💭 What 11 Things Could Have Saved You Years of Struggle?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🥱 Why you’re so tired
🔍 An AI SEO playbook
💭 11 pieces of life advice
✨ A curated list of Mac apps
🤖 Cursor instructions for GPT-5
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Each try brings you closer to success.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

✨ Awesome Mac Apps shared by Elia Zane
A curated list of great macOS software

🔍 AI SEO Playbook shared by Ben Fisher
How to optimize your content for AI search

🤖 GPT-5 Cursor Instructions shared by Alper Tunga
Custom Cursor Agent instructions optimized for GPT-5

🧿 HeadsUp of the Week

Notion just quietly launched ‘Agents’ that can actually DO tasks for you.

This is the first major productivity tool to go fully autonomous.

Agents can manage your projects, update databases and handle workflows while you sleep.

The shift from ‘AI assistant’ to ‘AI employee’ is happening faster than we expected.

Spotted by HeadsUp competitor monitoring from Trends.vc

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley added backlink, keyword and domain authority tracking for competitors to HeadsUp

🌱 Jason A Erickson hit 5,000 monthly organic search visits with Simply Lawn Directory

🎓 Paul Martin collected 50 resources for learning Web3

🖥️ Yuyu launched What Is My Screen Size on Product Hunt

🚀 Paul Metcalfe launched Founder

🔧 Try This

What 11 Things Could Have Saved You Years of Struggle?

One bad thing can ruin your entire month. But here’s how good and bad can coexist:

Replace perfection with interest
Build competence to eliminate fear
Remember your choices belong only to you

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

🖼️ Aragon AI — Use AI to do a photo shoot

🎬 Zebracat — Create marketing videos with AI

👨‍💻 CodeFast — Learn to code in weeks, not months

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

❔ Ask Yourself

Why Are You So Tired?

Here’s why nowadays everybody’s so tired:

Modern life is chemically draining: Screens block sleep chemicals (melatonin), while work demands and decisions build up brain toxins that need proper sleep to clear out.
Our brains weren’t built for this: We make lots of decisions daily vs our ancestors’ simple choices. Each decision creates chemical buildup (glutamate) that exhausts us, even without physical work.
We fight natural rhythms: Everyone has a natural sleep pattern (chronotype), but modern schedules force a one-size-fits-all approach. Plus, we block tiredness signals with caffeine, leading to harder crashes.

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Next meetup: October 20

👋 New Trends Pro Members

David Robson (Spiral Math)
Vara Kumar
Caleb Hong
Tana Parrott
Sofia Salazar

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🚀 Where to Launch to Get Your First Customers?

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Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

AI Impact on Work: Most Affected Jobs, AI Tools to Master, Staying Competitive

“At the heart of capitalism is creative destruction.” — Joseph A. Schumpeter

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

Why is AI more than task automation?
What jobs are most affected by AI?
How to remain a valuable employee in the AI era?
What AI tools to master to stay competitive against AI tools?

⭐ Why does the impact of AI on jobs matter?

AI tools are “intelligent units” that go beyond task automation. They can create original work: market analysis, risk assessment, investment insights and more. This helps employees focus on more complex and creative aspects of their jobs.

But people are concerned about job displacement.

With so much uncertainty, we’re diving into how AI impacts the future of jobs.

🤖 What jobs are most affected by AI?

Customer Service Agents
AI chatbots can resolve standard customer queries and complaints without call center staff.

Digital Marketers
AI can create, manage and optimize marketing strategies involving social media, search engines, email, content creation and online advertising.

Salespeople
AI can manage customer inquiries through chatbots, analyze consumer behavior, qualify leads, do cold outreach and predict future buying trends to optimize sales strategies.

🚀 How can you survive the adoption of AI?

The first thing that you can do is use AI tools. This is the reality. If you rely on yourself only, you may lose to a colleague that knows how to use AI to do tasks faster and better than you.

But here are other ways to remain valuable and competitive:

Customer Service Agents

Learn AI tools to automate routine tasks so you can focus on more complex and high-value customer interactions. Find ways to communicate to offer a personal touch that AI can’t match.

