This week’s Founder Finds includes:

• Building a StoryBrand
• A copywriting handbook
• A collection of design resources
• Europe’s fastest growing companies
• Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule
• Overcoming the fear of starting something new
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Courage is a muscle.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎨 Bookmarks.design shared by Kevin Deol
A comprehensive collection of design resources neatly organized for easy access.

✨ All the Reasons Why You Should Start Now made and shared by Michael Pearson-Adams
A short video to help you overcome the fear of starting something new.

🇪🇺 FT 1000: Europe’s Fastest Growing Companies shared by Stewart Townsend
An annual ranking of the top 1,000 high-growth businesses in Europe.

🔧 Try This

Photo from Tyler DeVries

Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule

As creators, we need long, uninterrupted stretches of time to work. Managers can be productive in short spurts with speculative meetings. Check out this classic post from Paul Graham.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Maciej Cupial

“I joined Trends Pro by buying a MetaTrends NFT. I immediately loved the Standups idea. It has been almost 240 days! I haven’t missed a day without doing this. Standups help me track my progress and let me be my own boss.”

Maciej is building Calendesk. An all-in-one scheduling appointment software built for businesses. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0002.

What are you bullish on?
Blockchain technology. 

It brings trust, transparency, immutability, and decentralization. I think it’s inevitable.

What’s your most important habit?
If I start working on something, I do it until I finish it. I don’t give up 🙂

What are you reading right now?
Building a StoryBrand by Donald Miller

At first, we completely ignored storytelling with Calendesk. There is endless potential here. This book opens your eyes after the first chapter.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🎓 Online Courses

Exclusive Deal: Maciej is offering Trends.vc readers 30% off any Calendesk plan with the code “trendsvc”

📘 Read This

The Adweek Copywriting Handbook

We all write copy. From tweets to text messages. 

This is one of the best books that I’ve found on the topic. I read a small section each night.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 David K, Rick Jarrell, Cameron McGrane and Ralph Quintero became Trends Pro Members

👥 Gianni D’Alerta and Rick Jarrell unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

📧 Simon Daley published Cold email guide: How to buy a website

🌎 Rick Jarrell launched Climate Tech Brief

🗣 KP launched a coaching program for first-time founders

⚙️ Ismaël Sow published Startup Grinder

💰 Simon Daley sold Provver

🧠 Swapnil Puranik and Alexandro Armour 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.

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

• 5 daily habits for happiness
• A collection of copy swipe files
• How to run Stable Diffusion locally
• 3800+ case studies of successful businesses
• How to create work that resonates with your audience
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Writing is the process by which we discover we don’t really know what we are talking about.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

✍️ Audience Map shared by Nash
A step-by-step process to create resonant work that matters to your audience.

🎨 DiffusionBee shared by Stewart Townsend
Run Stable Diffusion locally on your M1 Mac to generate images from text.

🏪 Starter Story shared by Victor Park
3800+ case studies of people starting successful businesses.

👀 Watch This

Would winning the lottery make you happier?

I’ve thought about hedonic adaptation on and off for the last decade. 

In short, it means that we adjust to any environment. Good or bad. 

We return to a baseline happiness level. No matter what. 

But these daily habits seem to alter my baseline happiness level…

• Meditation
• Cold showers
• Strength training
• Intermittent Fasting
• Gratitude journaling

🌟 Founder of the Week

Prabhjot Singh Lamba

“I learn from everyone in my Trends Pro Mastermind and always look forward to my weekly call. In Trends Tribe, I meet amazing people for 1-1 chats.”

Prabhjot is building Craftar.io. A no-code platform that makes it easy and affordable to craft automations using a visual block language. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0002.

What are you bullish on?
Tech that automates or makes automation easy. Such as AI and No-Code. Automation allows us to focus on problems, ideas and solutions rather than mechanics.

As well as tech that enables new user experiences. Such as Chatbots, AR, VR, Haptics and WebGL. Technology that creates new experiences gives us new ways to engage, have fun, be creative and open up solutions to previously-hard-to-solve problems.

What’s your most important habit?
I spend at least an hour a day discovering new things which may or may not be related to my current focus. The exploration habit expands my horizons, feeds my curiosity and keeps me optimistic.

What are you reading right now?
Advanced Game Design and Game Thinking

There are games and systems which are easy to pick up and hard to master. But they keep you engaged throughout the journey. No-Code has a trade off between flexibility and accessibility. The more easy a tool is to use, the less flexible it is and vice versa. I’m exploring ways to minimize this trade off. Based on my current understanding, I think Game Design and Systems Thinking might provide useful frameworks and mechanics to approach solving this problem.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I have been coding since I was 7 years old. I had cervical spondylitis at 29 and was on bed rest for 6 months and couldn’t code. 

The programming experience on the phone was horrible. 

I realized there was no way to build software without sitting in front of a laptop or desktop. I came up with the idea to build Craftar to solve my problem. So that I can create software visually by connecting blocks. I wish that Craftar existed. So I’m building it.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🧱 No-Code

This report covered the landscape of No-Code. Which was really helpful and it also featured Craftar!

🔧 Try This

Copy Book

Copywriting is one of the highest-leverage skills that you can possess.

The more examples we have, the easier things are to do. Copy Book offers swipe files for common situations such as adding FAQs and value propositions to landing pages.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Tem, Victor Park and Kiet Phung became Trends Pro Members

🥇 Founder Finds became #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

👥 Gokul Madan, Harit Rathi, Victor Park, Vinamra Agrawal, David K and Ryan Crownholm unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

💲 The Trends.vc Team added $100k+ in Startup Discounts to Trends Pro

📝 Tem launched HiveMind on Product Hunt

🎙️ Sean Hua launched his podcast Promise.fm

⭐ Ismaël Sow’s article Indie Hackers’ Hall of Fame reached the front page of Indie Hackers

🚀 Gokul Madan launched My First Million – Catalog of Greatness on Product Hunt

🧠 Kuba Siwiec unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak

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 FIRE calculator
• A prompt marketplace
• A docuseries about psychedelics
• 12 methods to validate your business idea
• How Thomas Frank reached $100,000/mo selling Notion templates
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

This too shall pass.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

📊 TryValidated.com built and shared by Simon Daley
12 tried and tested methods to validate your business idea.

🧠 PromptBase prompt marketplace shared by Stewart Townsend
A marketplace for prompts that produce the best results in AI models like DALL·E and GPT-3.

💭 How to Change Your Mind shared by Swapnil Puranik
A docuseries on the history and uses of psychedelics.

👀 Watch This

$100,000+ Per Month Selling Notion Templates

This is the most high insights-per-minute conversation I’ve recently heard. Thomas Frank talks about setting “impossible” goals, why consistency matters and how to keep things simple.

