“Your personal brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” – Chris Ducker

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to build your content production system?
• What is a nano-influencer?
• How can companies and individuals help each other grow?
• How to lower key-person risk?
• How to differentiate yourself?
• How to balance your personal and professional life?
• How to build a pseudonymous brand?
  
  

💎 Why It Matters

You have a brand. Whether you know it or not.

🔍 Problem

You need to show why you are worth trust and attention.

💡 Solution

Your personal brand determines if and how you are seen.

• Charlie D’Amelio started as a down-to-earth TikTok personality. Now she uses her brand to add value to portfolio companies in her $25 million VC fund.
• Sahil Bloom uses viral business threads to attract an audience for his newsletter. His audience is the perfect value add as an angel investor too. 
• Steph Mui’s viral tweets about the founder’s struggles attract an audience for both herself and PIN.
  
  

🏁 Players

Personal Brands

• Marie Kondo • Established herself as the face of ‘tidying’. Now she runs a major consultancy business branded the KonMari Method.
• Bill Nye • Spent years crafting a persona as the world’s foremost science educator.
• Casey Neistat • Used his unique video style to position himself as the king of vlogs.
• Malala Yousafzai • Youngest ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate. World-famous for her courage and education activism.
• Gary Vaynerchuk • Positioned himself as the face of grit and entrepreneurial determination.
• QTCinderella • Twitch streamer who leveraged her brand to start The Streamer Awards.
• Mark Manson • Sells life advice that doesn’t suck. 
  

Personal Brand Tools

• Google Alerts • Get alerts from Google when you’re mentioned online.
• Descript • Edit videos as easily as editing a doc.
• Podcast Hawk • Get booked as a podcast guest on auto-pilot. 
• SpeakerHub • Build your professional speaking platform to get booked for events.
• Twitter Streak • A free tool to track and increase your Twitter growth.
  
  

🔮 Predictions

• More people will become nano-influencers. They will find narrow niches for their brands. 
  • WeTheHobby streams on WhatNot to a small audience of loyal sports collectible enthusiasts.
  • Jen Lauren is a self-care video creator who can offer more of a personal touch than major influencers.
  • Jade Melcher built her brand on clean beauty and non-toxic living with high-quality product photography.
  • Nathan Young is well-known in the prediction market community. Outside of it, his name would be unlikely to ring a bell.

• Creators will automate more aspects of brand operations. Such as creating content and engaging with other creators.
  • Pascio uses Tweet Hunter to write and automate his content schedule.
  • Kyle Handy uses Facebook’s creator studio to schedule his posts on real estate.
  • Youri van Hofwegen automated his Youtube content for 365 days and earned $47,000 from 2.6 million views.

• Pseudonymous ‘personal’ brands will lower key-person risk.
  • BitClout founder ‘diamondhands’ raised $40m from Sequoia and other major investors.
  • Litquidity uses its brand to market content services, a job board and angel investing.
  • Parik Patel and John W. Rich create content on finance. They attract audiences with viral content based on their characters.
  • Youtubers like Dream attract millions of followers fascinated by anonymity. His voice was known but his looks were only recently made public.

• Personal and professional brands will merge. People want to feel that they can trust you on a personal level.
  • Shaun White uses his personal brand to market Air + Style and WHITESPACE. Both brands reflect his energetic and avant-garde spirit.
  • Gary Vaynerchuk is one of the foremost marketing influencers. His famous personality helped him build a massive content business.
  • Ariana Wolf’s “personal professional brand” helps use authenticity to grow her design business. Yet she keeps strict boundaries about sharing her personal life.
    
    

☁️ Opportunities

• Build tools to help creators automate aspects of their personal brands. 
  • Creators use Synthesia to turn scripts into video content read by a realistic avatar.
  • Hassan El Mghari made a tutorial on how he used OpenAI and Vercel to build a Twitter Bio Generator.
  • SayHi generates thoughtful intro messages personalized to who you’re messaging on LinkedIn.
  • Virtual Youtubers allow a single ‘persona’ or channel to be a whole team. The actual gameplay and commentary no longer need to be done by a real person.

• Use social proof to grow your personal brand. Mimetic desire shows that people are more likely to trust you if someone they admire trusts you.
  • Benjamin got many venture capital connections after a prominent investor followed him.
  • Therapist Phil Stutz and his tools for ‘life transformation’ are a trending topic. Jonah Hill featured his positive experience with ‘Stutz’ on Netflix.
  • Katelyn Bourgoin became “the customer whisperer” by helping and teaching marketers. She uses her reputation to get customers for Customer Camp.

