Drop Culture: Manufacturing Scarcity, Financial Derivatives, Blind Auctions

This is the free version of Trends PRO #0026 — Drop Culture

🔍 Problem

We are status seeking monkeys, as Eugene Wei says.

💡 Solution

Brands manufacture scarcity (and status) to drive sales.

Constricting supply amplifies word of mouth. Everyone talks. Those who were able to get it, missed it and hate it. They spread the word.

Drop culture has moved from fashion to software and experiences.

🏁 Players

Products

Brands

Platforms

🔮 Predictions

Influencers will hoard items, influence culture then release them for profit. The song, RAF, made Raf Simmons’ items skyrocket in value. What if A$AP Rocky bought pieces before releasing the song?
ETFs and financial derivatives will form around streetwear. StockX holds IPOs (Initial Product Offerings). Some users trade items without taking possession.
Platforms will get unbundled. Chrono24 exists outside of watch categories on StockX and eBay.

☁️ Opportunities

Become a reseller. Brands must create scarcity for drops. Unmet demand is your margin. Convert access into capital.
Use drop notifications to get emails, phone numbers and downloads. You can text 917-540-3113 or download the MSCHF app for alerts. Cryptocurrency airdrops use a similar strategy.
Post items on Instagram and run blind auctions via DMs. Take the best price.
Drop access to your paid community. The Book of Resale randomly opens spots in the group. (From a Trends Pro, Ethan Jones)
Manufacture scarcity. Create an imbalance of supply and demand. Don’t have a large audience? Constrict supply even more. A stadium is scarce for Taylor Swift. Your version may be a tiny desk.
Weave items into stories. Michael Jordan’s “Flu Game” shoes fetched $104,000. Sell items featured in your YouTube, Instagram and TikTok (🤞) videos. Let your audience own part of the story.
Reverse engineer product market fit and make scarcity a side effect. Accept ideal users. Put others on a waiting list.

😠 Haters

“This is exclusionary.”
That’s the point. Drops fail without scarcity. They also subsidize art for the masses.

“It’s not all about status.”
Some of us find streetwear, art and experiences interesting without artificial scarcity. But this report is about drop culture. And those drawn to hype.

🔗 Links

A Walk with Mr. MSCHF — A rare interview with Gabe Whaley, founder of MSCHF.
StockX’s Josh Luber — Get the origin story and vision of StockX.
7 Marketing Lessons From Drop Culture — Find out why drops work.
How Two Sneaker Moguls Are Bringing Drop Culture to the Whiskey World — A duo uses drop culture to sell whisky for $185 per bottle.
Reinventing the Resell — A ~~argumentative~~ passionate panel represents different perspectives in drop culture. From marketplaces to manufacturing and retail.

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Digital Products: Validating Demand, Value Ladders, Piracy

This is the free version of Trends PRO #0022 Digital Products

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🔍 Problem

Selling time doesn’t scale.

💡 Solution

Digital products, like eBooks, courses and fonts, allow you to help at scale. You can build once, sell twice, as Jack Butcher says.

🏁 Players

Products

Name	Creator	Type
Maker Minions Workshop	Michael Gill	Course
Your Productized Consulting Guide	Jane Portman	eBook
Substation Theme	Dan Rowden	Ghost Theme
Bite-Size Python	April Speight	eBook
Drrac	Martin Ryden	Carrd Theme
Profitable Newsletters	Chris Osborne	Course
Zero to Sold	Arvid Kahl	eBook
4 Week Bariatric Diet	Kristin Willard	Meal Plan
The Standout Developer	Randall Kanna	eBook
Scrapbook	Kacper Staniul	Airtable Database
SEO Cheat-Sheet	Benas Leonavicius	eBook
React for Data Visualization	Swizec Teller	Course
ORBITAL	Kyle Beats	Drum Kit
EcoShot	Stuart Powell	eBook
Simple Slides	Paul Burke	PowerPoint Slides
Build Once, Sell Twice	Jack Butcher	Course
FRIENDLY AMBITIOUS NERD	Visakan Veerasamy	eBook
Standard Financial Model	Taylor Davidson	Spreadsheet
The $10K Website Process	Ran Segall	Course
Marketing for Developers	Justin Jackson	eBook and Course
Imposter Syndrome	Pete Codes	eBook
PLAN 915-8	Tumbleweed Tiny House Company	House Plan
No-Code MVP	Bram Kanstein	Course
Watercolor Teacher	Kristi Dominguez	Printables
100 Business Models	Gennaro Cuofano	eBook
McDonnell Douglas FA-18C Hornet	Dmitriy Sidelev	3D Model
Better Sheets	Andrew Kamphey	Course
Twitter for No-Coders	Jens Lennartsson	eBook
Font Personality	Taughnee Stone Golubović	Swipe File
No Code MBA	Seth Kramer	Course
Drinking Board Game	CatAndBru	Printable Board Game