🌟 Founder of the Week

Stewart Townsend

“It’s been amazing over the years to meet like-minded people in Trends Pro from across the globe who all want to help, understand what you are doing, share knowledge, join your company and become your friends.”

Stewart is the co-founder of Podcast Hawk. A service that gets you booked as a podcast guest on auto-pilot. He is also the host of Trends Mastermind #0002.

What are you bullish on?
Text-to-Image/Video and AI-Driven Art. I believe the next Banksy will come from this space.

What’s your most important habit?
Everything I have to do is in a calendar. 

Personal or business. Without enforcing this I would not be able to function. Tasks, appointments, meetings and car shows all go into my calendar. Reminders are set with updated tasks or nudges as well.

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🤖 AI-Generated Content

This report is from 2 years ago. I have been bullish on this sector for a long time and if I had a time machine I would have invested.

🔧 Try This

FIRE Calculator: What if you move to another place?

This combines two of my favorite topics: Nomading and Financial Independence. 

The Financial Independence Retire Early movement was also the topic of a recent report.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Alex Adamov, Kris Ruby and Jerome Green Jr unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups.

📝 Swapnil Puranik built 101 Days Goals Tracker in 8 hours.

⚙️ Prabhjot Singh Lamba started 100 Days of Automation Challenge.

🎨 Simon Daley set up his portfolio website.

📢 Kris Ruby did an AMA about PR, Publicity, AI and Content Strategy.

📘 Read This

Discomfort Club

“The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.”

Each morning I spend time doing uncomfortable things. From trying a new tool to having a tough conversation with a friend or team member.

Discomfort Club is a consistently great newsletter for those of us committed to growth.

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:

• 100 sales questions
• A copywriting classic
• 12 startups in 12 months
• How to build a sustainable SaaS business
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time for that’s the stuff life is made of.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎙️ Market Analysis for Calm SaaS Businesses shared by davidacreates
An audience-first research process to build a sustainable SaaS business.

📖 Tested Advertising Methods shared by Kyle
A copywriting classic by John Caples.

🤖 Adept AI Action Transformer shared by Sunny Kay
Tell your computer what to do and it’ll do it.

🔧 Try This

Hardcore Year

Like 12 startups in 12 months. Instead of assuming that you know what will work. 

Commit to shipping lots of things. Double-down on what works. 

This approach led to Trends.vc and the projects that came before it. 

It’s a reminder that business is not baseball:  

“The difference between baseball and business, however, is that baseball has a truncated outcome distribution. When you swing, no matter how well you connect with the ball, the most runs you can get is four. In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score 1,000 runs. This long-tailed distribution of returns is why it’s important to be bold. Big winners pay for so many experiments.” — Bezos

🌟 Founder of the Week

Wit Sumathavanit

“It’s great to be part of an ever-evolving community of interesting people in Trends Pro. I look forward to contributing more to the community.”

Wit is a one-person hedge fund. He’s joined more than 500 Trends Pro Daily Standups. 

What are you bullish on?
Big changes. 

The future is being built today. Things are getting more volatile. Market regimes are giving way to something new. Inflation and fuel costs might accelerate the reality of alternative fuel sources. Ecology is not getting any better soon as reflected in the harsher climate people experience. Crypto markets coming out of mania clears up garbage and allows for future development. Many of the big projects that headlined in the 2020-2021 era got their start in the 2018-2019 bear market.

What are you bearish on?
I’m bearish on being bearish! 

There’s not much upside in being bearish. Aside from the ‘told you so’ smug points. That’s why stories like the Big Short are exceptions compared to being long or neutral. I can’t come up with many names who can build a career being net short. So do it in a healthy way. Get into the habit of rarely being net short.

What are you reading right now? 
I’m re-reading The Most Important Thing Illuminated by Howard Marks

I’ve gained more experience and re-reading this feels new and important again. The book contains a lot of wisdom around professional speculation that I missed. It’s about how to operate in the markets for the long run.

What product or service do you wish existed?
I wish there were more reasonable paths to trade more capital aside from the professional money manager route. Since trading is highly scalable. 

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

Coming from a background in man-power intensive, low-margin hospitality businesses, I find this idea alluring. The obvious path for me is the trading/investment business which has a long record of being run by (or at least started by) a small group of people. e.g. Warren Buffett, Edward Thorp and many “Market Wizards.”

📘 Read This

“In a perfect world, what would you like to see happen with this?”

100 Sales Questions

A few days ago, we had a mastermind chat on limiting beliefs. One of my limiting beliefs was that I could not sell. Which led to the delay in launching sponsorships at Trends.vc. 

To challenge this, I found a guide and jumped in head first.

Equip yourself with useful questions for sales conversations.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🆕 Paul Jansen, Kyle, Alex Adamov and Kris Ruby became Trends Pro Members

👥 Mehdi Bellatig, Tarek Zalt, Harsha MV, Alex Cristian and Kyle unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups.

🤝 Simon Daley received the first LOI for his listing on MicroAcquire.

🏷️ Mehdi Bellatig submitted the mobile version of Eden to app stores.

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:

• Retiring at 39 with $660,000
• A tool to make visual tutorials
• A collection of sales email examples
• A list of online projects that generate revenue
• And more…

🪶 Remember This

Focus on what you control.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💌 Good Sales Emails from Stewart Townsend
Learn how some of the best companies are doing sales, by looking at their email campaigns.

👀 Make Visual Tutorials from Mikk Laos
Document what you’re doing, instantly.

💲 Profit Hunt from Stewart Townsend
Discover money-making online projects

❔ Ask Yourself

What is slowing down your momentum?

A few months ago, I shared 10 things I ask myself each day. Then Jakob shared two of his own. 

The one that I found to be the most useful is “What’s slowing down my momentum?”

It brings to mind: “Invert. Always Invert.”

🌟 Founder of the Week

Soma Mandal

“I love the content and rituals within Trends Pro. The community vibe is educational and respectful no matter where you are in your bootstrapper journey.”

Soma is the co-founder of Ansured. A service that provides niche, research-backed information to businesses and individuals within 48 hours. She is also the host of Trends Mastermind #0005.

What are you bullish on?
Personalized, virtual medicine for complex conditions.
Patients will increasingly have access to solutions that incorporate genetic data, medical history, and practical preferences with delivery of care within a few clicks.

Thoughts on bootstrapping…
“I love the combination of creativity, grit, and honesty that comes with bootstrapping. I enjoy the mental resilience needed to consistently fail and have the energy to try something different. I once heard that you need to have something “damaged” inside you to willingly pursue free market, ill-guided entrepreneurship. I would say what is more likely is that you have something that is propelling you towards discovery, learning, play, and in my case, what it means to really feel alive.”

What’s your favorite Trends Report?
💼 Agencies

👀 Watch This

How I Retired Early At 39 In Mexico City With $660,000

Freedom over fame is an ethos that unites Trends Pro Members. 

