🤖 Customizing GPT 📊 103 KPIs 📡 45+ Under-the-Radar Tools

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

A guide to fine-tuning GPT
How to find your “authentic self”
A collection of lesser-known tools
103 KPIs for SaaS, marketing and sales
8 storytelling frameworks for social media marketing
A browser extension to turn Chrome into a productivity workspace
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Wonder what your customer really wants? Ask. Don’t tell.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

📡 Under-the-Radar Tools shared by Swapnil Puranik
A Product Hunt thread with lesser-known tools across 15+ categories

🤖 Customizing GPT shared by Lwany
An easy-to-understand guide on fine-tuning GPT for your specific use case

🎬 Addicted to Life shared by Gabriel Limma
A podcast episode with movie producer Scott Steindorff on the steps he took to find his “authentic self”

📘 Read This

KPI Examples to Keep Your Company on Track

Track your progress with 103 KPIs for SaaS, marketing, sales and more:

Activation Rate: How many users reach an important milestone.
Customer Churn Rate: Number of customers lost in a given time frame.
Customer Acquisition Cost: How much money you spend to gain a new customer.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Maisha L. Cannon

“Trends Pro is a phenomenal community. I’m relatively new, but I already look forward to the daily stand-ups. The site is well organized and accessible, and there’s a lot of information to explore.“

Maisha is building The Collab Lab, Inc., providing skills-based training to talent acquisition teams.

What’s your most important habit?
Daily gratitude journaling.

This daily habit was birthed during the pandemic. It is key to helping me to stay grounded and focused on the here and now.

What are you reading right now?
The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick

I’ll be conducting early customer interviews over the next few weeks and want to gain insights on how to ask the right questions.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Manganum

Manganum is a browser extension that turns Google Chrome into a productivity workspace.

I love that it’s lightweight and customizable. It helps me keep my Chrome tab chaos in check.

What are you bullish on?
I’m bullish on Trends.vc and Trends Pro!

I am confident that the community and the brand will continue to flourish as it equips founders to grow faster.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🧑‍🎓 Cohort-Based Courses

It’s interesting to see the variety of offerings, especially as I begin to build out my own offering for teams and cohorts.

To learn more about skills-based training or The Collab Lab, Inc., reach Maisha on LinkedIn.

🔧 Try This

8 Storytelling Frameworks for Social Media Marketing

Build an audience by sharing stories about your brand, product and customers.

Before-and-After: Share the problem, outcome and solution.
The Monomyth: Share your personal story of wins and failures.
Star-Chain-Hook: Grab attention, show benefits and call to action.

❔ Ask Yourself

Eat the Frog

Aim to get the most challenging/complex/time-consuming things done first.

This is my most recent paradigm switch. Here’s more on this philosophy.

What’s your frog?

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Dana R, Sandhya Gopalan and Milly Tamati unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🧱 Shuyen Phoon launched No-Code Crash Course for Designers

🎨 Jameson Lyon launched the Create Connected podcast and newsletter

💻 Matt Spear started OpenAI Experiments

🤖 Martin Slaney launched The Innovator’s Prompt Book

👨‍💼 Uwe Dreissigacker reached one month of daily LinkedIn posts

🥇 Elijah Buford was accepted as a finalist in Startup Runway‘s pitch competition

🧠 Nirav Multani, Matthieu Breard, Emeric Victor and Dale Williams unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

🛍️ $480,000 ARR in 2.5 Years 📈 SaaS Growth Framework 📋 Marketplace Scorecard

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

A marketplace scorecard
A B2B SaaS growth framework
A guide for product-led growth
A privacy-focused note-taking app
Growing 2 Shopify apps to $480,000 ARR
An essay about mixed feelings towards AI
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Try making something simple first. Everyone says it because it’s true.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

📈 Growth Coaching Curriculum shared by Daniel Johnson
A framework for B2B SaaS growth.

🔒 Standard Notes shared by Kevin L Hough
A note-taking app with advanced security and privacy features.

🤩 Permission to Be Excited About AI shared by Fausto Sá Teles
An essay about balancing excitement about the potential of AI and being skeptical of the “Current Thing”.

🎧 Listen To

Lessons Learned Building a $480,000 ARR Business in 2.5 Years

Mat De Sousa grew 2 Shopify apps to $480,000 ARR.

He shares how you can build, market and sell apps that Shopify customers need.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Andrew Govender

“I have been enjoying the experience in Trends Pro, I’ve built new habits and gained exposure to high-leverage insights on a daily basis.“

Andrew is building Casual Sushi. A brand consultancy and experience design agency helping innovation be their authentic selves. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0005.

What are you reading right now?
Disciplined Entrepreneurship by Bill Aulet

I learned the hard way after failing multiple times on previous ventures, my problem was with having a strong foundational understanding of business. This book is a step by step guide to starting a new venture which made it a no brainer for me on my reading list.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Apart from ChatGPT, I love using Notion because relational databases are just so fun!

