Founder Weekly (Issue 346 - July 18 2018)

Founder Weekly - Issue 346Â Â

July 18, 2018

Founder Weekly

Welcome to issue 346 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

General

Everyone talks about the importance of mentorship in our professional development, whether it’s networking to broaden career opportunities or learning from someone more experienced. But how does one break into an industry without established contacts or prior exposure? Are things different if mentors/mentees come from different backgrounds? If you’re already more established in your career, how can you help up-and-comers… and actually, how could mentees help mentors, too? This episode of the a16z Podcast aims to answer these questions, and more.

The biggest wins on the internet have been consumer companies, and that is likely to continue to be the case. However, having built and sold a consumer company, I just think it’s a lot more painful, prone to luck, and harder to grow compared with B2B. If you have a great idea that you’re passionate about, and you’ve either established early traction or want to try and do it, go for it. . . . but if it doesn’t work, think about how you could apply the same concept to an organization — or solve a new problem in the B2B space.

What her half-sister Kim Kardashian West did for bo*ty, Jenner has done for full lips. Like Kardashian West, she has leveraged her assets to gain both fame and money. But while her sister is best-known for the former, Jenner has proved adept at the latter. In historic fashion.

Netflix is hiring everybody in and out of Hollywood to make more TV shows than any network ever has, and it already knows which ones you’ll like.

Books

Annie Duke, a former World Series of Poker champion turned business consultant, draws on examples from business, sports, politics, and (of course) poker to share tools anyone can use to embrace uncertainty and make better decisions. For most people, it's difficult to say "I'm not sure" in a world that values and, even, rewards the appearance of certainty. But professional poker players are comfortable with the fact that great decisions don't always lead to great outcomes and bad decisions don't always lead to bad outcomes. By shifting your thinking from a need for certainty to a goal of accurately assessing what you know and what you don't, you'll be less vulnerable to reactive emotions, knee-jerk biases, and destructive habits in your decision making. You'll become more confident, calm, compassionate and successful in the long run.

Marketing, Sales and PR

Lululemon Athletica's success story through perfect branding, growth and product market fit. Apply Lululemon's principles on your own product.

An in-depth look at why people buy what they buy.

Positioning is how you want your product/service to be perceived in the market and messaging is what you actually communicate to your audience.

Money and Finance

6 important questions every entrepreneur should answer, whether you’re pre-product, or bootstrapped and profitable.

Startups of the Week

Microservices made simple. Build microservice-first apps, websites and APIs in seconds. Use any language you love and start sharing features with the world. Deploy your first applications now for free.

Create your own digital currency. Whether you run a business or a Youtube channel, Hexel lets you engage with your customers and fans by creating a digital currency from scratch.

The first high-yield savings account for gamers is here. Save, earn, and win money by playing your favorite games. LevelUp your life today.

Discover qualified development opportunities. Join Openland for free to get a stream of new leads for your land acquisition process.

Tips, Tools and Services

As a software engineer, I spend a lot of time reading and writing design documents. After having gone through hundreds of these docs, I’ve seen first hand a strong correlation between good design docs and the ultimate success of the project. This article is my attempt at describing what makes a design document great.

The complete guide to finding the right analytics platform for your business. Reviewing and comparing the strengths and weaknesses of Google Analytics, Heap, Amplitude, Mixpanel, Hotjar, Flurry and more.

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