Hey — It’s Charlie.

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

• When Cheap Isn’t Cheating: The Art of Strategic Low Pricing

• Unstoppable Companies: How engineering for survival creates unstoppable companies.

• Grow as a Founder: A 6-step framework to grow sales as a founders

• 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

• It's not brand vs. growth. (LINK)

• How to ship like a startup. (LINK)

• How Lovable got to $40M ARR in just 4 months. (LINK)

• How to dominate your niche with vibe marketing. (LINK)

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

ICYMI

• Amazon reportedly submits last-minute bid to acquire TikTok. (LINK)

• ChatGPT users have generated over 700M images since last week. (LINK)

• Apple loses $250B market value as tariffs tank tech stocks. (LINK)

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

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

Quick Links

• Simon Høiberg shares a game-changing strategy to hit $1K MRR in your first month

• Jack Friks is racing to 1K app downloads in 30 days—see how TikTok, Instagram, and UGC fuel his strategy!

• 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!

How to Sell Cheap Without Going Broke

Never compete on price" is great advice—unless you’re Amazon, Costco, or IKEA. The trick? Their low prices aren’t just discounts—they’re the result of a deliberate strategy with built-in trade-offs. Costco makes you buy in bulk and pay a fee. IKEA makes you DIY your furniture. These "flaws" keep costs low and competitors away. If you’re just cutting prices to undercut rivals, you’ll bleed out. But if low prices come from a unique system, you win.

The best part? You don’t need VC billions to do this. Southwest started with three planes. Vanguard launched with $2M. Their secret? They built a model that was profitable early—not just cheap. They picked a niche, embraced the trade-offs, and scaled smart. So if you’re bootstrapped, don’t just race to the bottom. Build something where low prices happen because your whole system is different. Compete on strategy, not just price. (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.