• Build a content production system to stay consistent.
  • Easlo uses Notion to manage his TikTok, Twitter and Youtube content in one place.
  • Dileep Karri wrote 30 essays in 30 days to boost his writing and build a content production system.
  • Jonathan Hawley published the framework he uses to lower friction when managing his ideas.

• Build in public. Share your story to build trust and grow your audience.
  • Atul Anand built an audience for his Notion templates by tweeting about the process.
  • Art Lapinsch built his brand around Biz Ops by asking for feedback on courses he makes.
  • Oliver Martinez hit $2,000 MRR and 40,000 Twitter followers by tweeting about his apps’ progress.
  • Karthik Sridharan shares how he grows Flexiple and buildd to $3,000,000 ARR to grow his audience.
  • Kieran grew his audience of no-code students by tweeting about his learning process. He’s gone from non-technical founder to solo builder.
    
    

🏔️ Risks

• Key-Person Risk • Some businesses are nothing without their Influencer-in-Chief. Learn how to make your business work even without you at the helm.
• Platform Risk • Social media websites can suspend or shadow-ban your account. Diversification helps to avoid being de-platformed.
• Legal • Beware of the legal implications of what you do online. Especially if you offer advice or run giveaways.
  
  

🔑 Key Lessons

• Help people. The simplest way to build an audience is by offering real value. Share advice, tools and insights to get trust.
• Start creating now. It can be scary to ‘launch’ your personal brand. Don’t let fear stop you from achieving your end goals.
• Consistency matters. Nothing you do is as important to your personal brand as showing up on a regular basis. Learn what works by keeping the content flowing.
  
  

🔥 Hot Takes

• You don’t need a plan. Many of the most successful personal brands started with creators enjoying themselves. Engage with your favorite communities and see what happens.
• People will become impossible to cancel. There is a subculture for everyone. Especially those shunned by the mainstream.
• Most personal brands were obsessed with conforming to social expectations. Now they will try to differentiate themselves.
  
  

😠 Haters

“I’m uncomfortable posting such personal content. Loss of privacy scares me.”
Lots of people feel this way. Building a personal brand doesn’t mean you need to share intimate details. There are many ways to add value and earn peoples’ trust without getting too personal.

“Building a personal brand takes too much time for an ROI that’s unclear.”
Just because you can’t measure the outcome like a paid ad doesn’t mean it’s not driving results. If what you’re doing is working, you’ll grow your network one person at a time. Your personal brand is a lifelong investment. Don’t chase immediate ‘sales’ and follower counts.

“Personal branding is a way for people to promote themselves and their own interests. It’s not helpful for their company or organization.”
Why not both? Instead of stopping your team from building a reputation, support them! Feature the people behind your business and help them grow their brands. Everyone wins when your team has respect in your industry.

“I want to grow my personal brand, but I don’t know what to talk about. I don’t have any expertise that people would find valuable enough.”
What do you enjoy talking about? Write what you are most passionate about. Even if you lack a certain talent or knowledge, you can share your learning experience. It can be both entertaining and insightful to others.

🔗 Links

1. You have a personal brand… whether you know it or not • The tweet behind this report.
2. How to Use Twitter for Thought Leadership • How to use Twitter to grow your brand.
3. Why You Should Craft a Powerful Personal Brand • Jake Jorgovan shares how his personal brand drives 68.56% of his revenue.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​The Creator Economy • Becoming a creator is a necessary tool to craft your brand.
• ​Audience-First Products • Build trust with your audience before you start selling.
• ​Build in Public • Grow your personal brand by building in public.
• ​Consulting • Use your personal brand to attract clients.
• ​Lead Magnets • Use lead magnets to build an audience for your brand.
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Felipe Collins, Stewart Townsend, Soma Mandal, Jed Crystal, Alessandro Franceschi, Ralph Quintero, Uwe Dreissigacker, Daniel Berggren, Lwany, Hassan, Andreas Lohr, Pooja Patel, Arvid Kahl and Bernardt J. Vogel. We had a great time jamming on this report.

