This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🛡️ A terminal safety tool
💼 An essay on AI job loss
🖥️ An OpenClaw alternative
⏳ Basecamp’s six-week cycle
💪 A minimalist workout routine
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

You can only connect the dots looking backward. Stop thinking and start acting.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🖥️ Happycappy shared by Shushant Lakhyani
A secure OpenClaw alternative that runs in your browser

🛡️ Tirith shared by Elia Zane
A security tool to detect terminal based attacks before execution

💼 Why I’m Not Worried About AI Job Loss shared by Fausto Teles
An essay on why AI driven job loss fears are overstated

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley published “Micro-Failure vs Macro-Failure”, on the cost of slow feedback loops

🤖 Reme Ekoh published an AI agent playbook

💻 Jd Fiscus made a video on why MCP isn’t dead

📅 Knight wrote about his product plans for 2026

📘 Read This

What’s the Secret Behind Basecamp’s Six-Week Cycle That Eliminates Endless Projects?

Basecamp’s “Shape Up” methodology solves pains that kill product velocity:

• Shape projects before betting on them by drafting problems and solutions
• Work in six-week cycles to feel deadline pressure from day one
• Define clear tasks and work on vertical slices

🛠️ Tools of the Week

🎞️ ​Gling.ai​ — Let AI edit your videos

🖼️ Aragon AI — Use AI to do a photo shoot

🎙️ Podsqueeze — Automate podcast content creation

👀 Watch This

How Can You Get Stronger With Just 30 Minutes and a Barbell?

Here’s how to get stronger when your job drains you and your family needs you.

• Choose the volume, frequency, or effort that suits your life.
• Use compound movements only: squats, deadlifts, presses, rows.
• Train by daily ability instead of a fixed calendar. It’s okay to have bad days.

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

Meet founders you wouldn’t find on your own.

Some become friends. Some become collaborators. All of them understand what you’re building.

Next meetup: March 16

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
💪 Awesome Claude Skills

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📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📉 AppSumo’s struggles
🐙 A multi-agent AI team
💪 An agent skill directory
📣 Features vs. marketing
😬 A micro-SaaS reality check
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Tame fear by approaching it.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🐙 From One Clawdbot to Ten shared by Kieran Ball
Building a coordinated multi-agent system with shared memory

💪 Awesome Claude Skills shared by Alper Tunga
A collection of agent skills by leading development teams

📉 AppSumo Revenue is Down 50% shared by Ben Fisher
A blog post on how AI disrupted AppSumo’s business model

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley published “Start Laughably Small”, on (habit) and product development

🔍 Alexandre Kantjas is hosting a workshop on AI knowledge retrieval

🔒 Elie Steinbock wrote about OpenClaw security risks

🎙️ Kieran Ball made a podcast episode about OpenClaw

📘 Read This

How Many Years Does It Really Take for a Micro-SaaS to Pay You?

Here is how to move from a hobby project to a profitable business:

• Build a marketing plan; word-of-mouth virality is rare.
• Talk to churned users to find and fix adoption blockers.
• Study competitors’ weaknesses instead of assuming you are unique.

🛠️ Tools of the Week

🎞️ ​Gling.ai​ — Let AI edit your videos

📝 Fireflies.ai — Automate meeting notes

🖼️ Aragon AI — Use AI to do a photo shoot

🎧 Listen To

Why Are Your New Features Not Bringing In Customers?

Revenue increases from marketing, not from new features.

• Watch what customers do, not what they say they’ll do.
• Focus on marketing to people who don’t care about that missing feature.
• Manage expectations through positioning and copy instead of changing the product.

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: February 16

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🩺 Heal My Prompt

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🩺 A prompt optimizer
📣 0 to €1M ARR playbook
🛠️ A vibe coding marathon
✨ An AI skill for design fluency
🔍 Adapting to zero-click search
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Build your own dreams or someone else will hire you to build theirs.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🛠️ Vibe Code Camp shared by Shivam
A marathon of the world’s best vibe coders building live 

🩺 Heal My Prompt shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
Turn ideas into optimized prompts for coding tools

✨ Impeccable shared by Elie Steinbock
A comprehensive front-end design skill for AI tools

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley published “Why I Love When Things Break”, on profiting from pain

🔮 Jd Fiscus made a video about AI predictions for 2026

💰 Harshala Chavan wrote about niche site and community acquisitions

🏭 Elie Steinbock made a video on running 10 coding agents at once

📘 Read This

How Do You Reach €1M ARR Using a Proven Business Model?

17 experts just revealed what they’d do on the path to €1,000,000 ARR:

• Create a single story that ties your product to your audience’s specific pain.
• Use your hero section to welcome the “right” users and repel the “wrong” ones.
• Define your ideal customers by looking at who gets the fastest ROI, not just who is interested.

