“We are surrounded by data but starved for insights.” — Jay Baer

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❓ What You’ll Learn

• How do data marketplaces make it easier to buy and sell data?
• Who will opt in for active and passive data sharing?
• How will AI streamline data management?
• How to build a cold sales agency?
• How can you escape competition by using branded metrics?
• How will AI change the Data as a Service industry?
• How much should you charge for your data?
• How to turn data into a byproduct?
• How to boost margins?
• How can you build a durable data moat?
  
  

💎 Why It Matters

You can gain a competitive edge by fueling your decisions with the right data.

🔍 Problem

You need to make better decisions.

💡 Solution

DaaS helps you focus on your core competency. While outsourcing data collection and processing.

🏁 Players

DaaS Companies

• Ahrefs • Search queries, volume, links, keywords and more
• Abstract API • Data on phones, emails and more
• Hunter • Database of verified business and work emails
• Built With • Analytics, advertising, hosting, CMS and other tools that websites use
• Apollo • AI-powered database of B2B leads
• Quandl • Data on private jets, jobs, forex transactions and more
• WordStream • Ads and keyword grader
  

Data Tools

• Tally • Build beautiful surveys
• QuickAPI • Sell and share data APIs
• Databox • Build data dashboards
• ScrapingBee • Scrape the web with rotated proxies
• Obviously AI’s Data Validator • Check if your data is ready for machine learning
  
  

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll see more data marketplaces. Data can be a hard sell. Marketplaces will foster transactions with curation, ratings and more.
  • Narrative offers datasets from 40+ data providers.
  • Datarade offers datasets from 500+ data providers.
  • Snowflake Marketplace offers free and premium datasets.
  • AWS Data Exchange offers 3,500+ data files, tables and APIs.
  • Google Cloud Marketplace offers 200+ business and consumer datasets.

• Consumers will opt in for active and passive data sharing.
  • Nielsen uses panels to track consumer behavior.
  • Tesla tracks the use of autopilot, multimedia and more.
  • Prodege members upload receipts from in-store purchases.
  • UK Biobank collects medical data from thousands of volunteers.
  • Mozilla Rally is a browser extension that tracks how tech giants collect data.
  • NielsenIQ’s Scanning Panel members scan and share products they have at home.
  • DataSkop users shared their YouTube data in 2021 and can share their TikTok data in 2023.

• AI will help us save time collecting, cleaning and interpreting data. It doesn’t need to sleep, eat or rest.
  • NewtonX uses AI for audience research.
  • Crayon uses AI to separate signal from noise.
  • Gazelle uses AI to forecast fast-growing companies.
    
    

☁️ Opportunities

• Build an AI-powered data analytics tool. Let users use AI to clean, analyze and visualize data.
  • Sisense uses AI to query and analyze datasets.
  • 6sense uses AI to find, analyze and enrich buyer data.
  • LenddoEFL uses AI to analyze digital and behavioral data for credit scoring.
  • CSW Insights uses AI to get insights into stock trades by congress members.

• Build a cold sales agency to help customers get more sales.
  • Alex West grew CyberLeads to $500,000 ARR by finding recently funded companies.
  • Jakob Greenfeld and Ryan Doyle grew Damn Good Leads to $100,000 ARR in 3 months by finding B2B leads.
  • Dancho Dimkov grew BizzBee Solutions to $18,000 MRR in 2 years by focusing on small and medium-sized businesses.

• Offer Insights as a Service. Data is a means to an end. Insights get you closer to the “job to be done.”
  • PitchBook offers actionable advice based on data insights.
  • Delphi Digital offers deep market analysis, office hours and more.
  • Fortune Business Insights offer market research with actionable insights.

• Build branded metrics to escape competition. Others referencing your metric will lead to free marketing for your company.
  • Domain Authority by Moz is a search engine ranking score.
  • Zestimate by Zillow is an estimate of a home’s market value.
  • Accessibility scores by Walk Score measure walkability, commute and travel routes.
    
    

🏔️ Risks

• Artificial Intelligence • Customers will go straight to insights. Making DaaS companies obsolete.
• Depreciation • Data becomes less accurate, reliable and useful over time.
• Platform Risk • You’re subject to the DaaS provider’s datasets, outages and fees.
  
  

🔑 Key Lessons

• DaaS is cheaper than in-house data management. You don’t need to spend time, money and energy to build and maintain your own infrastructure.
• Price your DaaS based on the value you create. It is easier to charge $1,000 if you help your customers make $100,000.
• Data loses value over time.
  
  

🔥 Hot Takes

• We’ll see recognized data quality metrics. Talend Trust Score® shows how reliable your data is.
• AI poses an existential risk to DaaS companies. Who wants to dig into data if AI gives insights on a platter?
• Data is a byproduct. Sell your sawdust. Walmart built Walmart Luminate to sell data on shoppers’ behavior.
  
  

😠 Haters

“AI will make DaaS companies less relevant.”
While AI can process data more efficiently. It can only process data that it has access to. To protect their moats, DaaS companies will lock data behind walls. AI won’t reach it unless a breach occurs.

“AI companies use data to train their models. Without permission.”
When was the last time you read a privacy policy? Non-AI companies use privacy policies to “simulate” your consent. Coresignal offers 660,000,000 employee records parsed from LinkedIn, Crunchbase and more. You never know when another “partner” adds you to their dataset.

