🎯 Scientific Goal Setting 🤝 Negotiation Tips ⚡ Fast Startup Validation

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎯 A goal setting guide
🏋️ A workout tracker app
🤝 How to negotiate with clients
✨ How to rebrand your company
0️⃣ What is zeroth principles thinking
⚡ The fastest way to validate a SaaS
🧰 Resources to learn entrepreneurship
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Don’t be afraid to give up good to go for great.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

⚡ Fast SaaS Validation shared by Elie Steinbock
A short video on how to validate your idea fast

🧰 Techstars Entrepreneur’s Toolkit shared by Royce Johnson
Resources to learn the basics of entrepreneurship

0️⃣ Zeroth Principles Thinking shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A video on challenging fundamental assumptions. Read more about it here

📘 Read This

Behind the Rebrand

Jay Clouse just rebranded his business and newsletter.

He dives deep into the rebranding process and its challenges:

When to rebrand?
What makes a good brand?
How to find flaws in your current brand?
How to lower the rebranding risks by talking to your audience?

🌟 Founder of the Week

Tony Tong

“Trends Pro has been keeping me disciplined in updating my daily progress. As a founder, having an accountability group is quite important. It’s a whole different identity and mentality to be your own boss.“

Tony is building Mindreader. It helps salespeople in high-ticket industries (insurance, real estate, consulting) boost sales by 10-50% using their AI profiling system. Which was trained in the leading banks, insurance and real estate companies in Asia.

What’s your most important habit?
Taking notes. It helps me learn new things and remember important decisions I have already made. As a CTO, it helps me track my tasks across management, design and AI research.

What are you reading right now?
I’ve just read The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick to learn how to talk to users and understand their needs. This book uncovered some poor Biz Dev practices that were causing zombie leads.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A device that could read our mind and generate images or videos to help others understand what we are talking about. It does sound quite apocalyptic though. This would rewrite so many social norms.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Hevy to track my weights and exercises. It has a cool feature that lets me see when my friends track their workout. It is a good motivation to go to the gym more often.

What are you bullish on?
I’m bullish on my success as long as I keep iterating and getting better.

What are you bearish on?
I’m bearish on getting people to change. I focus on my life instead and let people do what they want. This is great for my inner peace.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🖍️ Chrome Extensions as I want to build one for Mindreader.

What else?
I’m happy to connect with founders in the sales or lead generation space.

I’m shipping 3 AI chatbot features this year. Let’s chat if this interests you!

Exclusive Deal: Tony if offering Trends.vc readers 75% off any Mindreader plan with the code “CRAZY75”.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Which is the best CRM?
(📈 Pro) Hiring a marketing agency
(📈 Pro) What to expect from influencer marketing

👀 Watch This

When Client Says “Your Price Is Too High”

Chris Do and Mo Ismail act out a role play scenario where Mo is the vendor and needs a video for $1,000. While Chris navigates this obstacle knowing his minimum level of engagement is $4,000.

🔧 Try This

How to Set Goals (Backed by Science)

Goals are a great source of satisfaction and purpose in our lives.

There are 2 types of goals:

Specific goals • Lose 20 pounds of weight.
General goals • Be a healthy human being.

Specific goals help you achieve tangible outcomes. General goals keep you motivated and honest.

You should balance specific and general goals to prevent negative outcomes from pursuing your dreams.

You don’t want to lose 20 pounds by living off pretzels and carrot juice for 1 year.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Rishabh Singh, Mike Giannakopoulos and Aurélien Vasinis unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

✍️ Renae Gregoire launched a column on Forbes

🩺 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about generative AI in healthcare

👨‍💻 Elie Steinbock launched the Open Source Explored newsletter

💡 Mehmet Gonullu launched the waitlist for Ventures Fabrika

💬 Maisha Cannon wrote about chatbots on Poe

💰 Abhishek Kumar signed $8,000 worth of market research projects and was invited to a podcast

🧠 Eren Suzer unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

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💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

Niche AI Models: No-Code, Open-Source, Communities

“It is difficult to think of a major industry that AI will not transform.” – Andrew Ng

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❓ What You’ll Learn

How can niche AI models make you more productive?
Who is crowdsourcing niche AI data?
Why should you customize existing AI models?
How to build niche AI models by solving your own problems?
How to get early customers and feedback?
Who is building niche AI models in public?
Why should you open-source your AI model?
Who built 700+ models with no-code tools?
How to build an AI clone of yourself?
Why do tech giants acquire niche AI startups?

💎 Why It Matters

Niche AI models do some tasks better and faster than humans.

🔍 Problem

You want to do specific tasks more accurately and efficiently.

💡 Solution

Niche AI models are fine-tuned to perform well on domain-specific tasks.

🏁 Players

Niche AI Models

Pi • AI personal assistant
Runway • AI for video production
GitHub Copilot • AI for programmers
Krisp • AI to make meetings more productive
Character AI • AI to create interactive characters
Ada • AI for customer support
Chirp • AI for analyzing speech

AI Model Directories

Hugging Face • Marketplace for open-source AI models
Gravity AI • Catalog of free and paid AI models
Modelplace • Marketplace for image-detection models

AI Modeling Tools

Amazon SageMaker • Build AI models on Amazon Web Services
Microsoft AI Builder • Build AI models for Microsoft applications
Vertex AI • Build AI models on Google Cloud
Cogniflow • Build AI models with no-code tools
Replicate • Build open-source models that run in the cloud
Personal AI • Build an AI model that mirrors you
Scale Spellbook • Customize existing AI models with your data

🔮 Predictions

Established companies will acquire niche AI startups to serve specific industries better.
- Microsoft acquired Nuance to automate tasks for healthcare providers.
- Thomson Reuters acquired Casetext to help law firms review documents.
- Accenture acquired Flutura to offer better AI services for clients in the energy, chemicals, metals, mining and pharmaceutical industries.

Companies with unique user-generated data will look for ways to monetize it.
- Reddit will charge developers to access its API.
- Twitter announced new API pricing which cuts off free access to tweets.
- Stack Overflow plans to charge large tech companies for accessing its answers.

SaaS companies will build their own niche AI models to improve their core features.
- DocuSign built DocuSign Insight which analyzes contracts.
- Crowdstrike built Charlotte AI which detects cloud security issues.
- Loom built Loom AI which automates video summaries and editing.
- Adobe built Adobe Firefly which generates images and visual effects.

🛠 How to Build Niche AI Models

Solve your own problems. Chances are others have them too.
- Greg Kamradt built an AI to respond to Twitter replies.
- Dan Shipper built Lennybot to summarize ideas from Lenny’s Newsletter.
- Susan Koch built an AI to help her write a wedding toast for her daughter.

Use no-code tools to save time, money and energy building your own AI models.
- Hear.com used Levity to build AI models that categorize PDFs.
- ILLA Cloud used My AskAI to build a customer support chatbot.
- LifePack used Obviously AI to build 700+ AI models that forecast their inventory.

Customize existing AI models to save time and money training your own models from scratch.
- Cohere lets you use your data to customize their pre-built models.
- Generative AI Studio lets you customize and test generative AI models.
- TensorFlow has a tutorial on how to customize pre-built models using your data.