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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

Why Is Google No Longer Just a Traffic Source?

Google is no longer just sending traffic to your site – it’s becoming the final destination where people get answers without ever clicking through to you.

The new reality that’s reshaping marketing:

• Most people get answers right on Google’s page without visiting websites
• Featured snippets are the new homepage and Google decides if you get this prime spot
• New content should work for both AI and people by using summaries, clear FAQs and scannable text

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: February 16

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🧱 Dru Riley – Not Perfect, But Better

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

💪 An LLM skills directory
🚫 Pitch-first development
🧠 How to make smart decisions
🚀 $150K/year from Reddit and SEO
⚙️ An in-depth guide to Claude Code
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Test your core assumptions with the smallest possible experiments first.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

⚙️ Claude Code Guide shared by JD Fiscus
A guide to building scalable Claude Code setups that work

🚀 $150K/Year with Reddit and SEO shared by Shivam
A repeatable early growth playbook for founders

💪 Skills.sh shared by Daniel Berggren
A directory of AI agent skills

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley wrote Not Perfect, But Better, thoughts on product development

🔄 Knight launched MD2Page

🛠️ Kieran Ball is hosting an AI builder conference in Brighton

📨 Elie Steinbock launched an email deliverability checker

❔ Ask Yourself

What Kills Your Product Before You Even Launch?

The thing that makes you great at your job will destroy your product business.

• Write your sales pitch, value proposition and marketing plan before writing code.
• See if people will pay with shares, buzz or email signups via a Coming Soon page.
• Use your best sales pitch as a detailed outline for your product once you’ve proven people want it.

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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

How to Make Smart Decisions Without Getting “Lucky”?

Nobody teaches us how to make smart decisions, yet they shape everything from our careers to our relationships.

• Think broadly: apply knowledge from physics, math and history to everyday problems
• Position yourself well: a genius looks like an idiot when circumstances force poor decisions
• Use thinking frameworks: inversion (thinking backwards), second-order thinking (asking “and then what?”) and the map is not the territory

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: February 16

👋 New Trends Pro Members

• Vinayak Ramesh

• Kon Tim

• Prasoon Patel

• Nathaniel Lewis

• Samuel da Rocha

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🛠️ Open-source Claude Work alternative

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🤝 A sales philosophy
🧲 A storytelling framework
🛠️ A Claude Work alternative
🚀 The growth playbook of Perplexity
📱 Running Claude Code from your phone
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Go for freedom. Freedom allows you to control what you work on.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🛠️ OpenWork shared by Elie Steinbock
An open-source Claude Work alternative

🧲 The Dopamine Ladder shared by Shushant Lakhyani
A storytelling framework for getting viewers addicted to your content

📱 How to Run Claude Code From Your iPhone shared by Ben Fisher
A guide to keeping AI build loops alive across devices

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley updated HeadsUp to automatically track competitors’ pricing, changelog and other pages

💻 Elie Steinbock made a video about his coding stack

🎙️ Kieran Ball recorded a podcast about Claude Code

🧊 Prabhjot Singh Lamba made a video about his first year learning Blender

📘 Read This

How Did Perplexity Go From Zero to $9 Billion in Just Two Years?

Perplexity cracked the code on exponential growth by building 6 growth loops that turn every user interaction into fuel for more growth.

The playbook:

• Build curiosity loops where each answer leads to new questions
• Promote user-generated content through shareable answers and trending feeds
• Use freemium to drive virality while power users fund continued growth

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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

Why Should You Sell Futures, Not Features?

People say that building the right solution to the right problem is key to success.

But a solution is usually a set of features that can be replaced by another product.

The key differentiator is the delivery.

Chances are, your product is not something unique that has no alternatives.

Being able to deliver the outcome your customers are hoping for will help you stand out from competitors.

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: February 16

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🚀 How Clay Reached $100M ARR

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

💰 How to raise prices
🌊 The power of a difficult life
🚀 A Go-To-Market case study
📉 Decay of marketing channels
🧭 The role of developers in the AI era
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

A bad plan is better than no plan.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🚀 How Clay Reached $100M ARR shared by Elie Steinbock
The Go-To-Market bets behind Clay’s path to $100M ARR

🧭 The New Identity of a Developer shared by Jd Fiscus
A report on how AI is reshaping the responsibilities of software developers

🌊 May Your Life Be Difficult shared by Philip Obosi
An essay on choosing growth over comfort

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley made HeadsUp learn from user feedback to share alerts that matter to you

🤖 Eddie Forson wrote about his 6 months with Claude Code

📺 Prabhjot Singh Lamba built a YouTube transcript downloader

🛠️ Knight posted a recap of his 2025 product weekends

📘 Read This

Why Does Every Marketing Channel Suck Right Now?