🔮 Predictions

The line will blur between digital and physical products. Platforms like Printful and Printify allow you to turn digital products into mugs, shirts, 3D printed parts, paintings, stickers and more.
Digital product platforms will be unbundled. Look at sites like BeatStars, Houseplans and MyFonts. Individual platforms will be built to sell swipe files, spreadsheets or printables. The same happened with Craigslist.

☁️ Opportunities

Build an audience to learn about customers needs. Start a newsletter or podcast. Leverage your audience from YouTube, Twitter, Instagram and beyond.
Presell to verify demand. This will force you to clarify what you are building. Those who pre-purchase can offer feedback.
Offer early bird pricing. Reward early supporters with discounted prices.
Leverage niche communities for distribution. Answer questions and support others on platforms like Indie Hackers, Reddit and Product Hunt.
Build a content ladder to validate demand. Start with tweets and blog posts. Then move to books and courses. You can save time if early content does not resonate.
Combine digital products with paid communities to curb piracy and unpredictable revenue. Community can’t be pirated.
Allow “lifetime access” to courses and databases to boost perceived value. This translates into real value if you provide updates.
Build a value ladder. Have a foot-in-the-door offer that delivers massive value. This builds trust. Happy customers are more likely to make larger purchases.
Read the report on online courses if you want to make a course.
Build a digital product fast by curating. Create a swipe file of great UI designs, cold emails or landing page copy.

😠 Haters

“What about piracy?”
Every business model has weaknesses. Digital products suffer from piracy and unpredictable revenue. Niche communities have reverse network effects. Agencies have high marginal costs. Most SaaS businesses have no moat. There’s no free lunch. Pick your pain. Then stack business models to hedge the downsides.

“Digital product is a euphemism for information product.”
Nice try 😉 Information products include eBooks and courses. Digital products also include WordPress themes, typefaces, comics, floor plans and 3D models.

“You didn’t include apps.”
I excluded apps and subscription products to control the scope of this report.

🔗 Links

Leverage Information • How to leverage knowledge from your current field to create digital products.
The Ladders of Wealth Creation • A classic post on improving the quality of your income over time.
Open Report • 8 months of sales and expenses from Daniel Vassallo.
Creating Passive Income with Digital Products • How Jen Wagner makes money by selling fonts.

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Angel Investing: Syndicates, Belief Capital, Investment Pre-Mortems

This is the free version of Trends PRO #0018 Angel Investing

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🔍 Problem

Founders need early believers, advice, networks and capital.

Most investors wait on the sidelines until traction is clear.

💡 Solution

Angel investors are early believers. They invest in founders with billion dollar ideas and expect for most to fail.

It’s counterintuitive. You can profitably lose 9 out of 10 bets if the winner returns 30x.

🏁 Players

Angel Investors

Angel-Funded

Syndicate Leads

🔮 Predictions

More investors will expect founders to have a product ‘in the wild’ before investing. This signals resourcefulness. Especially for non-technical founders. No-code tools lower the barrier to entry.
More influencers will get paid in equity. Joe Rogan got a stake in Onnit in exchange for promotion. This strategy aligns long-term interests with influencers.

☁️ Opportunities

For Angel Investors

Build a personal brand for proprietary deal flow. Make it clear how you help founders: expertise, network, audience, etc.
Start a blog, podcast, newsletter and stay active on Twitter. Widen your luck surface area and stay top of mind for founders.
Keep an investment decision journal. Angel investing has slow feedback loops. This gives us time to fool ourselves about why we did or didn’t invest. Journals lock thoughts in time and keep us honest.
Avoid the risk of ruin. Most suggest limiting angel investments to 5-10% of your net worth. Naval Ravikant says don’t get into angel investing to make money because you probably won’t.
Do investment premortems. Ask yourself, “If this investment fails, why did it?” Negative visualization helps mitigate/identify the riskiest parts of a deal. (Thanks to Leon Lin for this link)
Write fantasy investment deal memos before you start investing. This is how Vedika Jain landed at Weekend Fund. VCs do this too.