What are you bullish on?
Wellness (Mental, Physical, Spiritual) – AI will help us increase the volume and quality of our outputs to levels that we’ve never imagined. When combined with robotics and automation, most mundane jobs will become obsolete. This will drastically improve our quality of life and our focus will shift to living a more complete and balanced human experience.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🤖 ChatGPT

Learning to use AI more efficiently is an obvious survival skill for any entrepreneur, this report has what you need and more.

Exclusive Deal: Andrew is offering Trends.vc readers a free 45-minute brand discovery workshop on how to create a strong brand or leverage what you already have. To take advantage of his offer, contact Andrew via LinkedIn.

🔧 Try This

Marketplace Scorecard

This scorecard from NFX helps you measure the potential of your marketplace and find the best way to grow it.

📘 Read This

How to Build a Product That Sells Itself

Product-Led Growth occurs when your product sells itself. It helps you find, convert and retain customers.

Want to boost your sales? This free book shows you how to turn your product into a growth engine.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 David Getchel, Matthew Endresz and Maisha Cannon unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🧱 Katt Risen launched No-Code Exits on Product Hunt

✍️ Cameron McGrane launched a no-code GPT3 app for book authors

🎧 Bogusz Pękalski launched The Bored Founders Show

🐦 Thomas Sorheim [Danielsen]’s Twitter thread went viral

🦉 Elijah Buford‘s Paperade AI secured a partnership with the NSA

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

Niche Job Boards: No-Code, Reverse Job Boards, Remote Work

“People are not your most important asset. The right people are.” – Jim Collins

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

How will profiles replace resumes?
How to solve the cold-start problem?
How to pick a niche for your job board?
How to use no-code tools to build a job board?
How to find new types of jobs to build your job board around?

💎 Why It Matters

It costs roughly $4,700 and takes 42 days to fill an open position.

🔍 Problem

Finding qualified candidates is hard.

💡 Solution

Niche job boards improve the hiring experience by making design concessions that would not make sense for general job boards.

AnonFriendly only lists pseudonymous jobs that accept anonymous applications
TeachingJobs lets teachers filter by the age of the students they’d be teaching
BarbellJobs helps fitness coaches filter jobs that pay per class that they teach

🏁 Players

Niche Job Boards

Barbell Jobs • Job board for the CrossFit community.
Frauvis • Job board and community for Black women in tech.
4/day Week • Remote software jobs with 4-day workweeks.
EatRight Careers • Jobs in nutrition.
AeroJobs • Aviation careers.Association of Zoos and Aquariums • Work in zoos and aquariums.

Job Board Tools

Polymer • Build no-code job boards with built-in candidate management.
Niceboard • Start a job board for your school, business or community.
JobBoardFire • Launch a job board that your community will love.JobBoardHQ • Pre-built job board websites with built-in job scraping abilities.

🔮 Predictions

Job boards will be built for members of marginalized communities. We want to work where we know we will be welcomed and supported.
- She256 runs a job board for women, nonbinary people and underrepresented minorities in the blockchain space.
- Women Who Code filters engineering jobs with women-friendly cultures. No bro cultures allowed.
- Black Tech Jobs searches 1000s of jobs at companies committed to diversity and inclusion.
- Frauvis is a job board and community for Black women in tech.

Profiles will replace resumes. Profiles offer a more holistic understanding of who candidates are and save everyone time.
- Wellfound removes the need for cover letters and resumes with a profile that highlights your skills and preferences. Apply anywhere with one click.
- WorkingNotWorking is a job board for creative talent. Creatives showcase a profile of previous work and experience.
- Hunted lets remote Web3 startups make you an offer based on your anonymous profile and salary expectations.
- Web3 Jobs uses profiles to match employers with prospects.

Job boards will filter jobs with transparent information. People prefer companies that are honest about salary ranges and company culture.
- Before You Apply requires that companies provide information about how companies operate. They ask questions on every applicant’s behalf.
- Dynamite Jobs filters remote jobs that have public salary ranges.

☁️ Opportunities

Build a job board around a new job title. Solve the “Needle in a Haystack Problem” for emerging industries.
- GameDev DAO built a job board for GameFi projects to hire for positions like game economy analysts.
- Bot Jobs is a job board for the best talent in Conversational AI. Be a ‘conversation designer’.

Use no-code tools to launch your own job board.
- Polymer helps you build no-code job boards with built-in candidate management.
- JobBoardHQ offers pre-built job board websites with built-in job scraping abilities.
- Niceboard helps you start a job board for your school, business or community.
- Ejobsite helps you start your own job board with an applicant tracking system.
- JobBoardFire helps you launch a job board that your community will love.
- Enhance is a no-code software for building job boards in minutes.
- YMCareers creates job boards for associations.

