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

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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:

• 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

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 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

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 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

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:

• 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

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.

“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

1. Who’s building a productized service? • The tweet behind this report. 
2. Productize and Scale • Productized services guides, resources and community created by Brian Casel.
3. 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…
  
  

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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 consulting playbook
• An all-in-one sales funnel tool
• Using ChatGPT as a writing assistant
• A philosophical time management book
• Marko Saric’s story of reaching $100,000/mo
• Coming up with a one-sentence pitch of your product
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

There are more people who surrender than those who fail.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

⌛ Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals shared by Kevin Deol
A philosophical approach to time management, reminding us that life is finite and more isn’t always better.

🎵 Groove.cm shared by Gabriel Limma
An all-in-one suite of apps with a free plan to build your sales funnel.

🖋️ Collaborative Creative Writing with ChatGPT shared by Stewart Townsend
A blog post detailing how you can use ChatGPT as a writing assistant.

📘 Read This

A Map For Indie Living

Tom Critchlow says trading time for money is a great economic tool.

His consulting playbook shows how you can live a fulfilling life by balancing time, energy and work as an independent consultant.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Martin Slaney

“Everything, and everyone in Trends Pro, is truly amazing. The full-length reports are essential reading, I learn so much. The community has been incredible – feel like I’m going to make some long-term relationships as a result of being part of it.”

Martin is building Product Prompts. A website aiming to be the #1 resource for building better products, faster – with ChatGPT, Midjourney and more.

What’s your most important habit?
Read, read, read.

I find endless sources of inspiration and creativity from reading all types of content. And not just books related to my work; non-fiction really helps me develop new ideas.

What are you reading right now? Why?
Build by Tony Fadell

Tony Fadell led the team that created the iPod and the iPhone. He’s also learned a lot of lessons from failures too. The book is full of stories and advice about leadership, startups, design, and decision-making.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Truthfully it’s ChatGPT, which I’m using daily for creating Product Prompts. Other than that the one product I use the most is actually Centered – https://www.centered.app. It’s the ultimate productivity hack, with AI coaches, fantastic music, and even 1:1 working sessions. It’s become essential to my day.

What are you bullish on?
AI of course 🙂

It’s just so clear to me that there are so many use cases and so many industries which are going to change dramatically, really quickly. I’m trying not to get over-hyped but I genuinely believe it’s going to be as transformative to our lives as the internet itself was.

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

It’s highly relevant to my day job as a strategy and innovation consultant, and gave me loads of ideas on how to grow, and how to be ahead of the pack in what is a competitive marketplace.

❔ Ask Yourself

Can You Explain What Your Product Does In One Sentence?

Prospective customers should understand what your product does and how it’s better than alternatives.

A one-sentence pitch is a great way to explain it in simple terms. The more we understand it, the easier it is for us to try and share your product with others.

🎧 Listen To

Bootstrapping to $100,000/mo in a Crowded Market

Marko Saric talks about building, marketing and growing a B2B SaaS in a crowded market.

He shares how positioning, content marketing and comparative advertising can help you compete with established players.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Francois Carlier and Muhammad Bin Sabir became Trends Pro Members

👥 Daniel Johnson, Thorben Schlätzer, Francois Carlier and Daniel Dixon unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🗺️ Swapnil Puranik launched a Life Assessment Handbook

💰 Bernardt J. Vogel did a presentation about Reimagining VC

✨ Martin Slaney launched the first edition of The Product Manager’s Prompt Book

📅 Maciej Cupial published the December monthly update for Calendesk

🧠 Gabriel Limma and James Renouf 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

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 prompt writing course
• 3 deep dive tech reports
• 16 types of network effects
• An interview with Courtland Allen
• An AI-powered slide deck generator
• The Epsilon Method by Jakob Greenfeld
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Each problem is an opportunity in disguise.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

📚 Learn Prompting shared by Fausto Sá Teles
A free course on how to talk to AI to get it to do what you want.