Roshida shares how she retired early to Mexico City. 

To learn more about FIRE, read our deep-dive on The FIRE Movement.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👥 Lola Ojabowale, Isabelle Dumortier, Tyler Priest, Krish and Davida Pitts unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining standups.

🧪 Tom Maciejewski closed his first client for his new venture. Quiz Funnels.

🤖 Jwalant Patel reached 75,000+ signups with Shadowing.ai. Helping students prepare for job interviews.

🪄 Tal Hacmon launched Supercreator System. A six-week creator accelerator program.

🔊 Michael Adams is a Product Manager at Waves Audio. They launched Clarity VX and VX Pro after 5 years of work.

💸 Joshua Peck founded a hedge fund after two and a half years of incubation.

🧠 Adrian Divecha and Stanislav Bodiagin 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.

View on OpenSea

“The standard pace is for chumps.” – Kimo

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to find cost-effective ways to grow?
• How to build a low-cost referral program?
• How to increase your odds of virality?
• How to reduce switching costs?
• How to build backlinks?
• How to lower customer acquisition costs?
• How to get existing users to invite new users?

💎 Why It Matters

Marketing channels become competitive over time.

🔍 Problem

Traditional marketing channels are expensive.  
Google Ads cost per click range from $0.20 to $1,000.00+ depending on the keyword choice.

💡 Solution

Find cost-effective ways to get attention and convert customers.

🏁 Players

Growth Hacking Examples

• Intercom • Adds “We run on intercom” to chat windows.
• Robinhood • Offered higher spots on waitlist to users for more referrals.
• CD Baby • Sent offbeat confirmation emails to customers. 
• Dropbox • Grew 3,900% by offering free storage for each converted referral.
• Hotmail • Signed every email with “P.S. I Love You”.
• Barclay Prime • Sold $100 cheesesteak. Attracting press around the country.
• Paypal • Gave a referral bonus to users and merchants.
• Uber • Gave early adopters free rides.

Growth Hackers

• Sean Ellis • Co-author of Hacking Growth
• Nir Eyal • Author of Hooked
• Ryan Holiday • Author of Growth Hacker Marketing
• Tiffany Desilva • Founder of Flowjo
• Wes Bush • CEO of ProductLed
• Jonah Berger • Author of Contagious
• Dan Benoni • Co-Founder of Growth.Design

Growth Hacking Tools

• Hotjar • Understand user behavior
• Zapier • Automate workflows
• Ghostery • Find out which tools websites are using 
• Wistia • Host videos and optimize user engagement
• Ahrefs • Get traffic value and ranking of competitors
• CrazyEgg • Survey, split test and understand user behavior
• Unbounce • Hone your landing page through A/B testing

🔮 Predictions

• More apps will use collaboration-focused featuresto spur growth.
  • Uber’s fare split feature converts new users through requiring app sign-up to pay.
  • Docusign hooks new users through continuous collaboration on document signing.
• Growth tools will become a popular way to reach prospective customers and gain mindshare.
  • Ahrefs invested $60,000,000 in their creator friendly search engine Yep. 
  • AppSumo generated $30,000 after building TidyCal as a side project in 20 days.
• Top brands will partner on rare drops.
  • Balenciaga worked with Adidas on a spring collection.
  • Apple collaborated with Hermès on a limited edition Apple watch.
  • Puma worked with Nipsey Hussle’s team on their TMC collection.
  • Spotify partnered with Starbucks to offer free premium memberships.
  • Spatial Labs partnered with Pantone to design their LNQ Wearables and more.
• Brands will increasingly use pricing to trigger word-of-mouth marketing.
  • Barclay Prime’s $100 cheesesteak became a national story.
  • Nipsey Hussle sold 1,000 copies of Crenshaw for $100 a piece in 1 night.

☁️ Opportunities

• Offer free credits to users for referrals.
  • Homage gives $20 credit to you and each friend you refer.
  • Plant Therapy offers $10 off to you and each friend you refer.
  • Uber began sponsoring events and offering participants free rides. 
  • Airbnb offered up to $35 in travel credit for each successful referral.
  • Dropbox grew 3900% by offering free storage for each converted referral. 
  • Skillshare offered 2 free months to students who signed up via referral links.
  • Fiverr gave members 10% in platform credit for each completed referral order. 
• Tag your products to trigger virality. This works well with freemium plans. Turning free users into promoters.
  • Mint gave VIP access to their app in exchange for placement of their badge on a website.
  • Product Hunt lets makers embed their badges to share milestones. Ex: Trends.vc
  • Hotmail added a signature to every email and gained 1 million users in 6 months.
  • React Native’s documentation embeds Expo code widgets for real-time learning.
  • Calendly gives you a way to embed a calendar for visitors to request meetings.
  • Headway adds a “Powered By” tag at the bottom of changelogs.
  • Testimonial adds a badge at the bottom of embedded sections.
  • Facebook offers profile badges to embed on personal websites.
  • Carrd displays “Made with Carrd” pages that you create.
• Use the invite-only playbookto create scarcity and drive word-of-mouth.
  • Clubhouse released as an invite-only app.
  • Hey offered two invite codes for each new member to share.
  • Facebook only gave access to Harvard students upon launch.
  • Gmail started with a 1,000 user limit and required an invite to join.
  • Dispo started with a 10,000 user cap and required an invite to test.
  • The Gathering Spot is a private, member-only restaurant and networking space for entrepreneurs and celebrities.
• Book guest spots on podcasts to spread the word about what you’re building and get backlinks. You can piggyback on existing audiences.
  • Iddris Sandu spoke with Coindesk TV about LNQ.
  • Luis von Ahn spoke with CNBC Make It about DuoLingo’s growth.
  • Courtland Allen shared the Indie Hackers story on Will Kwan’s show.
  • NPR’s How I Built This hosted Stewart Butterfield to discuss Slack’s journey.
  • Scott Hanselman hosted Brandon Tory for the journey behind Little Hackers.
  • Dru Riley explained the success behind Trends.vc in 15 minutes on Indie Bites.
• Pay users directly. Customer acquisition costs may be lower by paying users. Instead of intermediaries.
  • Bluehost pays $65 per qualified referral.
  • Slide gave $20 off foreach new sign-up.
  • Tornado offers $10-$1,000 as a sign-up bonus.
  • Acorns pays $5 to you and each friend you refer.
  • 1729 teaches concepts and offers crypto for completed tasks.
  • PayPal paid $60,000,000+ in referral incentives to gain new members.
  • Robinhood offers a free stock to you and each new member you refer.

🏔️ Risks

• Too Many Channels • Limit the number of experiments that you run at once. Chasing too many channels at the same time leads to context switching and can lower your chance of success. 
• Working in Silos • Open the floor for every team member while brainstorming growth hacks. Winning ideas can come from outside of marketing. An engineer at Pinterest optimized subject lines by 10% through automated tests.