For Founders

Take some money off the table and join a syndicate. Angel investors hedge risk but most founders don’t.
Keep a decision journal. This helps you find patterns, identify bias and improve your decisions.
Build an audience first. Leverage your reach to build a startup and raise capital.

😠 Haters

“How dare you write this?! Are you an angel investor?”
Not yet. And that almost stopped me. But I have a growth mindset. You should try it. 😉

“You forgot some angels.”
AngelList has more than 42,000 investors on the platform. The Center for Venture Research estimated that there were 258,000 active angel investors in 2017.

Trends.vc is known for brevity.

Furthermore, some venture capitalists are mistaken for angel investors. What’s the difference? VCs take less risk, have LPs, invest bigger checks at later stages and move with teams instead of solo or syndicates. Let me know if you’re interested in a report on VCs.

🔗 Links

Angel: How to Invest in Technology Startups (Jason Calacanis)
- Invest in founders. “Would you buy stock in this person?”
- Start with syndicates and small checks.
- Negotiate pro rata and information rights.
How to Be an Angel Investor (Paul Graham)
- Start with syndicates.
- Understand dilution and valuations.
- Understand what makes a good founder.
How to Be an Angel Investor (NavalRavikant and BabakNivi)
- Think of yourself as a patron of innovation.
- Balance your portfolio with ultra-safe investments.
- Investing in groups makes for better decision making.
Memo — YC provides great questions to ask yourself as a founder.
The Underrated Types of Capital That No One Is Talking About — KP looks at intangible benefits that angel investors offer founders. Beyond financial capital. They offer belief capital.

Open Startups: Exhaust Data, Transparency, Open Makers

On the surface this is about open startups. It’s really about a lot more. Another name? How to Profit from Transparency.

This is the free version of Trends PRO #0015 — Open Startups

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🔍 Problem

Startups have to cut through noise to stay top of mind for customers. And prospective employees.

💡 Solution

Open startups tell a story (mostly) with exhaust data.

Revenue, page views, salaries and more. Data generated from business activities.

This is a marketing strategy. Not only for customers. But prospective employees.

In 2013, Buffer listed staff salaries publicly. Job applications doubled. Jumping to 2,886 from the 1,263 they received 30 days prior.

🏁 Players

Open Startups

Open Makers

Makers sharing metrics and stories.

Open Platforms

🔮 Predictions

Exhaust data will become more publicly availableandaccurate.
- Site Traffic
  - SimilarWeb
  - Alexa
  - Ahrefs
- Foot Traffic
- Revenue
- Salaries
We’ll see the rise of the Open Maker. These founders track and share their work. They are sawdusting. Gaining upside from exhaust data that would otherwise go unused.

☁️ Opportunities

Remove information asymmetries and profit from transparency. Need ideas?
- Salaries
  - PayScale Glassdoor
- Home Services
- Used Cars
- Flights
- Insurance
Decide if you should run an Open Startup. Ask yourself…
- Do I have a moat? If not, you may reverse course like SnapShooter and Transistor.fm.
- Do my customers care? If not, why are you doing this? See the conversation between Amar Ghose, Patrick Campbell and I.
- Do prospective employees care? Will this attract talent?
- Do I need accountability? What gets measured gets managed. More so in public.

🔗 Links

Transparency — This TED radio hour episode tells stories of transparency. Covering everything from salaries to CIA operations.
The End of Asymmetric Information — Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok take a deep dive into information problems and their effects.
Doubling Down Instead of Shutting Down — Nathan Barry is the founder and CEO of ConvertKit. In an interview with Eric Siu, he said “…another important thing for us is storytelling. I want you to buy ConvertKit not just because it’s the best tool for your business. I want you to buy because of the team and the story and who we are and what we’re building.”
‘100% copycat’ — Pierre de Wulf, co-founder of ScrapingBee, tweets about downside of sharing numbers. This is why moats matter.
Research: Gender Pay Gaps Shrink When Companies Are Required to Disclose Them — Denmark required companies over 35 employees to disclose gender wage gaps and the gap to shrunk to 7% from 17.5% between 2003 to 2008.