AI tools for customer service agents:

Brainfish is an AI for self-service customer support.
Tidio interacts with customers as a real customer support agent.
Yuma offers automated AI customer service for Shopify merchants.
Balto offers real-time call guidance in customer support call centers.
Kustomer is a customer service platform with AI chatbots and assistants.

Digital Marketers

Build strategies that resonate with audiences based on your domain expertise and cultural knowledge. Use consumer psychology to adapt your marketing efforts to world events and trending topics.

AI tools for digital marketers:

Fullstory uses AI to analyze customer behaviour.
Customers.ai offers in-depth visitor insights and remarketing.
Albert.ai is an autonomous AI agent that builds and optimizes marketing campaigns.
Surfer SEO uses AI to boost organic traffic, increase visibility and improve your rank in search results.
Brand24 uses AI to track mentions across social media, news, blogs, videos, forums, podcasts, reviews and more.

Salespeople

Build strong relationships with customers by focusing on trust and a personal touch. Keep in touch with your clients after sales to solve problems and make sure they remain happy with your service. Clients are real people, not mere quotas.

AI tools for salespeople:

Regie.ai is an all-in-one hub for AI sales outreach.
Bland AI helps you build, test and scale AI phone agents.
Reply.io sets up outreach sequences, handles prospect replies and books meetings.
B2B Rocket offers AI agents that can dial your leads, engage them and book meetings.
Oliv is an AI sales rep that does pre-meeting research, takes live notes and updates CRM after every call.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0149 — AI Impact on Work has more insights.

What you’ll get:

12 Jobs Most Affected by AI (300% More)
12 Ways to Survive The Adoption of AI Tools (300% More)
60 AI Tools to Master to Stay a Valuable (300% More)
12 Expert Opinions on the Future of Jobs (1,200% More)
15 Data Points From AI Industry Impact Reports (1,500% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) Which companies have already replaced workers with AI?
(📈 Pro) What do experts say about the future of jobs?
(📈 Pro) How is AI taking away your competitive advantage?
(📈 Pro) Who’s had their job taken by AI?
(📈 Pro) What B2B opportunities does AI open up for entrepreneurs?
(📈 Pro) How many employees use AI at work?
(📈 Pro) How many organizations have an AI training program?
(📈 Pro) What percentage of companies plan to replace jobs with AI?
(📈 Pro) What jobs will be “reserved” for humans for a long time?
(📈 Pro) How to boost employee morale when adopting AI tools?
And much more…

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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.

🧍 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

🦾 How to Build Better AI Agents?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎁 The best AI apps of 2024
🦾 A guide to building AI agents
🌐 An AI agent Chrome extension
💡 Why challenge core assumptions
🌱 How to improve all aspects of your life
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Beginning is always the hardest.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🦾 Building Effective Agents shared by Sam McKay
A guide on building AI agents from Anthropic

🎁 a16z Apps Unwrapped shared by Grady Laksmono
The best AI apps of 2024 according to a16z

🌐 Do Browser shared by Stewart Townsend
An AI agent Chrome extension to automate complex tasks

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

👁️ Elie Steinbock made a video about app QA with computer vision

👨‍💻 Sam McKay is open sourcing Prompt Array

🎨 Yuyu built a color converter

🖼️ Shushant Lakhyani wrote a Canva guide

📘 Read This

How to Improve All Aspects of Your Life?

Here’s how tiny changes in your day can make a big difference in your life:

Start with one good habit and make it a routine. Once that’s easy, add more good habits. Don’t change everything at once.
Find a habit that makes it easier to do other good things. If you start exercising, you might also find it easier to eat healthy and sleep better.
Instead of forcing yourself to make good choices, let your good habit lead the way. If you drink water when you wake up, let that help you choose a healthy breakfast.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

🎨 Relume — Use AI for web design

🔎 Osum — Perform market research with AI

🎞️ Gling.ai — Let AI edit your videos

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

🔧 Try This

Are You Wrong About Your Customers?

