16 October 2023
This week's additions focus on marketing, strategy, and founder stories, with new digests from Rob Walling, TK Kader, and Joanna Wiebe. Highlights include A $4k MRR GitHub-based project tool sold for $128k at 3.5× SDE. Pitching before a growth inflection point makes you a stale deal.
Showing 33 digests for 16 October 2023.
How Derrick Reimer sold a side-project SaaS for $128k in one month
Rob Walling
October 22, 2023
Case studies
10
Exit strategy
9
Pitching investors
5
A $4k MRR GitHub-based project tool sold for $128k at 3.5× SDE.
Broker's network, vetting, and hard-line stance protected the asking price.
Full exit from listing to close took roughly one month.
How startup funding works: stages, investors, and when to raise
TK Kader
October 22, 2023
Fundraising & VC
9
Vision & mission
6
Pitching before a growth inflection point makes you a stale deal.
VC interest tracks month over month revenue growth, not your idea.
Stay in 'not raising' mode — build relationships until the numbers speak.
From corporate burnout to freelance social media agency founder
Joanna Wiebe
October 22, 2023
Case studies
10
Prospecting & outreach
7
Copywriting
6
VOC research turned a $220 welcome sequence into a client breakthrough
Every client since 2020 has stayed an average of 18 months
Refunding a bad-faith client was a deliberate brand-protection strategy
Customer discovery
YouTube
Five steps to build and launch an irresistible offer
KeyPersonOfInfluence
October 22, 2023
Customer discovery
9
Pricing strategy
8
MVP & prototyping
6
Validate demand with expressions of interest before building anything.
Pricing below £2,000 forces unsustainable sales volume for small businesses.
Zero-margin bundles make your core offer significantly more attractive.
How to pitch your product and win deals
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
October 22, 2023
B2B sales
9
Objection handling
7
Conversion rate optimisation
5
Why 40-60% of B2B deals fail due to indecision, not better competitors
Setup phase establishes market insight and positions your differentiated value
Proof and objection handling disarm buyer fears and move deals forward
Content marketing
YouTube
Three Ways to Measure and Improve Content Marketing ROI
Neil Patel
October 21, 2023
Content marketing
9
Conversion rate optimisation
8
Data & analytics
6
UTM parameters give fast, low-resource content tracking insights.
A/B test CTAs on top posts; roll out winners site-wide.
Track which topics close deals, then expand into adjacent subtopics.
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Rockefeller's letters to his son: lessons from a conqueror's private words
Founders
October 21, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Management
8
Competitive analysis
7
Rockefeller's unfiltered private letters reveal a ruthless conqueror's true mindset.
Why self-belief, not luck or talent, was his actual engine of success.
His multi-pronged attack strategy: always target the strongest competitor first.
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Peter Attia on perfectionism, presence, and emotional health
The Daily Stoic
October 21, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Deep work & focus
7
Founder interviews
6
The trait that drives success often becomes the source of chronic misery.
Attia spent seven years avoiding the emotional chapter his book required.
Outcome-detachment feels unreasonable — but it is the only path to mastery.
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Passion, self-awareness, and competing on your own terms
GaryVee
October 20, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
7
Someone who loves your industry will always outwork you
Self-awareness beats ambition — you may be a great number two
Competition is mostly internal fear, not an external threat
Three-step feedback loop system for small business teams
Layla at ProcessDriven
October 20, 2023
Processes & SOPs
9
Customer experience
6
"Thank you for your feedback" is a direct path to the trash.
Start internal: test the system on your team before facing clients.
Feedback only improves your business if one person owns the review step.
Content marketing
YouTube
What made a TikTok video hit 1 million views
Neil Patel
October 19, 2023
Content marketing
9
Growth hacking
8
Timing a trend at its peak matters more than the trend itself
Universal curiosity topics outperform niche content every time
Authentic live energy and storytelling drive engagement over information
Ecommerce SEO: how to drive organic traffic to your online store
Semrush
October 19, 2023
SEO
9
Content marketing
6
Organic traffic beats paid — but only with deliberate keyword intent matching
Three-level site architecture determines how search engines index your store
Blog content captures buyers before they know what they want to buy
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
When and how HR should manage recruiting firms
HR Party of One
October 19, 2023
Hiring & recruitment
9
Outsourcing & delegation
5
Wrong recruiters create legal, ethical, and brand risk for your company.
HR's compliance knowledge makes them the essential recruiter go-between.
A strong recruiter relationship gives free access to market compensation data.
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Small daily progress and building a career only you can have
The Daily Stoic
October 19, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Long-term planning
6
One meaningful action per day compounds more than most people expect.
Career clarity comes from knowing what you want your days to look like.
Do what only you can do — competition becomes irrelevant.
How Duolingo grew from 3 million to 200 million users organically
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
October 19, 2023
Case studies
9
Iteration & feedback loops
8
Growth hacking
7
Zero paid budget: why organic growth forced Duolingo to actually earn retention
Leaning into the passive-aggressive owl meme instead of killing it
Latin America's tech GDP is one-thirtieth of the US — the gap is the opportunity