PIXEL PERFECT: HOW AI UNLOCKS CREATIVITY
Rex Woodbury breaks down how AI, creators, and scaled distribution tactics like virality and community-led growth are generating huge momentum across these vectors.
digitalnative.tech14 min read
TLDR FOUNDERS 2023-11-03
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01HEADLINES & TRENDS
VCS NO LONGER DO DTC
If you’re a consumer goods company trying to raise right now, it’s super hard. So far this year, U.S. investors put just over $130 million into companies at the intersection of e-commerce and consumer products. That’s a whopping 97% decline from the peak in 2021.
news.crunchbase.com2 min read
UNPACKING AMAZON’S UNIQUE WAYS OF WORKING (93 MINUTE PODCAST)
This podcast is with Bill Carr, someone who played a pivotal role in shaping Amazon’s digital music and video strategy over the course of 15 years. There are a ton of excellent takeaways, but a highlight for me was how to actually follow the “disagree and commit” principle.
lennysnewsletter.com
02STRATEGIES & TACTICS
A MINOR CHATGPT UPDATE IS A WARNING TO FOUNDERS: BIG TECH CAN BLOW UP YOUR STARTUP AT ANY TIME
We’ve already seen it with investors not willing to invest in companies that are just wrapping GPT but now it is even more clear. With the ability to query uploaded PDFs, a whole swath of startups just got wiped off the map.
businessinsider.com3 min read
TOP 10 MISTAKES WHEN HIRING A VP OF SALES
Cautionary tales and sage advice for founders hiring their sales leaders. It’s about understanding the career game they’re looking to play, testing their knowledge of your product, and seeing if they’re going to attract sales talent to your company.
saastr.com6 min read
ARE BIGGER TEAMS BETTER?
A quick read by Sean Byrnes about when to think about big vs. small teams. The short answer is that it depends, but he breaks it down in an easy-to-understand fashion.
breakingpoint.tech4 min read
03TOOLS & RESOURCES
LIVEBLOCKS COMMENTS (PRODUCT)
Enable discussions in your product effortlessly.
liveblocks.io
LDRS (PRODUCT)
Open-source loading animations for your product.
uiball.com
ADSBY (PRODUCT)
Generate keywords with AI in seconds.
adsby.co
04MISCELLANEOUS
THE ONLY THING YOUR INVESTORS WANT
Surprise surprise, it’s growth. Even if your investors are compassionate, empathetic, and understanding, they still expect you to grow fast.
markmacleod.me2 min read
WHAT MAKES A GREAT ACQUISITION?
Google has made over 250 acquisitions. Facebook, Amazon, and Apple have over 100 each. Getting M&A right has been the difference between reasonably successful companies, and hyper-successful ones. But M&A is really hard. This article unpacks some of the elements of great acquisitions in this long read. Most of the case studies are late-stage companies, but the principles remain true if you’re an earlier-stage company looking to acquire.
thegeneralist.substack.com21 min read
THE GENERATIONAL BUSINESS TRAP
This post explores the concept of "The Generational Business Trap." The discussion is around how companies, even successful ones, can fall into the trap of becoming a 'generational' business that fails to evolve with changing times and customer preferences. The key to longevity is continuously reinventing oneself, maintaining customer-centricity, and fostering an innovative culture. The post also provides examples and offers practical tips for avoiding this trap.
anu.substack.com8 min read
05QUICK LINKS
WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT BEING A CEO?
Being a CEO is a really hard job, but it has some rewards, like choosing who you work with and getting to really own something.
saastr.com2 min read
WHAT MAKES A GREAT ACQUISITION?
This is a pretty in-depth look at acquisitions from a couple of different perspectives and covers the good, bad, and ugly around how to make them stick and be successful.
thegeneralist.substack.com7 min read
HOW MUCH SHOULD QUOTAS INCREASE NEXT YEAR?
Even with the uncertainty in the market these days, expectations show that software purchasing will increase by as much as 8% next year. What kind of impact will that have on quotas especially given the pain CFO’s have exerted over the last year?
tomtunguz.com2 min read