🌱 How to Grow Niche AI Models

Join relevant communities to get early customers and feedback.
- Alon Talmor launched My AskAI on Product Hunt.
- Jijo John launched TextCraft AI on Indie Hackers.
- Ardy Naghshineh launched Browse AI on Indie Hackers.

Teach people how your AI model works with blog posts, workshops and short-form videos.
- David Park made a TikTok channel featuring his writing assistant Jenni AI.
- Jasper made The Jasper Blog to help customers use their AI marketing tool.
- Danie Theron published Getting Started with Bloom in the Towards Data Science blog.
- Dan Kulkov wrote about building an AI marketing ideas generator in his Weekly Dan newsletter.

Build an open-source alternative to proprietary AI models to gain recognition and get community contributions.
- OpenBB is an open-source version of BloombergGPT with over 24,000 stars and 2,000 forks on GitHub.
- Stable Diffusion is an open-source version of Midjourney with over 59,000 stars and 3,900 forks on GitHub.
- GPT Engineer is an open-source version of GitHub Copilot with over 49,000 stars and 7,000 forks on GitHub.

💰 How to Monetize Niche AI Models

Use paid plans to build a value ladder.
- Descript offers 10x more cloud storage for Pro customers.
- Casetext charges for each legal task but offers unlimited tasks on paid plans.
- Character AI offers faster character responses to Character AI Plus customers.

Offer enterprise plans for companies that want to access the top features.
- Mem offers more custom-trained models to enterprises.
- Fireflies offers private storage for enterprises with sensitive data.
- Krisp offers dedicated 24/7 customer support for enterprise clients.

😠 Haters

“ChatGPT can already solve niche problems with prompt engineering.”
Sure. But your customers don’t have the time to learn how to prompt ChatGPT. Runway makes high-quality video for creators. Suki automates admin work for doctors. People need tools to solve specific problems without complicated prompts.

“It’s hard to compete with large companies with proprietary data.”
Large companies can’t focus on every niche because they serve the masses. Use open-source AI platforms and access public data directories to solve problems for an underserved niche.

“Building a niche AI model seems hard.”
It depends on what you’re building. You can build useful models by customizing pre-trained models or using no-code tools. Online tutorials and developer communities can help you with anything more complex.

“Niche AI models can still give wrong answers.”
Humans also make mistakes. Keep them focused on the tasks they’re designed for and always verify their output. They’re meant to help you do your job. Not do it for you.

🔗 Links

Building a Report About Creating and Monetizing Niche AI Models • The Tweet behind this report.
Building Domain-Specific LLMs: Examples and Techniques • How to build a niche AI model.
MLOps Landscape in 2023: Top Tools and Platforms • List of tools to help you build your AI model.

📁 Related Reports

AI Agents • Boost your productivity with AI that makes decisions on your behalf
ChatGPT • Boost your productivity with AI that helps you code, write, research and more
Open-Source AI • Build AI faster by learning from each other
AI-Generated Content • Discover AI tools for generating image, voice and video content
Virtual AI Companions • Feel connected when friends and family are not around

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Uwe Dreissigacker, Edward Danilyuk, Harsha MV and Frank Jones. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Phil researched and wrote this report. Dru and Emin edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0130 — Niche AI Models has more insights.

What you’ll get:

21 Niche AI Models (200% More)
6 AI Model Directories (100% More)
14 AI Modeling Tools (100% More)
7 Predictions (133% More)
5 Ways to Build Niche AI Models (67% More)
7 Ways to Grow Niche AI Models (133% More)
4 Ways to Monetize Niche AI Models (100% More)
10 Links (233% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) How to improve your niche AI model?
(📈 Pro) How to boost accuracy by combining niche AI models?
(📈 Pro) Where to find high-quality training data?
(📈 Pro) Why should you use AI-generated data instead of real-world data?
(📈 Pro) How to earn commissions from sharing AI models?
(📈 Pro) How to monetize niche AI models?
(📈 Pro) How will blockchain help to manage access to niche AI data?
(📈 Pro) How are AI startups using foundation models?
(📈 Pro) How are YouTubers using niche AI models?
(📈 Pro) When will we run out of publicly available data?
And much more…

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📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

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💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

🪄 AI Screen Capture 📨 1,000 Paid Subscribers 🧲 Lead Magnet Guide

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🧲 A lead magnet guide
🔀 When to switch careers
📨 How to grow a newsletter
🪄 An AI workflow documentation tool
💹 How Loom scaled to a $1.5B valuation
🍬 10 sugar hacks to eat whatever you want
👨‍💻 A list of open-source projects for learning
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Opportunities don’t happen. You make them.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🪄 guidde shared by Stewart Townsend
An AI screen capture tool for documenting workflows

🧲 Lead Magnet Dos and Don’ts shared by Dru Riley
A short guide on what to offer as lead magnet

💹 Founder Playbook shared by Maisha Cannon
A talk on scaling Loom to a $1.5B valuation

📘 Read This

How to Waste Your Career

A lot of people regret staying in unfulfilling jobs, often motivated by a misplaced sense of loyalty or fear of change.

If you’re not paying attention, you lose precious years stagnating and being unhappy.

Ask these questions about your last 3 months at work to see if it’s time for a change:

Challenge: Have I faced any challenges?
Growth Alignment: Have I gained new skills?
Impact: Would I put my recent work on a resume?
Accomplishment: Have I done anything notable recently?
Community: Am I enthusiastic about my work, team and company?

Be proactive in seeking change. Do not waste your career, one comfortable year at a time.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Giovanni Vanini

“It has been a year since I became a Trends Pro Member. I was motivated to join because of the opportunity to connect with like-minded people and share interests for personal growth.”

Giovanni is building Fides. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0007.

What’s your most important habit?
Maintaining a consistent morning routine. This routine is enhanced by reading and disconnecting from online activities until noon.

What are you reading right now?
Learn or Die by Edward D. Hess and Hidden Genius by Polina Marinova Pompliano

Both books share strategies for learning, problem-solving and personal growth. “Learn or Die” shares practical tips for continuous improvement. “Hidden Genius” explores how successful people think when dealing with creative and challenging tasks.

What product or service do you wish existed?
An instant, real-time translator that we could use to eliminate the language barriers.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Descript. It helps me save a lot of time doing sales calls.

What are you bullish on?
NFTs. I believe that once companies grasp the full potential of this technology, they will unlock countless opportunities.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
As a management engineer with basic knowledge of computer science, I found the 🧱 No-Code report to be extremely helpful. It opened up numerous doors for me that were previously closed.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Favorite to do list app
(📈 Pro) Hiring a marketing agency
(📈 Pro) Building 30 AI tools in 30 days

🔧 Try This

Do This to Grow Your Newsletter

Polina Pompliano grew The Profile to ~1,000 paid subscribers.

She shares tips on how to build and grow paid newsletters:

Commit to your release cadence to build trust.
Have a content buffer to account for weeks off.
Collaborate with other newsletters via cross-promotions.
Track your retention rate to see how many people come back for your content.

👀 Watch This

10 Sugar Hacks to Eat Whatever You Want

Glucose spikes can make you feel tired, age faster and gain more weight.

