No agenda cold emails, dealership visits as a service, prompt money, the doing game.
Hey,
this is Jakob Greenfeld, author of the Business Brainstorms newsletter - every week I write this email to share the most interesting trends, frameworks, opportunities, and ideas with you.
Let's dive in!
💡 Opportunities
Prompt Base has a list of the top prompt engineers on their site. You can not only see how many sales they made (top sellers have around 1k sales currently which at ~$3/prompt equals ~$30k in total revenue) but also see their most popular prompts. If I were looking for generative AI ideas, this is where I would start my research.
“My camera roll is now more screenshots than photos. Mainly things I want to eventually buy, places to go, stuff to remember etc. Feels like there could be a better way to traverse and map the internet?” - Madeline Macartney
“Can I pay someone to take my car to the dealership, wait with it while they change the oil and all that, & bring it back? What would that cost? This is a huge waste of my time.” - Vic Vijayakumar
🛠 Things Worth Checking Out
Trible offers a no-code platform that lets experts, coaches and content creators easily build their own branded websites and mobile apps to deliver and monetize courses, content, community memberships, and coaching services.
Someone put together a great overview of AI startup categories with examples and “heat levels” here.
Grow your Twitter account faster and spend more time running your business with Pete Codes’ ghostwriting services. Read how it works.
Kyle Truong wrote some great reflections on his journey toward ramen profitability. Paints a very realistic picture and includes interesting lessons.
My friends at Videodeck help businesses win more customers with done-for-you product videos. They move fast, are full-service (studio, actors, and editors), and drive results.
Links in bold are ads. Book yours here.
🧪 No Agenda Cold Emails
One of my favorite habits is sending ideas to people without any expectations or agenda.
Just last Saturday, I messaged the CEO of my favorite coffee house chain, the founder of a software I no longer use, and a guy whose blog post I really liked this week. Everyone replied.
What’s the point? For one, I really appreciate when I get this kind of message. Most people are entirely transactional. When you get a DM like “Hey, how’s it going?”, you know you’re going to get hit with a sales pitch.
No agenda messages are a breath of fresh air. By sending them, I’m doing something to bring into existence the kind of world I want to live in.
But also each cold email I send increases my luck surface area a little bit.
🧙♂️ Action Bias and the Doing Game
Interestingly, it's always the most successful people that reply the fastest. For example, the CEO of the 10k+ employee coffee chain personally replied within 90 minutes to my cold email- on a Saturday.
I 100% buy into the theory that there's a direct correlation between a person's success and how fast they reply to messages.
It all boils down to whether or not you have bias for action.
I have this tendency of thinking “wait, let me think about it first”. I’m opening a DM or read an email, close it, and let it sit in my inbox. It’s not like I’m really going to think about it. I just feel resistance to reply right away.
Only slowly I’m unlearning that habit. If you reply fast, you’re inviting people to reply fast themselves, and more good things happen faster. If it always takes you three days to reply, people feel dumb for replying within a few minutes and they will adjust to your pace. Sucks the energy out of conversations and most fizzle out.
The same goes for exploring new business ventures, marketing intiatives, whatever. After all, entrepreneurship is not a thinking game. It’s a doing game.
💸 Revenue Signals
Fix My Speakers is making around $5k from ads. (Simple site that helps remove water from your phone speakers after getting them wet.)
End Note
As always, if you’re enjoying this report, I’d love it if you shared it with a friend or two. You can send them here to sign up.
Have a great week,
Jakob