Help candidates prepare for interviews.
- Network Capital helps candidates by sending them jobs, conducting mock interviews and offering 1:1 mentoring.
- Shadowing AI helps you improve your job-seeking skills with AI-powered feedback.
- MovingWork offers free career development and learning.

Build a mission-driven job board to attract applicants looking for meaningful work.
- We Are Green Jobs is a community of climate and social impact job seekers.
- ClimateBase is a job board for climate tech companies and nonprofits.

🏔️ Risks

Volume • Niche job boards get fewer applicants. You may miss out on qualified candidates who only use generalized sites.
Cold-Start • What comes first, the candidates or the job listings? Niche job boards will fail if they can’t get an initial supply of either to kickstart the flywheel.

🔑 Key Lessons

Niche products and services succeed by embracing the fact that they can’t make everyone happy. They build better products for some people.
Make design concessions to improve the hiring experience for some candidates and companies. Generic job boards don’t have that luxury.

🔥 Hot Takes

Niche job boards will list talent instead of jobs. Companies will search databases of qualified candidates instead of fielding endless applications.
Job boards for remote work will fade away. Remote work is common enough that it’s better as a filter on a generalized site than a site dedicated to remote work.

😠 Haters

“There are too many job sites now. Wouldn’t some of these be better as filters on a generalized site?”
Jobs in Trucks lists driver schools to aid novice truckers. Few users of a generalized site would have any use for that. Some niche job boards would be better as filters. But not all.

“Recruiters find better quality candidates than job boards.”
Niche job boards do not need to replace recruiters. They are often used by recruiters to find qualified candidates faster.

“What if my job board is too niche?”
Practice balance in everything. Job boards should be led by demand instead of your desire to build one. What meaningful design concessions can you make to justify the existence of your niche job board? Why is it better than alternatives? If you can’t answer these questions, perhaps you shouldn’t build a niche job board.

“Niche job boards have limited upside. The potential is capped.”
What’s your north star? Are you trying to build the biggest business or the best business? Micro-monopolies tend to have higher margins and wider moats than non-niche businesses.

🔗 Links

Who’s building a niche job board? • The tweet behind this report.
How to Create a Niche Job Board • Peter Askew’s Twitter brain dump on starting a niche job board.
Launched My Job Board 3 Weeks Ago… • The founder of Remotextra on his experience building a niche job board.

📁 Related Reports

Remote Work • Remote work is a common niche job board topic.
Lead Magnets • Use tools and resources to attract users to your job board.
Curation as a Service • Niche job boards are a form of curation.
Education Platforms • Add value by teaching candidates skills.
Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Niche job boards are often one-person businesses.

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Tom Arbuthnot, Soma Mandal, Dan, Sam Schrup, Breno Ferreira, Lu, Stewart Townsend, and Ralph Quintero. We had a great time jamming on this report.

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

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0106 — Niche Job Boards has more insights.

What you’ll get:

33 Niche Job Board Examples (371% More)
9 Niche Job Board Tools (125% More)
8 Predictions (167% More)
12 Opportunities (200% More)
4 Risks (100% More)
4 Key Lessons (100% More)
4 Hot Takes (100% More)
10 Links (233% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) What is reverse curation?
(📈 Pro) How to grow your job board?
(📈 Pro) How to gamify your job board?
(📈 Pro) How to monetize your job board?
(📈 Pro) How to find fast-growing industries?
(📈 Pro) How to get paid to recommend candidates?
(📈 Pro) What are the downsides of niche job boards?
(📈 Pro) How to build a job board for different work styles?
(📈 Pro) How to use platforms to bootstrap your niche job board?
(📈 Pro) How to earn recurring revenue with your niche job board?
(📈 Pro) What’s the difference between freelancing platforms and job boards?
(📈 Pro) How did a founder grow a reverse job board to $100,000+ per month?
And much more…

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

🎙️ Behind the Scenes of Trends.vc 📈 AARRR Framework 🦉 Paul Graham 101

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

An interview with Dru
A talk about B2B positioning
An automation tool with AI integrations
A summary of Paul Graham’s top essays
A framework for measuring startup growth
A book about the patterns of human history
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Learn to handle failure. It’s the hardest thing. But once you get over it. Nothing can stop you.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎙️ Behind the Scenes shared by Dru Riley
Dru’s recent interview with Rob Hope on building a newsletter, new habits and nomading.

⚙️ Bardeen shared by Katt Risen
A user friendly automation tool with AI integrations. See it in action here.

📜 The Lessons of History shared by Kevin Deol
A brief survey on the patterns of human history and their underlying causes.

🔧 Try This

AARRR Framework

This is a popular model to measure startup growth and success.

It splits your customer life cycle into 5 phases:

Acquisition • They discover your product.
Activation • They try your product.
Retention • They keep using your product.
Referral • They recommend your product.
Revenue • They become paying customers.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Mark Grimes

“The great thing about connecting with founders in Trends Pro is that everyone is on a level playing field. Whether a member is just starting out or well into an established business.”