SEO takes too long, influencer spikes don’t convert, PR doesn’t scale, ads are too expensive and viral loops need a perfect product first. So how to grow?

• Focus on small channels: mini events, Facebook groups, small companies and your own network
• Don’t worry about scaling: in small channels response rates are higher and competition is lower
• Take brand risks: experiment, pivot and hit competitors directly

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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 Can You Raise Prices Without Losing Your Best Customers?

Most SaaS founders are terrified to raise prices.

Here’s how to raise prices while keeping customers happy:

• Focus on benefits over features. Show how your app saves time and money
• Time your price increase after ensuring customers are happy with stellar service in the months leading up
• Test with newest customers first, then inform older customers after successfully increasing prices with new converts

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: January 19

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🎯 10X Positioning Framework

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

📖 Storytelling in the AI age
⚙️ A Claude Code workflow
🎯 A 10X positioning framework
📈 100,000+ X followers in 1 year
🏗️ Professional AI project delivery
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Don’t call them lucky. They failed more times than you tried.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🏗️ How to Deliver AI Projects shared by Shushant Lakhyani
A tutorial on hosting, securing and handing off AI workflows

🎯 10X Clarity Question shared by Hitesh Kar
A clarity-driven messaging framework to multiply sales

⚙️ How Its Creator Uses Claude Code shared by Jd Fiscus
A thread on scaling AI coding with plans, agents and tools

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley improved onboarding for work emails in HeadsUp

📝 Elie Steinbock launched Brief My Meeting on Product Hunt

⏳ Alejandro Arango wrote about the inevitability of AI

💻 Eddie Forson wrote about his AI coding workflow

🔧 Try This

How To Grow 100,000+ Followers on X in 1 Year?

Amanda Natividad grew her X to 100,000 followers by choosing value over virality.

The audience-building framework that works:

• Commit to a specific niche; only go outside of it after gaining momentum
• Use direct-response copywriting: immediate value, active voice, and compelling hooks
• Prioritize unmeasurable factors (affinity, trust, reputation) as they lead to business outcomes

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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 Will Storytelling Be the Most Valuable Skill in the AI Age?

While AI may replace technical skills, storytelling becomes a competitive advantage.

Why storytelling is key to surviving:

• You’re born with natural storytelling abilities
• Storytelling is humanity’s original superpower that helped build the world
• All future-critical skills (leadership, empathy, communication) are powered by storytelling

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: January 19

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
📐 Interfaces for AI Agents

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🛠️ Limits of vibe coding
📐 UX patterns for AI agents
📋 An async onboarding system
🍀 Increasing your luck surface area
⏳ Lessons from reaching $25K MRR in 8 years
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

Each new feature is another thing that can break, confuse or distract.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🛠️ Vibe Coding Won’t Kill SaaS shared by Elia Zane
A podcast episode on separating software projects from real businesses

📐 Interfaces for AI Agents shared by Jd Fiscus
A video on how AI agents are reshaping software interfaces and SaaS strategy

📋 Remote Onboarding Program shared by Kevin Galang
How to build a deliberate remote first onboarding system

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley improved competitor recommended responses in HeadsUp

🗓️ Mike Williams posted a yearly recap of Everything Marketplaces

👨‍💻 Joel Pickin launched a 7-day coding challenge

🤖 Elie Steinbock hosted an AI event

🔧 Try This

What Is Luck Surface Area and Why Does It Matter?

You can make your own luck through a powerful principle of passion and communication.

• Pour energy into your passion: when you’re excited about something, you naturally pull others into your orbit
• Tell more people: people will capture that value in ways you’d never predict – hiring you, partnering with you or investing in you
• Luck is ‘doing’ multiplied by ‘telling’: the more you do and the more people you tell about it, the larger your Luck Surface Area becomes

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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

🎧 Listen To

Why Did It Take 8 Years for This SaaS to Reach $25K MRR?

StatusGator’s journey from $10/month side project to 7-figure ARR proves that persistence beats perfection. But only when you finally decide to focus.

The 10-year lessons you should know:

• Talk to as many people as possible about your product idea and beg for feedback from real customers
• Charge more in general, especially to existing customers. Going from $10 to $79/mo was a game changer for StatusGator
• Find your unique positioning angle. StatusGator evolved from “status page aggregator” to “early outage alerts” which turned a vitamin into a painkiller

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: January 19

👋 New Trends Pro Members

• Adel Kadyrov

• Abdulmecid Dündar

• Collins Donye (Rvysion)

• Ibrahim O. Badmus

• Ramin Amighi

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🎧 ElevenReader Text-to-Speech App

Get Weekly Reports

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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.