Your body does not care whether it’s sugar from fruit or Coca-Cola.

They key to a healthier life is to eat food the right way:

Order Matters: Veggies first, protein second and carbs at the end.
Stop Counting Calories: A yogurt and a donut can have 150 calories each
Move After Eating: A walk or an exercise after a meal will lower the glucose levels.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Vivek Karna, Zac Qi, Tony Tong and Aashish unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🌱 Yoann Pavy launched a growth marketing podcast

⚔️ Frank Jones built Art Of War Business Advisor

👨‍💻 Elie Steinbock launched the Learn from Open Source GitHub repo

🔮 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about the future of VC

💼 Uwe Dreissigacker landed a fractional CMO role

🧠 Giovanni Vanini unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

Software Development Services: Attracting New Clients, AI Apps, No-Code Tools

“The value of software is not in the lines of code but in the value it creates.” – Unknown

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

How to get new clients?
How to build MVPs fast?
How will dev shops invest in their clients?
Why should you offer recruiting services?
How to help clients automate business tasks?
How to save the client’s money?
How to signal expertise?
How to get predictable revenue?
How to avoid underpricing your work?
How to set clear expectations for clients?
How to lower scope creep?
How to scale your revenue without spending more time?
How to lower market risk?
How to manage multiple projects?

💎 Why It Matters

You can build a software business without technical skills.

🔍 Problem

You’re not a programmer.

You don’t know how to build quality, scalable software.

💡 Solution

Software development services let you focus on your core competency.

Such as brand, sales, distribution, domain expertise and more.

🏁 Players

Software Development Service Providers

Matt Spear • Offers iOS development services
Matt Carden • Builds AI apps with ChatGPT API
ProductCrafters • Builds ideas from scratch
nocode rebels • Builds custom no-code software MVPs
Relevant Software • Builds custom web, mobile and desktop apps
Zeroqode • Builds no-code apps and plugins in Bubble
JetRockets • Builds custom mobile and desktop software

Developer Marketplaces

Skilled • Find top freelance developers from Israel
Codeable • Find expert WordPress developers
Lemon.io • Connects clients with qualified devs on a per-hour basis
Remote Crew • Hire a team of pre-vetted developers
Shepherd • Hire full-time employees from the Philippines and Latin America
CloudDevs • Hire vetted Latin American remote developers
Turing • Find deeply vetted developers and teams matched by AI

🔮 Predictions

Software agencies will use side-project marketing to get new clients.
- Apptension built a SaaS boilerplate.
- Premium Minds built an invoicing engine.
- FullStack Labs built a talent platform with vetted IT professionals.
- The Jed Mahonis Group made a podcast on software development.

Dev shops will build MVPs with no-code and low-code tools to help clients get to market faster.
- nocode rebels builds custom no-code software MVPs.
- code.store builds custom no-code and low-code MVPs.
- havenocode builds no-code mobile and desktop MVPs in 7 weeks.

Agencies will invest in clients with ‘Sweat Equity’ by offering dev hours in exchange for ownership.
- Gravitywell invests sweat equity in clients it admires.
- Global Triangles invested in Aguagente via sweat equity.

🛠 How to build Software Development Services

Build AI apps to help clients automate repetitive and complex business tasks.
- Alpharive builds AI chatbots, analytics apps and more.
- Appinventiv builds AI assistants, recommendation engines and more.
- Helios Solutions builds AI data apps, image recognition tools and more.

Offer no-code development to help clients get to market faster while saving time and money.
- Zeroqode builds web and mobile apps.
- Airdev builds scalable web-based apps.
- 8020 builds websites using no-code tools.
- NoCodeTeam builds web and mobile MVPs.
- Idea Link builds custom software in 4-12 weeks.
- Low/Code builds custom software with no-code and low-code tools.

Offer low-code development to go beyond no-code limitations while keeping faster development cycles.
- Damco builds low-code enterprise apps.
- Netguru does low-code web and mobile app development.
- SunDevs builds low-code apps using Microsoft Power Platform.

🌱 How to grow Software Development Services

Turn projects into case studies to help prospects see your approach to solving their problems.
- Wolfpack Digital shares apps they developed.
- Cuttlesoft shares web and mobile app case studies.

Offer free code audits as lead magnets to attract quality prospects.
- TechGenies offers free code audits.
- Accesto offers free code reviews for PHP apps.
- Alliance Software offers free code reviews across 39 points.

Give talks at conferences to attract new clients. This signals expertise.
- SoftServe talked about building AI apps at GTC NVIDIA.
- BairesDev talked about PHP development at Darkmira PHP Event.
- Kandasoft hosted a session on biotech at the Bio-IT World Conference.

💰 How to monetize Software Development Services

Sell prepaid packages to get a predictable revenue and workload.
- UnlimitedWP sells 40 and 80-hour packages.
- August 99 sells from 20 to 200-hour packages.

Charge per hour to lower the chances of underpricing your work.
- DEVY.io has a pay-as-you-go plan for $35 per hour.
- Gun.io charges $70-$200 per hour for mid, senior and lead developers.

Charge per project to set clear expectations for clients with tight budgets.
- Devlevate charges a custom price per project.
- JetRockets charges $25,000-$1,176,000 per project.
- buildwithflow.io charges $4,000 per landing page and $8,000 for a full website.

🔑 Key Lessons

The recurring revenue of software development services is not scalable. You’re selling hours.
Longer-term projects give you predictability. When a short-term project ends, you may start paying salaries from your pocket while looking for new clients.
Set realistic, measurable goals to lower scope creep. Break down projects into smaller milestones you can measure and add a 50% buffer on top. Do you think it will take 100 hours? Tell your client it will take 150 hours.

😠 Haters

“No-code tools make software development services less relevant.”
Less relevant does not mean irrelevant. No-code development is easier but less powerful. Custom development is more complex but more powerful. One does not exclude the other. They serve different purposes.

“Some clients have unrealistic expectations.”
Explain the project scopes, timelines and limitations early. Educating your clients on the nuance of building their projects can help you deliver products your clients need instead of want.

“Building on top of ecosystems leads to platform risk.”
This also lowers market risk. Bubble, Webflow and Salesforce are not going anywhere soon. What are you afraid of?

“Outsourcing software is dangerous. It’s our key differentiator.”
Many businesses compete on pricing, customer service, distribution or another front. Not software. If software is your trade secret, you should build it yourself. If you’re building common software such as a CRM, it’s more feasible to outsource it.

“If agencies are building and marketing, what is the core competency of the client?”
There’s more to core competencies than building and marketing products. Logistics, sales, customer service and buying power can be part of the client’s core competency.

🔗 Links

Everyone wants to build a SaaS. But not everyone can code • The thread for this report.
Project Management Methodologies • 12 popular frameworks for managing development projects.
MVP vs PoC vs Prototype • Difference between 3 early product stages.
Building a Report on Software Development Services • The tweet behind this report.

📁 Related Reports

Productized Services • Offer service packages instead of hours
Consulting • Guide clients through complex problems
Fractional Executives • Monetize your expertise on an as-needed basis
Micro-Consulting • This is a cost-effective way to get help
Agencies • Help companies solve problems without hiring and managing large teams

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Inaamul Haq Mansoor, Oleg Kalyta, Maciej Cupial, Uwe Dreissigacker, Stewart Townsend, Nirav Multani and Elie Steinbock. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0129 — Software Development Services has more insights.

