Squeeze page builders, better Bible App, why you're stuck, 1X vs. 2x Founders, talk to people!

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

• “There is a desperate need for new software devs in the landing page and squeeze page builder space. Too many massive incumbents who have effectively abandoned their projects despite having thousands of customers.” - Jesse Hanley

• “Someone please reinvent magazines. Would love to pay for a well-curated, nicely edited printout of newsletters, blog posts, and tweets.” - Me

  • In general I think content curation is still an unsolved problem. Especially since Twitter decided to suppress any tweets with external links, there’s not really a good way to find interesting new content to consume.

• Alex Lieberman asked on Twitter: “What’s a billion dollar business idea that you don’t have the skill, interest, or time to build but someone should?” and got a few interesting + lots of funny replies:

  • “A better Bible App. Crowd sourced Bible studies with a Reddit style carma voting system to find the best content.”

  • “an actual, nationwide, reputable, affordable general contracting company”

  • “Uber for babysitters / nanny’s”

  • “Synthetic alcohol that mimics the effects but with low toxicity”

  • “A robot that folds clothes.”

  • “Product agency for influencers. Find Twitter/YouTube influencers that don’t have their own products - build/source etc a product for their brand. Do everything for them and all they do is make content around the product….”

  • “An Alibaba but for western hemisphere companies.”

🛠 Things Worth Checking Out

• Grow your Twitter account faster and spend more time running your business with Pete Codes’ ghostwriting services. Read how it works.

• Favorite book I read recently is Sell Futures, not Features by Michael Killen. Tons of great advice. My notes here.

Links in bold are ads. Get your sponsorship here.

👨‍🎓 Why You’re Stuck

Quick observation from talking to a bunch of founders recently.

• If you’re struggling to get your business off the ground and to a meaningful revenue level, it’s usually because you’re focusing on a bad opportunity. The only way out is to pivot toward a more promising opportunity.

• If you’re struggling to scale beyond a certain point, it’s usually because you have issues letting go. To get unstuck, you have to let go of responsibilities even if it feels like no one can do what you do.
  
  Met a guy running a CRO agency who’s still doing user interviews even though he hates doing them. Another guy I met is running a super successful local web hosting company. And he’s still doing customer support for several hours every week. He absolutely hates doing that. So why is he still doing it? Because he’s afraid their TrustPilot rating will go down otherwise when the support quality drops even a little bit.
  
  Now letting go is definitely easier said than done. I’m still writing all the backend code for our agency myself 😬

🧪 1X vs. 2x Founders

Source

🙊 Talk to People

Looking for new opportunities? Struggling to figure out your next move?

Talk to people.

Looking for customers? New clients? A job?

Talk to people.

Looking for advice? Hitting a wall? Feeling stuck?

Skip the courses and books and TALK TO PEOPLE!

Yes, I know. Browsing the bestseller lists on Amazon is a definitely more comfortable than talking to people.

I too would love to pay 99 cents for an ebook and have all my questions answered.

But it doesn’t work like that.

99.99% of people don’t write books or record YouTube videos. And even if they did, the chances that they talk about things directly relevant to you are slim.

Content by its very nature must generalize. It’s a one-to-many medium. It’s never specific enough to be that useful unless you get extremely lucky.

You can get big picture ideas like “document everything and build systems”. But you won’t get the nitty gritty details of how people in your exact situation have successfully done this. If you’re lucky you’ll get one or two case studies.

In a world where everyone is hiding behind chat interfaces and is constantly distracted by infinite amounts of content, the willingness to talk to people is almost a cheat code at this point.

It’s one of the most common patterns I see among successful people.

When they are between projects and not sure what to do next, they schedule meetings with whoever is willing to talk to them.

They are transparent that there is not really an agenda, they’re just figuring out what to do next. And a ton of people are willing to help in a situation like that.

The next big idea will then most likely not come a single conversation. In fact, a lot of these conversations feel like a waste of time. But over the course of many conversations, a pattern will emerge.

Now this is definitely a messy process. It’s not as clean as reading a book or taking a course where someone walks you through a 5-step process.

But unlike these, talking to people actually works.

In one-on-one conversations, you can get specific. You can ask questions. You can get direct feedback. You can get advice. You will be challenged. You can get introductions. And people are willing to share a lot more than on Twitter or in a blog post.

So, whether you’re feeling lost or you’ve hit a roadblock on your journey to success, remember this: you’re usually just a dozen or so conversations away from a breakthrough.

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