🔑 Key Lessons

• Most prospects see through gimmicks. Put your customers first.
• Building a product is half of the battle. Figuring out who needs your product and how to reach them is the other half.

🔥 Hot Takes

• Companies will spend more time and resources on organic strategies like growth tools.
• More companies will manipulate demand by limiting access. Raya, the private celebrity dating app requires an application and a referral. 

😠 Haters

“These companies make growth hacking seem easy. How do these examples translate to other companies?” 
You’ll need to decide what makes sense for you. These are models. Try them and keep doing what works.

“Scraping seems illegal. Isn’t this an unethical growth tactic?”
If the data is public it’s yours, according to the US Supreme Court. You may decide to avoid web scraping. Competitors may decide that this is not off limits.

“Growth is great. But what if you’re pouring water into a leaky bucket? What about retention?”
Growth hacking should include experiments around retention. If you’re losing more users than you’re gaining. You’re not growing. 

🔗 Links

• Who should we talk to about growth hacking? • The tweet behind this report. 
• 3 Stages of Growth Hacking • A talk by Sean Ellis.
• Growth Hacker Marketing Review • A review of Ryan Holiday’s book.

📁 Related Reports

• Growth Tools • Build utilities to attract prospective customers. 
• Drop Culture • You can tweak supply to spur demand. 
• Referral Programs • Incentivize others to help you grow.
• Lead Generation • Get qualified leads. 
• Build in Public • Share your journey and gain advocates. 

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Krish, Paul Martin, Stewart Townsend, Uwe Dreissigacker, Vishal Srivastava, Maciej Cupial, Ron Immink, Jwalant Patel, Yarty Kim, Theo Ohene, Anke Corbin and Ken. We had a great time jamming on this report.
✏️ Devin researched and wrote this report. Dru researched and edited this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0090 — Growth Hacking has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 30 Growth Hacking Examples (275% More)
• 30 Growth Hackers (328% More)
• 20 Growth Hacking Tools (185% More)
• 8 Predictions (100% More)
• 17 Opportunities (240% More)
• 4 Risks (100% More)
• 5 Key Lessons (150% More)
• 11 Links (266% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to find your North Star Metric?
• (📈 Pro) How to increase user engagement?
• (📈 Pro) How to use web scraping to prospect and acquire customers?
• (📈 Pro) How to launch successful contests and challenges?
• (📈 Pro) How to use urgency to drive sales?
• (📈 Pro) How to get the most of out freemium options?
• (📈 Pro) How to use physical items to spur word-of-mouth marketing?
• (📈 Pro) How are founders “hacking” the fundraising process?
• (📈 Pro) How to leverage user-generated content to acquire customers?

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.

View on OpenSea

“The biggest competition in SaaS is a spreadsheet.” — Ross Simmonds

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to presell to validate demand?
• What are growth systems?
• How to index into existing markets?
• How to use personalization to convert leads?
• How SaaS analytics can help you boost revenue?
• Why narrow your target audience?
• How will open-source SaaS impact B2B SaaS?
• What’s feature parity?

💎 Why It Matters

B2B SaaS gives you a simple, secure and accessible way to solve business problems.

🔍 Problem

You can solve internal challenges:

• internally by building tools and hiring
• externally by outsourcing the problem

Building your own tools can distract you from your core competency.

💡 Solution

B2B SaaS helps you focus on your core competency. 

While reaping the benefits of improvements made by teams dedicated to specific problems.

🏁 Players

B2B SaaS

• Make • Build and automate workflows
• InvoiceBerry • Online invoicing for small businesses
• Gusto • Payroll, benefits and HR management
• Hive • Manage tasks, workflows and team’s work
• Lanva • Social video editing app. 
• ClickUp • Manage tasks, docs, chat, goals and more
• Plausible • Open-source privacy-friendly web analytics
• Podcast Hawk • Podcast guest booking software. 
• Writesonic • AI-driven content creation
• Folderly • AI-Based platform to improve email deliverability.
• Craftar • Build APIs with No-Code
• Budibase • Low-code internal app builder
• LiveAgent • All-in-one platform for live customer support
• SavvyCal • Experience-focused Calendly alternative

Communities

• Trends.vc • Community of entrepreneurs discovering new markets and ideas 
• MicroConf • A community and event series for bootstrapped SaaS founders
• Indie Hackers • Real stories, advice, and revenue numbers from indie makers
• The Indiependent • A community for founders where you get kicked for inactivity
• MegaMaker • A community for bootstrappers
• 100DaysOfNoCode • Lessons, stories and activities for no-code founders

Funds

• TinySeed • An accelerator for bootstrapped SaaS founders
• SureSwift Capital • Buys and grows businesses of independent founders
• Calm Company Fund • Capital, mentorship and community for B2B SaaS
• Dura Software • Invests in hyper-niche software
• Lighter Capital • Invests in companies with $15,000+ MRR
• Calm Capital • Invests in profitable businesses
• LTV SaaS Fund • Focuses on profitable and privately held SaaS companies

🔮 Predictions

• B2B SaaS companies will index into existing markets instead of trying to create new categories.
  • Plausible reached $500,000 ARR in 3 years with an analytics tool.
  • ConvertCalculator has 15,000 users and $24,000 MRR. 
  • Checkout Page is a side-project that processed $2,000,000 in payments.
  • Paperform reached $2,000,000 ARR. Tally reached $10,000 MRR in less than a year in a crowded market of form builders. The latter has 30,000 users and sits at $17,000 MRR.
• Companies will use open-source SaaS to avoid platform risk and vendor lock-in.
  • Baserow • No-code database, Airtable alternative.
  • Fider • Feedback management tool, alternative to Canny.
  • Chatwoot • Customer engagement platform, Intercom and Zapier alternative.
• Businesses will use personalization to nurture leads and convert customers at high-intent moments. Live video sales reps is the second most upvoted idea on Kernal.
  • ConvertKit uses surveys to change onboarding paths.
  • Candu lets you serve different content to different users.
  • Helium lets you talk to web visitors as they land on a page.
  • Bonjoro lets you send transactional personal videos to your customers.
• Businesses will use SaaS analytics to improve customer experiences. Data-driven roadmaps and pricing will help reduce churn and maximize revenue.
  • Chargebee allows you to run billing experiments with real-time insights.
  • Chartmogul helps you measure, understand, and grow your recurring revenue.
  • Mixpanel helps you convert, engage and retain users with user behavior analytics.