What you’ll get:

16 Software Development Service Providers (129% More)
17 Developer Marketplaces (143% More)
11 Predictions (267% More)
12 Ways to build Software Development Services (300% More)
10 Ways to grow Software Development Services (233% More)
7 Ways to monetize Software Development Services (133% More)
6 Key Lessons (100% More)
13 Links (225% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) How to boost productivity with AI coding platforms?
(📈 Pro) How to build products around ChatGPT?
(📈 Pro) Why will dev shops build and promote apps for clients?
(📈 Pro) Why offer DevOps-as-a-Service?
(📈 Pro) Why use AI website builders?
(📈 Pro) How to get high-ticket sales with less mental overhead?
(📈 Pro) How to help clients validate ideas fast?
(📈 Pro) How to lower competitor risk?
(📈 Pro) How to monetize your expertise without building software?
(📈 Pro) How to attract organic leads?
(📈 Pro) Why join expert directories?
(📈 Pro) How to build a client flywheel?
(📈 Pro) How to boost your potential upside?
(📈 Pro) How to get a predictable cash flow?
(📈 Pro) How to stop trading time for money?
(📈 Pro) What are the negative scale effects of agencies?
(📈 Pro) How to start and scale a software agency?
(📈 Pro) How to use SEO to get $100,000 deals?
(📈 Pro) How to protect your interests with legal documents?
And much more…

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Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

🎮 AI Playground 🤝 Co-Founder Insights ✅ Cult Of Done

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🤖 An AI chat tool
✅ How to finish anything
📈 A startup growth framework
💸 A book on getting better at sales
🤩 The secrets of irresistible products
💪 How to focus on what you can control
🤝 How to know if you need a co-founder
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎮 AI Playground shared by Elie Steinbock
A tool to chat with multiple AI models at the same time

✅ Cult of Done shared by Chuck Hardy
A list of principles to help you finish any project

📈 Four Fits Growth Framework shared by Royce Johnson
A framework for startup growth beyond product-market fit

📘 Read This

How to Make Irresistible Products

There are 4 questions that define a valuable product:

Dream Outcome: How will this improve my life?
Likelihood: How likely is this to happen?
Time Delay: How long will this take?
Effort: How much work will this take?

Most products focus on the top 2 questions but the bottom is where the magic is.

If you can lower your customer’s time delay and effort to zero, you’re golden.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Jordon McKoy

”I’m a long-time member and have grown to appreciate not only Trends Pro Reports and the insights they hold, but the community that lives around them. It’s been inspiring to see everyone’s growth, willingness to share and collaborate.”

Jordon is building Benji. A chatbot that helps creators find tax write-offs by automatically sorting through personal and business expenses.

What’s your most important habit?
Regular exercise. It’s great for my mental health and focus. When I feel stronger physically, I feel stronger mentally and more confident in my work. It is also a break from the world and a moment to be with myself, maybe catch up on a podcast. I find it meditative.

What are you reading right now?
Demand-Side Sales 101 by Bob Moesta

I have a story I tell myself that I don’t like sales or can’t be good at it. I’d like to rewire the way I think about sales to improve.

The Culture Map by Erin Meyer

Doing some research for an upcoming podcast episode on Find The In.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A service that would make applying for a Visa as easy as filling out a quick form. It would be cool if we could apply to many places at once. I’m considering moving to Europe next year and I’m currently feeling a bit overwhelmed thinking about the whole process.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Spotify and the basic iOS Notes app. I’m most creative when I’ve got some music playing in the background and when inspiration hits I’m quickly capturing ideas in my Notes app. I’m also a podcast fan and Spotify has me covered there as well. The seamless experiences they enable make them a must for me.

What are you bullish on?
I like the trend of fractional executives and micro-consultants. I think there is real power in people being able to operate within their “zone of genius”. I believe organizations willing to engage with such individuals will benefit from the agility that project-scoped specialists provide.

What are you bearish on?
Prompt engineering. As the underlying models improve and interfaces become more robust, I doubt that prompt engineers will be needed outside of niche applications.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
Call me biased but I’ll have to go with the 🔬 Micro-SaaS report because Benji is mentioned!

What else?
I’m in the very early days of building a podcast, Find The In. We’ll be exploring entrepreneurship, technology and business while looking for insights from founder stories.

Exclusive Deal: Jordon is offering Trends.vc readers 70% off of the first Benji paid plan. Sign up for Benji using this link to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Favorite to do list app
(📈 Pro) Hiring a marketing agency
(📈 Pro) Building 30 AI tools in 30 days

🔧 Try This

How to Focus on What You Can Control

You can’t control everything.

You’ll waste your energy trying to change the outcome that won’t change no matter how hard you try.

Build resilience by focusing on what you can control and learn how to accept the rest.

❔ Ask Yourself

Do You Really Need a Co-founder?

You may have heard that having a co-founder can boost your chances of success.

The main reason for having a co-founder is to share key responsibilities.

Sometimes you need another pair of eyes and different opinions to make the right decision.

But there are business advisors that can do the same and 65% of startups fail due to a feud between co-founders.

Do you really need one?

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Atul unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🏡 Brianna Brazle launched The Village

🥾 Mac Martine reached 1,000 subscribers for the SaaS bootstrapper

⭐ Prabhjot Singh Lamba got a great video review for Craftar

🎮 Yoann Pavy opened the waitlist for his indie game Z-END

🎙️ Mehmet Gonullu reached the global top 10% in Listen Notes with The CTO Show

👨‍💻 Elie Steinbock made a video on the code behind OpenStatus

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

Short-Form Videos: Generative AI, Creator Funds, Content-Format Fit

“The play button is the most compelling call to action on the web.” – Michael Litt

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

How will short-form video platforms improve the shopping experience?
How to monetize with exclusive videos?
How are short-form video platforms attracting creators?
How to make short-form videos fast?
Why should podcasts use short-form videos?
Why should you start a faceless YouTube channel?
How to monetize your traffic?
How to find the content-format fit?
How to boost retention?
How to tell great stories in shorter formats?

💎 Why It Matters

Short-form videos are easier to consume and share.

🔍 Problem

We have short attention spans.

💡 Solution

Short-form videos let you explore many independent interests in the time it takes to watch one long video.

🏁 Players

Short-Form Video Examples

How to Win on Social Media • Gary Vaynerchuk shares how to make engaging content
Lessons on Money • Ryan Holiday shares 3 lessons on money from the Stoics
The Power of Packaging • Alex Hormozi shares how people perceive information
Gardening Hacks • Sabrina & Andrew Pougnet share how to grow a sunflower fence
Making a Corset Maxi Dress • MissJophiel shares how to make a corset dress
Cheese Sandwich • Bayashi TV shares how to cook a cheese sandwich
Number Your List • Miss Excel shares how to automatically number Excel lists
Little Girl Room Decor • Sophia Lee shares how to design a room for a little girl

🔮 Predictions

Short-form video platforms will embed storefronts into videos to improve the shopping experience.
- YouTube Shopping lets creators tag products in their Shorts.
- TikTok Shopping lets creators add product tags and checkouts to TikTok videos.
- Instagram Shopping lets creators add product tags, waitlists and checkouts to Reels.
- Snapchat’s Public Profile Stores let creators add product tags and checkouts to Spotlights.