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

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0109 — Personal Brands has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 28 Personal Brand Examples (300% More)
• 16 Personal Brand Tools (220% More)
• 11 Predictions (175% More)
• 13 Opportunities (225% More)
• 6 Risks (100% More)
• 7 Key Lessons (133% More)
• 5 Hot Takes (66% More)
• 12 Links (300% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to monetize your personal brand?
• (📈 Pro) How to define your brand’s value proposition?
• (📈 Pro) How to avoid creator burnout?
• (📈 Pro) How to repurpose your content?
• (📈 Pro) How to scale your personal brand?
• (📈 Pro) How to use newsletters to grow your brand?
• (📈 Pro) How to optimize your social profiles? 
• (📈 Pro) What role will influencers have within companies?
• (📈 Pro) How to use podcasts to build your brand?
• And much more…
  
  

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

What are 7 success stories of people earning money through affiliate programs? 

1. Ilir Salihi made $2,000 for individual sales of high-ticket items. He used his niche financial blog promoting alternative investments to rank for related search terms which had an existing audience. He made $4,000 from two sales in two months.
2. Spencer Mecham from Buildapreneur makes $80,000 MRR from his affiliate business. His content takes advantage of algorithms to make go viral. He’s made millions from companies like ClickFunnels and Builderall. 
3. This is Why I’m Broke is the internet’s mall, with 728,000 monthly visits. They use the Amazon Associate’s program and smaller affiliate partnerships to catalog items. They use funny articles and interesting products to get people’s attention for interesting content. They make well over $20,000 MRR..
4. Matthew Woodward makes $20,000 MRR from his award-winning marketing blog. He’s creating a strongly branded blog solely focused on ranking in SEO without using link building.
5. TechRadar added affiliate marketing to its in-depth reviews of technology products to help turn the tides of its business. They make millions each year in affiliate income from the products they review. Their edge is the trust and respect that the publication has for the quality of reviews.
6. Adrian Brambila made $1,000,000+ in revenue for LadyBoss, a women-centric fitness brand. He leveraged his sizeable following from dance tutorial content to share links about similar fitness programs. 
7. Tom Dupois makes $150,000 ARR from his site onlinemediamasters.com. He writes content and tutorials about plugins and other web hosting and development content with high commissions for relevant content and product recommendations.
   
   

How to find affiliate programs? What tools/directories help you find affiliate programs? 

You can visit industry-specific websites or forums to find affiliate programs, or check with industry organizations. Affiliate networks and niche directories provide access to a wide range of affiliate programs from various merchants. You should also compare your own audience with others to find comparable marketers. See what other people in your industry are affiliates for, and determine if the program makes sense for you too.

Affiliate Hunter and Affiliate Corner are useful tools for matching your content and audience with the right affiliate programs and networks.

What factors make a good affiliate program? 

A good affiliate program is one that is reputable, offers competitive commission rates, provides marketing materials and tools to help affiliates promote the product and has dedicated support for affiliates. Additionally, a good affiliate program should provide accurate and timely tracking and reporting of sales and commissions, as well as a variety of timely payout options for affiliates.

From a high-level, what are the different types of affiliate marketing structures?

Recurring: In a recurring affiliate program, the company pays the affiliate a commission on a regular basis. Examples of companies with recurring affiliate programs include Etsy, Zazzle, and AliExpress.

One-time: In a one-time affiliate program, the company pays the affiliate a commission only once, typically when the customer makes a purchase. Examples of companies with one-time affiliate programs include Fiverr, GetResponse, and Convertkit.

Cost per action (CPA): In a CPA affiliate program, the company pays the affiliate a commission based on a specific action that the customer takes, such as filling out a form or making a purchase. Examples of companies with CPA affiliate programs include the eBay Partner Network, the Home Depot Affiliate Program, and the Crate and Barrel Affiliate Program.

Percentage-based: In a percentage-based affiliate program, the company pays the affiliate a percentage of the sale price of the product or service. Examples of companies with percentage-based affiliate programs include Groupon, Expedia, and Priceline.

Recurring for first 12 months: In a recurring affiliate program that is limited to the first 12 months, the company pays the affiliate a commission on a regular basis for the first 12 months after the customer makes a purchase. After that, the commission payments may stop or may continue on a different basis. Examples of companies with this type of affiliate program include Process Street, Make.com, and N8N.io.

What are the top affiliate networks (sorted by popularity)?