Paid Communities: Membership Tools, Hyperniche Communities, Lowering Churn

This is the free version of Trends PRO #0014 — Paid Communities

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🔍 Problem

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

💡 Solution

Paid communities have requirements, financial or otherwise.

As Derek Sivers says, the higher the price, the more they value it.

Barriers change these groups. Members are more engaged. They aim to justify their investments. Not fuck around or troll.

🏁 Players

Paid Communities

Membership Tools

Platforms

🔮 Predictions

Tools like sharedthis.email will make it easy to pirate paid newsletters. This will accelerate the move towards content-based communities.
Communities will be built on exhaust data. Fitbit leaderboards track your steps and update your friends in the background. Open Startup dashboards track revenue and update the world. What’s next? A community built on continuous glucose monitors? A business community tracking Stripe, Google Analytics and ConvertKit dashboards for signs that you need help?
Hyperniche media companies will be best positioned for paid communities. Social networks have network effects. Paid communities have reverse network effects. Think Farnam Street versus Facebook.

☁️ Opportunities

Don’t use money as the only filter for your paid community. Price is more than money. It’s time, risk, sacrifice.
- eCommerceFuel is $99 per month. Members must own a 7-figure eCommerce business and have “deep operational experience.”
- Everything Marketplaces is $49 per month. Members must “actually operate & know marketplaces.”
- Makerpad is $600 for lifetime membership. Membership is invite-only and a max of 30 invites are sent each Friday.
Build a paid community from your blog, podcast or newsletter audience. The founders of Traffic Think Tank and Web Smith (founder of 2pm) used this strategy to build paid communities. We discussed the content-to-community playbook in Trends #0011 — Paid Newsletters.
Add gamification to boost engagement and lower churn. Moz Community rewards members with MozPoints. These are redeemed for profile upgrades, t-shirts, tickets to MozCon and more.
Have a founding member launch. Use the launch to shape the culture of your community. Offer early members great prices. The Visualize Value community was $19 for lifetime membership. Now it’s $99 per year.
Track the NPS and KPIs for your community. Diana Tower spoke with James Schramko about the importance of collecting qualitative and quantitative feedback from community members.
Host guest AMA sessions. Online Geniuses featured Courtland Allen, Gary Vaynerchuk and Guy Kawasaki.
Think twice before building a paid community with Facebook groups. We discussed platform risk in Trends #0012 — Micro Private Equity.
Have shared struggles. Members will justify the struggle (price) to themselves. See fraternity initiation and military bootcamps. Look into commitment and consistency bias.
Create a group identity. Give your community a name, develop a language and have swag. Pat Flynn has Team Flynn. Their slogan is “Team Flynn for the win.” And you can buy a shirt with the slogan.
Have a questionnaire for new members. Use this to learn more about your members and create an intro for them. You can eventually trace member success back to patterns in the questionnaire. Superhuman engineered product-market fit with questionnaires. You can engineer community-member fit.

😠 Haters

“All paid communities are not online.”
Sure. WeWork Labs, Switchyards and Renzo Gracie Academy are offline paid communities.

🔗 Links

How to Build and Profit from a Hyperlocal Community Site — Katy Katz and Sean Jackson talk about the power of hyperlocal (or hyperniche) communities and how to build them.
Come for the tool, stay for the network — Chris Dixon explains how networks like Delicious and Instagram were built on single-player tools. This is reminiscent Stu McLaren‘s saying that people come for the content and stay for the community. Single-player tools can become multiplayer networks.
From Audiences to Communities — Web Smith tracks his journey from newsletter to community. This intersects with insights from Chris and Stu.
The Rise of Private Communities — Steve Pavlina explains why we should opt for paid communities. He notes that they are full of engaged doers. This is an excellent, in-depth piece. Take into account: He has a paid community.
My Paid Mastermind Experiment. Is It Worth It? — Omar Zenhom echos Steve Pavlina in this episode in 1211 of $100 MBA. He compares his experience in free masterminds to his experience in paid masterminds. Omar also has a paid community.