☁️ Opportunities

• Don’t waste time, money and energy trying to create new markets. Solve existing pain points. Not those you wish existed.
  • Upvoty • Feedback management tool, grew to $20,000 MRR.
  • Potion • Notion to website converter, grew to $4,000+ MRR.
  • Headlime • AI-powered marketing copy generator, grew to $20,000 MRR and was sold for $1,000,000+ in 8 months.
• Focus on a specific job-to-be-done. Design simple, powerful features.
  • ShareThis lets you add share buttons to your website.
  • Hugo helps you manage notes and tasks for your meetings.
  • SavvyCal is a calendar scheduling tool that generates $20,000+ MRR.
  • Hyperping helps you monitor uptime and manage incidents. It has ~$7,000 MRR now.
  • Friendly offers privacy-first marketing automation and web analytics. It’s close to $13,000 MRR now.
• Narrow your target audience. Vertical SaaS targets niche industries and customers. Niching down helps you stand out from competition, clearly communicate your value and find customers.
  • The Agent Nest • Social media marketing for real estate that reached $10,000 MRR.
  • Aplano • Employee management and time tracking for shiftworkers that reached $450,000 ARR.
  • Zenmaid • Scheduling, automation and reporting for maid service that reached $1,500,000 ARR.
• Presell to validate demand. A landing page, mockup or screenshots will do. Don’t waste time building something nobody wants.
  • Ch Daniel got $1,000 in presales.
  • Alex Pethick received $4,000 in presales for Lanva.
  • Brian Casel got $3,000 in preorders with wireframes.
  • Aazar Shad reached $560 MRR with Ecomply after 3 webinars.
  • Danny Postma got $16,000 in presales in 48 hours for Headlime.
  • Kalo Yankulov says Encharge got ~$4,000 in pre-sales with content marketing.

🏔️ Risks

• Feature parity • No-code and low-code tools make it easier to reach feature parity. This is a two-way problem. It increases competitor risk. You can catch up with competitors. They can also catch up to you. Competition lowers margins.
• Low Lifetime Value • This makes it hard to invest in customer acquisition. Paired with other expenses it can lead to negative cash flow and the Valley of Death.
• Platform Risk • Building on other platforms subjects you to their product roadmap, outages and fees. Changes to Notion API broke Super.

🔑 Key Lessons

• Micro-SaaS does not mean low revenue. “Micro” means a specific niche, target audience or set of features. Hubstaff started as a time tracker for field and remote teams. It grew to 75,000 users and $3,800,000 ARR.
• Growth systems > growth hacks. Growth hacks are designed for fast, low-cost user acquisition. Growth systems focus on long-term marketing strategies.

🔥 Hot Takes

• The largest SaaS categories will be commoditized by Monetized Open-Source alternatives. Rocket.Chat and n8n are open-source alternatives to Intercom and Zapier. This is counter-positioning. It’s unlikely the latter will open source. 
• You need lots of customers, a high customer lifetime value or both to build a great B2B SaaS business. A company without one of these is in a death zone. 
• Feature parity is a weakness of SaaS. This leads to commoditization and lower margins. Low prices and complementary services become your key differentiators.

😠 Haters

“Markets are crowded. How do I stand out?”
There’s a marketing strategy for every taste. AJ from Carrd says a massive market has room for many solutions. Canny got to $1,000,000 ARR in the crowded market of user feedback management. Ruth and Eric built and grew Reconvert to $120,000 MRR, competing with 750+ Shopify cross-sell and up-sell apps.

“Sales will always have a place in B2B SaaS. Self-serve does not always work.”
You’re right. Especially when selling to governments and large organizations such as hospitals. Self-serve, product-led models are increasingly effective with high lifetime value customers. 

“Lifetime deals seem risky. What if I shut the product down?”
Lifetime refers to the lifetime of your product, not your lifetime. It’s more like a “pay-once-and-use-forever” deal. Despite associated risks, some SaaS companies choose lifetime deals over subscriptions. Infinity ran a lifetime deal before official launch and decided to keep their pricing that way forever.

“Using open-source tools means self-hosting and taking on other responsibilities.”
There’s no free lunch. That’s the price of agency. Open source alternatives often offer hosted versions as well.

🔗 Links

• Who should we talk to about B2B SaaS? • The tweet behind this report.
• The Stair Step Approach to Bootstrapping • A model from Rob Walling on increasing the odds of success by “stair stepping.”
• B2B SaaS Marketing Guide • SaaS-centric marketing guide.

📁 Related Reports

• Micro-SaaS • Solve specific problem for specific audience
• Competitor Risk • Indexing into crowded markets
• Product-Led Growth • Build a product that sells itself
• Value-Based Pricing • Get the right pricing
• Programmatic SEO • Acquire high-intent customers

🙏 Thanks

Thanks to Rob Walling, Reza Saeedi, Stewart Townsend, Prabhjot Singh, Uwe Dreissigacker, Tarun Muvvala, Soma Mandal, Kimsia Sim, Darren Travel, Ben Alexander, Ab Advany, Yun, Niklas Nielsen and Vladislav Podolyako. 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 #0088 — B2B SaaS has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 36 B2B SaaS Examples (157% More)
• 23 Communities (283% More)
• 23 B2B SaaS Funds (228% More)
• 15 Predictions (275% More)
• 16 Opportunities (300% More)
• 6 Risks (100% More)
• 4 Key Lessons (100% More)
• 6 Hot Takes (100% More)
• 15 Links (400% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to build fast with no-code tools?
• (📈 Pro) How to leverage product-led growth?
• (📈 Pro) Why buy instead of build?
• (📈 Pro) How to monetize open-source SaaS?
• (📈 Pro) What’s the difference between passive and active SaaS?
• (📈 Pro) What are 8 examples of B2B SaaS lifetime deals that generated up to $800,000?
• (📈 Pro) What is software-with-a-service?
• (📈 Pro) How to hyper niche?
• (📈 Pro) How to add value with APIs and integrations?
• (📈 Pro) Where to buy SaaS apps?
• (📈 Pro) How to reduce churn with customization?
• (📈 Pro) What are 5 examples of white-label SaaS?
• (📈 Pro) Why build your SaaS in public?
• (📈 Pro) How to leverage existing ecosystems to grow your SaaS?
• (📈 Pro) And much more…

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.

View on OpenSea

“Work with the garage door open.”

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• How to validate ideas?
• How to build an audience?
• How to get fast feedback?
• Why social accountability matters?
• How to meet new friends, mentors and investors?
• How to think about copycats?
• How to repurpose content?

💎 Why It Matters

Building in public helps you:

• Validate ideas
• Stay top-of-mind
• Get fast feedback
• Build connections with stakeholders

🔍 Problem

You need to break through noise to share your story.

💡 Solution

Make a habit of sharing struggles, wins, milestones, questions and lessons.

