13 March 2023
This week's additions focus on mindset, strategy, and marketing, with new digests from Rob Walling, EO, and TK Kader. Highlights include AI invented a service OpenCage never offered, sending angry signups daily LLMs can generate story structure because most narratives follow the same arc
Showing 31 digests for 13 March 2023.
Four-step blueprint for starting an affiliate marketing website
Ahrefs
March 15, 2023
SEO
10
Niche selection
7
MVP & prototyping
5
Too broad a niche makes ranking nearly impossible from the start.
SEO traffic is free, consistent, and compounds into passive revenue.
Backlinks are the critical ranking factor beyond quality content.
How to build self-sustaining income after a tech layoff
Rob Walling
March 15, 2023
Business models
8
Bootstrapping
8
MVP & prototyping
6
The stair-step method lets you start tiny and scale without risk
Bootstrapped products have no funding cliff — motivation is the only limit
Buy an existing business to skip 12–18 months of painful early building
Resilience & grit
YouTube
Overcoming fear, opinion, and inaction to live without regret
GaryVee
March 15, 2023
Resilience & grit
8
Identity & self-belief
7
Motivation
6
The real fear is peers laughing at you, not rejection itself
Perspective practice — service, mortality, breathing — shrinks mundane fear
Deepfake video is the one technology problem without a clear answer
Work-life balance
Podcast
Living urgently: Bozoma Saint John on memento mori and the urgent life
The Daily Stoic
March 15, 2023
Work-life balance
8
Resilience & grit
7
Urgency means intention, not speed — do your things now.
Her husband's terminal diagnosis dissolved the grievances that ended their marriage.
Grief is looking backwards; carry it forward as celebration, not mourning.
Building client work request forms in SmartSuite
Layla at ProcessDriven
March 15, 2023
Processes & SOPs
8
Automation & tools
7
No-code & low-code
5
One shared form link replaces scattered emails, Typeforms, and Google Forms.
Field labels and help text must explain expectations — raw field names confuse clients.
Linked record dropdowns work for internal forms, but risk client confidentiality externally.
Developer superpowers, no-code trade-offs, and when to skip a $5K angel check
Startups For the Rest of Us
March 14, 2023
Business models
7
Bootstrapping
7
Growth hacking
5
Marketing copywriting beats coding skill as a developer-founder's top asset.
No-code is fine for peripheral features — never for core application logic.
$5K angel checks cost more in legal fees and distraction than they deliver.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to get clients from YouTube without chasing views
Sunny Lenarduzzi
March 14, 2023
Content marketing
9
Email marketing
6
Conversion rate optimisation
5
Channel size is irrelevant — targeting the right viewer converts.
Broad content breaks the algorithm; specificity attracts paying clients.
Build an email list from YouTube to own your audience.
Reframing goals, gratitude, and authentic content creation
GaryVee
March 14, 2023
Goal setting
9
Work-life balance
8
Content marketing
6
Achieving a goal at 39 beats burning out chasing it at 25.
Balance is measured by intent and love, not logged hours.
Selfish content fails — make it because you mean it.
Marketing's biggest shift: stop overvaluing yesterday
GaryVee
March 14, 2023
Growth hacking
9
Paid ads
8
Facebook Reels: massive audiences, almost no competition yet
TV ads are dead for most audiences outside live sports
Ego kills ROI — data must replace subjective creative opinion
Cash flow management
YouTube
HSA funds never expire: key differences from FSAs explained
HR Party of One
March 14, 2023
HSA funds roll over forever — no expiry, ever.
FSAs lose unspent money at year-end; HSAs don't.
Invest HSA balances to maximize long-term tax-free growth.
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
How to adapt to change by redefining your identity and building transferable value
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
March 13, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
8
Your job title is one phone call away from disappearing — your core value isn't.
Pursuing unrequested opportunities is where career growth actually happens.
Change has four phases; most people stall in panic instead of reaching 'wouldn't go back'.
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
The core roles, traits, and hiring approach for a COO
Cameron Herold
March 13, 2023
Hiring & recruitment
9
Management
8
Ask what you're hiring for before writing interview questions
The COO's job is to make the CEO iconic, not share the spotlight
Title and pay must match scope — inflated titles create real problems
Cash flow management
YouTube
Four financial strategies every founder needs to master
Dan Martell
March 13, 2023
Cash flow management
9
Accounting basics
7
Processes & SOPs
5
Profit on paper and cash in the bank are not the same thing
Free cash flow — not revenue — is the metric Bezos and Buffett track
Daily, weekly, monthly reporting cadence prevents every major cash crisis
Productivity & habits
Podcast
Why knowledge work broke our relationship with time
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
March 13, 2023
Productivity & habits
9
Processes & SOPs
6
Long-term planning
5
Silicon Valley's CPU model of productivity turned human brains into overloaded processors.
Overload comes from missing cultural norms for workload, not capitalist exploitation.
Two focused hours daily beats seven meetings — slow productivity outperforms fast.
Napoleon: power, propaganda, and the limits of ambition
Founders
March 13, 2023
Case studies
9
Pivoting
7
Management
6
Napoleon's rise depended on mastering narrative control before his rivals did.
The French Revolution was the chaos he used as a ladder to power.
His fall came from the same hubris his propaganda machine had created.