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Firstly a big welcome to the 250+ new subscribers that joined last month 👋
Last month wasn’t my most productive. Some months are more productive than others, but……that’s…..ok!!!
This month I’m continuing to search for my first NFT purchase, ramp up Beta Directory and continue to add more fresh beta drops and hopefully get it to a position where I can launch it on Product Hunt. Who knows I might even find the time to finish off writing some pots I’ve been working on for a while.
💎 Top post last month: Shiny Object Club
Right, let’s get to it - time for this months roundup 👇
You might have recently heard that Canva is now valued at $40b. But it wasn’t an easy ride to this eye-watering valuation. In 2018 Melanie Perkins (Co-founder & CEO) wrote this fascinating and candid post detailing her journey so far. It’s as if you’re getting a sneak peek at her journal. She has literally documented everything, rejection emails, feedback, her emotions at the time, old screenshots of the initial product, the lot. It’s an incredibly inspiring story, full of ups and downs with loads of takeaways to digest. 50 min read (it’s worth it)
Christian Bowens explores a new wave of solo founders. The common thread? they are solving very specific problems and carved vertical businesses in a niche and doing extremely well with 6/7 figure revenues with no outside funding. Christian explains “The way we build startups is changing, and with that change comes the rise of a new breed of company: bootstrapped, cash generative, and growing like crazy”.5 min read.
I found this post by Gergely Orosz fascinating, despite there being a lot of technical lingoes I didn’t quite understand. Gergely applied for the mobile team at Uber as a Senior mobile iOS engineer only to find weeks later working in the payments team as project lead for the Android team with 20+ engineers working under him to deliver one of the biggest software rewrites within an unapologetically ridiculous deadline. Strap yourself in for the ride and enjoy his whirlwind of a story! 17 min read.
I’ve been using OpenSea (a platform for buying and selling NFTs) for a few months now, so found this user experience (UX) teardown by Peter Ramsey fascinating. Opensea has seen over $30b in transaction volume in just August alone brought on by millions of new users like me looking to dip their toe into the world of NFT’s and join the hype train to snag a Bored Ape, Bad Bunny, Dead Fellaz or expensive JPG of choice. So as you can imagine they need to nail their UX. Peter explores the good, the bad and the potential improvements they could make to their platform to onboard these wannabe metaverse moguls.
🎁 Bonus Read: Best advice I’ve read about buying your first NFT
Sometimes you need some good old random thoughts on life, work, money, and habits to course-correct yourself, but not from one of those nasty Buzzfeed listicles. Well, I have just the thing. Traf (Founder of Super.so) put together a fantastic list of curated one-line simple truths to help guide you. One of my favs: “Spending time on things you can’t control takes time away from things you can.”
I recently discovered this new podcast hosted by Courtland Allen (Founder of IndieHackers) and Julian Shapiro (founder of DemandCurve) where they invite two prominent guests in a particular field to chat about a particular subject. Unlike most dry interviews, Brains try to make it more of a lively dinner conversation. In this episode, they invited Sam Parr and Anthony Pompliano to discuss how to make money and not lose it in the COVID era.
The team at MailBrew (Fabrizio, Francesco & Alberto) have launched a fantastic side project called Feeds Mage which helps you discover great blogs from your Twitter follows. If you’re like me and take time to curate who you follow on Twitter then this handy free tool will extract any blogs or newsletters from the people you follow in a matter of seconds. Downside - I’m now subscribed to another 10 newsletters 😅
I recently had a lot of webcam envy and have been wanting to upgrade my setup for a while now as a permanent remote worker. I recently stumbled across the Opal Camera and fell in love with its design aesthetic and tech specs instantly. Firstly, it doesn’t look like any webcam you have seen before - with its minimalistic design and form. It also boasts DSLR like quality with a wide-angle lens amongst various other neat features. Pre-orders are available now.
Don’t fancy shelling out $300 and already have a recent iPhone Pro? Check out EpocCam and take advantage of your iPhone.
Compose is a free Chrome extension that lets you automate your writing using AI. This YC startup was the brainchild of both Michael and his co-founder Landon. As they say “We shouldn’t be spending 40% of our time typing every day”. Personally, it reminds me of Grammarly but with an intelligent autocomplete suggestion tool built-in. Also, word on the street is they are also building the capability for its AI-powered backend to learn your voice.
Each month I share the latest digital products, fascinating content and resources the best new and established digital creators and makers. Join 6,500 other curious readers each month.