🏁 Players

People Building in Public

• Dru Riley • Trends.vc creator who shares progress and failuresin public.
• Arvid Kahl • Sharing lessons on bootstrapping and building in public.
• Aaron Aalto • Designer and artist building Wagmi Table.
• Sharath Kuruganty • Co-founder of Shoutout. Shares insights around no-code, community and product.
• Naya Moss • Building Frauvis. A newsletter, community and job board.
• Maciej Cupial • Building Calendesk. An online booking system.
• Zoe Chew • Shares projects on her personal site.
• Karthik Puvvada (KP) • The “Build In Public” Guy. He was offered a job with OnDeck in public.
• Justin Jackson • Building Transistor.fm. A podcast publishing platform.
• Brian Casel • Building ZipMessage. A video messaging tool for async conversations.
• Janel Loi • Building Newsletter OS. A framework to launch and run your newsletter.
• EK • Building Appbasics and RubyOnRemote
• Damon Chen • Building Testimonial, Embed, Supportman and See Ya Future.
• Brett Williams • Building a one-person, million-dollar design service – Designjoy.

🔮 Predictions

• Creators will use podcasts as a channel to build in public. See examples:
  • The Build in Public Podcast where KP interviews creators.
  • Startups for the Rest of Us where Rob Walling shares his journey building MicroConf and TinySeed.
  • The Bootstrapped Founder where Arvid Kahl opens up about the process of writing books, making courses and building PermanentLink.
  • Lunch Pail Daily where Lola talks about no-code and growing a solo business.
  • Product Journey Podcast where Noah Bragg and Ben Mann talk about the journey of building bootstrapped businesses.
  • Bootstrapped Web where Brian Casel shares his journey building ZipMessage.
  • Software Social where Colleen Schnettler and Michele Hansen jam on building Simple File Upload and Geocodio.
  • The Art of Product where Ben Orenstein and Derrick Reimer share updates on SavvyCal and Tuple.
• More companies will be built around accountability challenges.
  • Creative Companion Club is for creators.
  • 100 Days of No-Code is for builders.
  • Ship 30 for 30 is for writers.

☁️ Opportunities

• Find your tribe. Engage with subcommunities.
  • #fintwit is for finance.
  • #retwit is for real estate.
  • #100DaysOfNoCode is for builders.
• Share more than revenue. There are other ways to build in public. You can:
  • Share Lessons • Cameron keeps a thread of mistakes.
  • Share Goals • Pat Walls added his goal to his Twitter bio.
  • Build Waitlists • EK built a 50-person waitlist for Appbasics.
  • Request Help • Dru Riley asks Twitter who should he talk to for reports.
  • Share Milestones • Jacky reached ramen profitability ($5,000 MRR).
  • Reflect on Progress • Noah Bragg shared his one-year update on Potion.so.
  • Offer Help • Stripe offered to help developers building in public using their API.
  • Share your Roadmap • Filip shared a preview of an upcoming Tally release.
  • Show New Features • Brian Casel reveals new ZipMessage features on Twitter.
  • Share Struggles • Danny shared the process behind shutting down Rareblocks.
• Join a challenge. Social accountability works.
  • 12 startups in 12 months helps you launch a startup every month for 12 months.
  • 100 Days of No-Code helps you bring your ideas to life in 100 days.
  • Ship 30 for 30 helps you get started writing online in 30 days.
• Repurpose content.
  • Dru Riley wrote How I built a paid community to 1,000+ members in 10 months as an essay before turning it into a Twitter thread and sharing the story on podcasts.
  • Arvid Kahl turns blog posts into tweets, threads, podcast episodes, books and courses.
  • Nathan Barry turned his iconic blog post into a Twitter thread.

🏔️ Risks

• Person > Persona • Don’t lose yourself while building in public. It’s easy to become obsessed with crafting narratives. Building in public is performative but find balance.
• Copycats • Sharing success and strategies will lead to copycats. Feature parity is possible in SaaS. While creators and communities are categories of one.
• Competitors • Oversharing can allow incumbents to frontrun your roadmap. Buffer, one of the most open companies, throws caution to the wind and shares their full roadmap.

🔑 Key Lessons

• Building in public has benefits beyond reaching customers. You can:
  • Recruit team members
  • Get fast feedback
  • Meet new friends
  • Find evangelists
  • Meet mentors
  • Find investors
• Early followers become invested in your journey when you involve them by asking for feedback and sharing struggles. See the Endowment Effect.
• Building in public works because transparency is scarce. We value authenticity and vulnerability. As Brené Brown says “Vulnerability is not winning or losing; it’s having the courage to show up and be seen when we have no control over the outcome. Vulnerability is not weakness; it’s our greatest measure of courage.”

🔥 Hot Takes

• If building in public feels like a job to you. It won’t last. Choose a strategy that you can maintain. Don’t like Twitter? No problem. Podcast or make videos.
• Building in public is performative. Embrace it. Be authentic. Tell honest stories and build connections.

😠 Haters

“What if people judge me?”
This is your ego talking. The bad news is that no one cares about you. The good news is that no one cares about you. We care about ourselves and our problems. Focus on providing value and sharing stories. Fear-Setting can also help you overcome stage fright.

“I don’t have any followers. No one’s listening.”
Don’t try to boil the ocean. Join small communities and connect with people one-on-one. Highlight others’ work. Dickie Bush gained early followers by appreciating others.

“Building in Public? This sounds like Bragging in Public.”
If you only share wins, this is bragging. And inauthentic. Share the ups and the downs.

🔗 Links

• Who should I talk to about building in public? • The tweet behind this report.
• Origins of Building in Public• Twitter tries to figure out where building in public started.
• Building in Public: 20 Examples & a How-To Guide • A comprehensive guide including the types of content to share.

📁 Related Reports

• Open Startups • Open dashboards help you continuously share.
• Audience-First Products • Build trust before you build products.
• Personal Brands • Personal brands have higher affinity than business brands.
• Presales • Building in public can lead to presales.
• Influencer Marketing • Building trust helps you become your own influencer.

🙏 Thanks

Thanks Arvid Kahl, Ashwin, Aaron Aalto, Nyssa Cromwell, Brian Casel, Maciej Cupial, Sharath Kuruganty, Fausto Sá Teles, EK, Katt Risen, Shashank and Prabhjot Singh Lamba. We had a great time jamming on this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0084 — Build in Public has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 33 People Building in Public (135% More)
• 4 Predictions (100% More)
• 11 Opportunities (175% More)
• 6 Risks (100% More)
• 6 Key Lessons (100% More)
• 5 Hot Takes (150% More)
• 10 Links (233% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to tell great stories?
• (📈 Pro) How to earn as you learn?
• (📈 Pro) How to grow your luck surface area?
• (📈 Pro) Which founder sold his company in 5 hours by building in public?
• (📈 Pro) Who reached ramen profitability by building in public?
• (📈 Pro) Who are the pioneers of building in public?
• (📈 Pro) Which new industries are building in public?

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.

View on OpenSea

“Think about what a user is going to type.”