“Some DaaS companies resell data from companies like Crunchbase. Which kills margins.”
Protect margins by adding value. Offer unique insights, branded metrics, productized services and more.

“Governments can make it hard to operate in the DaaS space.”
Stay away from regulated industries. It is easier to share B2B leads than patient data.

“Profiting from personal data is unethical.”
Sell anonymized data that doesn’t link to people.

“Companies like Clearview AI make it easier to spy on people. This can lead to less privacy, more surveillance and abuse of power.”
While such tools can be misused. They can make our communities safer by lowering crime, fraud and risk. DaaS is just a tool. We define its purpose.

🔗 Links

1. Who’s Offering Data as a Service? • The tweet behind this report.
2. What is Data as a Service • Pros, cons and case studies of DaaS integration.
3. The Empty Promise of Data Moats • How to build durable data moats.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​​​​ChatGPT • Automate work and save time coding, writing, researching and more
• Curation as a Service • Find signal in the noise
• Crowdsourcing • Leverage the time, energy and experience of others to reach your goal
• No-Code • Build products faster, cheaper and better without writing code
• Agencies • Help your customers solve problems without hiring and managing large teams
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Kevin Galang, Mishal Siddiqui, Mehmet Gonullu, Alex Doda, Benhur Desta, Reme Ekoh, Soma Mandal, Nirav Multani, Fausto Sá Teles, Marc Fletcher, Emeric Victor, Stewart Townsend, Alex Espinoza, Thomas Sorheim and Stephanie Hekker. 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 #0116 — Data as a Service has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 27 Data as a Service Companies (286% More)
• 27 Data as a Service Tools (440% More)
• 11 Predictions (267% More)
• 16 Opportunities (300% More)
• 6 Risks (100% More)
• 6 Key Lessons (100% More)
• 8 Hot Takes (167% More)
• 12 Links (300% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) What are personal data stores?
• (📈 Pro) How will Data as a Service companies use crowdsourcing?
• (📈 Pro) How to help companies get data from their target audience?
• (📈 Pro) What is federated learning?
• (📈 Pro) How do “Data Trusts” fuel good and bad decisions?
• (📈 Pro) What is Data Trust as a Service?
• (📈 Pro) How can data clean rooms boost ad performance?
• (📈 Pro) What are data agencies?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a data-driven paid newsletter?
• (📈 Pro) How to find alternative data?
• (📈 Pro) How to break data silos?
• (📈 Pro) What is the strongest data moat?
• (📈 Pro) How does commoditization affect data?
• (📈 Pro) What tools can streamline Data as a Service operations?
• (📈 Pro) How to know if your data is a commodity or an asset?
• (📈 Pro) What is the downside of building APIs?
• (📈 Pro) How to design and build “Data Trusts”?
• (📈 Pro) How to monetize data?
• (📈 Pro) What are the 3 KPIs to measure the impact of data analytics?
• (📈 Pro) How to boost data accuracy?
• (📈 Pro) What are data cleansing challenges?
• (📈 Pro) Who grew a cold sales agency to $300,000 ARR?
• (📈 Pro) How to build and sell a Data as a Service startup in 6 months?
• (📈 Pro) How to use data to make investment decisions?
• And much more…
  
  

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Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

• A podcasting mini-course
• The 2 types of innovation
• A list of AI tools for marketing
• How to find product-market fit
• How to praise and criticize effectively
• A Chrome plugin to stop doom scrolling
• A reminder that being a founder isn’t easy
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

The only thing worse than starting something and failing is not starting something.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🚫 News Feed Eradicator shared by Jakub Nowikowski
A Chrome plugin that replaces your news feed with an inspiring quote

📊 AI Marketing Tools shared by Jose Bermejo
A list of AI tools and use cases for marketing

😫 The Founder Struggle shared by Elie Steinbock
A tweet on the difficulties of being a founder

👀 Watch This

The Innovator’s Dilemma

“The innovator’s dilemma” occurs when a company has to choose between sustaining and disruptive innovation.

• Sustaining Innovation: Improving existing products based on customer feedback.
• Disruptive Innovation: Building a niche product neglected by current market offerings.

It’s a choice between serving existing and future customers. Which can make successful companies lose to startups with disruptive products.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Jakub Nowikowski

“I’ve only been a Trends Pro member for a week but I’m already impressed with the community and stand-up approach. I’ve been looking for a place like this with like-minded people for a long time. I’ve already had valuable discussions with other Trends Pro Members who asked the right questions that helped me improve the strategy for my app. I can’t wait to join the mastermind group and be able to chat and exchange ideas with others in this amazing community!”

Jakub is building Languive, a mobile app that helps people learn spoken English via text and voice conversations with an AI chatbot. Jakub is also working with his brother on FitBuilderz, recording a course and writing an ebook for people starting their adventure with the gym.

What’s your most important habit?
Daily exercise (cardio or strength training) helps me clear my mind and stay healthy despite spending most of the day in front of the computer.