Mark is building Felonious Nun. A premium specialty coffee membership for startups and entrepreneurs. Roasted by formerly incarcerated women. Currently in beta.

Mark is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0001.

What are you reading right now?
Happy at Any Cost by Tony Hsieh

I first met Tony when he just founded Internet Link Exchange.

The book is hard to read. But I want to understand what happened to him. It’s heartbreaking, he was brilliant.

What product or service do you wish existed?
Scan any owned book ISBN # and instantly turn it into an audio file of the book.

What are you bullish on?
Positive Social Impact. I think it’s the way forward for founders, entrepreneurs and CEOs to both make money and make good happen in the world.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
Like potato chips, I can’t eat just one:

What else?
Please support women entrepreneurs in developing countries.

If you find yourself in Portland, Oregon… ping me for a coffee or Walk & Talk.

📘 Read This

Paul Graham 101

Paul Graham helped build, market and grow hundreds of startups. He’s published 200+ essays on business, education, society and more.

Read this summary of his top essays on how to find your passion, build a great startup and live a fulfilling life.

👀 Watch This

How to Sell in Crowded Markets

You need to show prospective customers how your product is better than alternatives. April Dunford shows you how to position your B2B product to boost sales.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Yogesh Muthreja, Vic Kalchev, Nirav Multani, Matthieu Breard and Dale Williams unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🥘 Reme Ekoh launched the AfriCuisine Directory

🤯 Gabriel Limma published a post about handling too much information

💻 Vladyslav Budichenko launched TheDevBook blog

🎨 Vasil published a deep dive into Productized Design

💪 Jameson Lyon wrote about building a challenge funnel for The Okrēo

🐶 Bernardt J. Vogel published an analysis of the pet care industry

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

🔫 $1B From Toys 🚀 Product Launch Guide 🌱 7 SaaS Marketing Tips

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

An intermittent fasting app
7 SaaS marketing strategies
A Product Hunt launch checklist
An AI-powered meme generator
How to become a full-time creator
How a bootstrapped toy factory grew to $1B
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Always deliver more than expected.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🔫 $1B From Toys shared by Gabriel Limma
A MFM episode about a bootstrapped toy factory, audience building tips and a Gumroad case study.

🚀 Product Hunt Launch Checklist shared by Maciej Cupial
A practical guide to boost your chances of a successful launch.

🐸 Supermeme.ai shared by Fausto Sá Teles
An AI tool that turns your thoughts into memes.

📘 Read This

Becoming a Full-Time Creator as a Software Engineer

Gergely Orosz is a software engineer who makes a living by writing.

He shares how you can become a full-time creator by selling tools, content, courses and more.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Thorben Schlätzer

“I am thoroughly impressed with the Trends Pro Reports and the insight they provide. The community is incredibly supportive and helpful, helping to keep everyone focused on their objectives.”

Thorben helps the financial industry create more value through data. He’s also a member of Trends Mastermind #0007.

What’s your most important habit?
Going running is also a great way to get inspired by podcasts 🙂

What product are you obsessively using right now?
A combination of n8n and GPT-3 to automatically create summaries for bookmarks I make during my research.

What are you bullish on?
Automation & AI

I have always thought about making processes more efficient. I’m excited about helping businesses to find ways to boost output with less effort.

What are you bearish on?
Crypto

I have never really been a fan of this new asset.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔬 Micro-Consulting

👀 Watch This

SaaS Marketing Strategies

Rob Walling shares 7 marketing strategies that you can use to stand out from competitors.

From comparative advertising to side project marketing. You’ll find a strategy that works for you.

🔧 Try This

Zero

I’ve been intermittent fasting for 2+ years.

Beyond the health benefits, fasting can boost productivity and gratitude.

If you’re thinking about intermittent fasting (IF), my advice is to start on easy mode with 16:8. Only shorten eating windows when your current plan is extremely easy for you.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧠 Daniel Johnson and Tornike Phkhovelishvili unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

🐍 Eric Chou released Mastering Python Networking 4th Edition

📁 Muhammad Bin Sabir launched First1K

🏀 Hunter Coleman is writing a Web 3 and sports newsletter

🧱 Lola Ojabowale held a no-code workshop on integrations

🌐 Simon Daley launched a web hosting service

📅 Maciej Cupial reached $1,000 additional MRR for Calendesk in January

👥 Myron Jay and Rachel Smith unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

🤏 Tiny Products 🪚 Sell Your Sawdust ✍️ Rules of Good Writing

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

The 2 types of risk
What are tiny products
An alternative to Notion
The rules of good writing
An AI prompt community
Selling byproducts of your work
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Start charging early and don’t wait until the product is ready.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🤖 Prompt Stacks shared by Stewart Townsend
A community focused on sharing the best AI prompts for text and image generation.

