23 August 2021
This week's additions focus on mindset, marketing, and strategy, with new digests from Founders, Masters of Scale, and Noah Kagan. Highlights include Why owning 100% of your company beats every buyout offer Social connection, not escapism, is why gaming growth will stick
Showing 12 digests for 23 August 2021.
James Dyson: 14 years, 5,127 prototypes, and total control
Founders
August 27, 2021
Origin stories
10
Resilience & grit
7
Why owning 100% of your company beats every buyout offer
5,127 prototypes: dogged persistence beats brilliance every time
Difference for its own sake is a complete business strategy
Founder interviews
Podcast
EA CEO Andrew Wilson on gaming, the metaverse, and workplace culture
Masters of Scale
August 26, 2021
Founder interviews
10
Business models
7
Pivoting
6
Social connection, not escapism, is why gaming growth will stick
Games are already mini-metaverses — EA is expanding outward from there
EA chose openness over moats: partner with everyone, platform everywhere
Eight leadership lessons from running a $100M business
Noah Kagan
August 26, 2021
Management
9
Processes & SOPs
6
Great CEOs do no work — they hire the decision-makers
Leading from the back beats directing from the front
Saying no to off-focus requests is a compounding superpower
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Managing research, service load, and deep work as an academic
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
August 26, 2021
Deep work & focus
9
Productivity & habits
7
Processes & SOPs
5
Quota-based saying no beats waiting until you're 20% overloaded
Free tuition doesn't offset the life cost of an exploratory MBA
Keep two to four deep work projects active; bench the rest
Three Fiverr keyword research gigs tested and rated
Ahrefs
August 25, 2021
SEO
9
Content marketing
5
All three gigs — $15 to $150 — failed on search intent basics.
More expensive did not mean better: the $150 pro gig scored lowest.
LSI keywords and keyword density quotas are myths, not ranking factors.
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Rewiring your mindset to lead yourself and scale your business
Bill Gallagher
August 25, 2021
Identity & self-belief
9
Management
7
Your beliefs, not your hours, are capping your business growth
You can only lead your team as far as you've led yourself
Shifting one element of the uplevel formula changes your results
Productivity & habits
YouTube
Building self-discipline through small personal commitments
Noah Kagan
August 25, 2021
Productivity & habits
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Discipline is keeping promises to yourself — each one builds self-confidence.
Delayed rewards (no TV until Friday) make the payoff feel genuinely earned.
Discipline that stops being useful should be adjusted, not preserved out of pride.
Getting attention for your business through novelty and boldness
Bill Gallagher
August 24, 2021
Media ignores merit — novelty is what actually earns attention
Tesla, Singularity University succeeded by being genuinely different
Bold, public moves generate PR; hiding your idea kills it
Customer discovery
Podcast
Growing a Subscription Business with 10,000 Paid Subscribers
Startups For the Rest of Us
August 24, 2021
Customer discovery
9
Pivoting
8
SEO
6
Bootstrap nutrition site survived Google's 90% traffic crush by pivoting to paid subscriptions.
Jobs-to-be-done interviews revealed customers wanted credibility sharing, not just research guides.
Transparency reports and admitting failures built the trust needed to retain subscribers.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to get a traditional book deal as a first-time author
Noah Kagan
August 23, 2021
Content marketing
8
Pitching investors
7
Long-term planning
6
A rejected proposal led to six competing publisher offers after one year.
James Clear booked 190 podcast interviews himself — luck had nothing to do with it.
Start your marketing plan two years before the book launches.
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Cal Newport's daily routine, deep work definition, and focus strategies
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
August 23, 2021
Deep work & focus
9
Productivity & habits
6
Deep work is a technical method, not a grandiose lifestyle philosophy.
Trading accessibility for accountability unlocks more autonomous, fulfilling work.
Newport admits struggling to say no despite preaching deep work principles.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
A weekly device-free ritual and a unified calendar-task tool
How I Work
August 23, 2021
Productivity & habits
8
Deep work & focus
7
Work-life balance
5
A Friday tech Sabbath breaks device dependency with a shared ritual.
Accountability partner and ceremony make the habit actually stick.
Motion.io merges task list and calendar into one drag-and-drop view.