Traditional “best practices” like $.99 pricing aren’t always optimal.

Canva found charging $15 instead of $14.99 performed better.

The point is… Challenge your core assumptions by running experiments, as market behaviors and customer preferences often change and defy conventional wisdom.

🍢 Trends Tribe

1-on-1 live meetups for Trends Pro Members.

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Solve problems faster
Help each other grow

Next meetup: January 20

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🛠️ Collection of Custom Cursor Rules

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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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Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

AI Search Optimization (AEO): Replacing Google, 13x Conversions, $7.3 billion market

“The best place to hide a dead body is page two of Google search results.”

Get Full Access to Trends Pro

❓ What You’ll Learn

How to transform existing content for AI?
How to get 13x better conversion rates?
What’s the pay-to-play future of AI search?
What will be the role of voice search?
How do AI platform preferences differ from traditional search?

💎 Why It Matters

AI search is becoming the go-to way for billions of people to shop, learn and more.

🔍 Problem

AI searches are on track to overtake traditional search (Google) by 2027.

💡 Solution

Answer engine optimization (AEO) makes brands visible in AI-generated responses.

🏁 Players

Promptwatch • Real-time tracking with conversion attribution. Booking.com client.
PromptMonitor • Affordable multi-platform tracking.
Profound • Tracking 9+ platforms. $20M from Kleiner Perkins.
AthenaHQ • Ex-Google/DeepMind team. Y Combinator W25. $2.1M raised.
Peec AI • Marketing analytics with percentage visibility metrics.

🔮 Predictions

AI search will overtake traditional search by late 2027. Traditional search will drop 25% by 2026.
The AEO market will reach $7.3 billion by 2031. Growing 34% annually from $886 million today.
Voice will become the primary interface. Local searches will shift to voice-first as smart speakers proliferate.
Platforms like ChatGPT and Claude will introduce transaction fees for purchase-intent searches. Pay-to-play for product visibility.

☁️ Opportunities

Optimize your own content for AI search. Citations improve visibility up to 40%. Adding statistics boost another 40%.
Build optimized content creation tools. Combine traditional SEO with AEO capabilities. See Frase, Copy.ai and Surfer.
Launch an AEO agency. Only 22% of marketers track AI mentions. Charge $4,000-13,000/month.
Target niche markets with design concessions. Build AEO tools exclusively for Shopify’s 2.3 million stores. Local businesses managing multiple locations is a great niche too. Generic AEO platforms can’t match specific features without degrading the experience for other users.
Build a browser extension showing AI visibility scores. Make the Keywords Everywhere extension for the AEO age.

🔑 Key Lessons

Multi-platform optimization is essential. Traditional search engines will still be relevant for a long time. Integration trumps isolation. AEO complements traditional SEO, doesn’t replace it.
A lot of traditional SEO tactics will transfer. Schema markup helps AI understand content.

😠 Haters

“AEO is just SEO with a fancy name.”
Lily Ray argues techniques overlap. But AI synthesis requires different strategic thinking than ranking for keywords. AEO uses different ranking factors than Google. Citation patterns and confidence scores don’t exist in traditional SEO.

“AI companies will shut down AEO like Google killed link farms.”
It seems like they are not incentivized. They will most likely get in on the transactional actions.

“AI won’t overtake Google. It has AI overviews in the search.”
It will overtake traditional search. What do you picture when you hear “traditional search”? We bet it’s Google.

🔗 Links

From 2 to $3M ARR • Tally founders explain how ChatGPT became their #1 referral source.
AEO vs SEO Explained • Industry can’t agree on terminology for AI optimization.
Answer Engine Optimization Is The New SEO • Learn how AI chat is converging with search.
Proven AEO Optimization Case Studies • See how AI-sourced visitors convert at 27% compared to just 2.1% from standard search traffic (13x better).
AI Discoverability • Read how you can get ChatGPT to recommend your brand.

📈 What else?

Trends PRO #0152 — AI Search Optimization (AEO) has more insights.