✍️ The Day You Became A Better Writer shared by Matt Spear
The rules of good writing summarized in a few paragraphs.

📄 Craft shared by Andrew Govender
A Notion alternative for note-taking, creating eye-catching documents and more.

📘 Read This

Tiny Products

Ben Issen says the biggest problem is not finishing what we’ve started. We self-sabotage, seek new things, lose interest, overcomplicate and procrastinate.

The solution? Build tiny products that are easier to build, market and launch.

More shots, less moonshots.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Mehmet Gonullu

“Trends Pro is fantastic. I am meeting like-minded people. Daily standups are great for committing to daily goals. While my mastermind is the tribe where I commit to weekly goals.”

Mehmet is the host of The CTO Show. A podcast that inspires business leaders and entrepreneurs while covering the latest tech trends. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0008.

What’s your most important habit?
I follow the 5 AM club method. Exercise, meditate and read first thing in the morning.

What are you reading right now?
Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson

I like to read books that show how struggles and the impossible were overcome by founders and historical figures.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I wish there was a service that takes ideas from my brain and puts them in Notion 🙂

What product are you obsessively using right now?
ChatGPT. I am using it as a VA. It’s amazing.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔁 Productized Services

It’s inspiring to see how to package your knowledge in productized format.

🔧 Try This

Sell Your Sawdust

Sawdust is a byproduct of your work that you can convert to money or attention. Repurpose it into a digital product or share it as a proof of work.

Turn your website into a template
Turn your learnings into a course
Turn your personal tool into a SaaS
Turn your product development into a public roadmap

👀 Watch This

Why Founders Should Take More Risk

Each founder deals with 2 types of risk:

Market Risk • People don’t want your product.
Execution Risk • You can’t execute the idea better than the competition.

Pete Flint says your experience defines what risk you should take on.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧠 Andrew Govender unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 10-day standup streak

🎭 Jameson Lyon is building The Okrēo in public

📖 Shashank made a filter generator for Readwise

🏭 Stewart Townsend helped a college student setup a POD business

📼 Stan Wilson has been creating podcast mixtapes

🧰 Nik McFly launched a ChatGPT workshop

🧙 Vladyslav Budichenko built an AI Ad Generator

👥 Tornike Phkhovelishvili, Giovanni Vanini, Mahat Hussein and Emeric Victor unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

🔁 Lessons from 3,000 SaaS Companies 🎪 Build in Public Guide 📈 Charge 3x More

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

A habit tracker app
A guide to building in public
A content syndication framework
Value-based pricing for consultants
A platform of newly launched startups
A Chrome extension for dealing with tabs
Patrick Campbell’s lessons from 3,000 SaaS companies
And more…

🪶 Remember This

There’s no such thing as a perfect time.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

❄️ Polar Habits shared by Uwe Dreissigacker
A habit tracker with minimized penalties for missing days to keep your motivation up.

🕸️ POSSE Method shared by Stan Wilson
A framework for syndicating your content across multiple platforms.

🆕 BetaList shared by Mark Grimes
A platform that connects early adopters with newly launched startups.

📘 Read This

Building in Public Definitive Guide

Kevon Cheung is a “build in public” advocate. This free guide shows how you can grow your business and personal brand by sharing your work in public.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Thomas Sorheim Danielsen

“My experience with Trends Pro has been great. Masterminds are a game changer for your business, as well as your personal growth. To get reports, a mastermind and community for this price is exceptional value. If you take advantage of all that Trends Pro offers, you will accelerate your business and life beyond imagination.”

Thomas is building Practical AI. A newsletter about the applications and implications of Artificial Intelligence on business and work. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0008.

What are you reading right now?
A Secret History of Brands: The Dark and Twisted Beginnings of the Brand Names We Know and Love

It’s fascinating to learn the stories behind brand names, how they started, and how they dealt with the world around them throughout history.

What product or service do you wish existed?
More AI tools for the health industry. Such as AI tools to help with the early detection of cancer.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Supatabs

A chrome extension that deals with all your open tabs and helps save my Mac from choking due to the 30+ tabs I usually have open when researching for my newsletter.

What are you bullish on?
Artificial Intelligence

I chose to focus on the positive developments AI will bring us, especially in the medical field. I think we will see big leaps in healthcare due to AI.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
There are so many and I haven’t had the chance to go through them all. So far I enjoyed 🎪 Build in Public, 🎨 The Creator Economy, and 💪 Internet Challenges.

🎧 Listen To

Value-Based Pricing for Consultants

Michael Zipursky shares how you can charge 350% more by focusing on 2 types of value for your clients:

Tangible • Outcomes that you can track such as sales and revenue
Intangible • Outcomes that you can’t track such as lower risk and the cost of inaction.