Online Courses: Superstar Instructors, $140k Before Launching, Distribution

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🔍 Problem

Live lessons from world-class instructors are expensive.

💡 Solution

Online courses offer a similar learning experience for less.

Some courses add personalized feedback, community and certifications.

🏁 Players

Online Courses

Niche Platforms

General Platforms

🔮 Predictions

More courses will have cohorts, office hours and online events. Piracy is a problem. But these elements cannot be copied. See Makerpad memberships and Write of Passage cohorts.
Instructors will experience the superstar effect. The best will receive asymmetric rewards. Superstars will emerge in coding, writing, design and more. This already happened in China.
More companies will pay instructors to promote products. This is advanced content marketing. Kiley Bennett was against Skillshare’s revenue share model until a company paid her upfront to teach, using their product.

☁️ Opportunities

Start small.
- Tweet, blog, hold a live workshop, write a book and make a course.
- Each level validates your idea and builds a following.
- Feedback from live workshops help you test your content and format. Find issues before you immortalize them in a book or course.
- Make a mini-course before you make a signature course.
Have a clear goal linked to your course. Students should finish with a podcast, app, meal, painting, rental property, newsletter, job, affiliate marketing site, audience, Etsy shop or an online course.
Validate the course before you make it. Presell and let early students give feedback. Paula Pant had $140,000 in presales before she launched.
Add live elements to your course. Including cohorts, online events and office hours. These benefits can’t be pirated. Platforms such as Coursera allow free members to pay for graded assignments and certificates.
Offer certificates. These add value and cost you little. You’re impressed when you see Harvard, YC Alum and ex-Google. Signals carry weight. Offer something similar. See LinkedIn Learning Certificates, Udacity Nanodegrees, CXL Minidegrees and edX MicroBachelors programs.
Build courses for the same audience and leverage existing relationships. This lowers customer acquisition costs and boosts customer lifetime value. You can profitably outbid others in paid channels such as Reddit, Facebook and Google.
Provide value and grow your audience today. Building an audience allows you to use a platform like Podia. You’ll pay a flat monthly fee and keep the proceeds from your course. Udemy helps students find you but you earn 25% of the purchase price. A price that you might not control. And Skillshare may pay you less than that. That’s the price of distribution. So make your own.

😠 Haters

“What about free online courses?”
These exist. But not here. This report is for paid online courses. Platforms such as Class Central and Khan Academy are great free options.

🔗 Links

Blogger Earns $140,000 from Beta Phase of Online Course — Find out how Paula Pant made $140k before launching her course. Her early students helped improve content for the launch.
How to Make $2.5MM as a Solo Founder by Teaching What You Love with Adam Wathan — Find out how Adam Wathan made $100,000 in one day from a course for developers. And how he made $1,000,000 in one month by partnering with Steve Schoger on Refactoring UI. The duo delivered free resources for years before they launched.
Launching an Online Course — Nicholas Scalice interviewed Janelle Allen. She talked about why it’s important to validate before you build, how to launch and more.
Tiago Forte — Organize Your Learning for Better Productivity — This time Janelle Allen did the interviewing. Tiago Forte shared how he got started, why his second course failed after the first succeeded and what he learned.
The Economics of Teaching in an Online Learning Marketplace — This is a great overview of 7 platforms and when it makes sense to use each.
Escaping the 9-to-5 Grind to Create a $3 Million Business with Joel Hooks of egghead.io — Courtland Allen interviewed Joel Hooks. Joel talked about how Egghead.io got started, what he’s learned so far and how to build a sustainable company.
Income From Online Courses — Dr. Mo offered ideas for nomad physicians to make money with online courses.
Building an Online Course From Start to Finish — Pat Flynn earned $1 million from courses in 2017. He shared tips on how to get over the fear of selling, how to outline course content and a lot more.

Micro Private Equity: Building a Playbook, Abandoned Projects, Revenue-Based Financing

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🔍 Problem

Founders want to cash out.

💡 Solution

Micro Private Equity buys businesses valued at or under $5 million.

These are not sexy, venture scale startups. Some are technology-focused. But they tend to be simple, cash flow positive companies with stable growth.