What are you reading right now?
How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie

Fun fact: I’ve been reading this book once a year for the last 4 years because it really changed my life (in every area) and I always recommend it no matter what you do. I am sure it will improve the quality of your life and the lives of the people you surround yourself with.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I wish there was an app that could help inexperienced investors choose the best investment options based on their preferences, risk tolerance and geographical location.

What product are you obsessively using right now?
Paper notebook and pen. For the past 3 months, I have been starting my day by writing down my thoughts and ideas. I have noticed that after a morning like this I am more focused on my goals for the day.

What are you bullish on?
Documenting what I’m working on, the problems I’ve encountered and the things that helped me solve them. I started doing this a few months ago on my blog, Failsome. I’m thinking of making a YouTube vlog out of this. Recently, I found a couple of solo entrepreneurs on YouTube who, by sharing weekly updates from their journey, found their first beta testers and also had more business opportunities (like running a paid newsletter or finding a co-founder).

What are you bearish on?
While I am a big fan and beneficiary of the increased availability of AI tools in recent months, I think there are many people who overestimate their capabilities. In my opinion, for example, discussions about AI taking over all programming tasks make people depressed instead of encouraging them to use it as a tool that can help with boring, repetitive work and free up time for more fascinating and creative things.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
💼 Niche Job Boards

This report opened my eyes to the solutions to the problems of the recruitment market. In every company I worked as a programmer, there was always a problem matching the candidate for the position. Even though a lot of job boards are currently being created, it seems to me that we are at the beginning of this trend.

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

• (📈 Pro) How to choose a web designer
  
• (📈 Pro) How to validate a market for your SaaS
  
• (📈 Pro) Exchanging software development contacts

📘 Read This

What a Pre-PMF Startup Should Look Like

Product-market fit occurs when your target customers buy, use and share your product with others.

What if they don’t?

John Lafleur shares 6 tips on how you can find your product-market fit, including:

• Focus on a problem, not a solution.
• Test no more than 2 ideas at a time.
• Evaluate ideas based on your core competency.

🔧 Try This

Praise Specifically, Criticize Generally

Be specific when giving positive feedback. Tell who did well, how they did that and what it led to.

Be general when giving negative feedback. Finger-pointing triggers a defensive reaction and makes it harder to accept a mistake and learn from it.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Matthew LaCrosse and Chuck Hardy unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

🎙️ Mehmet Gonullu made a podcasting mini-course

Ξ Elie Steinbock got an Ethereum ERC officially accepted

🎬 Darren Travel is launching a mini-series about AGI

🌀 Kunal Chopra wrote about Web3 product management

🛒 Eddie Forson’s EnVsion got listed on the Zoom App Marketplace

Get Weekly Reports

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

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

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

What’s an email course?

An email course is a type of online course broken down into a series of lessons, each delivered in a separate email.

What are the major types of email courses?

Skills:

• Landing Page Hot Tips • How to build a landing page that converts
• Sharpen Your Flutter Skills • How to build production-ready Flutter apps
• The 100DaysOfNoCode Challenge • How to build a no-code product in 100 days

Identity:

• 30-Day Parenting Project • How to be a mindful parent
• Stop Fighting With Your Partner • How to become an empathetic partner
• Weight Loss Tips • How to lose weight by eating healthy and exercising properly

Mindset:

• 30 Days to Better Habits • How to build better habits
• Mindset Email Course • How to build a strong, focused mindset
• 5 Tiny Tricks To Lighten Your Mental Load • How to lower your mental load
• Second Brain Quickstart Guide • How to boost your productivity and knowledge management

Business:

• Charge What You’re Worth • How to charge more as a freelancer
• Product Validation Email Course • How to presell products before the launch
• Value Pricing Bootcamp • How to build a pricing strategy for consulting services

Creativity:

• Blogging for Devs • How to grow your blog as a developer
• 5-Day Creative Bootcamp • How to boost your thinking skills
• 80/20 Design Challenge • How to make great design decisions
  
  

What are the 7 most popular subjects that email courses cover?

Marketing:

• Everyday Email • How to build an effective email marketing strategy
• Emergent Marketing Series • How to build valuable marketing funnels
• Shopify Digital Marketing Health Check • How to do digital marketing for Shopify stores

Business and finance:

• Master Your Money • How to live a debt-free life
• Mini Design MBA • How to run a design business
• Introduction to Investing • How to build an investment portfolio

Personal development:

• Boss Notes • Job search and career development advice
• Become a More Effective Leader • How to effectively manage teams and businesses
• Second Brain Quickstart Guide • How to boost your personal output, productivity and knowledge management

Health and wellness:

• Vegan Course • How to transition to vegan lifestyle
• Injury Prevention for Runners • How to run faster with fewer injuries with
• Weight Loss Tips • How to lose weight by eating healthy and exercising properly

Writing and publishing:

• Zero to $5K • How to build a $5,000/mo copywriting business
• Convert with Content • How to write content that turns leads into customers
• Become a Better Writer • How to write better copy for your products and services

Technology and programming:

• Sharpen Your Flutter Skills • How to build production-ready Flutter apps
• The 100DaysOfNoCode Challenge • How to build a no-code product in 100 days
• Artificial Intelligence using Python • How to master machine learning with Python
• Maintainable Rails • How to maintain stable, secure and scalable Ruby on Rails apps

Creative arts:

• Create Amazing Expressions • How to draw character expressions
• Beginner DSLR Photography • How to take better photos with DSLR cameras
• Samba and Beyond • Learn brazilian music history, impact, evolution and artists
  
  

What are the benefits of email courses for creators?