• Rakuten Advertising • One of the largest networks.
• ShareASale • Affiliate network with 21,000+ advertisers from Awin.
• ClickBank • 6 million unique affiliate products. 
• CJ Affiliate • Affiliate marketing ecosystem with 1B+ consumer monthly reach.
• Amazon Associates • Amazon’s network for any listed product.
• Pepperjam • Newer curated affiliate network with higher quality but fewer listings.
• ClickOut • Affiliates tailored for crypto.
  
  

What are your top 3 predictions about how affiliate marketing will change in the next 10 years? 

• Live video and integrated shopping will become the primary channel for affiliate marketing. 
• AI will transform affiliate marketing by making it easier for affiliates to tailor their content for the most relevant audience.
• Microinfluencers will take over. They offer better targeting for niche communities and products with higher conversion rates at lower costs. 
  
  

What are the risks of using affiliate marketing to sell your product? 

You may not have control over the quality of the marketing efforts of your affiliates. If your affiliates are not effectively promoting your product, it may not reach a large enough audience to generate significant sales. Additionally, some affiliates may engage in unethical marketing practices like spamming or making false claims about your product, which can damage your reputation and hurt your sales.

The rise of ad-blocking technology and increasing concerns about online privacy may affect the effectiveness of affiliate marketing, as fewer people may be willing to click on affiliate links or share their personal information with affiliates.

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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.

🧍 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.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

• A no-code marketplace guide
• Deciding which features to automate
• A book about our relationship with money
• 15 brainstorming questions for better ideas
• A ChatGPT alternative for technical questions
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Those who succeed are irrationally passionate about something.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💲 The Psychology of Money shared by Nirav Multani
A book about our relationship with money, with insights for better financial decisions and fulfillment

💻 Phind shared by Reme Ekoh
An AI search engine for technical questions that provides code snippets and sources for its responses

🛍️ Affiliate SEO shared by Kevin Deol
A deep-dive analysis of 10,000 affiliate- related keywords

📘 Read This

The Guide to No-Code Marketplaces

Trusted by 7,500+ marketplace builders. This guide will teach you how to build, launch and scale an online marketplace using no-code.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Dale Williams

“I have loved the experience in Trends Pro since I jumped in. It has the right mix of content, curiosity and gamification. It feels like what the alumni of Seth Godin’s AltMBA should have been but never was. For me it has exceeded expectations.“

Dale is building connecteddale.com. Supporting businesses in tackling two elusive things: a crystal-clear vision of the future and a team that’s aligned to make it a reality.

What’s your most important habit?
Power yoga every morning for an hour.

What are you reading right now?
Life by Keith Richards

Robert Greene opened me up to the powerful stories of people who have and haven’t mastered human nature in his books Mastery, Power and The Laws of Human Nature. I love using an understanding of psychology and personality to understand others and in the process better understand myself.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A simple way to manage a portfolio of global assets without paying an advisor a percentage of NAV.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
A 5’6″ 90-liter Reflex Carbon Phazer Foilboard from AK Durable Supply Company with 4, 5 and 6-meter wings. I check the wind and tides multiple times daily and get out on the water whenever possible. Totally addicted.

What are you bullish on?
A non-unipolar world where power is more balanced because, as Lord Acton says, “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.

Oh, and Ethereum, not the price but the use case.

What are you bearish on?
Experts.

They’re mostly wrong.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
⛏ Curation as a Service

There is tremendous creativity in curating the existing into new forms. And we are fortunate to be exposed to diverse, thoughtful and challenging ideas, products, and services every day. Curation is the ultimate value creation in a crowded and complex world.

Exclusive Deal: Dale is offering Trends.vc readers 40% off his upcoming Simplify and Grow – Strategy Masterclass cohort-based accelerator program. Sign up here to secure your discount.

👀 Watch This

What Features to Automate

Many founders spend time and energy building features that nobody asked for.

Can you manually simulate a feature until you have proven demand?

Sarthak Ahuja says it is wise to learn what customers need before you automate.

At Trends.vc, we manually select mastermind hosts. This helps us work out the kinks before we automate this feature.

❔ Ask Yourself

Extreme Brainstorming Questions to Trigger Better Ideas

These 15 questions push the boundaries of business models to an extreme many would consider impossible. Extreme questions can reveal new ideas.

• How would you justify charging 10x more?
• How would you build your product without talking to customers?
• What would you do if your biggest competitor copied all your features?