Fans will buy paid subscriptions to access exclusive videos.
- TikTok’s LIVE lets viewers watch exclusive videos.
- Instagram Subscriptions let viewers get access to exclusive Reels.
- YouTube’s Channel Memberships let viewers get members-only videos.

New short-form video platforms will launch creator funds to lure creators into using them. This will help them solve the chicken-and-egg problem.
- Snapchat paid creators $1,000,000 per day for making Spotlight videos.
- YouTube had a $100,000,000 Shorts fund paying creators $100-$10,000 per day.
- Instagram had a Reels Play program that paid creators up to $35,000 for Reel performance.
- TikTok had a $200,000,000 creator fund which turned into a Creativity Program Beta with cash rewards.

☁️ Opportunities

Use generative AI to make lots of short-form videos fast.
- Kristian Fagerlie shares how to automate short-form video creation.
- Max Jones shares how to make 100 TikTok videos in 1 hour with AI.
- Think Media shares how to make 30 YouTube Shorts in 1 hour using AI.
- Ryan shares how to make 100 short-form videos with AI and bulk uploading.
- Brandon Washington shares how to make 30 Reels in 24 hours with ChatGPT.

Turn your podcast into short-form videos to pique interest.
- Rich Roll posts clips from Rich Roll Podcast.
- Tim Ferriss posts clips from The Tim Ferriss Show.
- Ali Abdaal posts clips from Deep Dive with Ali Abdaal.

Start a faceless YouTube channel. You can build an audience without worrying about how you look, speak and act on camera.
- Kimigami shares origami tutorials.
- Simple Man’s Life shares food recipes.
- Chinese Driver shares street photography videos.

Monetize traffic with affiliate marketing. Help your fans find the best products.
- Rahul Rai has an affiliate link to TurboTax.
- Rachel Meaders has affiliate links to products on Amazon.
- Devan Anderson has shop collections of rings, watches and more.
- Gabby Morrison has a promo code ‘gabbymorr10’ for Roadway Moving.
- Bonnie Rodríguez Krzywicki has affiliate links to beauty products and clothes.

🏔️ Risks

Content-Format Fit • Short-form videos have limited context. This makes it hard to convey complex concepts. Can you teach backend development in 1 minute?
Platform Risk • You’re subject to YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat policies.
Creative Burnout • Short-form videos can quickly become outdated. You may need to produce timely content fast. This can lead to creative burnout.

🔑 Key Lessons

Short-form videos can drive growth for your long-form videos. Using a combination of both formats can boost your reach. Joshua Weissman shares quick cooking tips and food recipes.
Short-form videos are mobile–centric. If you take them from your long-form videos, ensure that the content is optimized for mobile screens.
Short-form videos are great for sharing quick, focused solutions. Learn how to use chopsticks fast.

🔥 Hot Takes

Short-form videos are best for casual content. Longer-form videos are best for serious subjects.
Using clickbait captions will boost retention. “Wait until the end” or “That’s what happens if…” are popular ways to lower the chances of skipping your video.
Captivating short-form videos are hard to make. You need to adapt to new trends and formats to keep your content engaging. People get used to the same narrative fast.

😠 Haters

“It’s harder to tell compelling stories in shorter formats.”
Focus on a single idea, use catchy visuals and add smooth transitions. If this doesn’t work, it can be wise to use long-form videos to tell your stories.

“Saturation makes it harder to stand out.”
Use your personality to stand out. Your character and experiences are unique.

“Attention span is a myth. People may spend more time watching short-form videos than long-form videos.”
You’re talking about watching videos as a process. We’re talking about watching individual videos.

“Short-form videos lack depth. They focus on entertainment instead of meaningful content.”
What is meaningful content? Here’s how to safely walk dogs. Here’s how to help a choking baby. Here’s how to strengthen your wrists.

🔗 Links

How Charli D’Amelio Got Hundreds of Thousands of Followers Per Day • The thread for this report.
Keyword Insights on TikTok • Trending script keywords from voice-overs, captions and ads.
The Best TikTok SEO Strategy • How to optimize TikTok videos for search.
Building a Report on How Create and Monetize Short-Form Videos • The Tweet behind this report.

📁 Related Reports

Micro-Education Businesses • Learn new skills fast
Faceless YouTube Channels • Become a YouTuber without worrying about your looks
Virtual Influencers • Choose how they look, what they do and where they are
Influencer Marketing • Find customers by breaking through the noise
Voice Cloning • Create audio at scale

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Maciej Cupial, Stewart Townsend, Errol Tiozon, Uwe Dreissigacker and Hamed Mohammadpour. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0128 — Short-Form Videos has more insights.

What you’ll get:

21 Short-Form Video Examples (163% More)
9 Predictions (200% More)
16 Opportunities (300% More)
5 Risks (67% More)
10 Key Lessons (233% More)
12 Hot Takes (300% More)
9 Links (200% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) How to get brand deals?
(📈 Pro) How can teachers use short-form videos?
(📈 Pro) How to use prompt engineering to make short-form videos?
(📈 Pro) How to turn long videos into short clips at scale?
(📈 Pro) How to get user-generated content?
(📈 Pro) How to boost brand awareness?
(📈 Pro) What are hashtag communities?
(📈 Pro) How to lower platform risk?
(📈 Pro) How to build trust?
(📈 Pro) Why should you use cliffhangers?
(📈 Pro) How to go viral fast?
(📈 Pro) Why does SEO matter?
(📈 Pro) How to optimize visuals for tutorials?
(📈 Pro) Why does watch time matter?
(📈 Pro) Who offers productized short-form video services?
(📈 Pro) What is content-platform fit?
(📈 Pro) How to turn short-form videos into online courses?
(📈 Pro) What are 9 short-form video ideas?
And much more…

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

🗨️ Better Prompts ⚖️ Mastering Negotiation 🗺️ Slowmading with Kids

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎡 5 creator flywheels
🗺️ Slowmading with family
🤖 An AI prompt writing tool
💳 What is expectations debt
💭 A list of ideas for founders
🧘 3 quick ways to lower stress
🧪 A copy guide for SaaS products
⚖️ A book about mastering negotiation
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Be undeniably good. No marketing effort can substitute for that.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🤖 Prompt Refine shared by Jordon McKoy
A tool to compare, organize and refine your ChatGPT prompts

🧪 SaaS Copy Guide shared by Tim Jones
A short guide on improving SaaS landing page copy

💭 37signals shared by Christa Clarke
A high-signal collection of ideas for founders

🔧 Try This

5 Creator Flywheels from Top Creators

Creator flywheels are growth loops that will help you build and grow your audience.

Here are 5 creator flywheels used by top creators to get more followers, customers and sales.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Hamed Mohammadpour

“Entrepreneurship is hard and having motivated, ambitious people around is very helpful. The Trends Pro Community and reports are top-notch. I’m learning a lot from each of them.”

