#9- The Vcble Sunday Digest
Weekly round-up of this week's posts on vcble
Welcome to the Sunday edition of vcble, the best source on information on growing startups!
What I published this week
I published 5 new articles this week totalling ~3400 words. I shared my reading/listening list on a few of the most important topics surrounding startups - scaling, competition funding & founder burnout. I also shared how I started using technology to improve productivity in running my Team of One. I posted my top four growth hacks for bootstrapped startups. I shared what founders can learn from one of my all-time favourite books - Company of One. I shared how to conduct productive interviews with users to create a feedback loop.
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And now, onto this week’s posts.
Enjoy!
On my reading list
Dr Velumani, the CMD of Thyrocare in conversation with Harish Mehta of TiE Mumbai explains the importance of a business model, and how without the right business model, it is not easy to scale up!
Mark Suster from Both Sides of The Table explains what to do, and how to react when a competitor gets funding. This is something founder’s rarely get advice on, so it is one of the gems.
Joel Gascoigne, the founder of Buffer shares his experience with burnout as a startup founder. Mental health is a very important, and also a well-avoided topic in the world of startups. Do read this and learn from the experience of someone else rather than going through the same thing yourself!
Running a Team of One - How I made technology my new intern?
How to be more productive? I share my experience of witnessing a lack of productivity and steps taken to improve. Being a sole team-member or a ‘Team of One’, I could not follow the conventional Eisenhower Decision Matrix, and had to create a ‘new’ one for myself. I share the top three things I did in order to automate and save time - essentially making technology my new ‘intern’.
Four growth hacking strategies for bootstrapped startups
I like the word growth hacking. It has a very scrappy, get things done, and no BS way of working. While growth is elusive even for well-funded startups, bootstrapped startups have an even tougher hill to climb. In this post, I share my top four growth hacking strategies for bootstrapped startups that do not require an extensive media budget.
Actionable book learnings from Company of One by Paul Jarvis
Company of One is one of my most favourite books. Through this book, Paul shares some gems that founders can adopt to run their own startups. Summarizing the top learnings -
Start by solving the problems of one customer
Be the leader in your niche
Create scalable systems to ensure profitable growth
Overheads can mean death for your startup
How to conduct productive user interviews?
Seeking wisdom through questions is something we all need to learn. In this post, I shared a few questions that every entrepreneur should ask their prospects or customers to know them better to build better products.
That’s it for this week!
👋🏼 Thanks, and see you next Sunday! :)