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🎧 An AI reader app
💵 A sales framework
🤖 What is compound engineering
🫀 How to tune your nervous system
🔥 Low cost SaaS marketing strategies
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

The courage to appear foolish in the short-term is often the price of looking brilliant in the long-term.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🤖 Compound Engineering shared by Nathan Sudds
Every’s approach to coding with agents

🎧 ElevenReader shared by Rich Tank
A text-to-speech app from ElevenLabs with a free tier

💵 Learn to Sell shared by Shushant Lakhyani
A video on mastering sales from lead generation to follow up

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley upgraded the AI model behind HeadsUp

🍌 Philip Obosi made a Nano Banana tutorial

⚙️ Elie Steinbock made a video on moving from CMS to raw markdown

📊 Yuyu wrote about 9 Google Analytics alternatives

👀 Watch This

What Are The Big 5 Marketing Approaches That 80% of SaaS Founders Should Try?

Most founders build amazing products that no one uses because they confuse posting on social media with actual marketing.

How to move the needle:

• See if you have an advantage with any marketing moves
• Score and prioritize your 20 potential marketing strategies
• Pick one fast approach for fast results and one slow approach for long-term scalability

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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

🎧 Listen To

How to Tune Your Body For Productivity and Joy?

Here’s how to tune your nervous system to boost productivity, joy and well-being:

• Use breathwork: Breathe in for a count of four, hold your breath for a count of four and then exhale for a count of eight.
• Create the right conditions: If you want to feel more joyful, you can spend time in nature, connect with loved ones or do activities that you enjoy.
• Identify your emotional state: Pay attention to the signals in your body. If you have a heavy chest before a presentation, acknowledging the fear can help you get rid of this feeling.

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: January 19

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🦾 Claude Use Cases

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

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

Brought to you by the team behind HeadsUp

This week’s Founder Finds includes:

🦾 Claude use cases
🌐 The state of web AI
🌍 Parity pricing for SaaS
📱 Content marketing in the age of AI
🧠 Persistent memory for Claude Code
➡️ And more…

🪶 Remember This

If a tool works for everyone, it’s often a mediocre tool for all.

🤓 Fav Finds

Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members

🧠 Claude-Mem shared by Elia Zane
A Claude Code plugin for preserving context

🌐 Web AI Summit 2025 shared by Jd Fiscus
A series of talks on web AI and client-side AI models

🦾 Claude Use Cases shared by Nathan Sudds
A collection of practical examples by Anthropic

🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins

🧿 Dru Riley improved the accuracy of 90-day analysis for HeadsUp

✍️ Asad Dhamani wrote about AI memory

⚙️ Jd Fiscus made a tutorial on Vercel workflows

📸 Kieran Ball built a screenshot animation tool

📘 Read This

Why Are 23-Year-Olds on Phones Outperforming Traditional Content Teams?

People follow humans, AI killed informational SEO and generic blog posts are dead.

Meet the new content marketing rulebook:

• Make video-first content. Have a video for every text.
• Focus on original research and storytelling. Fewer people make truly new content.
• Build internal influencers from your team. Your CMO, engineers and CEO should be the faces of your content.

🛠️ Tools of the Week

👁️ LookAway — Relax your eyes and mind

🎨 ​UX Pilot​ — Build UI designs and wireframes with AI

⚡ M1-Project — Build your marketing strategy 10x cheaper

💬 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

How Do Netflix and Spotify Use Parity Pricing to Dominate Global Markets?

Parity pricing sounds safe. Just match competitors or adjust for regional economics. But there’s more to that…

The two-sided reality of parity pricing:

• Balance stability from competitive parity against its risks of limiting profits
• Outsource management of multi-regional pricing, currencies and compliance
• Price globally using Purchasing Power Parity to avoid devaluing your product

🔧 Try This

60 Seconds to Your First Competitive Insight

HeadsUp is an AI-powered competitive intelligence platform that watches your market 24/7.

It doesn’t just tell you what changed… It tells you what to do about it.

🏆 #1 Product of the Day on Product Hunt

Get 90 days of competitor intelligence in 60 seconds with HeadsUp:

• See what you’ve been missing (pricing, features, positioning)
• Know what to do about it, not just what happened
• Get weekly briefs summarizing what matters

See what you’ve been missing 👉 Try HeadsUp free

🍢 Trends Tribe

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

• Make real connections
• Solve problems faster
• Help each other grow

Next meetup: January 19

The Most Popular Link From Last Week:
🔀 Vibe Kanban Parallel Coding Tool

Get Weekly Reports

Join 54,000+ founders and investors

Subscribe

📈 Unlock Pro Reports, 1:1 Intros and Masterminds

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

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

📖 160+ 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.

💲 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