What you’ll get:

15 AEO Tools (150% More)
8 Predictions (100% More)
12 Opportunities (140% More)
5 Key Lessons (150% More)
8 Links (60% More)

With Trends Pro you’ll learn:

(📈 Pro) Which types of search queries get AI visibility?
(📈 Pro) How to optimize for regional AI platforms?
(📈 Pro) What international markets are wide open?
(📈 Pro) What metrics will replace traditional rankings?
(📈 Pro) Which SEO giants are making major AEO acquisitions?
(📈 Pro) Which industries need vertical AEO?
(📈 Pro) How does voice change everything?
(📈 Pro) What ranking factors does AEO use?
(📈 Pro) What threatens traditional SEO distribution?
And much more…

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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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Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

🚀 Where to Launch to Get Your First Customers?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🌱 36 life lessons
🚀 A list of launch platforms
💬 An AI voice dictation tool
⛰️ How to make better career choices
🍌 A collection of Nano Banana use cases
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Execution is getting easier. Attention is getting harder.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💬 Typeless shared by Shushant Lakhyani
An AI voice dictation tool with real-time editing

🚀 Launch Platforms List shared by Shivam
10 launch platforms to get your first SaaS customers

🍌 Awesome Nano Banana Images shared by Alper Tunga
A collection of images and prompts made with Nano Banana

🧿 Guess the Company

This scheduling platform just replaced “Custom Pricing” on their Enterprise plan with actual numbers. Tiny copy change that sends a big signal about who they want as customers.

They realized they can save time and energy by filtering out people who won’t pay their minimum rates upfront.

Can you name the company?

Calendesk
Clockwise
Calendly
Doodle

Don’t cheat: You can read more about this here.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley improved feedback collection for alerts in HeadsUp.

⚙️ Jd Fiscus made a video on building an AI-powered social media scheduler

📨 Elie Steinbock posted a customer case study for Inbox Zero

🗣️ Alper Tunga became a representative for Kombai

✍️ Knight posted his August recap

📘 Read This

What Would You Tell Your Younger Self About Life?

Sam Altman turned 30 and distilled a decade of experience into 36 life lessons that challenge how most people think about work, relationships and taking risks.

Here’s what stands out:

Take calculated risks, especially early in your career
Work extremely hard but not so hard that life passes you by
Choose truly close friends over hundreds of acquaintances time is limited
Remember that youth is valuable, so don’t waste it overthinking every decision

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

💲 Reply.io — Automate sales outreach

🎞️ Zubtitle — Edit social media videos fast

📊 Julius AI — Analyze your data with computational AI

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

❔ Ask Yourself

How Do You Know If You’re Doing The Wrong Thing?

Here’s how to not get trapped into optimizing the wrong life path:

Add randomness to your career path early on
Recognize when you’re climbing a hill you don’t want to reach the top of
Resist the lure of immediate upward steps when you can see a better hill in the distance

🍢 Trends Tribe

1-on-1 live meetups for Trends Pro Members.

Make real connections
Solve problems faster
Help each other grow

Next meetup: October 20

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
📊 AI Spreadsheet Tool

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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

⚠️ Could These Seductive AI Ideas Be Why Your Agents Don’t Work in Practice?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

💰 Redefining wealth
📊 An AI spreadsheet tool
⚠️ Common AI agent traps
📈 Optimization vs. growth
🏔️ The power of consistency
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

The fear of something is often worse than the reality.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

📈 Growth vs. Optimization shared by Elia Zane
A podcast episode on how to avoid optimization creep

⚠️ AI Agent Mind Viruses shared by Eddie Forson
3 common pitfalls in coding AI agents

📊 Paradigm shared by Hitesh Kar
An AI spreadsheet tool to automate data collection and research

🧿 Guess the Company

This global consulting firm just launched an AI chatbot that can answer questions with decades of consulting insights.

Imagine having instant access to insights behind some of the world’s biggest business decisions.

The democratization of knowledge is accelerating.

Can you name the company?

Accenture
McKinsey
Booz Allen
Deloitte

Don’t cheat: You can read more about this here.