🏁 Players

Micro Private Equity Funds

Companies

Marketplaces

🔮 Predictions

Deals will close faster and transaction costs will drop. Services such as Stripe, Google Analytics, Square and Shopify help buyers verify earnings and growth. Advances in revenue-based financing make it easier to buy and sell companies.
Non-accredited investors will be able to easily invest in micro PE funds. Look at platforms like Otis, Fundrise, MicroVentures and Republic. See Jobs Act Title III for more info.

☁️ Opportunities

Build a playbook to boost returns:
- Raise revenue by raising prices
- Raise revenue with conversion rate optimization
- Raise revenue by negotiating better affiliate commissions
- Lower customer acquisition costs by improving SEO
- Lower costs with tax efficient business structures
- Lower costs with tax credits
- Lower costs with a remote team
- Lower costs by automating workflows
Attract investment opportunities with content and events. Look at:
- First Round (blog)
- Jeff Morris Jr. (Twitter)
- a16z (podcast)
- Founder Summit (event)
- SaaStr (conference)
Make offers on abandoned projects found on the Chrome Web Store, Shopify App Store and Product Hunt. Which projects have not been updated?
Build a playbook around similar assets:
- Extensions: Figma, Webflow, Slack, Trello, Shopify, WordPress and Chrome
- Templates: WordPress, Ghost, Webflow, Carrd and Bubble
- Content: eBooks, courses, newsletters and affiliate sites
Buy businesses with similar customers, cross-sell and lower customer acquisition costs.
Invest across platforms and verticals. Amazon recently slashed affiliate commissions. Coronavirus took out many travel-related businesses. Concentrating on one platform or vertical carries a lot of risk.
Niche horizontally. Focus on a business characteristic instead of a vertical. Consider B2B SaaS, B2C SaaS or digital assets.
Start low and stair step up in deal size. Sure… Small deals have relatively high transaction costs. But fuck ups carry less risk at this level. Move up to bigger acquisitions as you learn.

😠 Haters

“You didn’t include Tiny.”
Andrew distinguishes between Tiny and PE. I won’t contradict that.

“You didn’t include SureSwitft Captial.”
Kevin said that he doesn’t like the term. Refer to Tiny. 👆

“Sometimes Micro PE buys majority stakes. Not whole companies.”
Nuance. That’s the purpose of this section.

“Is this investment advice?”
No.

🔗 Links

Vroom Vroom Vroom & Mudbrick Capital — Mike Boyd is a great storyteller. Find out how he got started and why he loves digital assets.
Buying cash-flowing internet companies, starting job boards and building no code projects — This was Andrew’s first podcast interview in a while. Find out why he’s bullish on no-code and podcast memberships.
Billionaire Stephen Schwarzman on Private Equity, His Life and Blackstone — Stephen shares childhood stories and how he built Blackstone.
Q&A with Andrew Wilkinson, Co-founder of Tiny — Andrew Wilkinson came back for an AMA. He fills in the gaps that weren’t covered in the interview.
The Snag of Selling to Private Equity — Find out how Sherry Deutschmann built a $40 million dollar company and why she insisted on profit-sharing.
Trends #0005 — Bootstrap Funds — Micro PE and Bootstrap Funds have similar investment criteria. Bootstrap Funds invest earlier, founders sell minority stakes and stay onboard.
The Berkshire of Software — This is a wide-ranging interview. Savneet and Patrick cover Spanish real estate, software sales, gold, crypto and a lot more.
How a Passion for Craft Spirits Turned into a Six-Figures-a-Month Subscription Box Startup — Mack McConnell shares how he built Taster’s Club and why he sold to SureSwift Capital.

Paid Newsletters: Conversion Rates, Newsletter Bundles, Building a Six-Figure Newsletter

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🔍 Problem

Advertising alters incentives.

💡 Solution

Write for your readers. Not advertisers.

🏁 Players

Paid Newsletters

Platforms

🔮 Predictions

New types of newsletters will be created. Need an example? Flow State sends you music every weekday.
Substack will help writers extract more value (and commissions) from their audience. Their incentives are aligned.
It will be hard to cancel writers. Paid newsletters make you accountable to your audience. Not sponsors or their stakeholders.
More writers will hold events. Sam Parr held a small meetup at his Airbnb with subscribers. Fintech Today hosts virtual events.
Newsletter fellowships will become common. Substack CEO, Chris Best, described the Substack Fellowship as a “mini-YC” for writers.
Most writers will add products to their offering. Paid content is a simple way to monetize. But this leaves money on the table.
We will see more newsletter bundles. Bundling newsletters can lead to more revenue and lower reader acquisition costs.

