12 August 2024
This week's additions focus on leadership, founder stories, and strategy, with new digests from Rob Walling, Starter Story, and Dr. Grace Lee. Highlights include Start marketing before coding — conversations beat content every time. Building inside a platform marketplace beats competing on the open internet.
Showing 42 digests for 12 August 2024.
SaaS Playbook hits 29,000 sales: channels, royalties, and book lessons
Startups For the Rest of Us
August 13, 2024
Bootstrapping
8
Pricing strategy
6
Hiring & recruitment
6
Audible takes 75% of every sale — direct beats it on margin
Access to information was never the barrier to learning to code
Build onboarding last, once you know the full product gestalt
What 430 investments taught me about backing great founders
EO
August 13, 2024
Fundraising & VC
9
Hiring & recruitment
6
Pitching investors
5
Gut feeling is pattern recognition built through volume, not innate talent.
Back the person first — a great team pivots a bad idea, a weak team loses.
Junior VCs who act entitled are damaging the industry's reputation.
Automation & tools
YouTube
What is a benefits administration system and why use one
HR Party of One
August 13, 2024
Paper benefits admin costs up to an hour per enrollee
Online systems cut errors by integrating directly with insurance carriers
Self-service elections keep HR out of liability-heavy benefits advice
Founder interviews
YouTube
How Carl Pei built Nothing into a $600M smartphone brand in two years
Y Combinator
August 13, 2024
Founder interviews
9
Business models
7
Supply chain
6
Do earbuds before phones — sequence credibility before ambition.
90% Tim Cook, 10% Johnny Ive: survival is the hardware founder's job.
Glyph interface keeps users informed without triggering doom-scrolling.
Productivity & habits
Podcast
Todd Henry on building a daily creative practice
Beyond the To-Do List - Productivity for Work and Life
August 12, 2024
Productivity & habits
9
Deep work & focus
6
Time management
5
Anyone who solves problems for a living is already a creative professional
366 randomised daily prompts beat themed chapters — surprise deepens impact
Insights without application expire; daily five-minute practice builds lasting intentionality
How to build a long-term freelance copywriting career
Matthew Volkwyn
August 12, 2024
SEO
9
Content marketing
8
Outlasting every other copywriter is more powerful than being the best writer
Lifestyle inflation forces you to say yes to clients you should walk away from
Copy is rarely the real problem — diagnosing the full funnel is the real skill
Leadership as chief energizing officer: building a high-energy team culture
Cameron Herold
August 12, 2024
Culture building
10
Management
8
Communication
6
Praise twice as often as you criticize — fill the jar before you withdraw
Starbucks CEO spent 2 hours every Friday handwriting personalised thank-you notes
Skip-level meetings and MBWA build the trust that makes honest feedback possible
Kindness as leadership strategy: lessons from Ashley Stewart's turnaround
Coaching for Leaders
August 12, 2024
Culture building
9
Case studies
8
Management
5
Kindness isn't soft — it broke every Workers' Comp actuarial record
Random acts of kindness are a resignation, not a system
Stripping professional armor unlocked a twice-bankrupt company's turnaround
How to discover what you want your life to look like using structured journaling
Deep Questions with Cal Newport
August 12, 2024
Goal setting
9
Identity & self-belief
6
Productivity & habits
5
Grand goals fix one dimension of life while damaging others
Carry a notebook, capture resonance, distill monthly into values
Structure isn't creativity's enemy — distraction is
How Fastenal became a $38 billion company selling nuts and bolts
Founders
August 12, 2024
Culture building
9
Business operating systems
7
Case studies
6
A commodity nuts-and-bolts seller became America's top-performing stock.
Low costs fund better people — the flywheel that beats competitors for decades.
Radical decentralisation: 3,400 stores each run like an independent business.
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
AI's impact on marketing, media, and consumer behavior
GaryVee
August 12, 2024
AI strategy & adoption
9
Growth hacking
7
Brands drawing hard AI lines today will cross them within a generation
Algorithms on For You pages are already the biggest AI force in marketing
Media fragmentation is causing real loneliness — and it's still early days
AI strategy & adoption
YouTube
Lean AI innovation: a human-first framework for corporate deployments
Lean Startup Co.
August 12, 2024
AI strategy & adoption
10
Business operating systems
6
Most AI projects fail at the human layer, not the technical one.
Test your riskiest assumptions first — cut time-to-market by 80–90%.
Metered funding keeps innovation disciplined and CFOs on side.