Hamed is building Dolores. This is an AI tool that makes stunning videos and podcasts at scale with a single prompt.

What’s your most important habit?
Meditating twice a day for 10-30 minutes.

What are you reading right now?
$100M Offers by Alex Hormozi

Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss

The first one is about making irresistible offers and the second one is about communication. Both are crucial for any successful entrepreneur.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I love drinking tea but the tea brewing experience is subpar compared to coffee. The “Nespresso for Tea” (as a company, not tea capsules) is a missing opportunity for the part of the world that consumes tea but still brews it in the traditional way. I have started sketching the product and collecting feedback to see if anyone wants to bring this idea to life.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
ChatGPT. I use it to learn new things and do my work faster.

What are you bullish on?
Fusion energy. It has an incredible potential with less radioactive waste. It could provide a nearly limitless and clean energy source for generations to come.

A company I’m following in this space is Helion Energy. It raised funds from Sam Altman and Microsoft, aiming to go into production in 2027.

What are you bearish on?
Traditional education. It can’t keep up with the tech innovation and relies on outdated teaching methods. A more flexible and innovative education system with lifelong learning and an interdisciplinary approach is key for preparing people for the challenges and opportunities that the future holds. It’s about nurturing creativity, curiosity and skills that go beyond the classroom.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
Working on a media generation tool, I can’t help but love the two relevant Trends reports: 📺 Faceless YouTube Channels and 🎙 Podcasts.

Exclusive Deal: Hamed is offering Trends.vc readers pre-launch access to Dolores and 40% off the Pro plan for 6 months. Use the code “TRENDS” in the referral field to claim.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Favorite to do list app
(📈 Pro) Building 30 AI tools in 30 days
(📈 Pro) Distribution ideas for indie games

📘 Read This

Expectations Debt

Expectations are like a debt that must be repaid before you get any joy out of what you’re doing.

Your portfolio surged during a bubble, your company hit a huge valuation or you got a salary that exceeds your skills. It feels great…

But reality will catch up.

Expectations debt is repaid in the form of self-doubt and crushed morale. When you understand that, you become careful about what you wish for.

Companies should want the valuation they deserve and not a penny more.
Workers should want a salary that matches their skill and nothing more.
Families should want a lifestyle they can sustain and nothing higher.

🎧 Listen To

3 Quick Ways to Lower Stress at Work

Taking a quick break to lower your stress level can boost your productivity.

Drink water: It has natural calming properties
Go for walk: This leads to better mood and relaxation
Look out the window: Natural light will lower eye strain and anxiety

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Jordon McKoy unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

📈 Katt Risen launched the Build the Trends newsletter

🗺️ Mac Martine wrote a viral tweet about slowmading with his family

✍️ Marc Fletcher launched Owndraft

🤖 Eddie Forson launched an AI feature for EnVsion

🛠️ Frank Jones hosted a workshop on Rapid Prototyping AI Tools

🧠 Frank Jones and Renae Gregoire unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-day standup streaks

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

Online Events: Validating Demand, Lead Magnets, Hybrid Events

“Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, spend a lot of time with them, and it will change your life.” – Amy Poehler

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

How to offer hands-on experience in online events?
What are examples of successful metaverse concerts?
How to validate demand?
How to get early revenue?
How to find qualified prospects with online events?
What are hybrid events?
Who’s building online events for AR/VR headsets?
How will open startups use online events?
How to break the ice in your online event?

💎 Why It Matters

Online events are borderless.

They are a cost-effective and scalable way to spread your message.

🔍 Problem

We want to connect, learn and be entertained without leaving home.

💡 Solution

Online events have lower friction.

Anyone with web access can join.

🏁 Players

Online Events

Trends.vc Masterminds • Share your goals, progress and solve problems together
Userlist Happy Hours • Live SaaS-related hangouts
API World • Trends, insights and best practices on the API and microservices
The Women in Tech Summit • Event for educating, inspiring and connecting women in tech
Zoomtopia • Annual celebration of Zoom customers, partners and communities
TypeScript Congress • Online event for web developers using TypeScript
Silicon Labs Works With • Developer conference for the Internet of Things

Online Event Tools

Zoom • Connect with video, audio, phone and chat
HeySummit • Build, grow and monetize online and hybrid events
Livestorm • Simple meeting and webinar platform
Gather • Build 2D online conference spaces
Podia • Sell workshops, classes and webinars
StreamYard • Live streaming and recording studio in your browser
BigMarker • Platform for webinars, virtual and hybrid events

🔮 Predictions

People will join remote group fitness classes to boost accountability and track progress.
- Peloton lets you invite friends to fitness classes.
- Uptivo tracks the performance of remote fitness groups.
- Apple Fitness lets you share fitness activities with your friends.
- Myzone tracks group fitness performance in the gym, outdoors or at home.

Online events will send craft kits to offer hands-on experience.
- Host sends cocktail kits with recipes for Virtual Mixology Classes.
- Unexpected Virtual Tours sends mini-golf kits with Design a Golf Course.
- Scott’s Pizza Tours sends kits with pizza ingredients for Online Pizza Making Classes.

Artists will hold live concerts in the metaverse to break physical barriers. They will perform for tens of millions of fans at once.
- Lil Nas X, 24kGoldn and 21 Pilots performed in Roblox.
- Justin Bieber, John Legend and Tinashe performed live in Wave.
- Travis Scott, Marshmello and Ariana Grande performed in Fortnite.

☁️ Opportunities

Presell your online event to validate demand and get early revenue.
- IRE21 is a virtual event for journalists that offers a 25% discount for early tickets.
- SHARP is an event for authors, readers and publishers that offers a 33% discount for early booking.
- ATOMICON is a hybrid sales and marketing event for small businesses. It offers early tickets with a 55% discount.

Turn your online event sessions into on-demand videos. This is free marketing material.
- Globant shared Converge 2020 on YouTube.
- Amazon shared parts of AWS re:Invent 2020 on YouTube.
- Salesforce shared parts of Salesforce World Tour Reimagined and Dreamforce.

Use free online events as lead magnets to build an email list of qualified prospects.
- Ben Collins turned SheetsCon into a free online course.
- Alex Hormozi used an online event to launch his book $100M Leads.
- MarTech Alliance offers Anticon DialUp recordings in exchange for contact details.
- Lumivero Virtual Conference is a free conference on data analysis and student placement.

🏔️ Risks

Connectivity Issues • Internet disruptions, slow speeds and lag spikes can lead to missed content, poor peer interaction and frustration.
Coordination Risk • Failure to manage groups can lead to poor attendee experience.
Reputation Risk • Misbehavior such as Zoom Bombing can lead to negative experiences and a lack of interest in future events.

🔑 Key Lessons

Online events have higher margins. Lower costs and wider reach make it easier to make a profit.
Hybrid events are a “two-sided medal”. Balancing in-person and online aspects of the same event requires 2x much effort.
Have a backup plan. You should be able to switch platforms when having technical issues.