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Rupert Wade, Yogesh Muthreja, Gregory Cronie and Valeri Gervaziev unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

👨🏻‍🎓 Emeric Victor launched Kids Learning Directory

📍 Whit launched Neighborhood Studios for hyperlocal startups

🎵 Thomas Sorheim [Danielsen] launched StoryBehind Newsletter

🚀 Swapnil Puranik launched Pitchery on Product Hunt

🍄 Mark Grimes successfully advised Cultiv8r Club, selling out an event in 39 days

☁️ Mehmet Gonullu made it to the front page of Indie Hackers and launched SubsPulse on Product Hunt

🧠 Renae Gregoire, Benhur Desta, Nicolo’ Borghi and Zaid Kaleem unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

Get Weekly Reports

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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.

🧍 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.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

• A no-code website builder
• How to write great content
• 100 ways to improve your life
• How to get newsletter subscribers
• 15 frameworks for building products
• How to use ChatGPT for marketing
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Gatekeepers can only “gatekeep” so much of the world, but it’s a big world out there. Don’t let anyone stop you.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🤖 SaaS Marketing with ChatGPT shared by Mark Grimes
An article about how SaaS businesses can use AI tools for marketing

💌 How To Get Newsletter Subscribers shared by Fausto Sá Teles
A collection of resources by Josh Spector about growing your newsletter

🏗️ Dorik shared by Giovanni Vanini
A no-code website builder for quickly setting up your landing page or full-fledged website

🔧 Try This

100 Ways to Improve Your Life Without Really Trying

From using a sharp knife to saying hello to your neighbors. There are small things that can improve your mood, health and relationships with little effort.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Vinamra Agrawal (Vin)

“I started being more active in the Trends Pro Community recently. I love the way people help each other. There’s an excellent vibe here.“

Vin is building Brandhero. A strategic design outfit which helps people move forward faster and acquire more customers with effective UX design strategies, product design and user-centric web experiences. 

He’s also building template libraries to help founders launch websites faster on Webflow, Bubble, Framer and other no-code tools. Along with a UI/UX Audit productized service.

Vin is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0010.

What’s your most important habit?
Going into deep creative work. Reaching flow state each day for 1-3 hours. 

What are you reading right now?

• The Embedded Entrepreneur
• The Minimalist Entrepreneur
• Unscripted

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Learning to build in Framer. I love the way we can make responsive websites, with customizations, in a no-code way. I am also learning Bubble. I like the way it gives you freedom to build anything without knowing how to code.

What are you bullish on?
The evolution of the digital design industry, async communication and remote work culture.

What are you bearish on?
Writing skills and services seem to be slowly becoming a commodity (with constantly improving AI/GPT models).

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🤑 Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses

It aligns with my business vision and shows examples of how much is possible. 

Exclusive Deal: Vin is offering Trends.vc readers 50% off his landing page hero section redesign service. Get the discounted price here.

📘 Read This

Applying Mental Models to Building Digital Products

Brian Bassett shares 15 frameworks to help you build better products and businesses.

Learn how to find the right problem, features and tasks to work on.

• Pareto Principle: 80% of results come from 20% of inputs.
• Parkinson’s Law: Work expands to fill the time allotted for its completion.
• Jobs-to-be-Done: Learn what specific goal your customers want to achieve.

🎧 Listen To

Writing Nonfiction

David Perell and Tim Urban talk about writing great content for your blog, book or social media by focusing on your readers, stories and personality.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Nicolo’ Borghi, Zaid Kaleem, Ritesh Ranjan, Josh Colter and Sean Murphy unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🏃‍♀️ David Getchel built a HIIT training web app

🎨 Vasil launched Designcrafter on Product Hunt

🏦 Sean Murphy wrote a recap of the SVB Shutdown

👗 Lwany closed a sponsorship deal for Petite Fashion Weekly

🗣️ Stewart Townsend spoke at a virtual CRO summit

🤖 Thomas Sorheim’s Practical AI newsletter reached 500+ subscribers

📈 Milly Tamati crossed $28k ARR with Generalist World, hired her first employee and held a workshop

🧠 Vinamra Agrawal and Jarrad Pouncil unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

Get Weekly Reports

Join 65,000+ founders and investors

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📈 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.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

