TLDR FoundersJanuary 29, 2025

TLDR FOUNDERS 2025-01-29

5 sections15 entrieslinks blockcomplete parse

Parse notes

Subscription/account footer truncated before parsefooter_truncated

01HEADLINES & TRENDS

INFERENCE TIME COMPUTE

DeepSeek's new AI model R1 cost $10M to build instead of the usual $100M+. This article looks at how AI costs are changing - instead of spending mostly on building AI, companies now spend more on running it daily. As AI gets cheaper to build, more companies can use it, which means more computing power is needed overall. For investors and companies, this means the real opportunity might not be in building AI models, but in providing the computing power to run them. This shift could create new winners in the AI industry.

cloudedjudgement.substack.com7 min read

MY PRODUCT WENT VIRAL ON SOCIAL MEDIA BUT ALL I GOT WERE THESE SHITTY USERS

Most users who find products through viral posts don't become real customers. This article asks three important questions about growth: Do users stick around? Can you get more users the same way? Do users actually spend money? Through examples from recent product launches, it explains why steady growth beats viral moments. Find channels that bring in fewer but better users rather than chasing viral spikes that look good on paper.

andrewchen.substack.com6 min read

TECH CRASH?

DeepSeek's arrival has caused nearly $1 trillion in tech stock losses, hitting companies like NVIDIA hard. Surprisingly, SaaS companies went up 1% while other tech fell. This article explains why this happened and what it means for tech company values. The market shift shows how disruption in one area of tech can create unexpected winners and losers across the industry.

onlycfo.io5 min read

02STRATEGIES & TACTICS

HOW TO GAIN COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE THROUGH PAID MARKETING

Competitor analysis has always been an integral part of many successful paid advertising plans. However, other than making the ads perform better and generate more sales, there are certain competition-based strategies that can give your brand a unique competitive advantage. This blog offers a comprehensive guide to gaining a competitive advantage through paid ads, from tips on crafting a unique value proposition and capitalizing on competitor gaps to utilizing advanced audience targeting techniques.

usekaya.com12 min read

HOW TO MEASURE R&D EFFICIENCY

Engineering teams spend about half their time building new things, and the rest maintaining old work. This article shows how to track if R&D money is being spent well using real numbers from companies. Written by Jellyfish's CFO, it gives finance leaders clear ways to measure tech team performance. The most successful companies go beyond just measuring time spent coding - they connect engineering work directly to business results and customer needs.

mostlymetrics.com6 min read

PRODUCT GROWTH MODEL GUIDE

Companies grow in four main ways: getting new users, keeping current ones, making money, and selling more to existing customers. This article explains how successful companies grow everyone's job, not just one team's work. It outlines five ways to grow, from letting the product sell itself to using sales teams. Rather than picking just one approach, the best companies build all these growth elements into their product from day one.

plg.news5 min read

03TOOLS & RESOURCES

FOCAL (PRODUCT)

Focal is an AI video platform for creating movies, TV shows, and YouTube videos. It combines the best video models (Kling, Minimax, and Luma, etc.) and image models (Flux Pro and Recraft, etc.) with a browser-based editor, so you can do all your work in one place. Focal also has a powerful copilot that can generate parts of the video for you.

focalml.com

OVERSTAND LABS

This tool transforms your customer conversations into actionable tasks.

overstandlabs.comTool

GOOGLE AI STUDIO (PRODUCT)

Google AI Studio is the fastest way to start building with Gemini.

aistudio.google.com

04MISCELLANEOUS

PAUSE AS A DECISION-MAKING TOOL

Making quick decisions at work often leads to mistakes. This writer shares how rushing a project estimate led to late nights and stress. By making a rule to never give immediate answers, work quality improved. The writer shows how taking time helps in tough situations like managing teams or handling layoffs. Simple rules like "no answers during meetings" are surprisingly powerful for protecting against pressure and improving choices across all kinds of business decisions.

read.perspectiveship.com5 min read

TRUST AS A BUSINESS MODEL

Companies like Vanguard and Costco succeed by charging less than they could. This article shows how customers stay longer and tell friends more when companies don't maximize prices. Using data from a Stanford-MIT study, it explains why this works especially well for businesses that need lots of happy customers. The data suggests that deliberately leaving money on the table often leads to stronger growth through loyalty and referrals.

wildfirelabs.substack.com8 min read

HOW SOFTWARE FIRM MICROSTRATEGY'S BIG BET ON BITCOIN WENT STRATOSPHERIC

MicroStrategy, under Michael Saylor's leadership, has transformed into a "bitcoin treasury company" with aggressive investments in bitcoin, vastly increasing its market cap and stock value. The company's strategy includes issuing debt and equity to continually purchase bitcoin, fueling a feedback loop of rising stock prices. However, critics warn of significant risks if bitcoin's price falls, as MicroStrategy's financial health is heavily dependent on its crypto holdings.

theguardian.com7 min read