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

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

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

• Stop Chasing Yes Men: The Blind Spot That Kills Startups

• 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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Your Startup Doesn’t Need Another Pivot — It Needs a Mirror

Founders are often told to “trust the vision,” but the real magic happens when that vision is paired with self-awareness. This isn’t just feel-good advice — it’s what separates lasting startups from expensive flops. It’s easy to mistake conviction for clarity, but ignoring feedback, blaming others, or surrounding yourself with yes-people can quietly wreck a company. Even the most talented founders fail if they can’t get real with themselves.

What actually works? Building a small “red team” to challenge your thinking, doing weekly check-ins with yourself, writing down big decisions and assumptions, and staying physically sharp (yes, your sleep and workouts matter). Founders who can say “I might be wrong” while still moving forward with purpose are the ones who win. They don’t need to be the smartest in the room — just the clearest. (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.