1. Email courses help you find and engage with your ideal customers by offering valuable content that fits their needs and interests.
2. By offering free, high-quality content through an email course, you can build trust and establish yourself as an expert in your field.
3. Email courses are an effective lead generation tool, as students will give their contacts to sign up. Which you can use to nurture leads and convert them into paying customers by upselling higher-end offers.
4. You can build personal bonds with students by sending regular emails and engaging with them.
5. Email courses are great for repurposing existing content, such as blog posts, books, videos and more complex courses. Which lets you spend less time and energy on building an email course.
6. Email courses are scalable. They can be automated to send lessons to thousands of students without additional time or resources.
   
   

What are the benefits of email courses for students?

1. Email courses are flexible as they are delivered directly to students’ inboxes. Which makes them accessible anytime, anywhere. Students can also learn at their own pace by studying the lesson now or later.
2. Many email courses are free or low-cost. This makes it easier for students to learn new skills without investing in expensive, complex courses.
3. Email courses deliver content in bite-sized lessons, making it easier for students to learn and retain information.
4. Email courses often have exercises or resources that help participants practice what they learn.
5. Some email courses let students engage with each other and the instructor via dedicated communities, social media groups or simple email replies.
   
   

What are the 7 top tips for creating an email course?

1. Define your audience: Define your target audience, their interests, needs and ultimate goals.
2. Choose a clear and specific topic: Focus on a clear and specific topic that is relevant to your target audience.
3. Break content into bite-sized pieces: Send content in bite-sized pieces that are easy for participants to digest and apply.
4. Include actionable content and resources: Add actionable content and resources to help students practice what they learned. This may boost engagement and student success.
5. Encourage interaction and engagement: Let students interact with each other and with you as the instructor via dedicated communities, social media groups or simple email replies.
6. Stick to a schedule: Informational courses can be short. Practical courses should give more time between the lessons to complete tasks. This will help to establish a routine for participants and keep them engaged throughout the course.
7. Follow up and follow through: After the end of the course, follow up with students to collect feedback and ensure that they have achieved their desired outcomes. This will help to build more trust and give insights for improving future email courses.
   
   

What are the top 7 most popular email courses?

• Blogging for Devs • How to grow your blog as a developer
• 80/20 Design Challenge • How to make great design decisions
• Charge What You’re Worth • How to charge more as a freelancer
• Sharpen Your Flutter Skills • How to build production-ready Flutter apps
• Build in Public Starter Guide • How to grow an audience by building in public
• The 100DaysOfNoCode Challenge • How to build a no-code product in 100 days
• Maintainable Rails • How to maintain stable, secure and scalable Ruby on Rails apps
• Second Brain Quickstart Guide • How to boost your productivity and knowledge management
  
  
  

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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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How much does it cost to start a podcast?

Here are some general cost estimates for starting a podcast:

Microphone: A good quality microphone is crucial for producing a professional-sounding podcast. You can find decent microphones for as little as $50, while more high-end microphones can cost several hundred dollars.

Audio Interface or Mixer: If you plan on recording with a microphone that connects via XLR, you’ll need an audio interface or mixer to connect it to your computer. These can cost anywhere from $50 to $500, depending on the features you need.

Recording and Editing Software: There are numerous free and paid options for recording and editing software. Audacity is a popular free option, while Adobe Audition and Logic Pro X are more expensive but offer more advanced features.

Web Hosting: You’ll need a hosting service to store and distribute your podcast episodes. Services like Libsyn and Buzzsprout offer plans starting at around $12 per month.

You can expect to spend anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to start a podcast, depending on your equipment and software choices. However, it’s also possible to start a podcast with minimal equipment and a shoestring budget if you’re willing to compromise on some of the bells and whistles.

What are the most popular tools for podcasters?

Microphones: Popular microphone brands include Shure, Audio-Technica and Blue. Some popular microphone models for podcasting include the Shure SM7B, Audio-Technica AT2020 and Blue Yeti.

Audio Interfaces: The Focusrite Scarlett series, Universal Audio Apollo Twin and PreSonus Studio Series are popular choices for connecting microphones to a computer.

Hosting Platforms: Buzzsprout, Podbean and Spotify Podcasts are popular platforms for hosting and distributing podcast episodes.

Analytics Tools: Tools like Podtrac, Chartable and Blubrry provide analytics for podcast downloads, listens and engagement.

Remote Recording Tools: Zencastr, SquadCast and Riverside.fm are popular tools for remote podcast recording.

Editing and Production Services: If you don’t have the time or expertise to edit your podcast, there are editing and production services available like Alitu.

What are the most popular platforms to host a podcast?

Libsyn: Libsyn is one of the most popular podcast hosting platforms, offering plans starting at $5 per month. It provides advanced statistics, unlimited storage and bandwidth and automatic distribution to various podcast directories.

Buzzsprout: Buzzsprout is another popular podcast hosting platform, with plans starting at $12 per month. It provides detailed analytics, easy-to-use publishing tools and automatic distribution to popular podcast directories.

