Founder Weekly (Issue 412 - November 27 2019)

Founder Weekly - Issue 412

November 27, 2019

Founder Weekly

Welcome to issue 412 of Founder Weekly. We have a packed issue this week. Enjoy it!

General

A small Pennsylvania university has only one varsity program: e-sports. Is this the future of college athletics?

Over the past ten years, we have invested in and worked with close to 100 startups. Along the way, we have seen teams, ideas, and practices work spectacularly well. We’ve also witnessed others flame or fizzle out. After a decade in the trenches, we want to share some best practices to help you make an impact and turn your vision into reality

A series of posts sharing rare insights from 17 of today's biggest marketplaces, including Airbnb, DoorDash, Thumbtack, Etsy, Uber and many more.

A 14-minute guide to getting your life back.

Brands are an important tool for building economic moats in business. We look at how this translates to building career moats in an individual career.

One of the defining characteristics in an industrial revolution is the fundamental shift from a bespoke, artisan process to an  industrialized, engineerable, repeatable one. In this video, General Partner on the Bio Fund Vijay Pande describes how we are in the middle of a revolution driven by AI and machine learning that is industrializing discovery itself.

A slew of new start-ups want to help people manage their relationships the way they would sales leads. Should we be worried about our friends turning us into data points?

Y Combinator CEO and Partner Michael Seibel on what makes the top 10% of founders different.

The last decade introduced a wealth of game-changing technology to our lives. But along with it came some true disasters. Revel in the fails. 

Marketing, Sales and PR

Detailed case study on how we launched our SaaS product and scaled it to over $25K MRR in less than 6 months of launch.

The real reason why Instagram is “removing” likes.

How I Made $100,000+ Per Month (With A 5-Person Content Team)

Nearly all SaaS companies use content to generate leads, but that’s usually where the collaboration between content and sales ends. The content team has a job to do, the sales team has a job to do—each works independently of the other. 

Done right, viral marketing gives brands the opportunity to earn quick publicity. This list + infographic lists 26 points (A-Z) that comprise viral content.

Your customers have a problem. A big, glaring problem that you can solve. All you need to do is convince them of your powers. Learn from Churnbuster, Basecamp and Drift how to use the customer's problem to showcase the value of your product!

Money and Finance

The problem with the “wait for traction” strategy of seed investing is that it appears easy but probably has the highest degree of difficulty.

Emergence Capital's fundraising playbook for enterprise founders.

Vice Ventures is investing in taboo industries that other funds won’t touch — even if they want to.

With great regularity, entrepreneurs complain about VCs who, in turn, never fail to bemoan the prime donne who think highly — and often too thinly — about the crystalline purity of their technology or business strategy. Today we look at five mistakes entrepreneurs often make.

Startups of the Week

A dedicated space for the most important people in your life. Cocoon is a special app for your most special relationships, designed to keep you close no matter where you are.

Culdesac builds car-free neighborhoods from scratch. We start from a simple insight: the way we move defines the way we live. And the way we move is changing fast. The first Culdesac car-free neighborhood launches in 2020 in Tempe, Arizona.

Everything you order online, in one place. The Route App automatically connects to everything you’ve ordered from all your favorite retailers while allowing you to visually track your packages, anytime, anywhere.

Windie was created as a low-cost solution to help you save money on your heating and cooling bills. Windie helps you efficiently heat or cool your home to your preferred temperature using your existing windows and blinds. We take your home's temperature, what temperature you prefer, some information about your windows, and then based on outdoor factors we tell you the best time to open or close your windows and blinds.

Placement is Everyone's Talent Agent. Our customers land great jobs in new cities and earn up to 30% more. Experience a different way to move forward.

Tips, Tools and Services

Advice for when you’re starting from scratch and designing for growth.

Trusting your mind to work in the background.

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