27 February 2023
This week's additions focus on strategy, marketing, and leadership, with new digests from TK Kader, Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth, and Neil Patel. Highlights include Download volume is a vanity metric — activation rate is what matters Build company infrastructure earlier than feels necessary — or tear it down later.
Showing 33 digests for 27 February 2023.
Ahrefs spent $800K on marketing with no ROI tracking — here's what they learned
Ahrefs
March 1, 2023
Branding
8
Paid ads
7
Content marketing
5
Why zero ROI tracking on $800K in campaigns was intentional
Podcast ads flopped on leads but built lasting brand awareness
Attribution is a nightmare — common sense often beats bad data
Wise: How a closed-loop system beats correspondent banking
Business Breakdowns
March 1, 2023
Business models
9
Unit economics
7
Case studies
7
Wise charges 10x less than banks by never crossing borders
Two-thirds of customers come from referrals, not paid marketing
Sitting on £10B in deposits, Wise is trying to give interest back
Long-term planning
YouTube
Vlogging is coming back: why daily documenting still wins
GaryVee
March 1, 2023
Long-term planning
8
Productivity & habits
6
Content marketing
5
COVID paused vlogs — documenting over creating still wins
Speed up daily micro-actions; slow down on big life goals
AI disrupts like tractors did — new jobs always follow
Automation & tools
YouTube
Three ways to use SmartSuite for meeting notes and documents
Layla at ProcessDriven
March 1, 2023
Automation & tools
9
Processes & SOPs
7
SmartSuite stores documents as fields, unlocking automations freeform tools can't match.
Per-person note fields let you set separate permissions for each meeting participant.
Build a private linked-topic database to retrieve notes by subject later.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How David Droga built a creative empire through unconventional moves
Masters of Scale
February 28, 2023
Founder interviews
10
Vision & mission
6
Walking away from a global CCO role unlocked far greater scale
Fake Air Force One graffiti stunt made the Pentagon deny it three times
Selling to Accenture — not a holding company — preserved creative independence
Conflict resolution
YouTube
How to resolve workplace upsets through deeper listening
Bill Gallagher
February 28, 2023
Conflict resolution
9
Communication
7
Every complaint hides a violated value — find it to resolve conflict
Stop arguing positions; get curious about what the other person cares about
Naming the unspoken virtue shifts adversarial dynamics almost immediately
CEO-COO relationships, scaling systems, and operational leadership
Cameron Herold
February 28, 2023
Management
9
Business operating systems
8
Scaling infrastructure
5
CEO-COO friction is usually a personality mismatch, not a values problem.
Traction breaks at 50 people — know when to switch operating systems.
Delegate 80% of your week before touching a single project yourself.
Buying vs. building SaaS, growing with a day job, and finding acquisition targets
Startups For the Rest of Us
February 28, 2023
Business models
8
SEO
6
Customer discovery
5
A $10K SaaS acquisition usually buys only a codebase — aim higher.
Run one fast and one slow marketing channel simultaneously when time-constrained.
A bilingual interpreter loses 10–15% of user research signal, not 50%.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to monetize a YouTube channel without AdSense
Sunny Lenarduzzi
February 28, 2023
Content marketing
9
Business models
8
A small accurate audience outperforms millions of random viewers.
Build your offer first, then create content that feeds it.
Each video compounds into a permanent, self-growing lead pipeline.
Sports ownership, marketing shifts, and authentic social media
GaryVee
February 28, 2023
Social media
9
Founder interviews
8
Content marketing
7
Why Ryan Smith turned down one NBA team to buy his own.
CEOs have fully accepted digital — TV-first thinking is over.
Post for genuine value or don't post: selfish content fails.
Compliance & regulation
YouTube
Key HR compliance dates and observances for March
HR Party of One
February 28, 2023
Compliance & regulation
9
Three overlapping filing deadlines hit in March — don't miss them
OSHA Form 300A due March 2nd for businesses with 10+ employees
ACA forms 1095-B and 1095-C must reach employees and IRS by month-end
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
How large language models work and what they mean for developers
Y Combinator
February 28, 2023
AI strategy & adoption
9
AI tools & automation
7
Product-market fit
5
A fine-tuning exercise, not raw capability, made ChatGPT go viral
Senior developers benefit most from AI code completion — counterintuitively
Developers may be the first profession significantly automated by AGI
Building a lean small business: systems, teams, and reclaiming time
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
February 27, 2023
Processes & SOPs
9
Outsourcing & delegation
8
Productivity & habits
6
Discipline and hard work are the wrong levers — infrastructure is
Never delegate: build living toolkits that run without you
The three Ds: staying solo costs far more than hiring
Automation & tools
YouTube
Seven tools to write and publish content faster
Neil Patel
February 27, 2023
Automation & tools
8
Content marketing
7
AI tools & automation
5
Fresh content ranks better — and these tools make updating effortless.
Replace a $6k/month designer with free and cheap templates.
Simpler language gets read, shared, and linked to more.
Six micro SaaS ideas for bootstrappers targeting niche markets
Rob Walling
February 27, 2023
Niche selection
9
MVP & prototyping
7
Bootstrapping
5
All six ideas come from real practitioners with unsolved day-job problems.
Ecosystem add-ons beat standalone apps for faster distribution and lower build cost.
Validate with five to ten conversations before writing a single line of code.