Founder Weekly (Issue 394 - July 17 2019)

Founder Weekly - Issue 394

July 17, 2019

Founder Weekly

Welcome to issue 394 of Founder Weekly. Let's get straight to the links this week.

General

Bootstrapping can be a great path for entrepreneurs of every kind. Here’s what we’ve learned – and how it can help you to achieve success on your own terms.

A quick and dirty guide on how to run a startup at early stage and where new entrepreneurs usually fail, then write post-mortems wishing they had knew better.

Books

This book is a guide to how we do product development at Basecamp. It’s also a toolbox full of techniques that you can apply in your own way to your own process. Whether you’re a founder, CTO, product manager, designer, or developer, you’re probably here because of some common challenges that all software companies have to face.

Marketing, Sales and PR

Learn how to create a complete marketing automaiton strategy for your SaaS. Marketing Automation Strategy Worksheet + 30 example workflows included.

Wrong page ranking for the keyword? Discover how to identify why it happens and how to ensure the right URL shows up in SERPs with these simple tips.

If your SaaS content earns more links, it will rank higher. So will your sales pages. Learn which content marketing strategies work best.

How Guru Turned Customer Success Into a Company Cornerstone.

Money and Finance

Investors say no to founders for many reasons. Founders typically hear that they are too early, there is not enough traction, the market is either too small or too competitive. What investors rarely or never say to founders is that they don’t like them as people,  or don’t believe in them as entrepreneurs. investors do not share the reasons for not backing founders that are based on founder’s personality because these are really tough to actually share. Yet, many startups don’t get backed because investors don’t like the founders or find that something is off. Here are some of the patterns we noticed over time.

Why would a company do a Direct Listing? What are other key differences between an IPO and a Direct Listing? And what are the tradeoffs involved in this new approach? Since the Direct Listings process is so new, I try to demystify the topic in this post given my own vantage point immersed in the capital markets (including behind the scenes with Slack, where we’re investors). What are Direct Listings, how do they work, and why do they matter? 

For the global venture capital market, Q2 2019 breaks one trend and makes another.

A VC & founder will likely spend less than a single workday together, in an effort to gauge fit for a relationship that could last a decade.

Startups of the Week

Smartcar is the only vehicle API built for developers, by developers. Connect vehicles to your app within seconds. Locate and unlock them with just a few lines of code. Building apps for cars has never been easier.

Rent the Backyard is an entirely new way to make money from your backyard. Rent the Backyard builds an 400-800 square foot apartment in your backyard and splits the rent with you. You can make up to $17,500/year in extra income and Rent the Backyard covers all the costs of construction. We find and manage a tenant, and take care of your backyard apartment's maintence, so there's no continual time required on your part.

Umbrella is the easy, trusted way to care for your home. Umbrella helps people 65+ stay and live in their own homes by connecting them with community members to help with everyday home chores and maintenance.

A virtual office for remote teams. Re-discover the flow of working together in‑person. See, talk to, and collaborate with your team in one click.

Mahmee is a comprehensive maternity and infant care management platform. We partner with payers and providers to create care programs that make it easy for all families to receive comprehensive prenatal and postpartum care. New and expecting parents can also join the Mahmee community directly to start receiving support.

Tips, Tools and Services

My friends say that my calendaring practice is atypical (and mock me incessantly for it). They're not wrong, but I'll contend that most people underutilize this ubiquitous tool. A calendar is not just a reminder device for keeping track of external events. Used right, a calendar can be a full-fledged tool for thought. For me, it's a dynamic journal with a wide range of useful, meaningful, and surprising perks.

Anu Hariharan shares the collective wisdom of the YC community to help guide founders on best practices in managing a board––including running board meetings and overcoming board issues.

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