26 January 2026
This week's additions focus on mindset, strategy, and ai, with new digests from Matthew Volkwyn, Rob Walling, and Starter Story. Highlights include Pitch what businesses urgently need today, not what worked in 2020. Quitting your job early kills startups through financial desperation
Showing 56 digests for 26 January 2026.
Influencer & partnerships
YouTube
Gifting as the Real Key to Business Success
Scaling Up with Verne Harnish
January 30, 2026
Influencer & partnerships
8
Community building
6
Strategic gifting builds influence that thinking big alone cannot.
Giving during near-bankruptcy preceded Harnish's biggest revenue year.
Tom Cruise, Sam Zell, and Sarah Blakely all use systematic gifting.
Founder interviews
YouTube
HubSpot CEO Yamini Rangan on Career Reinvention and Leading in the AI Era
Silicon Valley Girl
January 30, 2026
Founder interviews
10
Management
7
AI strategy & adoption
6
Past playbooks limit future growth — build from your desired future.
95% of HubSpot's 2025 code commits used AI assistance.
Hire explorers with scientist mindsets, not map-followers with fixed playbooks.
How MrBeast built an individual empire through attention and content
GaryVee
January 30, 2026
Social media
9
Content marketing
7
Growth hacking
6
Every major social platform is still underpriced — most creators miss it
The algorithm is just a scorecard; the audience is the only game
Beast Games proved creator-built content belongs on mainstream screens
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Key lessons from Marcus Aurelius's Meditations for modern life
The Daily Stoic
January 30, 2026
Resilience & grit
9
Identity & self-belief
8
Productivity & habits
5
Your judgment — not events — is the source of your distress.
Every obstacle is an invitation to practise virtue and grow.
Stoic strength includes asking for help and putting others first.
How YC redesigned its homepage to inspire founders, not convert them
Y Combinator
January 30, 2026
Branding
9
AI tools & automation
7
Design thinking
5
An apply button mid-scroll kills the story you're trying to tell.
Before/after founder photos make transformation tangible without a word of copy.
Building live in Cursor with AI replaced Figma for interaction design.
Founder interviews
Podcast
How Fawn Weaver built a billion-dollar spirits brand by staying open
Masters of Scale
January 29, 2026
Founder interviews
10
Identity & self-belief
8
Niche selection
6
Your fear isn't failure — it's the shame of public embarrassment.
Love and staying open are the secret weapons no business book covers.
Dead Titans make better mentors than living ones — check their family life first.
Physical & cognitive performance
YouTube
Play as a lifelong tool for brain rewiring and neuroplasticity
Andrew Huberman
January 29, 2026
Physical & cognitive performance
9
High stress kills play — low adrenaline is non-negotiable for neuroplasticity
Play circuits never disappear from the adult brain; biology wastes nothing
Chess and dynamic movement beat single-role activities for rewiring the brain
Identity & self-belief
YouTube
Copywriting career mistakes and the mindset shifts that unlock growth
Matthew Volkwyn
January 29, 2026
Identity & self-belief
8
Long-term planning
7
Automation & tools
6
Ego after peak revenue caused a $2M/month drop in weeks
Top copywriters earn more with two clients, not ten
AI-first workflows let one person do what seven used to
Why organic social fails and how to run it like a TV network
Neil Patel
January 29, 2026
Social media
9
Content marketing
7
Branding
5
Paid-only brands face rising CAC with no audience they own
Treat each content format as a recurring show, not a feed
Organic warms audiences so every paid ad converts cheaper
Business operating systems
YouTube
Eight frameworks for building a self-running eight-figure business
Ryan Deiss
January 29, 2026
Business operating systems
10
Delegation
7
Fix the single bottleneck first — optimising everything at once gains nothing.
Impact-based delegation: hire for high-impact tasks you're bad at, not admin.
Self-sabotage, not strategy, is the real ceiling on founder-led growth.
AI tools & automation
YouTube
How to get AI to give you honest, critical feedback
Dylan Davis
January 29, 2026
AI is trained to protect your ego — here's how to override it
Reframe the idea as a coworker's to get harsher, more useful critique
Ask AI to grade its own feedback, then rewrite it to be sharper
Resilience & grit
Podcast
Living a virtuous Stoic life means engagement, not retreat
The Daily Stoic
January 29, 2026
Resilience & grit
8
Identity & self-belief
6
Stoicism demands public engagement — withdrawal is complicity in injustice.
Good fortune is built through good actions, not granted by circumstance.
Knowing it all guarantees you stop learning anything new.
Mark Cuban's advice to early-stage founders: margin over sales
How I Built This with Guy Raz
January 29, 2026
Pricing strategy
9
Cash flow management
9
Outsourcing & delegation
7
Why big-box retail too early destroys founder-owned businesses
Raising VC while owning just over 50% puts you in a trap
AI tools are the great equaliser for cash-strapped entrepreneurs
Eight psychology principles that make stories impossible to ignore
Joanna Wiebe
January 29, 2026
Copywriting
9
Content marketing
6
Concrete words are stored twice in the brain — abstract ones fade.
Every story detail makes a brain-promise that must be paid off.
Name a specific villain; vague problems are forgotten, specific enemies drive action.
How to build a lifestyle business in the 2026 digital era
KeyPersonOfInfluence
January 29, 2026
Business models
10
Niche selection
7
Hiring & recruitment
6
Most entrepreneurs are still running when they could be riding.
Stop at 12 people — crossing 30 means loving business, not your craft.
Supply-side focus kills growth; winning work matters as much as doing it.