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley added Slack and webhook integrations to HeadsUp

🦉 Jakub Nowikowski launched Noic

🔋 Sofia Vistas launched the beta version of Undodesk

⚖️ Josh Kubicki wrote about the implications of AI use in law

🖥️ Yuyu launched What Is My Screen Size

🔧 Try This

Why Do Most People Quit Right Before Their Breakthrough Moment?

To be great, be consistently good at what you do, day after day:

Focus on being predictably decent rather than occasionally spectacular
Push through the local minimums where most people quit
Take actions that create predictable results

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

💲 Reply.io — Automate sales outreach

🎞️ Zubtitle — Edit social media videos fast

📊 Julius AI — Analyze your data with computational AI

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

❔ Ask Yourself

What If Wealth Has Nothing to Do With Making More Money?

Derek Sivers breaks down wealth into a simple equation: Wealth = Have/Want:

Wealth is about feeling like you have plenty of what you want
Play the inner game instead of the outer game — seek ways to want less
Lowering your desires instead of boosting your income is a shift that makes you rich immediately

🍢 Trends Tribe

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The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🔧 Claude Cod e Templates

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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.

🧍 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

🎰 What Makes TikTok More Addictive Than a Slot Machine?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

✨ The Genie 3 world model
🧐 An app for better visual focus
🎰 What makes TikTok so addictive?
💙 How to support a struggling friend
🔧 A template collection for Claude Code
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Clarity is an underrated form of leverage.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🔧 Claude Code Templates shared by Alper Tunga
A collection of agents and configurations for Claude Code

✨ Genie 3: An Infinite World Model shared by Eddie Forson
An episode of Google DeepMind focusing on Genie 3

🧐 FocusDim shared by Shushant Lakhyani
A Mac app to improve your visual focus

🧿 HeadsUp of the Week

Building a course or community platform? Steal this brilliant revenue tactic.

What passion.io Just Did: Helped creators clone themselves to serve thousands of students at once. The AI learns each creator’s style and content, then manages unlimited personal chats.

Steal This Tactic: Give your users AI that acts like them. When creators charge more for personal attention, you earn more too.

Spotted by HeadsUp competitor monitoring from Trends.vc

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley extended the HeadsUp free trial to 30 days

💬 Max launched Easy Custdev

🛠️ Alexandre Kantjas is hosting a workshop on Airtable Omni

🎉 Eddie Forson hosted the AI Mavericks 2025 Summer Party

🎙️ Sam McKay hosted a podcast on GPT-5

👀 Watch This

What Makes TikTok More Addictive Than a Slot Machine?

Here’s why TikTok is so dangerously engaging:

Habit loop with minimal effort. You swipe just once to start the chain reaction, then each swipe makes the next one more automatic.
Combination of short content with high variability. Short videos with unpredictable rewards form compulsive behavior.
Behavior data over manual preferences. TikTok tracks your reactions in real-time, adapting fast to keep you hooked.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

💲 Reply.io — Automate sales outreach

🎞️ Zubtitle — Edit social media videos fast

📊 Julius AI — Analyze your data with computational AI

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

❔ Ask Yourself

When Does Helping Actually Hurt Your Friend?

Here’s how to give advice to your struggling friend to make things better:

Ask direct questions instead of assuming you know how they feel
Don’t downplay problems or jump straight to solutions
Give emotional support first, then cognitive support
Avoid taking charge or being directive

🍢 Trends Tribe

1-on-1 live meetups for Trends Pro Members.

Make real connections
Solve problems faster
Help each other grow

Next meetup: September 15

👋 New Trends Pro Members

Michael Winchell
Tharindu Madhusanka (Propel DX)
Abdullah Ali
He Feng
Trent

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
💻 How to Make Cursor Learn From Its Mistakes?