• An A/B testing guide
• Why is LinkedIn so cringe?
• A habit for continuous improvement
• An AI-powered content creation suite
• Bootstrapping a SaaS to $30,000/month
• How to find and fix bottlenecks in your life
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Discipline is a prerequisite of greatness. Nobody becomes great by accident.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🧪 Practical Guide to A/B Testing shared by Swapnil Puranik
A book about conducting effective A/B tests. You can read the first chapter here

😬 Why is LinkedIn so Cringe? shared by Kevin Deol
An article on why there is so much bland, buzzword-filled content on LinkedIn

🎥 Runway shared by Dana Ram
A content creation suite with 30+ AI-powered creative tools

🎧 Listen To

From Full-Time Job to $30,000/Month

Damon Chen built 5 apps, 4 of which have failed. He talks about failing, validating, charging more and bootstrapping a SaaS as a solo founder.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Rachel Smith

“Trends Pro is an interesting place to engage with founders at various points of their journey. I’m looking forward to getting to know more founders.“

Rachel is building Rachel’s English for more than 4,500,000 subscribers, helping people all over the world feel confident speaking English. “It’s the gym for your English: you’ll learn about the sounds and musical characteristics of American English. You’ll have a specific method for training your voice, and you can get personalized feedback from our teachers.”

What’s your most important habit?
Fitness — It keeps me in line with diet, sleep, parenting, and being a kinder person.

What are you reading right now?
The New Yorker

The reporting is top-notch, the writing fantastic, and when I need something different I can flip to the fiction piece.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I get motivated by my fitness tracker, and I wish I could provide similar stats to my students for how much time they spend studying on my website each day, how many days in a row, etc. With charts and graphs. As well as being able to share with other students and compare averages. I use Thinkific and they don’t have this functionality. I haven’t heard of any course platforms that do.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
An under-desk treadmill. It gets me through the afternoon slowdown, stops the back pain from creeping in.

What are you bullish on?
The Creator Economy. I went to YouTube’s Creator Summit this year. The ways that creators are coming up with to grow and engage their community (and sell products to them) is inspiring.

What are you bearish on?
Meat. Have you tried some of the vegan products out there lately? WOW.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
💼 Fractional Executives

Through that report, I took a couple of meetings and just hired a CMO advisor. I expect great things for the coming year.

Exclusive Deal: Rachel is offering Trends.vc readers up to $50 off of her English Academy. Use the code TRENDS5 to get your first month for $5 or TRENDS50 to get $50 off your first year.

📘 Read This

Theory of Constraints 101

You have at least one bottleneck that limits your progress in business and life. Theory of Constraints helps you achieve your goals by finding and fixing that bottleneck.

🔧 Try This

Daily Scorecard

I’m always looking for habits that lead to continuous improvement.

One of my best habits is a nightly scorecard for different aspects of life. 

Some things that I track:

• Diet
• Sleep
• Growth
• Exercise
• Peace of Mind

I score each aspect based on a scale of 1 to 10. 

If anything is less than 10, I add action items that, if done, would improve the score.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Renae Gregoire, Jarrad Pouncil and Benhur Desta unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🤖 Fausto Sá Teles launched IndieAI Newsletter

🎧 Uwe Dreissigacker was featured in Mehmet Gonullu‘s CTO Show

🔀 Vic Kalchev relaunched Destructured

🧱 Shuyen Phoon sold her first no-code project

🛠️ Martin Slaney launched Product Prompts Newsletter

📈 Mac Martine closed 5 paying customers after relaunching Aware

🧠 Maisha Cannon, Dana Ram, Sandhya Gopalan and Jaskirat Singh unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 10-day standup streaks

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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.

🧍 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.

“People come for the content and stay for the community.” – Stu McLaren

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• What is Community-as-a-Service?
• What are market networks?
• What are community-specific tools?
• What are negative network effects?
• What is the 90–9–1 rule?
  
  

💎 Why It Matters

A group of like-minded people can help you grow faster.

🔍 Problem

Free communities tend to be noisy without a barrier to entry.

💡 Solution

Paid communities use strategic friction to build high-signal environments.

