8 August 2022
This week's additions focus on strategy, founder stories, and finance, with new digests from TK Kader, Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth, and Layla at ProcessDriven. Highlights include Why a 'little big niche' beats broad markets for micro-SaaS Your product has a growth loop, not a funnel — find and name it.
Showing 16 digests for 8 August 2022.
Three principles for growing a micro-SaaS business
TK Kader
August 14, 2022
Niche selection
9
Iteration & feedback loops
7
Copywriting
7
Why a 'little big niche' beats broad markets for micro-SaaS
No daily use case means users cancel and spreadsheets win
Value propositions must tie to desired outcomes, not features
Founder interviews
Podcast
How great teams grow, decide, and hire: lessons from Shishir Mehrotra
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
August 14, 2022
Founder interviews
10
Hiring & recruitment
8
Business models
6
Your product has a growth loop, not a funnel — find and name it.
The eigenquestion is the one whose answer eliminates the most other questions.
Reference checks outrank interview signals; ask who solved problems, not who ran meetings.
Automation & tools
YouTube
When not to automate: five signs a workflow isn't ready
Layla at ProcessDriven
August 12, 2022
Automation & tools
9
Processes & SOPs
6
Automating a broken or unproven process produces more broken outputs faster.
Automation breaks — without a maintainer, setup time is wasted.
If human touch is your edge, automating it destroys your differentiator.
How Target played offense during its 2022 inventory crisis
Masters of Scale
August 11, 2022
Pivoting
9
Management
7
Processes & SOPs
5
Taking a full inventory hit in one quarter beats dragging it across four
Pandemic years built organisational agility that enabled an eight-hour decision
Culture outperformed strategy as Target's primary competitive advantage
How to write a persuasive homepage that converts visitors
Semrush
August 11, 2022
Copywriting
9
Conversion rate optimization
6
You have 10 seconds to communicate your value — or lose the visitor.
Benefits (outcomes) sell; features (things) don't — lead with transformation.
Emotion closes the sale; features and FAQs just justify the decision.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Herbie Cohen: negotiation as a philosophy for life
Founders
August 11, 2022
Founder interviews
10
Resilience & grit
7
Pivoting
6
The person who cares less — but stays engaged — wins.
Pretend to be in control and people will assume you are.
Refusing a fallback plan is what keeps you committed to plan A.
Donald Robertson on Marcus Aurelius, Stoic practice, and the Meditations
The Daily Stoic
August 10, 2022
Case studies
9
Resilience & grit
8
Communication
6
Stoicism's core virtue is love and justice — not emotional detachment
The Meditations was a private rhetorical exercise, not a finished philosophy
Marcus was shaped by Hadrian's frightening decline and Antoninus's quiet virtue
Building partnerships and customer experience to grow a business
KeyPersonOfInfluence
August 10, 2022
Case studies
10
Customer experience
8
Prospecting & outreach
6
Five-star Google reviews are output of a system, not a marketing tactic
How to land Ferrari as a partner starting from BMW
Surprise and delight are different — only surprise drives incontestable loyalty
Bill Gates on how Microsoft identified and accelerated technology inflection points
Masters of Scale
August 9, 2022
Origin stories
9
Business models
7
Spotting an inflection point isn't enough — you must actively accelerate it.
Microsoft survived by planning for IBM's exit six years before it happened.
Missing the internet nearly killed Windows; an all-in pivot saved it.
Resilience & grit
Podcast
How to transition from employment to entrepreneurship without betting everything
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
August 9, 2022
Resilience & grit
8
Bootstrapping
7
Productivity & habits
6
Frustration has to outgrow fear before the leap becomes inevitable.
Start where you can add the most value, not where you're most passionate.
Lower expenses before quitting — financial pressure kills creative decision-making.
When to bootstrap, when to fund, and how pricing shapes growth
Startups For the Rest of Us
August 9, 2022
Bootstrapping
9
Unit economics
7
Growth hacking
5
90% of startups should bootstrap — seven conditions make it genuinely hard
Building without marketing is almost always luck, not strategy
Small markets require high ACV; large online markets can sustain lower pricing
Compliance & regulation
YouTube
Exempt vs. non-exempt employees: how to classify correctly
HR Party of One
August 9, 2022
Compliance & regulation
9
Processes & SOPs
5
Classification hinges on duties and salary, not job title.
Misclassification can trigger two years of back overtime pay.
Inside salespeople on commission are always non-exempt hourly workers.
AI tools & automation
YouTube
How Karl Schwantes built partnerships with Ferrari, BMW, and major media
KeyPersonOfInfluence
August 9, 2022
AI tools & automation
10
Business models
8
Feature prioritisation
6
Customer experience obsession became a high-profile partnership strategy
A book launch generated over $100,000 in direct revenue
Five Cs framework: a repeatable architecture for building partnerships
Five-component go-to-market framework for SaaS founders
Rob Walling
August 8, 2022
Business models
9
Growth hacking
8
Pricing strategy
7
Define customer, positioning, pricing, marketing, and sales — in that order.
A despised market leader is an advantage, not a threat.
Build your email launch list before writing a single line of code.
How to raise capital for your SaaS using customers and onboarding data
Dan Martell
August 8, 2022
Fundraising & VC
8
Customer discovery
6
Get customers to pay half-cost to co-fund features on your roadmap
Combine customer commitments with seed investors to close rounds faster
Use clickstream data from best users to redesign onboarding from day one