👀 Watch This

Lessons Learned from 3,000 SaaS Companies

Patrick Campbell says user acquisition, monetization and retention are key to balanced growth. Companies that only focus on acquisition grow slower and die quicker.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧠 Martin Slaney, Jameson Lyon, Alicia Kamm and Vladyslav Budichenko unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

🚀 Muhammad Bin Sabir launched Free Wrap and Alt Pass on Product Hunt

🤖 Fausto Sá Teles launched IndieAI on Product Hunt

🕹️ Wojciech Wozniak wrote an article about making a no-code mini game

🗣️ Elie Steinbock got accepted to speak at NFT NYC

📕 Martin Slaney reached 1,000+ sales of the Product Manager’s Prompt Book

⭐ Bernardt J. Vogel was nominated for the NVCA 2023 Rising Star Award

👥 Andrew Govender unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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-Powered Landing Pages 🔨 Do Things That Don’t Scale 📣 Permissionless Marketing

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

A book series about mental models
An AI-powered landing page builder
A collection of unscalable startup hacks
The benefits of permissionless marketing
A report about asynchronous communication
A tool for combining ChatGPT with other services
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Success is a staircase, not a door.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🚀 Mixo shared by Mehmet Gonullu
An AI-powered landing page builder to quickly launch and validate business ideas.

🤖 ChatGPT + WolframAlpha shared by Stewart Townsend
A tool that chains ChatGPT to services like WolframAlpha and Google Search. See it in use here.

📚 Great Mental Models shared by Jameson Lyon
A practical book series to improve your thinking and decision-making.

🎧 Listen To

Permissionless Co-Marketing

Align yourself with other brands by promoting them in your work for free.

Compare yourself to bigger names of the same category familiar to your target audience.

Grow your brand, show the value of your product and strengthen your position within the industry.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Alessandro Franceschi

“Trends Pro is awesome. Dru motivates and engages in the community. This is reflected in the good vibes among members. I found daily standups surprisingly useful. The effect of sharing progress updates “in public” has powerful motivational effects.”

Alessandro does IT automation consulting for profit and builds Open Source software for fun. He is currently building Tiny Puppet. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0008.

What’s your most important habit?
Intermittent fasting. Cold showers also help.

What are you reading right now?
The Peripheral by Willian Gibson

William Gibson is the author of one of my favorite books: Neuromancer.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
reMarkable

I thought it was going to become the usual piece of technology that I may happen to use from time-to-time.

Now I use it to track habits, plan my day, organize thoughts, take call notes and (most of all) remind me how to write by hand.

What are you bullish on?
Tiny Puppet and the potential of the upcoming version 4 I’m working on. Being able to install, test, get info, troubleshoot EVERY application, on EVERY OS, in EVERY way.

I think it can be useful for different kinds of users: from developers, to sysadmin, from power users, to whoever knows what’s a terminal and needs to install (and do a lot more) any kind of application from it.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
⌨️ Monetized Open Source

Exclusive Deal: Alessandro is offering Trends.vc readers 20% off Puppet automation consulting services. Contact him at Example42.com and mention the coupon code TRENDS20.

🔧 Try This

Do Things That Don’t Scale

Paul Graham says you should manually serve early customers. You’ll learn what they love, hate and what to improve.
See a collection of non-scalable things done by startups at the beginning of their journey.

📘 Read This

Asynchronous Communication

Live chats, calls and meetings eat up your time and energy.

Asynchronous communication helps you be more productive with fewer interruptions and more control over your time.

At Trends.vc, we use async communication to manage our fully remote team.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧠 Bartosz Pietrucha unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 10-day standup streak

🤔 Mac Martine launched The Curious Innovator newsletter

🤖 Joel Pickin reached 100 subscribers for thisisbuiltwith.ai

🎧 Mehmet Gonullu started a podcast

🐦 Yuriy launched a Twitter bookmark organization tool

⚕️ Soma Mandal wrote her 100th post for Ansured

💯 Swapnil Puranik achieved a 100-day streak on Product Hunt

👥 Nik McFly, Vladyslav Budichenko and Santi Acosta unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

💡 Becoming an Idea Machine 🔋 Energy Audits 🚀 10 Breakthrough Technologies

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

Energy audits
A powerful app launcher
The talk to 10 framework
How to choose a target market
How to become an idea machine
10 breakthrough technologies of 2023
And more…

🪶 Remember This

Paths are made by walking them.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💡 How to Build Your Idea Machine shared by Gabriel Limma
How to keep your idea muscle strong and why it’s essential in today’s economy.

💻 Raycast shared by Elie Steinbock
A powerful app launcher with advanced features and deep third-party integrations.

🚀 10 Breakthrough Technologies 2023 shared by Stewart Townsend
“A top 10 list by MIT about highly impactful advances in biotechnology, climate change, space science and more.”

🎧 Listen To

The Magic of Choosing a Great Market

90% of startups fail due to lack of product-market fit. People don’t need or want the product.

