18 December 2023
This week's additions focus on leadership, marketing, and mindset, with new digests from Rob Walling, TK Kader, and The Daily Stoic. Highlights include Client portals and support tools inside existing platforms are underserved markets Vozy avoided the word 'AI' in sales calls — until ChatGPT changed everything.
Showing 30 digests for 18 December 2023.
Long-term planning
YouTube
Four CEO skills that scale a business to $10M revenue
Dan Martell
December 20, 2023
Long-term planning
9
Delegation
8
Branding
7
Validate with payment, not compliments — words lie, money doesn't.
A five-rung hiring ladder buys back your time to $1M.
Prepared luck: a strong brand makes other people's opportunities flow to you.
Founder interviews
YouTube
How Paul Millerd quit a $250K job and built a self-publishing business
Starter Story
December 20, 2023
Founder interviews
9
Bootstrapping
7
Work-life balance
6
Self-publishing pays 4x more per book than traditional deals
$6K production cost generated $125K+ in profit
Remove money from the decision when searching for meaningful work
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Self-love, self-awareness, and navigating life's uncertainty
GaryVee
December 20, 2023
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
8
Management
5
Without self-love, anxiety and bad days are the default.
You are judge and jury of your own self-worth.
Comfort with not knowing what's next is a superpower.
Five business lessons from Masters of Scale's 2023 retrospective
Masters of Scale
December 19, 2023
Culture building
8
Social media
8
AI strategy & adoption
7
AI is already mainstream — waiting to experiment is a losing strategy.
An asphalt company tripled revenue with a single viral TikTok.
Authentic leaders no longer separate personal and professional identities.
How to optimise content for featured snippets and SERP features
Semrush
December 19, 2023
Six distinct SERP feature types each need a different optimisation strategy.
Reverse-engineer existing knowledge panels to replicate their profile mix.
Question-based keywords unlock featured snippets, PAA, and video carousels.
Customer discovery
Podcast
Five SaaS lessons: onboarding, free users, pricing, research, and rules
Startups For the Rest of Us
December 19, 2023
Customer discovery
8
Pricing strategy
8
Business models
6
Free users prove nothing — a paying customer is the only real signal.
Mirror research: assuming your preferences match your customers' is a costly trap.
Learn SaaS rules of thumb before deciding which ones to break.
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Mindfulness, self-knowledge, and leadership for driven entrepreneurs
EOS Worldwide
December 19, 2023
Identity & self-belief
10
Management
7
Business operating systems
6
Why the D2/D4 gene makes driven founders chronically dissatisfied
Stillness resisted is a signal — what's flooding in needs attention
Leading from love vs. fear: how true self changes every decision
Underrated social media platforms and attention arbitrage for 2024
GaryVee
December 19, 2023
Growth hacking
9
Social media
9
Content marketing
6
Facebook is growing fastest — because most creators abandoned it
TikTok Live rewards casual, unscripted streaming over polished content
Traditional TV commercials cost more and deliver less than organic content
Compliance & regulation
YouTube
How to handle employment verification requests safely
HR Party of One
December 19, 2023
Compliance & regulation
8
Hiring & recruitment
6
Rehire eligibility alone tells a hiring manager almost everything they need
References carry defamation risk; verifications keep you legally safe
Candidates must consent before you contact former employers for verification
Acquired 2023 year in review: growth, brand, and going all-in
Acquired
December 18, 2023
Business models
8
Case studies
7
Branding
6
Why growing too fast can hollow out a niche media business
Studying LVMH taught them to stop apologising for scarcity
Both hosts go full-time together and begin co-investing
Building Extraordinary Results Through Team Habits
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
December 18, 2023
Processes & SOPs
8
Management
7
Teams fail due to broken systems, not broken people—fix workflows instead of personalities.
Interpersonal power (what you accomplish together as peers) solves most problems without hierarchy.
Small, chronic failures compound into major trust erosion—address the broken printer in your team.
Productivity & habits
YouTube
Five hard lessons from building a high-growth company
Cameron Herold
December 18, 2023
Productivity & habits
9
Delegation
8
Processes & SOPs
6
Working at 80% pace outperforms full-speed — always.
Boundaries force delegation; overwork just avoids relational pain.
Train people by letting them watch you work, not in separate sessions.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
How to respond when overload hits: three concrete steps
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
December 18, 2023
Productivity & habits
9
Deep work & focus
6
Workload oscillates — overload is structural, not a personal failure.
Reduce, systematize, then prevent: three steps to regain control.
Deferred yeses and quotas compress future overload before it starts.
Christian Dior: building a luxury fashion empire through obsession and self-doubt
Founders
December 18, 2023
Origin stories
8
Design thinking
5
A nobody at 41 with nothing suggesting genius built fashion history's greatest debut.
Chronic imposter syndrome conquered by inventing a separate designer alter ego.
Hiring fanatics who'd 'rather die' than produce substandard work built the Pixar of fashion.
Gary Vaynerchuk on making money, accountability, and attention in the creator economy
GaryVee
December 18, 2023
Social media
8
Founder interviews
7
Resilience & grit
5
Thrift store flipping is the fastest legal path from broke to $10k
Happiness and personal accountability are directly correlated — blame kills results
TikTok Live is the coming wave: live shopping that grows reach over time