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• What is programmatic SEO?
• How to acquire customers?
• What is the foundation of SEO?
• How to monetize search traffic?
• Which no-code stack to use for Programmatic SEO?
• How to deal with platform risk?
• How to crowdsource content?

💎 Why It Matters

You need to cost-effectively acquire customers.

🔍 Problem

Writing editorial content is slow, expensive and hard to scale.

💡 Solution

Programmatic SEO helps you build thousands of pages for high-intent, low-volume keywords. 

Tripadvisor ranks for best {thing to do} in {city}
• Best walking tours in Lisbon
• Best restaurants in Atlanta
• Best parks in Edmonton

🏁 Players

Programmatic SEO Examples 

• Failory • Resources and interviews for startup founders.
• MentorCruise • Find programming, marketing and product management mentors.
• Legislate • Get employment, property and freelance legal contracts. 
• Zapier • Targets long-tail keywords around integrating apps. 
• G2 • Software comparison and review site.
• Canva • Design products using templates. 
• moveBuddha • Showcases popular moving routes by city. 
• Tripadvisor • Targets ‘best {thing} in {city}’ keywords.
• Payscale • Targets ‘{job title} salary’ keywords.
• Airtable • Offers use case specific templates.
• DelightChat • Ranks for ‘6 best {use case}’ apps for Shopify
• Product Hunt • Builds a related products page for each product.
• Wise • Runs a programmatic SEO strategy around exchange rates.
• Yelp • Shows lists of businesses in cities around the world. 

Programmatic SEO Tools

• Ahrefs • Find low-competition keywords.
• ScrapingBee • API-based web scraping tool.
• Simplescraper • Scrape websites and build APIs.
• Data Fetcher • Import data into Airtable.
• Webflow • Build dynamic pages based on templates.
• Placid • Generate images in bulk. 
• Airtable • Store data for page templates.
• WordPress • The most popular website builder.
• Notion • Build docs that can be published as websites. 
• ScrapeHero • Scrape website data.

🔮 Predictions

• No-code tools will become the main method to build pages.
  • Delight Chat built a Shopify App directory in one week.
  • Failory built a directory of 350+ pitch decks with Webflow. 
• Companies will use AI-writing tools to “write” content. The line between editorial and programmatic content is blurring.
  • Legislate uses AI writing tools to generate post introductions.
  • Failory uses AI writing tools for section descriptions when testing project ideas. 
• Low-volume keywords will become more competitive. No-codetools make it easier to implement programmatic SEO strategies. Leading to more competition.

☁️ Opportunities

• Use no-code tools to store data and build pages.
  • Capture data with Simplescraper or Data Fetcher
  • Move data into a CMS such as Airtable with Zapier, Make or Craftar
  • Build templates with Webflow or Softr
• Build directory-style sites and capture suggestions from visitors.
  • No Code List • Accepts submissions for no-code tools.
  • Startup Stash • Lets you list products for entrepreneurs. 
• Build a portfolio of projects. Failory targets the same audience with several projects:
  • Pitch Decks • A collection of 350+ pitch decks.
  • Startup Cemetery • 120+ startups that shut down.
  • Failed Startups • 70+ categories of 400+ failed startups. 
  • Unicorns • List of 1,000+ unicorn companies and their most recent valuations.
• Create content with AI writing tools. Serbay employs a proofreader to check results.
  • Jasper is an AI writing assistant.
  • CopyAI helps you write copy in seconds.
  • Longshot provides a set of tools like Rephraser.
  • Peppertype has trained on over 100K+ of content.
  • Rytr includes use case specific best practices and templates.
• Decide how to monetize your search traffic:
  • Sell Ads | See Failory and Zillow
  • Aggregate Listings | See Product Hunt
  • Build a Marketplace | See MentorCruise
  • Become an Affiliate | See The Points Guy
  • Build a SaaS | See Zapier, Legislate and Canva
  • Sell Leads | See moveBuddha, Thumbtack and Dental Departures
• Build a vertical search engine. Answer common questions.
  • IMDB | Actors’ names
  • EquityZen | Pre-IPO stock data
  • Tripadvisor | Things to do in your city
  • Yahoo Finance | Public stock price data
  • ZoomInfo | Contacts and roles in companies
  • Truework | Income verification for a companies

🏔️ Risks

• Platform Risk• Avoid single points of failure. Depending on traffic from one channel (Google Search) puts your business at risk.
• Thin Content• Serve enough valuable content on each page. 

🔥 Hot Take

• Editorial content will continue to work best for high-volume keywords. It’s worth the effort. Programmatic SEO is an efficient approach for long-tail keywords. Dominic Monn works with an agency to write long-form content alongside generated pages.

🔑 Key Lessons

• Keyword research is the foundation of effective SEO. Including Programmatic SEO.
• Long-tail keywords have less traffic but high-intent visitors.

😠 Haters

“This sounds technical. I need to learn how to code.”
We shared a no-code “recipe” for Programmatic SEO in the opportunities section.

“This sounds spammy.”
Zapier, Failory and Legislate use these strategies effectively. Ian Nuttall says, “…the goal for me isn’t just 100,000 pages. It’s to provide value on those 100,000 pages.” 

🔗 Links

• Who should I talk to about Programmatic SEO? • The tweet behind this report. 
• Creating a Programmatic SEO Operation with No-Code • See how Failory automates content creation with no-code tools. 
• How To Create 300 Landing Pages in a Week • A step-by-step guide with a case study.

📁 Related Reports

• Marketing Funnels • Getting search traffic is one step in a marketing funnel. 
• No-Code • No-code tools are used to capture, transform and display data.
• Growth Tools • “Engineering as marketing” projects have programmatic SEO elements. 
• Data as a Service • Combine APIs to provide value to visitors. See NomadList. 
• AI-Generated Content • The line between editorial and programmatic content is blurring.

🙏 Thanks

Thanks Charles Brecque, Nico Cerdeira, Shayla Price, Ahmet Soybelli, Dominic Monn, Stewart Townsend, Kevin Galang, Serbay Arda Ayzit, Ashwin, John Bardos, Maciej Cupial, Jason Pancake, Holger Sindbaek, Sam Hickmann, Kevin Dam and Marcos Ciarrocchi. We had a great time jamming on this report.

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

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0083 — Programmatic SEO has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 35 Programmatic SEO Examples (150% More)
• 23 Programmatic SEO Tools (130% More)
• 6 Predictions (100% More)
• 13 Opportunities (160% More)
• 4 Risks (100% More)
• 4 Key Lessons (100% More)
• 11 Links (266% More)
• 14-minute audio episode with exclusive Programmatic SEO  stories, insights and opportunities.

