality, not awareness
Showing 9 digests for 19 July 2021.
Ten principles for building a billion-dollar startup
Silicon Valley Girl
July 24, 2021
Niche selection
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Fundraising & VC
6
Investors fund founders they trust, not the best ideas
Silicon Valley's top builders stay frugal and obsessively customer-focused
Willingness to pivot is what separates great founders from the rest
J.Crew's pivot to purpose: sustainability, resale, and reigniting brand passion
Masters of Scale
July 22, 2021
Business models
9
Branding
7
Community building
5
Why J.Crew's biggest problem is customer neutrality, not awareness
Madewell's resale platform grew from a million recycled jeans
COVID flipped stores into experience channels, online into convenience
Five post-COVID business ideas you can start this weekend
Noah Kagan
July 22, 2021
Niche selection
9
MVP & prototyping
7
Growth hacking
6
Turn creators' long-form content into short clips — get paid for it
Pet adoptions spiked 12%; returning travellers need care now
150 members at $29/month funds a full stand-up comedy career
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Arnold Schwarzenegger's early mindset: bodybuilding as a philosophy for any craft
Founders
July 22, 2021
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
7
Total mental commitment matters more than talent or technique.
Ruthlessly fixing weaknesses beats endlessly training strengths.
Bodybuilding discipline transferred directly to acting, business, and wealth.
How to build a responsible business by finding its essence
Bill Gallagher
July 21, 2021
Culture building
9
Vision & mission
8
Community building
5
Every company has a founding essence that cuts through competing priorities.
Responsibility means building others' capability — not solving their problems.
Responsible businesses consistently outperform peers on margins and growth.
How a freelance writer built a $378K annual income on Fiverr
Noah Kagan
July 20, 2021
Case studies
8
Prospecting & outreach
7
Bootstrapping
6
Income jumped from $63K to $273K in a single year — through output, not hacks.
Platform dependency is a trap: own your email list and save 50% of revenue.
Start with skills you've already been paid for, then climb to higher-value gigs.
Bootstrapping a two-sided M&A marketplace: MicroAcquire's story
Startups For the Rest of Us
July 20, 2021
Origin stories
9
Business models
7
Bootstrapping
6
Cold outreach and hustle — not SEO — seeds a two-sided marketplace
Founders are at a disadvantage selling; a marketplace can fix that
Referral commissions on M&A services are the real venture-scale revenue
Solana: building a high-speed censorship-resistant financial network
Acquired
July 19, 2021
Origin stories
9
Business models
6
Proof of history gives validators a cryptographic clock, eliminating fork delays
50,000 TPS today; hardware ceiling near 700,000 — Visa is already in the rearview
The goal isn't digital gold — it's a peer-to-peer network no one can censor
Jim Casey: UPS built on discipline, employee ownership, and 68 years of persistence
Founders
July 19, 2021
Origin stories
10
Culture building
7
Business models
6
Employee ownership was Casey's single most powerful competitive weapon.
UPS fought regulators city by city for 68 years to go nationwide.
FedEx leapfrogged UPS overnight by registering as an airline, not a trucker.