☁️ Opportunties

Build a community on top of your newsletter. Use your platform to connect people. Courtland Allen, Pieter Levels and Jack Butcher used this content-to-community playbook.
Reach 1,000 free subscribers then monetize. The founders of Substack estimate a 10% free-to-paid conversion rate if you have:
1. At least 1,000 subscribers
2. At least a 50% open rate
3. Good feedback from your readers
Start a podcast. You’ll reach a new audience that prefers to listen. Make money from podcast memberships.
Build a SaaS for your audience. Jane Portman has Userlist. Paul Jarvis has Fathom Analytics. Justin Jackson has Transistor.fm. Audience-first works.
Use your newsletter as a funnel for books, courses, events and consulting.

😠 Haters

“Reader acquisition costs is a made up term.”
Everything is made up. Stay woke.

🔗 Links

How Newsletters Make Money for Writers with Hamish McKenzie of Substack — Hamish McKenzie, Co-founder of Substack, drops tactical knowledge bombs. Find out what he has learned from thousands of paid publications. And why he recommends charging general audiences $5+/mo and professional audiences $10+/mo.
How to Build a Six-Figure Newsletter Without Anyone Knowing — Glen Allsopp shares the stories of several six-figure newsletters. Great, in-depth writing. High signal-noise ratio.
This indie newsletter generated over 10,000 paying subscribers — Robert Cottrell founded The Browser. He shares what he has learned so far. And how he uses an algorithm to find some of his content.
1 Company, 1 Employee: Tearing Down Stratechery’s Pricing — Patrick Campbell, founder of ProfitWell, explains why Stratechery is priced too low. With data from 1,411 current, former and prospective customers. Spoiler alert: Some would be willing to pay $18.40 per month or $201.39 per year.
How My Newsletter for Developers Generates Subscription Revenue – Adam Roberts shares how he went from ads to subscriptions.

No-Code: Faster Development, Scalability, Leverage

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🔍 Problem

Developers are lazy and curious. Repetitive tasks annoy them.

💡 Solution

No Code tools help you build things without writing code. Blogs, forums, mobile apps, online stores and a lot more can be built without knowing how to code.

The life of a no-code tool starts with developers solving their own problems.

Most no-code tools share this path 👇

Developers write reusable functions to write less code
Then they create frameworks to write even less code
Then they deploy APIs to help others write less code
Then they create no code tools to help others write no code

🏁 Players

No-Code Products

RandomPizza — by Whit Anderson
Writers Compound — by KP
Qoins — by Nate Washington and Christian Alexander
Cuppa — by KP
Coffee for Closers — by Vik Duggal
Pastryy — by Aj Picard
NoCode GIFs — by Ash
Hey Marketers — by Corey Haines
Channels Stack — by Alexander Olssen
Pemvee — by Arjun Mahadevan

No-Code Makers

No-Code Tools

🔮 Predictions

No-Code Developer (or some variation) will become a common job title.
No-Code will become a gateway drug for makers to start coding.
No-Code ➡ Low-Code ➡ Code — New businesses will follow this path. Mature companies will have all three.

☁️ Opportunities

Build a no-code tool to create chrome extensions
Host a no-code virtual summit
Host a no-code hackathon
Join a no-code community
Start a no-code blog or newsletter
Start a no-code investment fund
Build a no-code agency
Move to the no-code capital of the world. Atlanta.

😠 Haters

“Atlanta isn’t the no-code capital of the world.”
Of course it is.

“You can’t build a business on no-code.”
I wrote Million Dollar No Code Businesses to dismiss this. It doesn’t matter what we think because it has already happened.

“No-Code can’t scale.”
Most no-code tools can scale but it doesn’t matter. Scaling isn’t the hard part. Traction is. Once you validate demand, I’ll come scale it for you. 💰👀

“No-Code will eliminate developer jobs.”
I won’t argue. DM me a falsifiable theory and your confidence level. Let’s make a bet.