📱 Best of Tech 2022 Reports shared by Stewart Townsend
3 deep dive reports from CB Insights on the latest trends in tech this year.

📊 ChatBCG shared by Mehmet Gonullu
An AI tool to generate slide decks based on your prompts.

📘 Read This

The Network Effects Bible

Network effects occur when the value of your product grows as more people use it.

James Currier shares 16 types of network effects and how they work. Including tips on how to build and maintain the value of your product.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Marc Fletcher

“I’ve been impressed & encouraged by the calibre of content and members in Trends Pro. Dru is an inspirational character whose dedication to providing value is evident throughout the features and continued evolution of the product & community.“

Marc is working on a ‘portfolio of small bets.’ He sees each launch as a milestone in skill and ability improvement. Marc aims to build a stand-out SaaS for recurring revenue. He’s currently building ThinkSee. A freemium service to create Stock Images using Artificial Intelligence. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0007.

What’s your most important habit?
Conscientiousness.

What are you reading right now?
The Wim Hof Method

Wim Hof explains his discovery and exploitation of the mental & physical consequences from habitual hyperventilation, breath holding and exposure to cold temperatures. I’d like to experience the rejuvenating benefits widely reported.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Bubble.io

It’s a service that helps users build a ‘full-stack’ web application without code. I use it to create web apps (thinksee.ai, aisocialbio.com, notiontodo.so & acheck.co.uk) and embedded client projects. It has a steep learning curve, but resources and community support are broad. The product is well-funded with regular releases and impressive features.

What are you bullish on?
No-Code

The bridge between idea and execution has been built with a swathe of no-code tools and services emerging in recent years. An MVP can be realised in a matter of hours, giving an exciting, low cost, opportunity to validation for non-technical founders.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔷 Mico-SaaS

I’m excited by the opportunities exposed by the availability of no-code tools. Being able to capitalise on niche expertise by translating it to a product or sharing a templated method is liberating for lots of people. Pivoting, scaling & transferring are all relatively frictionless routes too.

🔧 Try This

1 to N > 0 to 1

It’s hard to build, market and grow products that people have never seen before.

Instead of inventing something new, add a small but valuable change to something that already works.

Jakob Greenfeld says this is the most effective way to de-risk the launch of a new business.

👀 Watch This

The Goal Is to Not Quit

Indie hacking is hard. You work more, earn less and feel tired all the time. Until you succeed.

Going on the journey alone makes it easier to quit. The goal is not to quit.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Sandeeip Chincholkar, Bartosz Boniecki, Daniel Johnson and Thomas Sorheim [Danielsen] became Trends Pro Members

👥 Bartosz Boniecki, Thomas Sorheim [Danielsen] and Mark Grimes unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

💡 Martin Slaney reached 200 signups for Product Prompts

👩‍💼 Mark Grimes ended the year supporting 8,701 women entrepreneurs in developing countries on Kiva

🌟 Elie Steinbock gave a talk on DAOs and NFTs

👨‍💻 Joel Pickin created AI Art Battle and Fausto Sá Teles created Wisebots for a hackathon

👀 Behind the Scenes

Here’s what we are up to… 

🧠 Launched Mastermind #0008

⚙️ Upgraded the community to Circle 2.0

🧊 Built an Icebreaker Question Generator for Mastermind sessions

🧍 Moved to a 10-day standup streak to reach masterminds (Instead of 30 days)

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:

• A collaboration tool for teams
• 100+ places to launch your product
• A tool for taking great-looking screenshots
• A podcast about scandals and conspiracies
• Increasing marketing spend during recessions
• A challenge of turning $20k into $500k in 1 year
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🚀 Relaunch Like a Pro shared by Joel Pickin
A list of 100+ places to launch, relaunch, and list your product.

📉 Doubling Down on Marketing During Recessions shared by Gabriel Limma
A Twitter thread from Val Katayev on the power of increasing your marketing spend during recessions.