🏁 Players

Paid Communities

• Trends Pro • Community of successful founders discovering new markets and ideas
• Rosieland • Everything about community building
• 10xmanagers • Learn management and leadership
• Empowering.Cloud • Community for Microsoft Teams industry professionals
• Cloud Software Association • Association of cloud software vendors, resellers, distributors and platforms
• Frauvis • Community of black women in tech 
• The Futur • Courses, coaching and community for creative professionals

Paid Community Tools

• Levellr • Build a thriving fan community on Discord or Telegram
• MemberSpace • Turn any part of your website into members-only with just a few clicks
• Ghost • Publish content, send newsletters & offer paid subscriptions to members
• Pico • Build landing pages, grow your audience and get paid
• Notion • All-in-one workspace for your notes, tasks, wikis and databases
• Spiffy • Conversion-optimized checkouts and one-click upsells
• Payhere • Payment links to help you collect payments online

Paid Community Platforms

• Discord • Create invite-only channels for paid members
• Tribe • Customizable community platform for businesses
• Heights • Create a community of engaged learners with forums, gamification, automations and more
• Orbit • Platform for building, growing and automating your community
• Mighty Networks • Build courses, memberships and communities on iOS, Android and the web
• Podia • Build websites, courses, digital products and paid communities
  
  

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see more Community-as-a-Service professionals. They will help you build, launch and monetize your paid community.
  • Bri Leever builds community-led brands.
  • Ece Kurtaraner is a freelance community builder.
  • Late Checkout builds communities for your products.
  • Hard Numbers builds engaging communities on any platform.
  • Sara Saunders helps you build, grow and maintain stronger communities.

• We’ll see more niche paid communities. They will cater to long-tail interests unaddressed by other communities.
  • NABJ is a community of black journalists.
  • Fulhamish is a community of fans of Fulham FC.
  • AAJA is a community of Asian-American journalists.
  • Refresh Miami is Miami’s tech and startup community.
  • SENT is a community of Catholic founders and executives.
  • International Gem Society is a community of gemstone professionals and enthusiasts.
  • TopMusicPro helps music teachers build music studios and grow their music teaching business.
  • Next Gen Men teaches positive masculinity, mental wellness, healthy relationships and gender equity among young boys.

• We’ll see more market networks. They will combine marketplace and social network features. Such as branded profiles, product listings and direct connections.
  • Microns lets you connect with startup buyers and sellers.
  • HerHouse is a community of female hosts and solo travelers.
  • Foster connects writers and editors that contribute to text drafts.
  • Houzz connects homeowners and home designers with Houzz Pro.
  • SoleSavy connects members who want to buy, sell or trade sneakers.
  • Mylance is a community and a marketplace of tech and startup consultants.
  • MicroAcquire connects buyers with startup founders to discuss acquisitions.
  • Fishbrain is a community and marketplace for anglers who connect with each other and fishing brands.
  • Time Bank of the Rockies connects people and organizations who exchange resources and services for free.
    
    

☁️ Opportunities

• Validate demand with presales and waitlists. Don’t build a community nobody wants.
  • Rosie Sherry presold The Indiependent to 27 people for $325.
  • Charlie Ward presold Ramen Club to 20 people for $500 MRR.
  • Framework is building a school and community of tech entrepreneurs. You can join the waitlist to see when they launch.

• Build rituals to help members stay productive and accountable.
  • Trends.vc has daily standups, 1-on-1 founder chats and masterminds.
  • Makerlog has daily tasks and streaks.
  • Indie Worldwide has monthly live calls.
  • Founders Board has monthly 90-minute group calls.
  • 48 Days Eagles has small, focused 1-hour group meetups 4 times a month.

• Offer a clear benefit. Show how your community leads to specific outcomes.
  • Drumeo teaches how to play drums.
  • The Golficity teaches how to play golf.
  • Pipeline teaches how to livestream like a pro.
  • Launch Club helps you get support for your product launch.
  • Blogging for Devs teaches developers how to write SEO-optimized content online.

• Build a community for your paid newsletter to help readers with similar interests connect with each other.
  • Lenny’s Newsletter has a private Slack community for paid readers.
  • Bankless has a community of crypto enthusiasts and professionals.
  • Trends.vc has a private community of 1,000+ successful founders discovering new markets and ideas.
  • Micro SaaS HQ shares research-backed profitable Micro-SaaS ideas. It has an exclusive community of paid subscribers.

• Build community-specific tools. Share tools designed to solve members’ problems.
  • BiggerPockets shares property, rent and rehab calculators.
  • The Blog Societies shares pitch, invoice, media kit templates and more.
  • Modern Mastery shares marketing strategies, content frameworks, sales scripts and more.

