12 January 2026
This week's additions focus on mindset, strategy, and leadership, with new digests from Matthew Volkwyn, Rob Walling, and Ryan Deiss. Highlights include A real goal is something you want but have no idea how to achieve 48% of founders found their idea at their day job
Showing 56 digests for 12 January 2026.
Goals are problems to solve, not targets to chase
Matthew Volkwyn
January 18, 2026
Goal setting
10
Identity & self-belief
5
A real goal is something you want but have no idea how to achieve
Reverse-engineer until you have a clear daily action, then just execute
If you know what to do and aren't doing it, it's a priority problem
How Successful SaaS Founders Actually Find Profitable Ideas
Rob Walling
January 18, 2026
Niche selection
9
Customer discovery
7
Identity & self-belief
5
48% of founders found their idea at their day job
72% of winning ideas came directly from existing work experience
Online idea hunting works for only 3% — lived context beats forum trawling
Long-term planning
YouTube
Five levels of scale: what to learn and unlearn at each stage
Ryan Deiss
January 18, 2026
Long-term planning
10
Delegation
8
Processes & SOPs
7
The skill that got you to this level will stall the next one.
Delegating menial tasks doesn't free you — it creates a management job.
Most businesses die between $2M and $5M, not at $10M.
MVP & prototyping
YouTube
How a solo founder built a $20K/month Christian app in six months
Starter Story
January 18, 2026
MVP & prototyping
9
Growth hacking
9
Iteration & feedback loops
8
Built and shipped a complete app in three days using AI tools
Rebuilding onboarding tripled conversion before spending a dollar on ads
TikTok Spark ads on one UGC creator dropped cost per trial to $3
MVP & prototyping
YouTube
Three profitable AI SaaS ideas to build in 2026
TK Kader
January 18, 2026
MVP & prototyping
8
Niche selection
7
Pricing strategy
6
Bad ideas kill AI products, not bad code — the idea is the product.
A Gmail negotiation coach can price at $30–$99/month because it drives commission.
Mid-market ICP builder: turn CRM data into scored leads and shifting trend reports.
Seven Stoic leadership traits drawn from ancient practice
The Daily Stoic
January 18, 2026
Management
10
Resilience & grit
6
Premeditatio malorum: rehearse disaster before it happens.
Self-accountability first — correct yourself before judging others.
Bravery means serving the common good, even at personal cost.
Hiring & recruitment
YouTube
How to hire your first team using army squad sizes
KeyPersonOfInfluence
January 18, 2026
Hiring & recruitment
10
Long-term planning
7
British Army squad sizes map directly onto business growth stages
Hire EA first, then sales and delivery, general manager last
Hospitality managers often outperform MBA hires below $5M
Automation & tools
Podcast
How a non-technical PM builds real products using Cursor and AI
Lenny's Podcast Product Career Growth
January 18, 2026
Automation & tools
9
MVP & prototyping
8
AI tools & automation
7
A zero-code PM ships production apps solo using a 6-phase workflow
Multi-model peer review: make Claude, Codex, and Gemini critique each other
Iterating on your prompts after AI mistakes is the real productivity unlock
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Rewiring your mind: Joe Dispenza's three lessons for founders
Business Book Club
January 17, 2026
Identity & self-belief
9
Resilience & grit
6
Your internal dialogue rewires your brain — or keeps you stuck.
Present-moment focus outperforms future-living in high-stakes moments.
Radical ownership removes excuses and accelerates startup progress.
Four hidden laws that determine how leadership classifies you
Dr. Grace Lee
January 17, 2026
Management
9
Identity & self-belief
8
Leaders promote what you are for, not how well you perform.
Escalating ambiguity upward signals support function, not leadership.
Shifting to exposure language repositions you from helper to strategic contributor.
AI tools & automation
YouTube
How to stop AI context rot using the 60% rule
Dylan Davis
January 17, 2026
AI tools & automation
9
Automation & tools
6
AI reliably degrades past 60% of its context window — every time
A four-question handoff summary resets a dying thread in seconds
File type determines token cost: video kills context, CSV saves it
Building an app portfolio factory: 50 million downloads with a creator army
Superwall
January 17, 2026
Growth hacking
10
User research
7
Automation & tools
6
Spending 75% of annual ad budget in January alone beat TikTok in downloads
250-creator in-house university turned amateurs into high-converting ad machines
A three-tier $20-to-millions system that finds winners without guessing
Identity & self-belief
Podcast
Stop Waiting to Be Chosen: Adam Skolnick on Writing, Power, and Finding the Edge
The Daily Stoic
January 17, 2026
Identity & self-belief
9
Founder interviews
8
Business models
6
Why waiting for a publisher to anoint you keeps you stuck
Political power, not merit, shapes what gets built or destroyed
Ultra-athletes aren't chasing glory — they're chasing a breakthrough feeling
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Raising entrepreneurial kids: what schools miss and parents can do
Cameron Herold
January 16, 2026
Identity & self-belief
9
Origin stories
7
B2C sales
5
School actively suppresses entrepreneurial traits by medicating and redirecting them.
Early money habits — negotiating, saving, recurring revenue — outweigh any classroom lesson.
Allowances breed employee thinking; replace them with negotiated, variable pay.
Write a book in the year after your business exit
Scaling Up with Verne Harnish
January 16, 2026
Origin stories
7
Identity & self-belief
6
Processes & SOPs
5
Post-exit founders risk losing wealth by rushing back into deals
Writing a book keeps you busy while stories are freshest
You don't need to write it — ghostwriters do the heavy lifting