📝 Markup.io shared by Wadnes
A tool to collaborate and share feedback on websites, images, PDFs, and videos.

📘 Read This

Challenge: Turning $20k Into $500k In 1 Year

Scott DeLong sold 6 websites for $10,550,000 and grew ViralNova to 100,000,000 unique monthly visitors in 6 months.

Now he’s on a quest to turn a $20,000 budget into a $500,000 website in 1 year. Scott is building in public with weekly updates.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Stephanie Hekker

“Everyone in Trends Pro has been friendly and willing to help! Someone suggested that I do 30 days of standups so that I could join a Mastermind group. I’ve hit that goal and now I have a small group of folks to discuss goals and how we can help each other!”

Stephanie is building The Crowd List, a startup equity investing discovery platform. They have a free weekly newsletter with a curated list of startups that have launched their crowdfunding campaigns. She is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0005.

What’s your most important habit?
Making a daily “To Do” list.

I’ve tried many apps over the years and pen + paper is the best one for me.

What are you reading right now?
Atomic Habits

This is my third attempt at reading this book. For some reason, I can’t make it past the 2nd chapter. It was suggested to me recently to try it in audiobook form… which I think I’m going to have to do if I ever want to make it to the end.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I wish there was an easier way to “shop locally” online. I’d love to buy from my local shops but physically going into a store is not always the best option. I’d still like to support my neighbors’ businesses without always immediately defaulting to Amazon for convenience purposes.

I’ve heard rumblings that Shopify was going to release a “Search ALL of Shopify” feature and that might address part of this issue, especially if that search includes a filter for location (*hint hint* Shopify!).

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Tally – This is my favorite form builder. I was sold on the stripe integration feature. It also talks to my Airtable bases nicely. I recently learned that you can upgrade to see forms that were only partially filled out. Now that is a feature worth paying for!

Airtable – I spend a majority of my time in Airtable. I use it as a database and a content planner. There are endless ways to use this to simplify my business processes!

Reminders – Just the standard iOS app. This app is simple. It has exactly the features I need for the purposes I’m using it for.

What are you bullish on?
AI Writing Tools – Being a great writer is an absolute necessity to sell just about anything. Unfortunately, it takes a lot of time, practice, and dedication to become good at writing. I think AI writing tools will speed this process up for a lot of folks and help generate more quality content.

What are you bearish on?
NFTs (don’t come for me!). I love NFTs as a utility (don’t worry I’ve got some JPEGs in my wallet too) but the barrier to entry is still too high for the average person to participate in this piece of the Web 3 world. I am very curious to see the results from Starbucks’ recent NFT rollout. They’ve nailed the market in simplifying tech for their consumer… which includes just about everyone.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
💰 Equity Crowdfunding

This is an obvious one as it is the whole basis of my business. I find equity crowdfunding so interesting and I want everyone to know that it’s an option for them. I think that anyone who wants to participate in these alternative forms of finance should get to do so. I learned about equity crowdfunding in 2021 and realized how cumbersome it was to go to dozens of funding portals every day to find out which companies were raising funds. I knew that I could make it easier to do this. So I made The Crowd List and more and more folks join each week to learn about those companies!

(Bonus Pick) 🤑 Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses

This is a favorite for a lot of us. It’s inspiring to see that it doesn’t always take 14 software engineers to build something cool and profitable!

🎧 Listen To

American Scandal

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” 
— Margaret Mead

I know… this is an interesting quote choice for a podcast about scandals and conspiracies. Conspiracies involve a small group that impacts the lives of millions (or billions) of people. The same applies to companies. 

We’re building companies to create positive change. But we can learn from anti-examples.

