17 January 2022
This week's additions focus on strategy, leadership, and mindset, with new digests from Acquired, TK Kader, and Semrush. Highlights include Artists earn ~$400 per million streams — a fraction of CD-era income Why skipping GTM strategy wastes budget and stalls growth
Showing 19 digests for 17 January 2022.
How Taylor Swift rewired the music industry's power dynamics
Acquired
January 23, 2022
Business models
9
Case studies
8
Negotiation
6
Artists earn ~$400 per million streams — a fraction of CD-era income
Taylor forced Apple to reverse its global artist-payout policy in 24 hours
Re-recording her catalog actively devalues $300M in masters held by a rival
Six-step go-to-market framework for scaling SaaS revenue
TK Kader
January 23, 2022
Market research
9
Growth hacking
7
Why skipping GTM strategy wastes budget and stalls growth
Your market decides PLG vs sales-led — not you
The manifesto: one asset that powers homepage, sales deck, and pitch
Keyword research: a three-step process for finding rankable keywords
Semrush
January 21, 2022
Long tail keywords convert better than high-volume head terms
People Also Ask phrases are real searches almost no competitor targets
Prioritise keywords by estimated cost to rank, not search volume
Automation & tools
YouTube
Eight non-task data types to organise in ClickUp
Layla at ProcessDriven
January 21, 2022
Automation & tools
9
Processes & SOPs
7
ClickUp tasks are rows in a spreadsheet — redefine what each row means.
Eight ready-to-use record types: roles, CRM, expenses, automations, and more.
Teams must be told what a list represents, or they'll check records off as done.
Pandemic leadership lessons from Sir Jeremy Farrar of Wellcome Trust
Masters of Scale
January 20, 2022
Communication
8
Long-term planning
7
Mental health & wellbeing
6
Plan five or six scenarios — stop being perpetually reactive
Third-generation pan-coronavirus vaccines are the real goal
Mental health is now among the world's biggest unmet medical needs
Nine crypto side hustles beyond simply buying coins
Noah Kagan
January 20, 2022
Business models
8
Prospecting & outreach
7
MVP & prototyping
5
Serving crypto users beats owning crypto for building real income.
All nine hustles start manually — automate only after proving demand.
From whale tracking to NFT insurance, infrastructure gaps are the opportunity.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
Cal Newport on scheduling, career capital, and the deep life
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
January 20, 2022
Productivity & habits
9
Deep work & focus
7
Fix time for side projects in advance; constraint forces innovation, not expansion.
Stay in your first job long enough to build career capital before moving on.
The deep life is polyvalent and radically realigned — not the philosopher's 'good life'.
Warren Buffett's core principles for building an enduring business
Founders
January 20, 2022
Business models
9
Capital allocation
8
Culture building
6
Concentrate everything on a tiny supply of truly outstanding businesses.
Holding enormous cash reserves lets you play offence when others scramble for survival.
Arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency destroyed GM, IBM and Sears — avoid all three.
Peloton: how a connected fitness category was built and nearly broke
Business Breakdowns
January 19, 2022
Case studies
9
Unit economics
8
Business models
7
Hardware is the hook; the subscription is where Peloton actually makes money.
Over-solving supply chain destroyed margins and ignited a $2B cash burn.
Big tech bundling free fitness content is the existential long-term threat.
Where great startup ideas come from: lessons from Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe
Y Combinator
January 19, 2022
Niche selection
8
Customer discovery
6
Bad existing products beat first-mover advantage every time.
All three founders were told by experts their idea was stupid.
Market size estimates were wrong — always too small.
Hiring & recruitment
Podcast
Always be recruiting: Paul English on building world-class teams
Masters of Scale
January 18, 2022
Hiring & recruitment
9
Culture building
6
Customer experience
5
First 10 hires become cultural co-founders who shape the next hundred and thousand employees.
Move fast on recruiting—make offers within seven days through process-driven, specific questioning.
Hire for your weaknesses and stay close to customers to refine your product.
Customer discovery
Podcast
How to use customer interviews to build better products
Startups For the Rest of Us
January 18, 2022
Customer discovery
9
Iteration & feedback loops
6
Feature requests are a built-in interview opportunity — no recruiting needed.
Customers express problems as solutions; your job is finding what's beneath.
Empathy is a learnable skill, not a personality trait — anxiety is normal.
Seven fundamental truths for using social media to grow a business
Sunny Lenarduzzi
January 18, 2022
Growth hacking
10
AI tools & automation
9
Prospecting & outreach
8
A creator with 100 subscribers can earn $10K/month with clear intent
Platform metrics and your metrics are not the same thing
Viral reach without intent is monopoly money — useless to you
Compliance & regulation
YouTube
Federal holidays and time off: what US employers must know
HR Party of One
January 18, 2022
Compliance & regulation
9
Management
5
Private employers have no legal obligation to give holiday time off.
Government contractors face different rules under SCA and Davis-Bacon.
Clear written policy protects employers and sets employee expectations.
Present Freelance Copy Professionally Using One Shareable Link
Joanna Wiebe
January 18, 2022
Processes & SOPs
9
Prospecting & outreach
6
Replace scattered email attachments with one updatable Packs link.
Book two structured presentations: outline review, then final copy walkthrough.
Embed calendar deadlines via AddEvent so clients actually hit them.