This week’s Founder Finds includes:
- How to ship projects fast
- The two types of confidence
- How to price your expertise
- A talk about doing what you love
- A guide on ChatGPT Code Interpreter
- How to use the AIDA copywriting model
- A story of going from $0 to $58,000 MRR
- And more…
🪶 Remember This
If you look closely, most overnight successes took a long time.
🤓 Fav Finds
Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members
⚙️ Code Interpreter Guide shared by Maisha Cannon
A blog post on the use cases of ChatGPT Code Interpreter
✍️ The AIDA Model shared by Eddie Forson
A guide to the classic copywriting formula with examples and templates
❤️ Do What You Love shared by Prabhjot Singh Lamba
The founder of Mailchimp talks about quitting your job and doing what you love
📘 Read This
To succeed, you must take risks. To take risks, you must have confidence.
There are 2 types of confidence.
- Phony confidence: You think you understand something that you don’t.
- Expert confidence: You know what you’re doing and what it will lead to.
If you don’t know which type of confidence you have, it’s best to assume it’s phony. This will help you make sure that you have a large margin of safety for the risks you can’t see.
🌟 Founder of the Week
“My experience with Trends Pro has been great. It’s nice to see other founders go through the ups and downs together. This gives me comfort knowing that we are on this journey of entrepreneurship together.”
Sumant is building Assembly Industries. He helps founders hire vetted offshore talent and pre-made teams who are experts in sales, marketing, finance and operations. On a fractional or full-time basis.
What’s your most important habit?
HIIT workouts in the morning. It helps to clear my mind and puts me in a meditative state to help you relax before starting your day.
What are you reading right now?
Fingerprints of the Gods by Graham Hancock
I’m interested in ancient civilizations and what helped them rise and fall.
What product or service do you wish existed?
An easy meeting scheduler for groups. Calendly does a great job on one-way scheduling but if there are two or more people, it becomes hard to coordinate across time zones and calendar tools.
What product are you obsessively using right now?
I’m using VEED to share my journey on social media. I love how they keep it simple yet innovative with avatars, auto-captions and more.
What are you bullish on?
Building businesses is becoming easier. I’m bullish on using AI to unleash creativity. The rate of innovation will grow up to 400% in the next 5 years.
What are you bearish on?
The AI hype. Lots of companies are raising capital and hundreds of companies are now offering the same features around ChatGPT. Once it’s over, I wonder how many tools will be AI integrations vs standalone AI products.
What’s your favorite Trends Report?
🔁 Productized Services
It inspired me to start Assembly Industries. I realized that many businesses want to get X done for $Y price. They don’t want to go the traditional hiring route. If you can deliver high-quality talent for a flat fee, companies will pay. In fact, they will pay a lot.
Exclusive Deal: Sumant is offering Trends.vc readers $250 off the first month of hiring an expert with Assembly Industries. To take advantage, send an email to cs@assembly-industries.com and mention Trends.vc.
💬 Join the Conversation
Here’s what Trends Pro Members are talking about…
- (📈 Pro) Using Evernote vs Notion
- (📈 Pro) No-code website building tools
- (📈 Pro) Experience with freelance platforms
🎧 Listen To
How to Not Suck at Project Management
Ben Orenstein and Adam Wathan share the strategies they use to ship projects within the first few days and to keep them shippable until the release.
- Do Small Tasks: Do not delay quick tasks, do them now.
- Don’t Overcomplicate: Do a great version of a simple product.
- Build a Roadmap: Make your work-in-progress visible to avoid taking on too much.
❔ Ask Yourself
How Much Insight to Give Away on Your Website?
You ask this question because you don’t want others to copy you, use your advice for free or know your unique sales proposition before hopping on a call with you.
David C. Baker says that the more insight you publish for free, the less you need to invest in the sale. As you build trust, you will have fewer long sales cycles with test work and multiple meetings that eat up your time and energy.
🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins
👥 Ryan Booher unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups
📈 Mac Martine shared his journey from $0 to $58,000 MRR with The SaaS Bootstrapper
🧰 Prabhjot Singh Lamba made an onboarding tutorial for Craftar
🤖 Bernardt J. Vogel wrote about training AI with synthetic data
⛰️ Katt Risen got 270 new subscribers and sold $695 in sponsorships while traveling
🤔 Eddie Forson wrote about starting with a problem, not an idea
🦅 Stewart Townsend and Maciej Cupial launched Power Filters for Podcast Hawk
🦘 Michael Pearson-Adams moved the headquarters of MPA Creative to Australia
🧠 Chuck Hardy unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching 30-day standup streaks
Get Weekly Reports
Join 65,000+ 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.