🔧 Try This

Xnapper

Xnapper is a useful tool for quick, great-looking screenshots from fellow indie hacker Tony Dinh.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Marty Finestone became a Trends Pro Member

👥 Amardeep Parmar, Bayu Sutrisno, Marty Finestone and Bernardt J. Vogel unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

📰 Martin Slaney launched his newsletter 3PM

✒️ Cameron McGrane and his wife tripled the revenue of their author coaching program

📄 Marc Fletcher launched a Notion template for Bubble app documentation

🎥 Uwe Dreissigacker did a challenge of publishing a video tutorial a day for BlogHandy and InvoiceBerry

🧠 Reed Floren, Chris Vara, Reme Ekoh, Anderson Dadario, Raj B, Elie Steinbock, Byron Wilson and Marc Fletcher 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 sales book for founders
• An AI tool for repurposing content
• The importance of market demand
• 19 proven tactics for starting a marketplace
• A deep dive into Brookfield Asset Management
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

It’s fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🏦 Business Breakdowns: Brookfield Asset Management shared by Gabriel Limma
A podcast episode about the alternative asset manager giant. A business masterclass.

💲 Founding Sales shared by Mingwei Gu
A B2B sales handbook for founders transitioning into a selling role.

🎞️ Vidyo.ai shared by Reed Floren
An AI tool that selects, edits & captions top moments from your videos for content repurposing.

📘 Read This

Business is like surfing

Surfers spend most of their time in the water waiting for waves.

They don’t watch them roll in from the shore.

Justin Jackson says that market demand determines the potential of your product.

Put your toes in the water by doing side projects. Be patient and observe.

Entering the water puts you on course to find your perfect wave.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Tom Maciejewski

“I love the fact that Trends Pro helps create habits with standups. It’s amazing to see other members’ progress in life and business. But… the real game changer for me are the masterminds. With such engaged and friendly people! You don’t get to masterminds because you paid for it, you need to earn it through persistence.”

Tom is a founder of ContentWay – Where he offers 6-week programs to help founders and agency owners turn their LinkedIn profiles into assets that attract high-ticket clients. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0007.

What’s your most important habit?
I create a summary of my work every week & month.

It helps me draw conclusions on my actions, see what I should do more (and what less), and it’s a powerful tool to improve my work (and life).

What are you reading right now?
Ryan Holiday – Stillness is the key

When I learned that Ryan tattooed 2 titles of his books (“Obstacle is the way” and “Ego is the enemy”) on his forearms, I was impressed how much he believes in what he does and says. Since then, I’ve been reading all his books, some of them several times.

What product or service do you wish existed?
A tool to build complex and reliable quiz funnels with tagging and segmentation. I believe it would help better serve clients in a more automatic way. The costs of acquiring clients are getting higher and higher. Would you like to be a cofounder of this project? Let me know!

What are you bullish on?
Niche communities that help us find like-minded people all around the world.

What are you bearish on?
Overpaying for life in a big city. Over 1 year ago we moved out with my wife to a smaller town from the capital city of Poland, and we believe it was the best decision.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔥 The FIRE Movement

It’s good to see from another perspective how to focus on non-financial forms of wealth.

Exclusive Deal: Tom is offering Trends.vc readers 20% off his LinkedIn implementation program until the end of the year. Just mention you are from Trends during the strategy call.

👀 Watch This

Solving the Chicken or Egg Problem

The chicken-or-egg problem is the toughest challenge for marketplace founders.

Buyers won’t join without the sellers and vice-versa. This kills the core value of your marketplace.

James Currier shares 19 proven tactics to solve the chicken-or-egg problem. With notes on growth channels to bring more traffic to your marketplace.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Marc Fletcher, Briando and Vasil became Trends Pro Members

👥 Marc Fletcher unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🌌 Sachit Adhikari launched the beta version of QAL VPN

👗 Lwany launched her holiday dressing shopping guide

🤖 Elie Steinbock launched an AI entrepreneur Twitter account using ChatGPT

🏠 Abubakar Sheriff launched the landing page for Qariyb Housing

🧠 Stephanie H. and Mehmet Gonullu unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-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.