14 November 2022
This week's additions focus on founder stories, strategy, and mindset, with new digests from Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth, TK Kader, and Dr. Grace Lee. Highlights include Why prioritization alone creates 5x more impact than raw talent Referrals close 69% faster and convert at 70% higher rates.
Showing 30 digests for 14 November 2022.
How to become a top 1% product manager, with Ian McAllister
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
November 20, 2022
Management
9
Iteration & feedback loops
7
Long-term planning
6
Why prioritization alone creates 5x more impact than raw talent
Trust is a PM's real currency — built by calling shots and hitting them
Working backwards means starting with the problem, not the solution
Referral programs
YouTube
How to build a referral pipeline program for SaaS growth
TK Kader
November 20, 2022
Referral programs
9
Growth hacking
6
B2B sales
5
Referrals close 69% faster and convert at 70% higher rates.
Most sales teams ask for referrals inconsistently — or never.
A working program requires defining when, how, and how easily to ask.
Six strategies to become more visible to your higher-ups
Dr. Grace Lee
November 19, 2022
Communication
9
Delegation
5
Acknowledging others specifically positions you as a leader, not a self-promoter
Communication outweighs technical skill as you climb the ladder
Reporting progress too often is still probably not enough
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Phil Rosenthal turned real life into Everybody Loves Raymond and Somebody Feed Phil
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
November 18, 2022
Founder interviews
10
Creativity & creative process
6
The more specific a detail, the more universal it becomes.
Writers were sent home for dinner — real life was the homework.
Food is the gateway drug to culture, travel, and human connection.
Content marketing
YouTube
Bottom-of-funnel content strategy that drives conversions, not just traffic
Semrush
November 18, 2022
Content marketing
9
Conversion rate optimisation
9
SEO
8
Low-volume keywords can convert at 4–10%, matching landing pages
Selling inside blog posts outperforms purely informational content
Start bottom-of-funnel first; top-of-funnel early means years of zero traffic
How Deel became the fastest-growing SaaS company in history
EO
November 18, 2022
Case studies
10
Pivoting
8
Business models
7
$1M to $100M ARR in 20 months — without a physical office
Targeting freelancers failed; selling to their employers unlocked growth
COVID forced Fortune 1000 companies to Deel — timing was everything
Founder interviews
YouTube
Balancing multiple roles on a small team: a four-step focus system
Layla at ProcessDriven
November 18, 2022
Founder interviews
10
Business models
6
A ranked priority hierarchy turns role overload into a clear decision rule.
Lock a short list of five tasks and refuse to change it mid-cycle.
Organise work by energy type, not by role, to stay consistently effective.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Don't chase unicorns: why resilient "dragon" startups win
Masters of Scale
November 17, 2022
Founder interviews
9
Business operating systems
6
Resilience & grit
5
Unicorn valuations are paper — dragons survive on unit economics
Cash runway first, then offense: a two-step crisis framework
Wartime CEOs thrive on uncertainty; peacetime CEOs shouldn't pretend otherwise
Long-term planning
Podcast
Paul Graham's core ideas on wealth, design, and making great things
Founders
November 17, 2022
Long-term planning
9
Deep work & focus
8
Design thinking
7
Wealth is whatever people want — technology multiplies how much you can create
Relentlessness wins: unseen details accumulate into something stunning
Small teams beat big companies by making truly great products, not adequate ones
From go-to-market leader to SaaS CEO: five principles for the transition
TK Kader
November 17, 2022
Case studies
9
Hiring & recruitment
7
Product-market fit
6
Why your GTM background is an edge, not a constraint
12 fixed questions beat a year of gut-feel product validation
Each company stage needs a fundamentally different CEO operating mode
HR year-end checklist: benefits, compliance, and goal setting
HR Party of One
November 17, 2022
Processes & SOPs
8
Compliance & regulation
6
FSA balances expire December 31st — employees must spend or lose them.
State and local law changes often take effect January 1st with no fanfare.
Getting involved in budgeting is HR's fastest path to strategic influence.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Gergely Orosz left big tech to build the top engineering newsletter
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
November 17, 2022
Founder interviews
9
Productivity & habits
7
Content marketing
6
Newsletter income now exceeds a $330K Uber engineering salary.
Six years of blogging before launch did the real audience-building work.
Paying subscribers replace a boss — and enforce the discipline startups can't.
How to find and evaluate startup ideas: a YC framework
Y Combinator
November 17, 2022
Niche selection
9
Customer discovery
6
Business models
5
Boring, hard-to-start ideas with competitors are often the best opportunities.
Founder-market fit matters more than idea quality in the abstract.
Organic ideas beat brainstorming — expertise and lived problems are the source.
SEO copywriting: a practical three-stage workflow
Ahrefs
November 16, 2022
Search intent determines content format before you write a word
Content gap analysis reveals the subtopics Google expects you to cover
The ASMR editing method turns a draft into scannable, readable copy
Harvard Business Publishing: how a century-old case study monopoly became a $270M business
Business Breakdowns
November 16, 2022
Business models
9
Case studies
8
Unit economics
6
Professors write case studies for free — tenure is the only payment Harvard needs.
80% of case studies aren't from Harvard, yet all carry the Harvard brand.
Corporate card buyers churn less and tolerate higher prices than retail subscribers.