Justin Jackson says that to increase your chances of success you should pick a market with momentum and proven distribution channels.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Reme Ekoh

“The English dictionary lacks a word that adequately and sufficiently captures my experience with Trends Pro. So I will settle for ‘overwhelmingly impressive’.”

Reme is building Bezalel AI to empower people with AI – from improving conversations between humans and computers to training and deploying AI models for healthcare organizations, social enterprises, and local governments. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0008.

What’s your most important habit?
Waking up @ 4:30 AM.

This helps me to get ahead of the “busyness” of the day, especially with a young family.

What are you reading right now?
The Startup of You by Reid Hoffman and Ben Casnocha

As with everything in life, I know that it starts from within. I cannot give what I don’t have. So to launch, lead and grow my business(es); I have to equip myself with the strategies and practices required.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
ChatGPT!

It offers a little glimpse into the future. Think back to the announcement of the iPhone 1 back in 2007 and then look at the current iPhone 14. Now imagine future iterations of ChatGPT. 🤯

What are you bullish on?
No-Code / Low-Code solutions in an AI world.

No-Code / Low-Code solutions are perfect for when you need an MVP – get digital products into your prospective users’ hands quickly so you can get feedback and iterate.

When you add Generative AI to that mix, startups, especially bootstrappers, can quickly scale up their digital marketing efforts and commit with the rest.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
Wait, of all the excellent reports, I have to pick just one? Sorry, I’m going to “break the rules.

🗂️Directories, 💼 Agencies, 🦄 Startup Studios, 💻 Digital Products and 😍 Personal Brands.

🔧 Try This

Talk to 10 Framework

Step 1: Talk to 10 potential customers. Ditch the idea if you can’t think of such or can’t reach them.

Step 2: Ask them what they do to solve the pain point you’re targeting.

Repeat until you stop learning new things.

Josh Dance says this is his best framework for validating ideas.

❔ Ask Yourself

Energy Audits

I ask two questions each night:

What gave me energy today?
What drained energy today?

These act as a compass to move closer to things that give me energy and away from those that don’t.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Bartosz Pietrucha, Alicia Kamm and Jameson Lyon became Trends Pro Members

👥 Muhammad Bin Sabir, Andrei Pislaras, Bartosz Pietrucha, Alicia Kamm and Jameson Lyon unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🎤 Michael Pearson-Adams launched his book, The Fearless Speaker

🖼️ Gianni D’Alerta wrote a recap of Art Basel Miami

📨 Reed Floren is launching Email Skills Summit

📅 Maciej Cupial reached $5,000 MRR with Calendesk and was also featured in a podcast

🎨 Brandon Jewell launched Banner Studio

🧠 Alessandro Franceschi, Thomas Sorheim [Danielsen], Mark Grimes, Gianni D’Alerta, Hunter Coleman and Thorben Schlätzer unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.

Productized Services: Software with a Service, Unlimited Services, Drop Services

“Each (hu)man is capable of doing one thing well. If he attempts several, he will fail to achieve distinction in any.“

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

What is Software With a Service?
How do SaaS companies use productized services to attract customers?
How can productized services sell unlimited service packages?
How to maximize customer lifetime value?
What is drop servicing?
How to avoid scope creep?

💎 Why It Matters

You can stop trading hours for dollars.

🔍 Problem

Buying services is complex. Customers don’t want to negotiate cost and scope.

💡 Solution

Productized services offer a fixed price with a clear scope and timeline.

Agencies are like personal chefs who cook everything for everyone.

Productized services are like restaurants with a menu.

🏁 Players

Design

Design Pickle • Unlimited graphic design.
Superside • Design services for growing teams.
Undullify • 30-minute micro design service.
Designjoy • Design as a Subscription.
ManyPixels • Unlimited graphic design with a dedicated designer.
GetAds • Ad creative service.
Goodpatch • Design strategy studio.
Penji • Unlimited graphic design.

Content

Podreacher • Repurpose marketing content for different mediums
AudienceOps • Done-for-you content and case studies.
Scribly • Content marketing with strategy and production.
Draft • White-label content writing service
100 Pound Social • Social media and blog content.

Usability Testing

Conversion Crimes • User Testing for agencies and small businesses.
UsabilityHub • Remote user research platform.
UberTesters • Productized usability testing.
Roast • Catch webpage issues before your users do.
The Product Onboarders • Improve B2B SaaS product onboarding.

🔮 Predictions

SaaS companies will offer Software With a Service (SWaS). They can increase the lifetime value of customers while making software more useful.
- Gusto has HR pros.
- ConvertKit does concierge migrations.
- Carta offers equity and scenario modeling.
- Mailchimp’s premium plan offers enterprise support.
- Calendesk is an online booking system that provides services like website design, SEO and automatization.

