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Hey — It’s Charlie.

Welcome to the latest edition of Great Startups! Here’s what’s in store:

• The Startup Trap: Why “Big Pain Points” Still Lead to Startup Graveyards

• Cold Emailing: The art of cold-emailing a billionaire.

• Low Prices = Low Confidence: Stop Underselling Your Startup

• The $500 Hack: Your Startup Doesn’t Need a Fancy Name—Just a Working Credit Card Limit

• Targeting Made Simple: A step-by-step guide to finding your perfect customer.

• Hidden Startup Debt: The silent killer that’s slowing growth.

Get ready to dive into these power-packed insights for founders and growth enthusiasts!

Resources

• Waves, dams, and rivers: How demand works at scale. (LINK)

• You're doing quarterly planning wrong. (LINK)

• The art of cold-emailing a billionaire. (LINK)

• David Politis on doing whatever it takes to stay in the game (LINK)

• Sam Blond on how to generate more demand. (LINK)

ICYMI

• YouTube plans crackdown on repetitive, AI-generated videos. (LINK)

• Netflix is getting into short videos with a new vertical feed for mobile. (LINK)

• Cloudflare launches a marketplace that lets websites charge AI bots for scraping. (LINK)

• The WordPress vs. WP Engine drama, explained. (LINK)

• 1X will test humanoid robots in ‘a few hundred’ homes in 2025. (LINK)

Quick Links

• Ray Dalio built a $14B empire by following core success principles that took him from humble beginnings to founding the world’s largest hedge fund.

• Iman Gadzhi and Pierre de Preux launched a SaaS and hit 7-figure ARR in 9 months by moving fast, using Iman’s audience, and solving a real problem.

• Lenny Rachitsky and Jen Abel on how to approach founder-led sales.

• Carta shares 50 slides packed with insights for founders from 45,000 startups.

• How One AI App Founder Makes $20K+ Monthly—and How You Can Too!

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Stop Chasing Pain Points — Start Chasing Obsession.

Startups often crash because founders confuse "interesting problems" with "must-have solutions." Just because customers say they have a pain point doesn’t mean they’ll actually pay to fix it—like Damballa’s cybersecurity tech, which everyone agreed was important… but nobody bought. The real test? Your product should fit a situation where users cannot not use it—think WhatsApp (if your friends are on it, you’re stuck) or FDA-mandated software (companies have to comply). Instead of asking, "Would you buy this?" ask, "What happens if this doesn’t exist?" If the answer isn’t "chaos," you’re not solving a real need yet.

To find that real demand, skip the fluffy surveys and dive into how people actually behave. Shadow them, document their janky workarounds, and listen for frustration in their voice—that’s where opportunity hides. Test demand before building: offer a manual version of your solution (like a concierge MVP) or run a "takeaway test" (remove their current hack and see if they panic). If they shrug, pivot fast—your goal isn’t to prove your idea’s cool, but to find the problem that forces people to pay. The best startups don’t sell "nice-to-haves"; they become the only option. (LINK)

Ok that’s it for this week, We keep refining our newsletter content, just hit reply to let us know what you think about this issue.