🔥 Hot Takes

Online events with hundreds of attendees make it hard for each member to share value. This makes it more appealing to watch the recording on-demand than attending a live event.
We’ll see online events built for specific AR/VR headsets. Connect is a virtual event on virtual, mixed and augmented realities. You need a Quest device to attend the event.
Open startups will host public board meetings with past achievements and future plans. Gumroad shares its board meetings on YouTube.

😠 Haters

“It is hard to engage remote audiences. They can get distracted by their friends, family and pets.”
Host the event over a few days. Break down content into shorter portions. Add interactive activities such as polls and Q&As. Change the pace of the event with videos and quick discussions. This can help attendees stay focused and to not get bored.

“In-person events have higher-fidelity interactions than online events.”
True. In-person events also have more friction since everyone needs to attend in person. Online events are more inclusive while in-person events have higher fidelity.

“Hybrid events have the best of both worlds.”
Hybrid events are complex. You need to solve logistics, catering and security problems for in-person attendees. As well as connectivity, engagement and moderation issues for online attendees.

“Online events are exhausting. Zoom fatigue is real.”
Short breaks, chit-chatting and letting attendees turn off video can help to lower online fatigue.

“What if I want to go to two sessions that happen at the same time because of tracks?”
This is a tradeoff for having a focused experience. Most online events share recordings that you can watch later.

🔗 Links

Building a Report on How to Grow and Monetize Online Events • The Tweet behind this report.
35 Ice Breaker Games for Virtual and Hybrid Events • Ways to lighten the mood at the start of an event.
Hybrid Events Are Essential • Learn the 10 benefits of hybrid events.

📁 Related Reports

Audience-First Products • Validate products, build distribution and stay accountable
Gamification • Boost engagement with missions and rewards
Presales • Validate demand before investing time and money into building new products
Influencer Marketing • Borrow audiences’ attention to build awareness and find customers
Freemium • Lower your customer acquisition costs with a free version of your product

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Frank Jones, Mark Todd and Stewart Townsend. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0127 — Online Events has more insights.

What you’ll get:

20 Online Event Examples (186% More)
14 Online Event Tools (100% More)
12 Predictions (300% More)
15 Opportunities (400% More)
7 Risks (133% More)
12 Key Lessons (300% More)
7 Hot Takes (133% More)
9 Links (200% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) How can artists make live concerts more accessible?
(📈 Pro) What are token-gated online events?
(📈 Pro) How to help team members feel closer when they are miles apart?
(📈 Pro) What are VR business meetings?
(📈 Pro) What are virtual workspaces?
(📈 Pro) How can companies help employees fight loneliness?
(📈 Pro) How to handle traffic spikes during online events?
(📈 Pro) How to build an immersive online event?
(📈 Pro) How to lower competition?
(📈 Pro) How to use online events to onboard SaaS users?
(📈 Pro) How to boost engagement?
(📈 Pro) How to boost brand loyalty?
(📈 Pro) What are breakout rooms?
(📈 Pro) What are online event tracks?
(📈 Pro) How to maximize reach?
(📈 Pro) How to help attendees build personal connections?
(📈 Pro) Why should you vet attendees?
(📈 Pro) How to boost the attendance rate?
(📈 Pro) Why should you offer virtual gifts?
(📈 Pro) What is NFT ticketing?
(📈 Pro) Who has built an online event for 5,000 people with no-code?
And much more…

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

🚀 Journey to $50k MRR 📣 Marketing Channels That Work 🔺 How Much To Ask

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🕒 How to be patient
🤔 8 logical fallacies
🔺 The pyramid of trust
🏆 An award-winning to-do app
🤝 An essay on service marketplaces
📣 11 marketing channels for founders
🚀 Reaching $50,000 MRR in 5 months
🧠 A book about neuroscience and productivity
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

If the pain is strong enough, someone will pay you for it.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

📣 Marketing Channels That Work shared by Royce Johnson
A list of 11 marketing channels that consistently work for founders

🔺 Pyramid of Trust shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
A video about not asking for too much too soon

🤝 Service Marketplaces shared by Ryan Booher
An essay on the potential and challenges of service marketplaces

📘 Read This

8 Logical Fallacies

Logical fallacies are errors in reasoning that make us think that we know something that we don’t.

Red herrings: Arguments that seem relevant to an issue but actually are not.
Slippery slope: Chaining negative consequences thinking that one leads to the other.
Correlation is not causation: If 2 things often occur together, this does not mean one causes the other.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Edward Danilyuk

“I have been a Trends Pro Member for a few years now. I love it for two reasons.
1. The reports. Dru and the team do a great job of diving into different topics. These would take me weeks if not months to do the research on.
2. The people. We have daily standups, I have had a lot of 1-1 calls with Trends Pro members and have even worked with some of them.”

Edward is building Black Mammoth, providing fast and reliable web development services for a flat monthly fee.

What’s your most important habit?
Doing what I say I will do.

Many years ago I asked Paul Jarvis for advice on how to be a good contractor. He told me two things:

“Do the work”,

“Do what you say you’re going to do”.

I have made a good living so far by following this simple advice.

What are you reading right now?
Your Brain at Work by Dr. David Rock

I want to improve my performance while understanding more about the science of how our brains work. I’m a big fan of testing new routines, keeping what works and tossing the rest.

This book dives into your brain limitations and gives you good ideas on how to better organize your work day.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Things. It’s a simple to-do app that organizes my life.

What are you bullish on?
Decentralization of things such as energy and food supply.

Almost everything we get comes from a big corporation and we can’t see what’s going on behind the scenes.

What are you bearish on?
AI.

I think it’s going to either become regulated to death or tightly controlled by a few big corporations who will stifle innovation with the goal of increasing their own profits.

Pretty much every major innovation has run into this.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🧳 Digital Nomads

We (my wife and our four kids) have committed to a 2+ year journey around the world 😅 Reading this report gave us a lot of insight, tools to checkout and people to follow.

The idea of optimizing where and specifically WHEN we live somewhere really stuck with me.

What else?
As cheesy as this sounds, you can literally make anything possible.

I went from digging holes in rocks in the heat and freezing snow, to full-time consulting as a software engineer while traveling the world. It all started with a thought. Don’t underestimate the power of thoughts you have.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Getting started with Figma
(📈 Pro) Building 30 AI tools in 30 days
(📈 Pro) Time-based pricing for newsletters

🔧 Try This

Journey to $50,000 MRR

Nick went from making $350,000 at Meta to making $0 as an indie hacker.

He built a portfolio of 9 products which grew to $50,000 MRR in 5 months.

The more you try, the higher are your chances of success.

❔ Ask Yourself

How to Be Patient in an Impatient World?

Many people mistake patience for the ability to wait for something.

Patience isn’t simply waiting. It’s your attitude towards waiting.

You ordered a pizza and you can wait for it:

Patiently: Reading a book while waiting for it
Impatiently: Pacing around the house and calling the restaurant (again!)