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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

💻 How to Make Cursor Learn From Its Mistakes?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎯 Why can’t you focus?
⚙️ PostHog’s operating handbook
🏃‍♀️ An app for sharing your workouts
💬 A deep dive into prompt engineering
💻 A compounding AI coding framework
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

💻 Compounding Engineering shared by Ben Fisher
How to build an AI development system that learns from all mistakes

💬 The Prompt Report shared by Devon Artis
An in-depth survey of prompt engineering methods

🏃‍♀️ Share Aura shared by Paul Metcalfe
An iPhone app to share your workouts on social media

🧿 HeadsUp of the Week

Building a SaaS? Steal this brilliant onboarding tactic.

What Glean Did: Built a library of templates based on real customer workflows. Just pick a template, customize and launch.

Steal This Tactic: Don’t make users start from scratch. Build templates for the most common use cases.

Spotted by HeadsUp competitor monitoring from Trends.vc

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley added a way to track multiple markets in HeadsUp

🌐 Elie Steinbock made a video on Browser MCP

📖 Maciej Cupial made ChatGPT for Kindle

🎙️ Andrew Gazdecki was featured in the Fintech Mavericks Podcast

👥 Tharindu Madhusanka unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

👀 Watch This

Why Can’t You Focus?

Here’s how media consumption is destroying your ability to focus:

Reading builds focus, screens kill it: Unlike books that train deep thinking, TV and internet push bite-sized content. Shifting from hour-long debates to 8-minute clips shows how attention spans shrink.
The internet is designed against you: Platforms use psychology and design to steal attention. Even creators who built them (like Jobs and Zuckerberg) limit their kids’ screen time.
You can rewire your brain: Take phone breaks, watch movies without scrolling and practice undistracted walks. Your brain can adapt – make it learn to focus again.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

💲 Reply.io — Automate sales outreach

🎞️ Zubtitle — Edit social media videos fast

📊 Julius AI — Analyze your data with computational AI

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

📘 Read This

How Do Successful Companies Operate?

PostHog is a product analytics tool that we use at Trends.vc to split test copy, track conversions and more.

In this handbook, PostHog shares how they work.

From how they get users and make them happy, to how they make money and decide what to build.

This handbook will help you get a sneak peek into how successful companies operate.

🍢 Trends Tribe

1-on-1 live meetups for Trends Pro Members.

Make real connections
Solve problems faster
Help each other grow

Next meetup: September 15

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🎨 Collection of Newsletter Site Designs

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

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

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

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

🐇 Do You Want to Go Faster or Further?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📹 An alternative to Loom
🎨 A website design collection
💨 How to fix indoor air quality
📊 A dashboard for SaaS metrics
🐇 Spring vs. marathon businesses
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Success leaves clues. Pay attention to patterns.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🎨 Good Websites shared by Paul Metcalfe
A collection of newsletter site designs built with beehiiv’s site builder

📹 Cap shared by Elie Steinbock
An open-source alternative to Loom

📊 ZapDigits shared by Shushant Lakhyani
A dashboard for accessing SaaS metrics in one place

🧿 HeadsUp of the Week

Every software tool should steal this move.

What Jotform Did: Added a “support” bot that creates forms for new users. Just type in what you need, get the form, edit and preview.

Steal This Tactic: If you’re building a software tool, instead of only offering support, turn user questions into prompts to deliver results. Cut time-to-value and boost conversions.

Spotted by HeadsUp competitor monitoring from Trends.vc

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley reached #1 Product of the Day with HeadsUp

💡 Philip Obosi made a framework for evaluating business ideas

✨ Tim Guruge launched PopHop on Product Hunt

💼 Paul Martin co-wrote a report on the state of Web3 jobs

👥 Rose unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups

❔ Ask Yourself

Do You Want to Go Faster or Further?

Here’s a critical choice every entrepreneur must make:

Sprint businesses focus on speed: Like launching viral apps, flipping websites or creating trending products. You aim to move fast, capitalize on current demand and exit quickly.
Marathon businesses build for distance: Like building enterprise software, a consulting practice or launching a SaaS tool. You focus on sustainability, long-term relationships and compound growth.
Match your style to your strength: Pick based on your resources, skills and goals. Sprinters need intense focus and quick execution, while marathon runners need stamina and systems for the long haul.

