17 April 2023
This week's additions focus on strategy, marketing, and leadership, with new digests from Cameron Herold, Noah Kagan, and Rob Walling. Highlights include The wrong hire costs 15x their salary in opportunity cost and damage. Selling lifestyle beats selling product — Ugg sales jumped 10x overnight
Showing 29 digests for 17 April 2023.
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Gratitude, forgiveness, and intuition as foundations for happiness
GaryVee
April 19, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
6
Gratitude — not money — is the real source of lasting happiness
Forgiveness unlocks your own growth; it doesn't excuse others
Gut intuition beats pure logic for spotting big opportunities early
Founder interviews
Podcast
Comedian Katherine Blandford on finding comedy in grief and stoic philosophy
The Daily Stoic
April 19, 2023
Founder interviews
10
Resilience & grit
7
Identity & self-belief
6
Losing her mother at 22 launched her comedy career and her freedom.
Laughter in the depths of despair is its own Stoic philosophy.
Early success is harder than it looks — the real work stays invisible.
Automation & tools
YouTube
Automating HR email data entry into SmartSuite with Zapier Email Parser
Layla at ProcessDriven
April 19, 2023
Automation & tools
9
AI tools & automation
6
Turn any recurring HR email into a SmartSuite record automatically.
Zapier Email Parser extracts specific fields — no native integration needed.
Text fields beat date fields when email formatting is inconsistent.
Competitive analysis
Podcast
How Sony and internal dysfunction killed Sega's gaming empire
Acquired
April 18, 2023
Competitive analysis
9
Business models
8
Management
6
Sony didn't just beat Sega in consoles — it destroyed their arcade business too
Sega's chaotic hardware decisions were panicked responses to an incoming Sony tsunami
Steve Race said '299' and walked off stage — Sega died that afternoon
MVP & prototyping
Podcast
Concierge onboarding, brand naming, cold outreach, and product prioritisation for early SaaS
Startups For the Rest of Us
April 18, 2023
MVP & prototyping
8
Customer experience
7
Prospecting & outreach
6
Low churn means nothing if users never reach value — invest human hours.
Memorable brand names beat keyword-stuffed ones, especially in visual niches.
Validate by marketing first; manual onboarding lets you skip fixing bugs early.
Customer discovery
YouTube
Four steps to validate an online course idea before building it
Sunny Lenarduzzi
April 18, 2023
Customer discovery
9
Market research
8
Niche selection
6
Build last: validate with real humans before writing a single lesson.
Your unique life experience creates a blue ocean — competition becomes irrelevant.
50 client interviews surface exact pain points and pre-sell your course.
Why most big brands are failing at social media marketing
GaryVee
April 18, 2023
Social media
9
Copywriting
7
Business models
5
Big brands post 'Happy Tuesday' while losing market share to creators
Social ad products are underpriced — most brands are completely missing it
Separating media and creative destroyed accountability to actual business results
How skip-level meetings work and when to use them
HR Party of One
April 18, 2023
Communication
10
Management
7
Employees speak directly with managers two levels above them
Miscommunicating purpose risks creating tension with skipped supervisors
Confidentiality and follow-up action plans are non-negotiable for success
How Neil Patel built focus, voice search, and team-led growth
Neil Patel
April 17, 2023
Case studies
10
Niche selection
6
Content marketing
5
Lost $1M by 21; paid it off in one year by refocusing
Answer questions in two sentences to win voice search traffic
The team, not the individual, drives content quality and scale
Seven ways COOs can build strong culture in a remote or hybrid team
Cameron Herold
April 17, 2023
Culture building
9
Hiring & recruitment
6
Processes & SOPs
5
Culture is alignment with values and vision, not office perks
Every hire should rank above the team's median — not just fit in
Onboard new employees with genesis story, values, and core purpose
How B Dental Spa used EOS to open a third location faster
Rick Fawcett - Expert EOS Implementer
April 17, 2023
Case studies
9
Business operating systems
7
Weekly accountability stopped good ideas fizzling out after two weeks.
Breaking big goals into small milestones made a third location feel achievable.
EOS replaced scattered meetings with clear vision and trackable outcomes.
Work-life balance
YouTube
How to start and sustain a business without burning out
Dan Martell
April 17, 2023
Work-life balance
9
Pricing strategy
7
Processes & SOPs
6
Do free work strategically first — then charge a premium
Gross profit is the only number worth tracking early on
Design your week around energy, not hours or tasks
How Thomas built a $1B+ M&A firm starting from $100 website flips
Starter Story
April 17, 2023
Business models
9
Negotiation
8
Valuation
7
The same buy-sell skill scales from $100 to $10M deals
Buying a business removes the two hardest startup unknowns
Small businesses sell at 4–10x annual profit, rarely revenue
Steve Jobs in his own words: lessons from Make Something Wonderful
Founders
April 17, 2023
Origin stories
9
Hiring & recruitment
6
Resilience & grit
5
Why making something with love is more powerful than chasing money
How Jobs used mortality as a daily decision-making tool
The recruiting obsession behind every Apple and Pixar breakthrough