Podbean: Podbean offers plans starting at $9 per month and includes features like customizable podcast websites, monetization options and analytics.

Anchor: Anchor is a free podcast hosting platform owned by Spotify, which includes tools for recording, editing and publishing. It also offers monetization options and analytics.

Simplecast: Simplecast offers plans starting at $15 per month and includes features like customizable podcast websites, automatic distribution and detailed analytics.

What kinds of podcast formats are there?

Interview: In this format, the host interviews a guest on a particular topic or theme. This is a popular format for educational and informational podcasts.

• “WTF with Marc Maron” – Host Marc Maron interviews celebrities and notable figures in the entertainment industry.
• “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard” – Host Dax Shepard interviews guests from various industries, including entertainment, sports and politics.
• “The Joe Rogan Experience” – Host Joe Rogan interviews a wide range of guests, including scientists, authors, athletes and comedians.

Narrative: Narrative podcasts tell a story or series of stories, often with a journalistic or documentary-style approach. They can be fictional or non-fictional and are often highly produced with music and sound effects.

• “Serial” – Host Sarah Koenig tells a true crime story over multiple episodes, diving deep into the details of the case and exploring the various angles and perspectives.
• “Radiolab” – Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich present stories that blend science and philosophy, exploring the human experience in surprising and thought-provoking ways.
• “S-Town” – Host Brian Reed tells the story of a man who contacts him to investigate a murder in his small Alabama town, only to uncover a web of secrets and mysteries.

Solo: In a solo podcast, the host speaks alone on a particular topic or theme. This is a good format for opinion-based podcasts or those that are focused on personal development or self-help.

• “The Daily” – Host Michael Barbaro presents daily news updates and in-depth analysis of current events from The New York Times.
• “The GaryVee Audio Experience” – Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk shares his insights and advice on business, social media and personal growth in a solo format.
• “Hurry Slowly” – Host Jocelyn K. Glei explores the intersection of creativity, productivity and mindfulness in a series of solo episodes.

Panel: In a panel format, the host and a group of guests discuss a particular topic or theme. This can be a good format for podcasts that want to offer multiple perspectives on a topic.

• “Pod Save America” – A political podcast hosted by former Obama administration staffers Jon Favreau, Dan Pfeiffer, Jon Lovett and Tommy Vietor, featuring guest experts and analysts.
• “The View” – A daytime talk show on television featuring a panel of women discussing news and current events, as well as celebrity interviews and pop culture discussions.
• “The Weeds” – A political podcast featuring Vox journalists Matthew Yglesias, Jane Coaston and Dara Lind, who discuss policy and politics with guest experts and analysts.

Roundtable: In a roundtable format, the host and guests have a more casual discussion on a particular topic or theme. This format is often used in comedy or entertainment podcasts.

• “The Roundtable Podcast” – Hosted by Dave Robison, this podcast features roundtable discussions with authors and other creative professionals on various writing and publishing topics.
• “The Film Roundtable” – Hosted by film critics and journalists, this podcast features roundtable discussions on current and classic films, as well as interviews with filmmakers and actors.
• “The Table Round” – Hosted by journalist Rachel Thomas, this podcast features roundtable discussions with experts and analysts on topics related to the future of work, including remote work, automation and the gig economy.
  
  

How to find the first listeners for your podcast?

• Leverage your existing network: Share your podcast with friends, family and colleagues and ask them to share it with their networks as well. You can also promote your podcast on your personal social media accounts and in relevant online communities.
  • “How I Built This with Guy Raz” – Host Guy Raz leveraged his existing network of contacts as a journalist to invite successful entrepreneurs onto his podcast, which helped him build a large and engaged audience.
  • “The Tim Ferriss Show” – Host Tim Ferriss used his network of high-profile guests, many of whom are successful entrepreneurs, authors and athletes, to help promote his podcast and grow his audience.
  • “Entrepreneur on Fire” – Host John Lee Dumas used his network of successful entrepreneurs to invite guests onto his podcast and then encouraged those guests to share their episode with their own networks, helping him rapidly grow his audience.
• Collaborate with other podcasters: Reach out to other podcasters in your niche and explore opportunities to collaborate, such as guest appearances or cross-promotion.
  • “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard” – Host Dax Shepard invites celebrity guests onto his podcast, many of whom have their own large and engaged audiences, helping him to attract new listeners to his show.
  • “Conan O’Brien Needs a Friend” – Host Conan O’Brien invites celebrity guests onto his podcast, leveraging his existing network of contacts in the entertainment industry to attract listeners who are fans of his guests.
  • “SmartLess” – Hosts Jason Bateman, Sean Hayes and Will Arnett invite celebrity guests onto their podcast, using their existing networks in the entertainment industry to attract listeners who are fans of their guests.
• Optimize your podcast for search: Make sure your podcast is optimized for search engines by including relevant keywords in your title, description and show notes. This will help potential listeners discover your podcast when searching for related topics.
  • “Entrepreneur on Fire” – Host John Lee Dumas optimized his podcast for search by focusing on specific keywords related to entrepreneurship and business, which helped him to rank high in search results and attract new listeners who were searching for that type of content.
  • “The GaryVee Audio Experience” – Entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk optimized his podcast for search by using keywords related to marketing, social media and personal development in his titles and descriptions, which helped him attract new listeners who were searching for those topics.
  • “Online Marketing Made Easy with Amy Porterfield” – Host Amy Porterfield optimized her podcast for search by using keywords related to online marketing, social media and business in her titles and descriptions, which helped her attract new listeners who were searching for that type of content.
• Offer incentives: Consider offering incentives, such as exclusive content or discounts, to encourage people to listen and subscribe to your podcast.
  • “Stuff You Should Know” – Hosts Josh Clark and Chuck Bryant offered listeners exclusive access to ad-free episodes and bonus content through a membership program, which helped incentivize fans to sign up and grow their audience.
  • “Radiolab” – Hosts Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich offered listeners exclusive access to live events, as well as bonus episodes and behind-the-scenes content, through a membership program, which helped incentivize fans to sign up and grow their audience.
    