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

💲 Reply.io — Automate sales outreach

🎞️ Zubtitle — Edit social media videos fast

📊 Beam Analytics — Get more insight into your web traffic

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

📘 Read This

How Can Stale Indoor Air Slow Your Brain?

Here’s how to identify and fix poor indoor air quality that can affect your health and mental performance:

Just like your lungs, your brain needs fresh air – sitting in the same recycled air makes it harder to think clearly
Dusty, dry, or humid air makes you sneeze and struggle to breathe – but filters and humidifiers can help
Your brain slows down by half when you sit in stale air – and you won’t even notice it happening

🍢 Trends Tribe

1-on-1 live meetups for Trends Pro Members.

Make real connections
Solve problems faster
Help each other grow

Next meetup: September 15

👋 New Trends Pro Members

NJ
Alexander Bastien
Nicolaas Verheem
Raoul Bracht
Tatyana Smirnova

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
✂️ Keeping Things Simple and Tuning out Folly

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

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

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

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

✂️ Why Are You Choosing Complexity Instead of Simplicity?

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🤖 An LLM market report
✂️ The power of simplicity
💭 What is process visualization
🚀 AI tactics for SaaS businesses
🐒 An AI Chrome extension builder
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

The stickiest lessons come at the steepest prices.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🚀 9 AI Tactics from Top SaaS Founders shared by Hitesh Kar
A video on data-driven AI tactics to win in B2B SaaS today

🤖 2025 Mid-Year LLM Market Update shared by Eddie Forson
A report on the state of enterprise AI

🐒 Robomonkey shared by Elie Steinbock
An AI tool to build Chrome extensions

🧿 Tactic of the Week

Every technical company should steal this move.

What AWS Did: Added a “Get the gist” AI bot that explains technical jargon in plain English.

Steal This Tactic: If you’re building a technical product, add an AI-powered explanation tool to reduce user confusion.

Spotted by HeadsUp competitor monitoring from Trends.vc

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley reached 57 weekly active users for a competitor intelligence agent

💼 Jero Esguerra launched a remote marketing job board

✨ Sam McKay launched Content Lead

🎞️ Wojtek Wozniak reached 1,000 free users for gFLUO

📺 Elie Steinbock reached 8,000 YouTube subscribers

🔧 Try This

How Can Process Visualization Transform Your Daily Productivity?

Most people visualize the end result, but that creates fantasy thinking. The real power is imagining the work itself:

Imagine enjoying the tasks instead of dreaming about completing them
Notice what you don’t like when actually doing the work, then adjust your mental practice
Picture the process. Think about where you’ll work, when you’ll start and how you’ll feel doing it

🐦 Tweet of the Week

🛠️ Tools of the Week

💲 Reply.io — Automate sales outreach

🎞️ Zubtitle — Edit social media videos fast

📊 Beam Analytics — Get more insight into your web traffic

💬 Join the Conversation

Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…

(📈 Pro) Best blogging platforms
(📈 Pro) Building LLM chatbot apps
(📈 Pro) Best prompt engineering courses

📘 Read This

Why Are You Choosing Complexity Instead of Simplicity?

We love complexity because it feels smart. But the best thinkers know that simplicity wins.

Look for simple solutions that others miss while chasing fancy approaches
Use three buckets: in, out, and too hard—move fast past what doesn’t fit
Learn what to ignore because filtering beats processing everything

🍢 Trends Tribe

1-on-1 live meetups for Trends Pro Members.

Make real connections
Solve problems faster
Help each other grow

Next meetup: August 18

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
💪 Are You Failing Enough?

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

Become a Trends Pro Member and join 1,200+ founders enjoying…

🧠 Founder Mastermind Groups • To share goals, progress and solve problems together, each group is made up of 6 members who meet for 1 hour each Monday.

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

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

🧍 Daily Standups • Stay productive and accountable with daily, async standups. Unlock access to 1:1 chats, masterminds and more by building standup streaks.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp