7 August 2023
This week's additions focus on leadership, strategy, and marketing, with new digests from Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth, Cameron Herold, and TK Kader. Highlights include MarTech ownership becomes critical at 100–150 people, not earlier. Saying no to most opportunities protects your three finite resources.
Showing 30 digests for 7 August 2023.
Founder interviews
YouTube
Entrepreneurship, self-love, and patience: lessons from Gary Vaynerchuk
GaryVee
August 9, 2023
Founder interviews
10
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
8
Self-love is the foundation — without it, success becomes a trap.
Not everyone should be an entrepreneur; self-awareness beats ambition.
Ten years at $70k/yr building a $70M company: patience is the real edge.
Testimonials & social proof
YouTube
Four tips for getting great client testimonials
Joanna Wiebe
August 9, 2023
Testimonials & social proof
8
Writing the testimonial yourself gets better results, faster.
Three questions turn vague praise into specific, persuasive proof.
No-endorsement contracts aren't a dead end — joint events work.
Prospecting & outreach
YouTube
How 50 YC founders got their very first customers
Y Combinator
August 9, 2023
Prospecting & outreach
9
Customer discovery
6
Cold email, LinkedIn, and door-to-door still win first customers
Reddit waitlist hit 1,000 signups in 24 hours with no product
First contract signed with no code — built and shipped in seven days
Building and rebuilding company culture: lessons from Schmidt, Ahrendts, and Khosrowshahi
Masters of Scale
August 8, 2023
Culture building
10
Business operating systems
6
Communication
5
You have six to nine months to change culture before you're stuck
Crowdsourcing culture produces average opinions, not sharp identity
Authentic imperfection from leaders unlocks candour across the whole org
Lifetime plans, landing page validation, and copycat apps: founder Q&A
Startups For the Rest of Us
August 8, 2023
Pricing strategy
9
Product-market fit
7
Niche selection
6
Lifetime pricing destroys SaaS economics — subscriptions almost always win.
Landing pages test your hook and channel, not product-market fit.
Copycat apps only work if you have a clear distribution or quality advantage.
Content marketing
YouTube
How to use YouTube algorithm categorization to attract clients
Sunny Lenarduzzi
August 8, 2023
Content marketing
9
SEO
6
Social media
5
Niche content on one topic unlocks compounding algorithm reach
Search traffic must come first — suggested and browse follow automatically
Low views with high retention outperforms viral videos for client generation
Business structure
YouTube
What is a 147C letter and how to get one from the IRS
HR Party of One
August 8, 2023
A 147C letter replaces a lost CP575 as IRS EIN proof.
Call 1-800-829-4933 to get one by fax the same day.
Your bank or old tax returns can provide your EIN faster.
How to design events people actually remember — and get more from any event
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
August 7, 2023
Processes & SOPs
8
Customer experience
7
Content marketing
5
The details between sessions — not the sessions — make events unforgettable.
Bad first impressions at events are nearly impossible to recover from.
90% of event learning is forgotten without deliberate post-event consolidation.
Email marketing, personal branding and digital marketing fundamentals
Neil Patel
August 7, 2023
Email marketing
8
Content marketing
7
SEO
5
Text-based emails outperform HTML by 20–25% in open rates
Omni-channel only works when teams share learnings across channels
Personal brand requires three to five years of consistent, multi-format output
Four leadership qualities that separate great leaders from average ones
Cameron Herold
August 7, 2023
Management
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Ego dissolves team consensus — all leaders must shed it, not just the CEO
Introspection means blaming yourself first, not the economy or others
Empathy turns struggling team members into people who go through brick walls
Three advanced strategies CEOs use to buy back more time
Dan Martell
August 7, 2023
Management
8
Time management
8
Productivity & habits
6
Cap direct reports at five to force leverage through people
Reclaimed time must be invested in skills and beliefs, not left blank
Lock annual outcomes into daily calendar blocks before the week starts
Deep work & focus
Podcast
Festina lente: the ancient case for slow, relentless work
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
August 7, 2023
Deep work & focus
10
Processes & SOPs
6
Management
5
Ancient Roman principle: work slowly, relentlessly, on what matters.
Doing fewer things simultaneously often produces more output, not less.
Care work can enforce deep focus rather than destroy it.
Business operating systems
YouTube
How Soccer Shots scaled to seven figures using EOS
EOS Worldwide
August 7, 2023
Business operating systems
9
Case studies
7
Hiring & recruitment
5
Why the visionary founder was the company's biggest distraction
Rebuilt to $1M in one year after COVID wiped revenue to near zero
EOS immediately exposes misaligned people — including long-term partners
Balenciaga and Dior: mastery, permanence, and the devoted craftsman
Founders
August 7, 2023
Origin stories
9
Deep work & focus
7
Long-term planning
5
Balenciaga sewed every single day for 74 years
Dior dressed the rich; Balenciaga dressed the very rich
His dresses were designed to be bequeathed across generations
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Life, career and business advice from a GaryVee fireside Q&A
GaryVee
August 7, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Motivation
8
Founder interviews
7
Why monetising your audience too early kills long-term growth
Gary's most vulnerable moment: resentment built from 11 years underpaid
Entitlement destroys happiness — accountability is the fastest fix