    

How can podcasts be monetized?

Sponsorships: One of the most common ways to monetize a podcast is through sponsorships. This involves partnering with a company or brand that pays you to promote their product or service on your podcast.

• The Rich Roll Podcast – Hosted by ultra-endurance athlete and wellness advocate Rich Roll, this podcast features interviews with a wide range of guests and has been sponsored by companies like Thrive Market and Four Sigmatic.
• Code Switch – A podcast about race and identity in America, Code Switch has been sponsored by companies like Indeed and The Great Courses Plus.
• The Daily Stoic – A podcast that explores the philosophy of stoicism. The Daily Stoic has been sponsored by companies like LinkedIn and Skillshare.

Advertising: You can also monetize your podcast through advertising, either by selling ad space directly to businesses or by using an advertising network like Advertisecast or Midroll.

• “Reply All” – Hosts PJ Vogt and Alex Goldman monetize their podcast through advertisements, with sponsors paying to have their products or services promoted on their show.
• “Pod Save America” – Hosts Jon Favreau, Jon Lovett, Dan Pfeiffer and Tommy Vietor monetize their podcast through advertisements, with sponsors paying to have their products or services promoted on their show.
• “The Bill Simmons Podcast” – Host Bill Simmons monetizes his podcast through advertisements, with sponsors paying to have their products or services promoted on his show.

Paid subscriptions: Some podcasters offer exclusive content or early access to episodes to subscribers who pay a monthly or yearly fee. This can be a good option if you have a loyal fanbase and produce high-quality content.

• “WTF with Marc Maron” – Host Marc Maron monetizes his podcast through a paid subscription service called “The Marc Maron Premium Content Club,” which gives subscribers access to exclusive episodes and other bonus content.
• “Slate Money” – Hosts Felix Salmon, Emily Peck and Anna Szymanski monetize their podcast through a paid subscription service called “Slate Plus,” which gives subscribers access to ad-free episodes and other bonus content.
• “Criminal” – Host Phoebe Judge monetizes her podcast through a paid subscription service called “Criminal: The Membership,” which gives subscribers access to bonus content, merchandise and other perks.

Crowdfunding: You can also monetize your podcast through crowdfunding platforms like Patreon or Kickstarter, where listeners can support your show by making a donation.

• “99% Invisible” – Host Roman Mars monetizes his podcast through crowdfunding platform Patreon, where listeners can become monthly supporters and gain access to exclusive content and other rewards.
• “Chapo Trap House” – Hosts Will Menaker, Matt Christman and Felix Biederman monetize their podcast through crowdfunding platform Patreon, where supporters can access exclusive bonus content and other perks.
• “The Adventure Zone” – Hosts Justin, Travis and Griffin McElroy monetize their podcast through crowdfunding platform Maximum Fun, where listeners can support the show and gain access to exclusive bonus content and other rewards.

Live events: Hosting live events, such as meet-and-greets or live shows, can also be a way to monetize your podcast.

• “Welcome to Night Vale” – Creators Joseph Fink and Jeffrey Cranor monetize their podcast through live shows, where they perform their show in front of a live audience and sell tickets for the event.
• “The Moth” – Hosts Dan Kennedy and Catherine Burns monetize their podcast through live events, where storytellers share their personal stories on stage in front of a live audience.
• “How Did This Get Made?” – Hosts Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael and Jason Mantzoukas monetize their podcast through live shows, where they perform their show in front of a live audience and sell tickets for the event.
  
  

How can podcasts be used for marketing?