Waiting patiently benefits everybody but we’re getting worse at being patient.Learn how to be more patient to win in an impatient world.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Chris Bulen and Eren Suzer unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

💰 Milly Tamati crossed $50,000 ARR with Generalist World

🫐 Mehmet Gonullu featured InvoiceBerry by Uwe Dreissigacker in The CTO Show newsletter

👔 Jesper Delporte hit a $1,200 order with Cheegs thanks to landing page redesign tips from Errol Tiozon

🌐 Karthik Vijayakumar has started getting organic traffic to Kartvee.com

🧭 Bernardt J. Vogel reached 6,000 subscribers with Curious Compass

🧠 Elie Steinbock unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak

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Shopify Plugins: Referral Programs, Productized Services, Organic Growth

“Because of Shopify, the problem we have to solve is what to build, not how to build.” – Mukul Chaware

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

How to personalize customer support?
What is virtual shopping?
How to boost your chances of success?
How to boost your sales?
How to build trust?
How to optimize app store listing?
How to get featured by Shopify?
How to grow faster with less risk?
How to keep up with Shopify API updates?
How to stair-step your way to success?

💎 Why It Matters

Shopify has 1,750,000 merchants and only 8,000 apps.

🔍 Problem

Each merchant has unique needs that Shopify can’t fulfill on its own.

💡 Solution

Shopify apps fill unaddressed needs by allowing merchants to customize their stores.

🏁 Players

Shopify Apps

BlogHandy • Build a SEO-optimized blog for your store
Stackend • Add social features such as live shopping, user profiles and more
Klaviyo • Smart email marketing and SMS automation
Bevi Design • Animated pop-ups
Rewind Backups • Backup your store’s items, themes and more
Tidio • Live chat and chatbots for customer support
DSers • Place orders, find suppliers and import products from AliExpress

🔮 Predictions

Shopify stores will use ChatGPT for personalized customer support. This will boost engagement, conversion and sales.
- Rep AI is a ChatGPT-powered sales bot.
- Yuma adds ChatGPT to customer support tools.
- Youness Idbakkasse and Kinane are building Store Copilot, an AI shopping assistant.

Shopify stores will use AR to offer virtual shopping experiences. They will help customers see if the product fits their looks and needs.
- LUV+CO lets you try on makeup with Auglio Beauty Try-On.
- Forno Piombo lets you fit their ovens in your space with LEVAR.
- GIALLO JEWELRY, Yasèmia and SO SVN let you try on jewelry with mirrAR.

Shopify stores will use gamified referral programs to boost engagement and retention.
- AsherKate uses Growave for its referral program with points and weekly missions.
- Sculpted by Aimee uses Smile for its referral program with reward points and tiers.
- Eyefood Factory uses Gameball for its referral program with points, levels and badges.

☁️ Opportunities

Build lots of Shopify apps to boost your chances of success.
- Arpit Roy is bootstrapping Zegsu with 8 Shopify apps.
- Yung is running OneCommerce with 14 Shopify apps.
- Marouane is growing Royal Apps with 4 Shopify apps.
- Alex Hardy has 4 Shopify apps that make $35,000 MRR.
- John Speed built 5 Shopify apps with 8 more on the roadmap.

Offer custom development services to help customers get apps that fit their needs.
- Youness Idbakkasse builds custom Shopify apps.
- Beni builds full-stack web and mobile Shopify apps.
- Union Works builds smart and simple Shopify apps.
- Zachary McClung builds simple and complex Shopify apps.

Build in public to boost your reach, sales and trust.
- Gil is building Checkout Blocks in public.
- Sam is building BeSure Checkout Rules in public.
- Mathieu Gesbert is building Checkout OS in public.

🏔️ Risks

Platform Risk • Shopify apps are subject to Shopify’s outages and policies.
Competitor Risk • You’ll have to convince customers that your app is better than competitors.
Compatibility • Shopify apps can conflict with each other. This can break store operations such as order processing, inventory management and more.

🔑 Key Lessons

“Built for Shopify” and other achievements help you build trust. They signal that your Shopify app is easy to use, safe and performant.
Optimize your listing to boost your reach and growth.
Staff Picks can boost your reach. Shopify picks apps that follow app guidelines and offer great customer support. Mukul Chaware says Appointo was picked by Shopify 2 weeks after launch. This helped them get feedback and iterate fast.

🔥 Hot Takes

Those who copy successful paid apps and offer freemium alternatives will grow faster with less risk.
Excessive customization leads to confusion and poor customer experience. Merchants want to be able to quickly set up the app and do the job.
Free Shopify apps devalue the marketplace and make it harder for paid apps to survive. Why would merchants pay for your discount spin wheel if they can get it for free?

😠 Haters

“Shopify updates its API every 3 months. I don’t want to deal with constant maintenance.”
Shopify gives you 9 months to adapt your Shopify app. If you fail to do so, Shopify will switch your app to the oldest supported API version to lower the chances of breaking your app.

“Shopify can take me out of business by building similar products. Sidekick can kill all AI-powered apps.”
That’s part of the platform risk. While ecosystems help you grow, nothing stops them from adding their own tools.

“Competitors can see the reviews to spot the pros and cons of my Shopify app. This makes it easier to compete with me.”
You can’t stop copycats but you can build an unlisted app. Though this will lower your reach and social proof. Stop worrying about competitors and focus on building an app that is so great your customers will feel dumb switching to anything else.

🔗 Links

Building a Report on How to Launch and Grow Shopify Plugins • The tweet behind this report.
How to Build a Shopify App • In-depth guide on building Shopify apps.
Stair-Stepping with Plugins • Benefits and risks of building on existing ecosystems.

📁 Related Reports

Ecosystems • Build services, SaaS apps and digital products to extend and improve platforms
Competitor Risk • Index into an existing market instead of trying to create one
Micro-SaaS • Solve a specific problem for a specific group of people
Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Find your highest point of leverage
Product-Led Growth • Build a product that sells itself

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Vikash Kumar Prajapati, Dan Schoonmaker, Uwe Dreissigacker, Eamonn Carey, Sam Schrup and Tim Jones. We had a great time jamming on this report.

✏️ Emin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0126 — Shopify Plugins has more insights.

What you’ll get:

23 Shopify Apps (229% More)
11 Predictions (267% More)
9 Opportunities (200% More)
5 Risks (67% More)
7 Key Lessons (133% More)
7 Hot Takes (133% More)
11 Links (267% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) How to sell products on live streams?
(📈 Pro) How will social networks adapt to online shopping?
(📈 Pro) Where to learn how to build, grow and monetize Shopify apps?
(📈 Pro) How to turn web stores into mobile stores?
(📈 Pro) How to automate store operations?
(📈 Pro) How to lower competitor risk?
(📈 Pro) How to lower your customer acquisition costs?
(📈 Pro) How to turn your Shopify app into a full SaaS product?
(📈 Pro) How much time does it take to build a SaaS-like Shopify app?
(📈 Pro) Who has made $900,000 with Shopify apps?
(📈 Pro) What are store operation niches you can build a Shopify app for?
(📈 Pro) How to market Shopify apps?
(📈 Pro) Who grew a Shopify app to $10,000 MRR?
(📈 Pro) How to pass the review of your Shopify app?
(📈 Pro) What are key lessons shared by Shopify developers?
And much more…

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Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

📈 100+ Trends Pro Reports • To make sense of new markets, ideas and business models, check out our research reports.

💬 1:1 Founder Intros • Make new friends, share lessons and find ways to help each other. Keep life interesting by meeting new founders each week.

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💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.