🏔️ Risks

• Negative Network Effects • Engagement drops as niche communities grow without a way to efficiently sort contributions and content.
• Key-Person Risk • If you are the sole source of value for the community, you may face burnout and/or the inability to sell the community as an asset.
• Platform Risk • You are subject to the platform’s terms, outages and roadmap. Slack is a popular, but not an ideal choice for running paid communities.
  
  

🔑 Key Lessons

• Build an audience to solve the chicken-and-egg problem. Trends.vc reached 20,000+ subscribers before Trends Tribe meetups were launched.
• Show appreciation by highlighting active members. Trends.vc highlights contributors at the end of each report.
• Online communities suffer from participation inequality. The 90–9–1 rule says that in most online communities, 90% of users lurk, 9% contribute a little and 1% create content. While this is a well-known phenomenon, it can look like your community is stagnant.
  
  

🔥 Hot Takes

• Paid communities will let members review new applications. WIP is not paid, but it’s an invite-only community. If nobody knows you, WIP will share your application with existing members. They will decide if you can join the community.
• We’ll see hyper-niche paid communities. MAP Community is a community of museum professionals who aim to build more inclusive and innovative museums.
• Paid communities should use scarcity tactics. Use limited-time offers to tap into people’s fear of missing out. Sophia Amoruso made her paid community part of her Business Class cohort-based course which opens twice a year. You can join the waitlist to not miss it.
  
  

😠 Haters

“The 90–9–1 rule has been challenged. It’s not accurate anymore.”
We said this rule applies to most online communities. Not all. Remember negative network effects. You can expect higher engagement in small communities and lower in big ones.

“Paid communities are exclusionary.”
So are cohort-based courses, paid newsletters and top universities. Great things cost money. It can be wise to join a paid community if you can’t find the value it gives anywhere else.

“I have a free community. Members won’t be happy if I lock it behind a paywall.”
You don’t have to lock everything. Freemium is a viable option if you don’t want to upset existing members.

“Most of your examples are online communities. How to get started with an offline paid community?”
While starting an online community is easier, you can apply most of the tactics to offline communities. Host offline events and masterminds. Vet members and run cohort-based courses. These are common among offline paid communities.

🔗 Links

1. Which Paid Communities Do You Belong to? • The tweet behind this report.
2. Paid Communities • Previous version of this report.
3. How I Built a Paid Community to 1,000+ Members in 10 Months • Dru Riley talks about building and growing the Trends PRO community to 1,000+ paying members.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​Cohort-Based Courses • How to build, grow and monetize cohort-based courses
• ​Token-Gated Communities • How to build deep alignment between community members
• ​Audience-First Products • How to validate ideas, get feedback and build trust
• ​Internet Challenges • How to build strong brands and communities using time-bound challenges
• ​Build in Public • How to break through noise by sharing wins, failures and lessons
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Anderson Dadario, Josh Gain, Soma Mandal, Bernhard Friedrichs, Bradley Jacobs, Andreas Lohr, Fausto Sá Teles, Jean Lucas Lima, Tom Arbuthnot, Stewart Townsend, Shuyen Phoon, Yarty Kim, Byron Wilson, Gianni D’Alerta and Thomas Sorheim. 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 #0107 — Paid Communities has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 33 Paid Communities (372% More)
• 37 Paid Community Tools (429% More)
• 35 Paid Community Platforms (484% More)
• 10 Predictions (234% More)
• 22 Opportunities (340% More)
• 6 Risks (100% More)
• 10 Key Lessons (234% More)
• 11 Hot Takes (267% More)
• 18 Links (500% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) What are social tokens?
• (📈 Pro) What are NFT memberships?
• (📈 Pro) What are professional communities?
• (📈 Pro) What is integration risk?
• (📈 Pro) What are member-owned communities?
• (📈 Pro) What are community engagement strategies?
• And much more…
  
  
  

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📈 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.

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

Subscribe

📈 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.

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

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📈 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.

“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

1. Who’s building a niche job board? • The tweet behind this report. 
2. How to Create a Niche Job Board • Peter Askew’s Twitter brain dump on starting a niche job board.
3. 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…
  
  
  

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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.

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💬 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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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: 

• 🦄 Startup Studios
• 💬 Paid Communities
• 🚀 Product-Led Growth

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

Subscribe

📈 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.