13 November 2023
This week's additions focus on strategy, leadership, and marketing, with new digests from Cameron Herold, Rob Walling, and TK Kader. Highlights include Hire for your exact weaknesses, not a generic COO template Maintenance mode felt worse than selling — that frustration triggered the exit.
Showing 36 digests for 13 November 2023.
Gary Vaynerchuk on day trading attention and winning the content game
Masters of Scale
November 16, 2023
Social media
9
Culture building
6
Motivation
5
Why posting the same video on every platform guarantees mediocrity
An asphalt business doubled revenue to $2.5M with a few TikToks
V-Friends: building Sesame Street meets Pokemon to scale empathy at scale
Founder interviews
YouTube
Building GlossGenius: From Bootstrapped MVP to $500M company
EO
November 16, 2023
Founder interviews
10
Bootstrapping
8
Business models
6
Raise institutional capital only after unit economics are proven
Build the MVP yourself — being the builder makes you the fastest feedback loop
What customers don't love is more useful than what they do
How larger teams free founders to think and plan
EOS Worldwide
November 16, 2023
Delegation
8
Productivity & habits
7
Business operating systems
6
Bigger teams shift founders from doing to strategic thinking
Delegation reveals tasks you didn't know you could hand off
Consistent clarity breaks only happen when execution is covered
Identity & self-belief, Work-life balance, Motivation
YouTube
Practical advice on scaling, time, money, and following your path
GaryVee
November 16, 2023
Identity & self-belief, Work-life balance, Motivation
8
Management, Communication
7
Bootstrapping, Cash flow management
6
Most businesses stall because owners don't reinvest profit.
Gen Z isn't lazy — they have options previous generations lacked.
Money exposes who you already are; it fixes nothing.
How to prevent problems at your company holiday party
HR Party of One
November 16, 2023
Culture building
8
Compliance & regulation
7
Mid-week timing and a 2–3 hour cap prevent most party excess
A drink ticket system shifts post-limit costs to employees
Written ground rules embedded in the culture guide create year-round accountability
What product operations is and how to build it at your company
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
November 16, 2023
Processes & SOPs
9
Hiring & recruitment
6
Product ops absorbs operational work so PMs can focus on strategy.
Three pillars: data insights, customer research, and process standardisation.
Start with one hire, one pillar, and quick wins to build momentum.
SEO during a recession: what changes and how to prepare
Ahrefs
November 15, 2023
SEO
9
Long-term planning
5
SEO budgets are cut first, but search usage grows during recessions
Google grew ~35% year-over-year through the 2008 financial crisis
Stopping SEO mid-downturn hands compounding gains to competitors
How Coca-Cola built the world's most durable beverage franchise
Business Breakdowns
November 15, 2023
Business models
9
Branding
6
Coke's financials understate value creation — you must look at the system
Franchising bottling assets creates 30% ROIC at the centre vs 10–15% at the edge
Emerging markets could treble Coke's addressable consumer base over 20 years
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
When to hire a COO — and when not to
Cameron Herold
November 15, 2023
Hiring & recruitment
9
Outsourcing & delegation
5
Try an EA, functional heads, or fractional COO first
Only hire a COO when multiple functions are overflowing simultaneously
A bad COO hire costs $250k+ and triggers organisational upheaval
How to become a venture capitalist with $1,000 using syndicates
Starter Story
November 15, 2023
Fundraising & VC
9
Processes & SOPs
6
Invest in competitive VC rounds from just $1,000 via SPVs
Sharing deals with VCs for free is how you eventually get access
One portfolio winner at 50–250X offsets all the losers
Social media is free, attention is the asset: how to grow in 2024
GaryVee
November 15, 2023
Growth hacking
9
Social media
9
Content marketing
7
Algorithms now reward content quality, not follower count — anyone can go viral.
Tactics are free and abundant; psychology is the real barrier to growth.
Posting on LinkedIn three times daily beats most paid strategies right now.
How Casetext built a $650M AI legal product over ten years
Y Combinator
November 15, 2023
Case studies
9
AI strategy & adoption
8
Product-market fit
7
GPT-4 access turned months-long enterprise sales into single-month closes
A live demo compressing five days of legal work into fifteen minutes closed deals
Domain expertise built over a decade made Casetext ready when the model arrived
Keyword research using AI tools and competitor analysis
Semrush
November 14, 2023
SEO
9
AI tools & automation
7
Use ChatGPT and Bard to build an initial keyword list fast
Competitor keyword gaps reveal ranking opportunities you'd otherwise miss
Matching search intent (informational vs transactional) determines which keywords convert
Funding, focus, and doing things that don't scale
Startups For the Rest of Us
November 14, 2023
Bootstrapping
9
Pivoting
7
Fundraising & VC
6
Why taking funding then starting side projects destroys your startup
Meta's paid no-ads tier: a model Rob wants worldwide
How Drip and LUGG validated demand by doing things that don't scale
Founder interviews
Podcast
Ted Turner: building CNN and TBS from a billboard company
Founders
November 14, 2023
Founder interviews
9
Pivoting
6
How unsold billboard space became the unfair advantage that built TBS
CNN launched with no safety net — modelled on Rommel's desert fuel strategy
Selling control slowly costs more than the capital it raises