• Establish thought leadership: By hosting a podcast that focuses on industry trends, best practices or thought leadership, you can establish yourself or your brand as a thought leader in your field.
  • “Harvard Business Review IdeaCast” – This podcast features interviews with top thinkers in business and management and offers insights on leadership, innovation and other topics.
  • “Akimbo” – This podcast is hosted by bestselling author Seth Godin, who offers insights on marketing, leadership and creativity. The podcast also features interviews with other thought leaders in these fields.
• Increase engagement: Podcasts offer a unique opportunity to engage with your audience in a personal way. By creating valuable content that resonates with your audience, you can increase engagement and build loyalty.
  • “Reply All” – This podcast often features listener questions and feedback in its episodes and has a segment called “Yes Yes No” where the hosts explain internet memes to each other and to their audience.
  • “Radiolab” – This podcast frequently encourages listener participation, through contests and opportunities to submit stories or ideas for future episodes.
  • “Death, Sex & Money” – This podcast often solicits listener responses to questions or prompts related to the topics of death, sex and money and features listener stories and feedback in its episodes. The podcast also has a popular “Listener Letters” segment where the host reads and responds to letters from listeners
• Cross-promotion: You can use your podcast to cross-promote other marketing channels, such as social media, email marketing or webinars.
  • “Armchair Expert with Dax Shepard” – This podcast often cross-promotes other podcasts on the Armchair Umbrella network, such as “Experts on Expert” and “Monica and Jess Love Boys.”
  • “Binge Mode” – This podcast, which explores the world of Harry Potter and other pop culture phenomena, has cross-promoted with other podcasts on The Ringer network, such as “The Watch” and “The Rewatchables.”
  • “My Favorite Murder” – This true crime podcast has cross-promoted with other podcasts on the Exactly Right network, such as “Do You Need A Ride?” and “This Podcast Will Kill You.”
• Collaborate with influencers: Collaborating with influencers or industry experts on your podcast can help you reach new audiences and build credibility.
  • “Unlocking Us with Brené Brown” – Brené Brown has collaborated with other influencers in the personal growth and wellness space, such as Glennon Doyle and Jay Shetty, to create engaging and informative episodes that resonate with her audience.
  • “The School of Greatness” – Host Lewis Howes frequently collaborates with influencers in the personal growth and wellness space, such as Tony Robbins and Marie Forleo, to provide insights and inspiration for his listeners.
    
    

What are examples of AI-produced podcasts?

• Nimo and Willy built PodBot. It generates entire podcast episodes about your topic of choice with a generated host.
• Eric created Podcast.AI, an AI-generated podcast. The episode “Joe Rogan interviews Steve Jobs” went viral because of how realistic it sounded. He explains how.
• Sheldon County is a podcast that will never sound the same twice. James Ryan explains how he’s building it.

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“The hottest new programming language is English.” – Andrej Karpathy

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❓ What You’ll Learn

• How will filmmakers use prompts?
• What is role-playing?
• What is advanced prompting?
• What are the key parts of a prompt?
• How to guide AI to do complex tasks?
• What are the top prompt engineering use cases?
• How to build prompt templates?
• What are 100+ role-playing prompts for ChatGPT?
  
  

💎 Why It Matters

The number of programmers just increased from 26 million to 8 billion.

🔍 Problem

You need to learn how to direct AI.

💡 Solution

Prompt engineering helps you get accurate and reliable results.

🏁 Players

Prompt Engineers

• Elvis Saravia • Builds Prompt Engineering Guide
• Anna Bernstein • Prompt engineer and generative AI specialist at Copy.ai
• Kristian Fagerlie • Runs a blog and a YouTube channel on prompt engineering
• Sander Schulhoff • Runs Learn Prompting course and invented 2 prompt hacks
• Ethan Mollick • Wrote a Guide to Prompting AI
• Nick St. Pierre • Built Additive Prompting Framework for generating characters, models and more

Prompt Engineering Tools

• AutoGPT • Turn GPT-4 into an autonomous AI agent
• ShareGPT • Showcase prompt engineering use cases by sharing your ChatGPT chats
• AgentGPT • Build AI agents for various tasks
• LangChain • Prompt management, optimization and more
• DreamStudio • Build image prompts for Stable Diffusion
• ProductPrompts.fm • Daily prompt hacks and music to write prompts to

Prompt Engineering Use Cases

• Programming • Write, test and debug code
• Writing • Find writing prompts, generate stories and perfect your writing style
• Research • Find, analyze and cite scientific papers
• Image Generation • Generate abstract and real-life objects and settings
• Search Engine Optimization • Research keywords and write SEO-optimized articles
• Marketing • Build marketing strategies
  
  

🔮 Predictions

• We’ll use text-to-audio models to create music. We’ll prompt the style, tempo, instrumentation and more.
  • WavTool lets you use prompts to make, edit and compose tracks.
  • MusicLM is an unreleased text-to-music model by Google that can generate consistent short and long tracks.
  • Cassette lets you create royalty-free music by prompting genre, mood, length, instrumentation and more.

• Text-to-video will democratize animation and filmmaking. People will craft the story, lines, characters and locations. AI will take care of the visuals.
  • Victor Mustar made a Star Wars clip.
  • Corridor Crew made a Rock, Paper, Scissors anime.
  • Nick St. Pierre made a Sci-Fi movie trailer with his audience.
  • Jon Finger made an action film based on an AI-inspired plot.

• Prompt hackathons will help to find new prompt writing techniques. This will boost creativity, innovation and adoption of prompt engineering.
  • Prompt Hackathon explores creativity with $5,000 in prizes.
  • PromptHacks promotes prompt writing with $10,000 in prizes.
  • Hack A Prompt boosts AI safety research with $37,500 in prizes.
    
    

☁️ Opportunities

• Use role-playing to get more accurate results for complex tasks. Pretending to be an expert at “topic” helps AI give you relevant, focused advice.
  • Kristian Fagerlie says ChatGPT can act like a financial, career or relationship expert.
  • Alejandro Lopez-Lira and Yuehua Tang asked ChatGPT to act like a financial expert. It correctly interpreted financial news.
  • Andrew Han built GPT3 Auditor which scans code for vulnerabilities. He asked AI to pretend it was the “world’s best cybersecurity expert”.

