16 May 2022
This week's additions focus on strategy, marketing, and founder stories, with new digests from TK Kader, Neil Patel, and Noah Kagan. Highlights include No good or bad markets — only good and bad bets Scrubbing non-openers is how you stay out of spam.
Showing 24 digests for 16 May 2022.
Cash flow management
YouTube
Three principles for SaaS founders navigating a market downturn
TK Kader
May 22, 2022
Cash flow management
9
Resilience & grit
8
Long-term planning
6
No good or bad markets — only good and bad bets
Cut vendors 20% before touching headcount or go-to-market
SMB and solo customers churn first; map renewals now
AI tools & automation
YouTube
Email marketing tactics that actually lift open rates and revenue
Neil Patel
May 21, 2022
AI tools & automation
10
Content marketing
8
Prospecting & outreach
8
Scrubbing non-openers is how you stay out of spam.
Resending to unopens with a new subject adds ~8% open rate.
Under-200-word emails beat long ones by up to 38% CTR.
How a fisherman built a million-dollar business from his passion
Noah Kagan
May 21, 2022
Case studies
9
Business models
6
Identity & self-belief
5
Own the boat, don't just drive it — shift from craftsman to owner
YouTube took a year before earning a dollar; persistence is non-negotiable
Passion becomes a job — burning out is real, even doing what you love
PwC's $2.4 billion bet on employee choice as a business driver
Masters of Scale
May 19, 2022
Culture building
9
Management
8
Business models
7
Giving employees radical choice over work drives client performance, not undermines it.
Demographic data shows the talent shortage is structural, not a temporary power shift.
Playing it safe is the real culture risk — short-term metrics mask long-term erosion.
How Zoom and Veeva built billion-dollar businesses on almost no capital
Acquired
May 19, 2022
Case studies
9
Bootstrapping
7
Business models
6
Zoom raised $130M from VCs and never spent a dollar of it.
Capital efficiency is a mindset first — business model is secondary.
Veeva's second product was deliberately chosen to be nothing like the first.
How adding a free tool to your website drives SEO growth
Neil Patel
May 19, 2022
SEO
9
Content marketing
7
Growth hacking
5
One free tool generated 240,000 monthly organic visitors from a single keyword.
Free tools earn backlinks passively — no ongoing effort required.
White-label tools from Code Canyon cost $10–$50 and need no developers.
Surviving on $90,000 a year as a family of four in California
Silicon Valley Girl
May 19, 2022
Half of Bay Area residents qualify as low or very low income
A $90k salary leaves just $2,600/month after rent and groceries
A week of groceries for four costs $70–$85 at the cheapest store
Henry Flagler: From Standard Oil to railroad across the ocean
Founders
May 19, 2022
Origin stories
10
Business models
7
Management
6
Poverty to co-founding the world's most powerful company by appearing industrious
A second career building Florida from scratch — hotels, cities, railways
At 82, blind and frail, he rode his own iron to Key West
How to run payroll: setup, options, and compliance
HR Party of One
May 19, 2022
Processes & SOPs
9
Compliance & regulation
6
DIY payroll fails as headcount grows — know when to switch
Pre-tax vs post-tax deductions: the order changes what you owe
Four tax forms, four deadlines — missing any triggers penalties
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Stoic philosophy on enduring life and building daily practice
The Daily Stoic
May 19, 2022
Resilience & grit
9
Productivity & habits
7
Identity & self-belief
6
Why Marcus Aurelius stayed — and why you should too.
Preparation has an expiration date; entropy erodes untrained beliefs.
Know your true north before crisis hits, not during.
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
Common hiring mistakes founders make before product-market fit
Y Combinator
May 19, 2022
Hiring & recruitment
9
Product-market fit
7
Business models
5
Most startup hiring advice is written for the wrong stage.
Hiring before product-market fit accelerates death, not growth.
Over-hiring is the leading cause of runway death post-YC.
How to reverse-engineer a competitor's backlink profile
Ahrefs
May 18, 2022
SEO
10
Content marketing
5
Anchor text patterns reveal which specific claims drove real links
Outdated or missing content in linked pages signals outreach opportunities
A small link cluster can unlock hundreds of fresh prospects
AI tools & automation
YouTube
Developing critical thinking skills for executive-level careers
Dr. Grace Lee
May 18, 2022
AI tools & automation
10
Contracts & agreements
8
Content marketing
7
Why popular books weaken your thinking more than they help
Your existing mental frameworks cap how far your career can go
Imposter syndrome dissolves through reflective awareness, not confidence tricks
Founder interviews
Podcast
Bill Ford on refounding a 120-year-old company from the inside
Masters of Scale
May 17, 2022
Founder interviews
9
Management
7
Pivoting
6
Middle management, not executives, is where change actually dies
Ford mortgaged its own blue oval to avoid the 2008 bankruptcy
Electrifying the F-150 was a deliberate internal and external signal
How Hotjar bootstrapped to $40M ARR using D2C marketing tactics
Startups For the Rest of Us
May 17, 2022
Case studies
9
Growth hacking
8
Bootstrapping
6
60,000-person launch list built before shipping a single line of product
Viral referral mechanics and paid acquisition modelled to unit-economics precision
Nine-figure exit driven by timing, product-led growth, and a flywheel of backlinks