CoFounder Weekly is a slightly silly newsletter about startups. This weekâs Sections: Tweeterâs Digest (Top 7 Tweets of the Week), Hot đ„or Not âïž, Founder and Investor Stuff, Asks & Offers, Weekly Thought, and CARTOONS. This is not your average newsletter (could be better or worse).
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TWEETERâS DIGEST
(Our favorite Tweets of the week)
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Hot đ„: NOMAD LIFE
So youâre feeling the itch to leave your shoebox apartment and travel the world for a year.
Youâre not alone.
Whether itâs digital nomads or sabbaticals, more #millennials are leaving it all behind to recharge and rediscover themselves. A whopping 4.8 million Americans label themselves digital nomads.
So where to start?
NomadList is a database of 1,200 cities that helps you evaluate a location by a range of criteria.
For example, Mexico City is currently ranked 6th based on itâs high ratings in areas like âFun", âWalkabilityâ, and âCostâ.
We recently caught up with Tristan Pollock, Entrepreneur in Residence at 500 Startups to learn about his sabbatimoon (sabbatical + honeymoon) with his wife Danyelle.
Tristan and Danyelle have been traveling the world living as digital nomads for more than a year now. Theyâve visited 43 countries and have covered more that 61,000 miles.
In the interview he shares how they balance travel with work as digital nomads.
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Listen to the 30 minute podcast here: https://soundcloud.com/user-814216784/cofounder-weekly-remote-life-with-tristan-pollock
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What are some cool startups powering the digital nomad Movement?
Roam: an international network of coworking spaces (SF, London, Bali, Miami, Tokyo)
VisaList: Find visa requirements and document checklist for 238 countries
RemoteYear: A platform for professionals who want to live and work in different cities around the world, sponsored by your employer
Remote job boards like Remote OK and Working Nomads
Reddit has a very active subreddit called r/digitalnomad
Are you interested in being a digital nomad? Listen to our interview with someone whoâs been doing it for more than a year now to find out what itâs like.
Not âïž: DAVOS
Disclosure: We havenât been to Davos. And we recognize that people like to throw shade on events they havenât or canât attend (ahem, Burning Man). But it looks kinda wack, right? Hereâs four reasons why:
FOUNDER and INVESTOR STUFF
Interesting takeaways from an interview about investing in brands with Michael Duda, Managing Partner at Bullish, an early stage investment fund and marketing agency:
Big CPG company customers are retailers, not consumers. Hence, the opportunity for startups to make a direct connection with consumers
Trader Joeâs bases all their choices on a substitute teacher who drives a late model Volvo
Women make up 83% of consumer purchases in the US
63% of consumer search takes place on Amazon
On surveys, âconsumers are wonderful liarsâ
Investment heuristics: inefficient purchase journey, low NPS scores
Non-obvious founder traits: liberal arts background, talks about team over product, relentlessly focused on customer service
Underrated marketing channels: meaningful activations and events, creative use of Twitter (cc: @Wendys), micro-influencers. Overrated: influencers.
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A Tweetstorm about âFake it til you make itâ strategies by a16z investor Li Jin outlines ways to overcome the chicken and egg problem when starting a marketplace like Uber or Yelp. Her advice: Bootstrap one side inorganically to attract the other. In the very early days, when you have limited time, funding and credibility, you need to take risks to grow. But thereâs a fine line between kinda fakinâ it, for example by purchasing used cars to seed your used car marketplace (like Beepi) and flat out fakinâ it, like throwing a faux luxury music festival (like Fyre Festival).
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Full blog post here.
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Thinking of starting a company? Answer these five questions asked by Product Huntâs Nathan Hoover.
By: The Oatmeal
OVERHEARDS
Hit reply and send us your favorite overheards or funnies and weâll include them in next weekâs newsletter!
âIâm trying to figure out a way I can make money in Asia too â I have insomnia so I might as wellâ - dude at Canal Street Market
ASKS, OFFERS & EXPERIMENTS
Offer: Hazel (AI Coach for Managers) is looking for their first sales hire. If you know anyone whoâs looking for a new chapter in 2019 who might be a fit, have them email wisam@hazelhq.com.Â
Offer: Got any Asks or Offers? Things like cool job opps, asking for feedback, etc. Send them to us and weâll include it in an upcoming newsletter đ€łđŸ
By: Tom Fishburne
Weekly Thought
By: Greg Kubin
A friend recently told me she lived a year of her life by the flip of a coin. She heard a Freakonomics episode which claimed that 50% of our decisions result in the âwrongâ outcome, so she may as well live by the flip of a coin.
Funnily enough, my soon-to-be sister & brother in-law bought me a coin for Christmas with two sides labeled: âGo out tonightâ and âStay in tonightâ.
This week, I flipped the coin to decide if I should go to an after work event. The coin said to go. I went. And I felt oddly liberated. No second guessing.
CHALLENGE: We challenge you to outsource one decision to a coin. Let us know what you choose and if you are happy with the outcome. Weâll include the results in next weekâs newsletter.
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