24 April 2023
This week's additions focus on strategy, founder stories, and marketing, with new digests from Cameron Herold, Rob Walling, and Dr. Grace Lee. Highlights include Why the COO's real job is growing people, not doing things Start with a problem businesses pay for, not a product idea.
Showing 29 digests for 24 April 2023.
Roper Technologies: how an industrial manufacturer became a software giant
Business Breakdowns
April 26, 2023
Case studies
9
Business models
8
Cash flow management
7
One metric — cash return on investment — turned a pump maker into a 26-bagger
Software exposure started by accident via a freight-matching network inside an industrial deal
Permanent ownership beats PE: acquired teams invest long-term instead of optimising for exit
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
How to find and work with the right COO for your stage of growth
Cameron Herold
April 26, 2023
Hiring & recruitment
9
Vision & mission
6
Management
5
The right COO for $2M–$100M is the wrong hire at $100M+
Activity inventory: price every task before you know what to delegate
COO as confidant, stabiliser, and brakes to the CEO's accelerator
Content creation, personal branding, and monetisation for creators
GaryVee
April 26, 2023
Branding
9
Content marketing
8
AI tools & automation
6
Feature brands for free first — inbound deal flow follows automatically
You are not a brand; being nine things is your strength, not weakness
Content fatigue disappears when you create for the audience, not yourself
Automation & tools
YouTube
Add custom buttons to SmartSuite using the Ply extension
Layla at ProcessDriven
April 26, 2023
Automation & tools
9
No-code & low-code
6
One-click button in SmartSuite can auto-add events to Google Calendar
Ply reads live record data to draft AI emails without manual typing
Both SmartSuite and Ply are currently free — including the Chrome extension
Compliance & regulation
Podcast
When SaaS founders should start caring about sales tax
Startups For the Rest of Us
April 25, 2023
Compliance & regulation
9
Automation & tools
6
Ignore sales tax until you hit $500K–$1M ARR
No clean solution exists — merchant of record is pick-your-poison
Enforcement risk is low today, but acquisitions can expose undisclosed liabilities
Three secrets to selling your online course without being a natural salesperson
Sunny Lenarduzzi
April 25, 2023
Niche selection
8
Prospecting & outreach
8
Content marketing
5
Broad positioning kills sales — specific niche creates its own demand.
Poor conversions are a targeting problem, not a sales skill problem.
Non-buyers aren't lost — a nurtured pipeline beats constant new leads.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
How to build better habits by not wasting your gifts
The Daily Stoic
April 25, 2023
Productivity & habits
9
Deep work & focus
8
Resilience & grit
5
Seneca and Wilde wasted their gifts by losing self-ownership.
Reframe delays and setbacks as reps for practicing patience.
Saying no to the inessential unlocks an emphatic yes to what matters.
Founder interviews
Podcast
Chip Conley on The Transforming Power of Wisdom and Mentorship
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
April 24, 2023
Founder interviews
9
Identity & self-belief
7
Wisdom as scarce asset: distilled experience beats raw knowledge in AI era
Metabolize life lessons weekly to turn experience into actionable insight
Cross-generational mentorship bridges younger bosses with elder wisdom holders
How Neil Patel built a nine-figure agency from scratch
Neil Patel
April 24, 2023
Enterprise sales
9
Hiring & recruitment
8
Business models
6
77% of enterprise revenue comes from referrals, not inbound marketing.
Closing a big deal can cost $300k in staff hours before signing.
Answer the Public bought for $8.6M to feed agency pipeline, not SaaS profit.
MVP & prototyping
YouTube
How to build a SaaS product without coding skills
Dan Martell
April 24, 2023
MVP & prototyping
9
Customer discovery
7
Bootstrapping
5
Get customers to pay before writing a single line of code
Never let developers design your product screens or flows
Ignore feedback from users who signed up but never engaged
Productivity & habits
Podcast
Twitter's rise and fall, slow productivity, and the deep life
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
April 24, 2023
Productivity & habits
8
Deep work & focus
7
Work-life balance
5
Twitter's coliseum phase was inevitable once journalists made it the town square
Callings differ from passion — meaning and daily hardship can coexist
Successful people use common sense, not crazy systems — slow down and track quality
How one solopreneur built a $1.7M business with no employees
Starter Story
April 24, 2023
Funnels
9
Automation & tools
6
Case studies
5
A $620/month software stack replaced an entire team
Burnout and a panic attack forced a pivot to solopreneurship
Social media for discovery, newsletter for trust, then sell
Founder interviews
Podcast
James Dyson: 5,127 prototypes and 13 years to own his invention
Founders
April 24, 2023
Founder interviews
10
Resilience & grit
7
MVP & prototyping
6
Every time Dyson relinquished control, he lost money and got betrayed
5,127 prototypes built alone in an unheated garage over three years
Obsessive product quality beats every conventional business strategy
Meetings, media ROI, and marketing in the age of AI
GaryVee
April 24, 2023
Paid ads
8
Social media
8
AI strategy & adoption
5
The Super Bowl is the only ad with truly actualized reach
Fewer people, shorter meetings — hours recovered without lost output
Critical thinkers will thrive in AI; input quality determines output quality