🔗 Links

CodeLess — A podcast by Edmund Amoye
Let’s clear some stuff up about ‘no-code’ — A tweetstorm by Ben Tossell
No-Code Coffee — A newsletter by Michael Gill
The Rise of “No Code” — An examination of the no-code movement by Ryan Hoover
NoCode Camp — A mastermind by KP and Joe Brown
MakerPad — An education platform by Ben Tossell
Codeless Ventures — An investment fund by Michael Gill
No Code List — A list of tools by Drew Thomas
Nocode Rumble — A challenge by Sako and Michael Gill
No Code Founders — A community of makers by Joshua Tiernan

Bootstrap Funds: Post-Traction Investments, Access to Experts, Islamic Finance

A cowboy boot with US currency superimposed on it

There’s a big gap between billion-dollar unicorns and small businesses.

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This is the first version. Click here for the second version.

🔍 Problem

Founders of niche businesses struggle to find smart, aligned advisor networks.

Venture capital funds provide capital and guidance. But this comes with billion-dollar expectations.

💡 Solution

Bootstrap funds are built to provide funding, connections and thrive without billion-dollar exits.

In order to survive, VC funds rely on one or more companies to return the fund.

VC funds are built on the premise that most investments will fail or break even. This is a feature not a bug. But VC doesn’t work for most companies.

This model may work when major network or scale effects are at play. These are powerful forces that blunt competition and protect margins. Think Google, Facebook and Uber.

Bootstrap funds are designed for less extreme outcomes. They tend to invest post-traction and operate in niche markets.

Think Castos (podcast hosting), MakerPad (education) and StaticKit (developer tools).

These are not billion-dollar rocket ships or traditional small businesses.

🏁 Players

Bootstrap Funds

Portfolio Companies

MakerPad (Earnest Capital)
Yeluchi (Earnest Capital)
1 Second Everyday (Indie.vc & Earnest Capital)
Castos (TinySeed)
Nice (Indie.vc)
Hostifi (Earnest Capital)
StaticKit (TinySeed)
FirstBase (Earnest Capital)
MemberSpace (Earnest Capital)

Advisors

Courtland Allen (TinySeed)
Ruben Gamez (TinySeed)
Natalie Nagele (Earnest Capital)
Asia Orangio (TinySeed)
Hiten Shah (TinySeed)
David Heinemeier Hansson (Earnest Capital & TinySeed)
Rand Fishkin (TinySeed)
Kevin McArdle (Earnest Capital)
Patrick Campbell (TinySeed)
Laura Roeder (TinySeed)

🔮 Predictions

Advisor networks will make or break bootstrap funds. Post-traction companies have no shortage of funding options. Founders are choosing bootstrap funds to align interests with and get access to experts.
Nearly all bootstrap fund LPs (limited partners) will be experienced advisors. Operators have capital to invest. Bootstrap funds will prefer to feed the flywheel rather than add deadweight.
Some companies will harness network/scale effects and jump from bootstrap funds to VC funds. Bootstrap funds will have a chance to exercise equity rights.

☁️ Opportunities

Study Islamic Finance to make better shared earnings agreements. Specifically profit and loss sharing. Sharia law prohibits interest payments and creates a natural experiment to study the history and practices of profit sharing.
Invest in a bootstrap fund.
Start a bootstrap fund in a meaningful niche.

😠 Haters

“Bootstrap funds?! That’s an oxymoron.”
Yes. What’s life without a little cognitive dissonance? So roll with it.

“These companies have traction. They should not give up equity.”
Some founders beg to differ. They can find cheaper, non-dilutive capital but opt for bootstrap funds instead. Hint: It’s not about the capital. They want help.

🔗 Links

The Alternative Funding Options For SaaS Start-ups Cheat Sheet — Geoff Roberts
For Investors: What is a Shared Earnings Agreement and How does it compare to a SAFE? — Tyler Tringas
AMA with Tyler Tringas from Earnest Capital — Jacob Peters
Reflecting on My Failure to Build a Billion-Dollar Company — Sahil Lavingia
Why We’re Putting A Bunch of Our Savings into TinySeed — Rand Fishkin
Funding for Bootstrappers 2: What we learned — Tyler Tringas
Why Smash.vc is not vc — Travis Jamison
My Next Act: Building The First Startup Accelerator Designed for Bootstrappers — Rob Walling
Why venture capital doesn’t work for everyone — Eric Johnson