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) What are SEO best practices?
• (📈 Pro) Which company grew to $6 billion with an SEO-driven strategy?
• (📈 Pro) How to turn web visitors into email subscribers?
• (📈 Pro) How can SaaS companies build proprietary acquisition channels?
• (📈 Pro) What are doorway pages?
• (📈 Pro) How to get more backlinks?
• (📈 Pro) How to leverage user-generated content?
• (📈 Pro) Why 65% of Google Searches don’t lead to clicks?
• (📈 Pro) How to automatically build new pages?

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.

View on OpenSea

“Software is eating software.”

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

• Who’s building a no-code agency?
• What are 8 examples of web3, no-code tools?
• How to show your work?
• How to automate tasks and save time?
• Why will no-code tools lead to more million-dollar, one-person businesses?
• What are 8 examples of no-code communities?
• Why is no-code a gateway drug to code?

💎 Why It Matters

No-Code makes building products more accessible

🔍 Problem

Duplicating work wastes time, money and energy

💡 Solution 

No-code tools help you automate work and build products faster, cheaper and better.

Without writing code.

🏁 Players

No-Code Tools

• Zapier • Connect apps and automate workflows
• WordPress • Build websites and blogs
• Shopify • Build ecommerce sites
• Webflow • Build websites
• Bubble • Build web apps
• Bildr • Web3 tools, templates and building blocks
• Juicebox • Funding for people and projects
• Aragon • Build a DAO

Apps

• Lanva • Create shareable videos
• Teal • Manage the job application process
• Dividend Finance • Finance solar and home improvement projects
• Virtual Ghost Writer • Resolve writer’s block

Who to Follow

• Ben Tossell • Makerpad
• KP • Build in Public
• Naya Moss • Frauvis
• Max Haining • 100 Days of No-Code
• Lola • ​​Lunch Pail Labs
• Janel • NewsletterOS
• Samuel Thompson • Proven Ventures
• Doc Williams • Build with Me
• Yves Jean • Kodou
• Curtis Cummings • On Deck

🔮 Predictions

• No-Code tools will give individuals more leverage. This leads to smaller firms and more million-dollar, one-person businesses. Newsletter writers, podcast hosts and course creators benefit from no-code tools.
• No-Code tools will make web3 building more accessible.
  • Aragon helps you start DAOs
  • Juicebox helps you fund projects
  • Fractional helps you fractionalize NFTs
  • MintGate helps you sell token-gated content
  • NFTX helps you build liquidity pools for NFTs
  • Bildr will help you build sites to launch and mint NFTs
  • Thirdweb helps you build smart contracts without coding
  • Nifty Generator helps you build generative art NFT collections
• The types of products that you can build with no-code tools will expand. Blogs, online stores and marketplaces are table stakes. SaaS, mobile apps, games, cryptocurrencies and DAOs are becoming easier to build.

☁️ Opportunities

• Build a portfolio of work to break into no-code. Show proof of work to land a job or clients for your agency.
  • KP built no-code projects before becoming a program director for On Deck.
  • Héctor Reyes built and sold Coda templates before joining the Coda team.
  • Lola documents her no-code journey on the Lunch Pail Labs podcast.
  • Doc Williams makes no-code tutorials.

• Join a no-code community. Meet peers, build habits and discover opportunities. See:
  • 100 Days of No-Code
  • No Code Founders
  • On Deck No-Code
  • No Code MBA
  • NoCode.Tech
  • NoCodery
  • Makerpad
  • Nucode

• Automate tasks to save time and build no-code skills. Ask: “What are my routine, boring tasks?” Zapier, IFTTT and Integromat have thousands of integrations. Need ideas?
  • Automatically share Instagram posts to Twitter
  • Get alerts when new leads come in
  • Track Shopify orders in Slack

• Start a no-code agency. Time-to-revenue for services is shorter than products. See Minimum Studio, 8020, Lunch Pail Labs and Finsweet. Build the first version of your product with a no-code tool. No-Code helps you validate ideas faster and cheaper. Alex is building a video editing app with Bubble.

🏔️ Risks

• Platform Risk • What if a no-code tool shuts down, changes policies or gets acquired? Unlike open-source frameworks (such as Ruby on Rails and React), most no-code tools are closed-source.
• Missing Concepts • No-Coders may not understand database design at first. This can lead to technical debt. Or is it non-technical debt?

🔑 Key Lessons

• You don’t have to understand how everything works to use it. Most developers have not built an operating system or programming language. Yet they use them. You can use no-code tools without understanding every aspect.
• No-Code gives you a competitive advantage. Why recreate the wheel? No-code apps are easier to build and maintain.
• No-Code is a gateway drug to code. Building end-to-end products with no-code tools helps you become comfortable with code.

🔥 Hot Takes

• The no-code movement will create more developers. Not less. No-code is on-ramp for those initially intimidated by code.
• The best developers focus on outcomes. They don’t have not-invented-here syndrome. They embrace no-code tools, keep things DRY and understand opportunity costs.

😠 Haters

“There’s code under the hood. Why is it called no-code?”
There’s code. But you can build things without writing code.


“No-Code apps can’t scale.”
Most can. The need to scale is a good problem to have.
Most products don’t get that far. Solve it when you get there.

🔗 Links

• Who should I talk to about no-code? • The tweet behind this report.
• The No-Code Movement • See how no-code affects your ability to bootstrap.
• Building the Future of No-Code • On the possibilities of no-code and crypto.

📁 Related Reports

• The Creator Economy • Lower transaction costs lead to smaller firms.
• Low-Code • Low-Code tools reduce repetition along with No-Code.
• Competitor Risk • No-Code tools make it easier to reach feature parity. 
• Million-Dollar, One-Person Businesses • Individuals have more leverage than ever. 
• Paid Newsletters • No-code democratized publishing.

🙏 Thanks

Thanks Stewart Townsend, Prabhjot Singh Lamba, Ash, Dan Parry, Max Haining, Chris Strobl, Will Dyess, Philip Lakin, Yves Jean and Nile Frater. We had a great time jamming on this report.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0078 — No-Code has more insights.

What you’ll get:

• 30 No-Code Tools (275% More)
• 8 Apps (100% More)
• 28 People to Follow (180% More)
• 10 Predictions (233% More)
• 12 Opportunities (140% More)
• 6 Key Lessons (100% More)
• 4 Hot Takes (100% More)
• 10 Links (233% More)
• 12-minute audio episode with exclusive No-Code stories, insights and opportunities.

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

• (📈 Pro) How to build a no-code productized service?
• (📈 Pro) Which no-code tools are used to make games?
• (📈 Pro) How to use no-code tools to generate leads?
• (📈 Pro) How to get no-code versions of popular apps like Upwork and Product Hunt?
• (📈 Pro) How to build a marketplace with no-code tools?
• (📈 Pro) How do no-code tools help The Creator Economy?
• (📈 Pro) Why are technical moats fading?
• (📈 Pro) How does no-code affect fundraising?

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.