This week’s Founder Finds includes:
- An alternative to Bitly
- An interview with Dru
- The Racecar Growth Framework
- A tool to test AI image generators
- Why “building an audience” can be a waste of time
- And more…
🪶 Remember This
Make it work. Then make it pretty.
🤓 Fav Finds
Tools, tweets and more from Trends Pro Members
⭐️ Build a Business, Not an Audience shared by Simon Daley
An essay on why “building an audience” can be a waste of time.
🖌️ Playground AI shared by Stewart Townsend
A tool to freely play around with DALL·E and Stable Diffusion to generate AI art.
🔗 Dub.sh shared by Yuyu
An open-source Bitly alternative with built-in analytics and free custom domains.
🔧 Try This
On SEO, sales, sponsorships and more. See Lenny’s growth insights captured in one image.
🌟 Founder of the Week
“I love being part of Trends Pro. Being an entrepreneur can be lonely at times and it’s essential to find a community of people who are on a similar journey.
When I joined at the height of Covid, I just wanted to be part of a supportive community but ended up gaining so much more. The accountability with daily standups helped me stay on track with building Delverise. I made connections. Some of which turned into business opportunities. But the best part of being in Trends Pro is the masterminds.
I get to chat every week with other founders, entrepreneurs, and leaders who are all building and working on awesome things to discuss our challenges and give each other feedback. Everyone is extremely helpful, shares freely and there’s a lot of useful feedback to guide you in the right direction.”
Elom is building Delverise. A growth marketing agency helping lean teams and startups scale revenue faster with holistic growth solutions. He is also a member of Trends Mastermind #0002.
What are you bullish on?
Communal living.
Humans are social creatures who crave community. Yet a combination of modern technologies and culture seems to cause more isolation. I believe communal living will become popular with shared living spaces/resources/childcare/amenities/costs and more. We will modernize tribal communities of the past.
What are you bearish on?
Being in an office full-time for knowledge workers.
No matter how much employers want their employees to be in the office full-time, I don’t think it’s going to happen. There was a seismic shift in how most people think about their relationship with work during the pandemic. Those who have tasted the flexibility of remote work are unlikely to go back to the old ways. Flexible companies will have the advantage. Inflexible companies will get eclipsed in time unless they adapt. Fully-remote and hybrid work is the future.
What’s your most important habit?
Getting some sun/light exposure first thing after waking up.
I picked up this habit from Dr. Andrew Huberman’s podcast. It has been a game-changer for me.
What are you reading right now?
Zero to One by Peter Thiel. I wanted to dive into the fundamentals of building a startup and apply the same principles to Delverise.
What product or service do you wish existed?
Indexing, search and tagging for Twitter bookmarks. I save a lot of useful tweets that I don’t revisit because they get lost in a sea of other bookmarks.
What’s your favorite Trends Report?
💼 Agencies
It was applicable to me because I’m building an agency. This report shortened my learning curve. I go back to it often to uncover more gems.
Exclusive Deal: Elom is offering Trends.vc readers 30% off Growth Execution services. Email friends@delverise.com with the subject “Trends.vc Deal”.
🎧 Listen To
Growth Outside Your Comfort Zone [Podcast]
AJ and I jammed on doing comfort challenges, building lindy habits and building teams.
🏆 Trends Pro Member Wins
🆕 Ben Rhys, Sina Meraji and Ruben Dahmen became Trends Pro Members
👥 Cameron McGrane, Katt Risen, Ralph Quintero, Chris Klaus, Ben Rhys and Sina Meraji unlocked 1:1 Founder Intros by joining daily standups
🤖 Shashank launched the CRW RIDE Substack
💭 Rick Jarrell launched Thinking Better
👔 Tom Maciejewski published issue 4 of B2B Growthletter
🎧 Simon Daley put together an MVP of Bootstrapper Podcast
🧠 Mike Stop Continues unlocked Trends.vc Masterminds by reaching a 30-day standup streak
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