Businesses will use productized services as a trojan horse to sell higher-end products later on.
- PartnerHero starts at $10/hour for customer support. As your business grows they offer dedicated teams and operational support starting at $1,800/month.
- Avenue builds reasonably priced websites for real estate agents. They triple the price to then advertise the website.
- HubSnacks offers simple HubSpot services for $690/month but charges 4x the price for support with growth.

SaaS companies will court productized services to build on their platforms. The platform attracts new customers by supporting businesses that use it.
- Webflow has a partner directory.
- Notion and AWS offer certifications.
- ConvertKit and Quickbooks have affiliate programs.
- Shopify Experts connects design agencies with users.

☁️ Opportunities

Offer a service to customers of an existing platform. Embed yourself in existing communities to reach prospective customers.
- Shopiflat sells maintenance, support, and development of Shopify sites.
- Figmafy converts Figma designs to usable websites.
- CloudOptimus provides hosting for your WordPress website.
- Derroki Dev grew to $18,000 MRR in 90 days selling Webflow development.

Sell ‘unlimited’ service packages. You can limit concurrent requests and set turnaround times to maintain profitability.
- Design Dash offers unlimited requests and revisions for $1,000/mo with a 3-5 day turnaround.
- Devlevate offers unlimited web development for $349/month.
- Scribble offers unlimited writing requests for your blog for $499 a month.
- Draftss sells unlimited landing page UI/UX services for $399 per month.

Use pricing tiers to maximize the value of high-end customers while welcoming entry-level players.
- Undullify sells design services between $149 and $399/month. Each offer appeals to a different type of business.
- Ultimate Meal Plans offers tiered pricing for unlimited custom meal planning.

Sell services to clients on one platform then hire freelancers on cheaper platforms. This is referred to as drop servicing.
- Juherianto Joe made $1,400 hiring freelancers on SEOClerk to fulfill orders he received elsewhere.
- Awesome Pros does $10,000 MRR by hiring gig workers to build, edit and transcribe podcasts.
- May Ng made $5,600 in 6 days by drop servicing translation services.
- Pete Mockaitis grew AwesomePros to $10,000 MRR selling simple podcast task services.

🏔️ Risks

Scope Creep • Set guidelines and limits to avoid clients who expect too much. You may find this more difficult to adhere to in the early stages.
Race to the Bottom • Stiff competition will cut into your margins. Avoid this by choosing a defensible niche.

🔑 Key Lessons

Productized services tend to scale faster and easier than traditional agency businesses.
Think about distribution first. Pre-validate by preselling services. Or building an existing customer base as a freelancer.
Automate tasks when possible. Find ways to cut costs by automating processes without sacrificing quality.

🔥 Hot Takes

Scope creep can be useful. Track scope creep to understand what other services customers can benefit from (and pay for).
Successful productized services will abandon platforms. The most successful businesses on platforms like Fiverr and Upwork will try to move repeat customers off-platform.

😠 Haters

“Productized services are more like fast food than upscale restaurants. There’s no room for creativity.”
This is a misconception. Productized services can build processes without sacrificing the quality customers have come to expect.

“My clients only trust me. They would not feel comfortable letting anyone else do this work for them.”
Your clients want a certain outcome and think that you are the best person to help achieve it. If they trust you to solve the problem, they should trust you to build a process that solves it. Offload responsibilities gradually to show that your process is just as capable as you are.

“The standard package from a productized service is too generic to suit my situation.”
If the promised outcome isn’t what you’re looking for then you’re probably right. Unique outcomes are possible with productized services but they are not for everyone.

🔗 Links

Who’s building a productized service? • The tweet behind this report.
Productize and Scale • Productized services guides, resources and community created by Brian Casel.
Productization of Services: A How-To • Pricing strategies for productized services.

📁 Related Reports

XaaS • A look at subscription-based productized services.
Marketing Funnels • On customer acquisition.
Consulting • Get insight into custom services.
Lead Generation • Find and qualify potential leads.
Build in Public • Stay accountable and find customers for your service.

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Maciej Cupial, Brenton, Fausto, Tem, Tarek Zalt, Uwe Dreissigacker, and Rick Jarrell. We had a great time jamming on this report.

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

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0103 — Productized Services has more insights.

What you’ll get:

46 Productized Service Examples (142% More)
10 Predictions (233% More)
13 Opportunities (175% More)
4 Risks (100% More)
7 Key Lessons (133% More)
4 Hot Takes (100% More)
12 Links (300% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) How can influencers benefit from productized services?
(📈 Pro) How can consultants build productized services?
(📈 Pro) How will productized services move upmarket?
(📈 Pro) How are productized services building communities?
(📈 Pro) How will AI change productized services?
(📈 Pro) How to find your niche in productized services?
(📈 Pro) How to sell service subscriptions?
(📈 Pro) How do build and use social proof?
(📈 Pro) How to crowdsource solutions to customer problems?
And much more…

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ 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.