• Use advanced prompting. Help AI understand the context and perform better at complex tasks.
  • Chain-of-Thought Prompting helps to come to complex conclusions.
  • Few-Shot Prompting helps to adapt to examples and the context of the task.
  • Zero-Shot Prompting helps to make predictions about unseen data without extra training.

• Use constraints to get more targeted results. Prevent AI from going beyond the context of your tasks.
  • Jackson Fall set a budget of $100 to start a business.
  • Matt Mic set the target location and citation rules for articles.
  • Zain Kahn set the number of words, days and ideas for AI-generated answers.
  • Riley Goodside asked a ”fast-talking wise guy from a 1940s gangster movie” to explain the bubble sort algorithm.
  • Hasan Toor asked ChatGPT to “explain JavaScript like he’s 10 years old” and “curate ReactJS resources based on his skill level”.
    
    

🏔️ Risks

• Hallucinations • ChatGPT lies. It accused a law professor of harassment and cited a fake article as evidence. You may miss inaccuracies or inconsistencies if you don’t know what a quality answer looks like.
• Platform Risk • OpenAI’s rate limits can block you in the middle of solving problems.
  
  

🔑 Key Lessons

• A prompt consists of the task, instructions, context and parameters. “Task” is an action. “Instructions” are the steps needed to do the “task”. “Context” helps to understand the background and the end goal of a “task”. “Parameters” are settings that directly affect the result.
• Use detailed prompts to do complex tasks. Share specific context, format and style that the result should have. Justin Fineberg says if your prompt is only one sentence long, your output is never going to be good.
  
  

🔥 Hot Takes

• AI is no longer narrow. We’re using AI to write Excel formulas, build meal plans and save lives.
• Text-to-video will turn animators into film directors. Instead of drawing, they will control the artistic and dramatic aspects of a video.
• Most storytelling work will be assisted by AI. We will use AI to produce songs, books, stories and movies.
• The future of programming is writing prompts. These papers say that you can use prompts to build logic, test expressions, handle events and more.
  
  

😠 Haters

“Prompt engineering is not programming.”
Backend-GPT is a language model that handles database and backend business logic. Similar to programming languages, you can prompt functions to work with data. Anyway, it’s too early to say that prompt engineering is programming. That’s why it’s a hot take.

“Prompt engineering will become obsolete once AI learns how to build its own prompts.”
We’re on track to this. AI can perfect itself without relying on human guidance. Tools like AutoGPT turn AI into an autonomous prompt building and execution robot.

“Tools built on top of APIs are just wrappers. They have no moat and can’t form a sustainable business.”
This critique has been around since the release of GPT-3. Danny Postma says if you can generate years of revenue in weeks or months, seize the opportunity.

“Marketplaces are winner-take-most markets. Why would we need more prompt marketplaces?”
These are micro-marketplaces which can optimize for niche use cases and audiences. While a micro-marketplace might not be the best option for most users, it’s best for some. That’s what matters.

🔗 Links

1. Introduction to Prompt Engineering • Learn how prompts work.
2. Framework for Reusable AI Prompts • Build reusable prompt templates.
3. Awesome ChatGPT Prompts • 100+ role-playing prompts for ChatGPT.
   
   

📁 Related Reports

• ​​ChatGPT • This tool showed the world the true power of AI
• ​No-Code • Many AI tools are no-code tools
• ​AI-Generated Content • Explore music, videos, images and text generated by AI
• ​AI Image Generators • Turn your ideas into high-quality images without drawing skills
• ​Data as a Service • Quality of data defines the quality of AI models
  
  

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Kevin Deol, Reme Ekoh, Katt Risen, Simon Daley, Ivan Zografski, Maciej Cupial, Darren Travel, Holger Sindbæk, Kevin Galang, Josh Kubicki, Stewart Townsend, Byron Wilson and Bernardt J. Vogel. We had a great time jamming on this report.

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

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What you’ll get:

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• 7 Predictions (134% More)
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• 4 Risks (100% More)
• 5 Key Lessons (150% More)
• 9 Hot Takes (125% More)
• 12 Links (300% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

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• (📈 Pro) How to format inputs and results?
• (📈 Pro) What is adversarial prompting?
• (📈 Pro) How to use advanced image generation parameters?
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• (📈 Pro) What are chained prompts?
• (📈 Pro) How can scientists use prompts to make new discoveries?
• (📈 Pro) How to turn text into 3D models?
• (📈 Pro) What makes AI tell lies?
• (📈 Pro) How to make $200,000 with an AI-written ebook?
• (📈 Pro) How did an AI browser extension lead to $1,000 in 24 hours?
• And much more…
  
  

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

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❓ 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.

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• 7 Key Lessons (133% More)
• 5 Hot Takes (66% More)
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• (📈 Pro) How to optimize your social profiles? 
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💲 100k+ Startup Discounts • Get access to $100k+ in startup discounts on AWS, Twilio, Webflow, ClickUp and more.

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

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

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

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

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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.

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

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 54,000+ 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.

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

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

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ 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.

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp