Funds and Founders Weekly

Welcome to the first issue of Funds and Founders Weekly, a weekly roundup of the latest episode that dropped and teasers of those yet to come (plus some other cool stuff that I came across).

My name is Abhinav and you probably know me as the host of the show (check it out here)

Whats on deck:

1. What is top of mind for me? too many ai tools?

2. Episode 36 with Jon Cooper from Tiny Talks

3. Bookmarks/saved links

4. Events I am attending/hosting

5. My first ad, click the link for me?

I got my first 2 unsubscribes, these were past guests from my podcast, curious to know why, would love to improve on this newsletter over time to prevent that 😁 

I am trying out the monetize feature on beehiiv for the first time - makes it super simple, not plugging beehiiv but will be having someone from the beehiiv C suite team on later in october. Stay tuned.

CLICK on the ad links at the bottom of this newsletter, I get $2 per click and all revenue from this add will be donated to a local austin charity, would love some recommendations

Episode 36 is now live on all platforms, I had the chance to talk with Jon Cooper who I first met at the supper club in austin and then learned about Tiny Talks. 

Key Takeaways from the episode

• How Jon Built a 7-figure SEO agency from his dorm room

• Learning about the market and watching trends to find a pivot to content marketing and affiliate sites

• Found the right time to exit his company

• Turned a passion project into a thriving event called Tiny Talks and grew it to 200+ attendees hosting over 5 different events, would definitely recommend you attend the next one.

• Balances passion projects with financial success, we talk about how he tried to become an olympic curling athlete representing the US before the training location was converted to something else.

Full episode links:

Youtube, Spotify, Apple, Everywhere Else

Or skip straight to the juicy parts:

Timestamps:

0:00 - Introduction and Jon's background

2:31 - Starting an SEO business in high school

7:17 - Scaling the agency and hiring employees

12:03 - Pivoting to content marketing and affiliate sites

18:42 - Deciding when to exit the business

22:34 - The origin of Tiny Talks

27:41 - Memorable Tiny Talks stories

32:25 - The importance of in-person connection

37:29 - Running Tiny Talks as a passion project

41:33 - Advice on finding your niche

45:22 - Book recommendations for entrepreneurs

49:51 - Event planning tips from "The 2-Hour Cocktail Party"

54:26 - Closing thoughts and where to find Tiny Talks

Next up, bookmarks I saved this week worth reading

• Growth Hacking - too good to be true or secret weapon someone can use? Ive seen a lot of people talk about growth hacking to gain traction initial customers and revenue, not sure if this is just above my head but feels like there is some skill I am missing that makes this process seem like second nature. Do you think growth hacking is a fad?

• Interesting take on what $1m ARR means - Robert talks about how $1m arr means you have achieved PMF and may not be ready to scale untill the $1M is coming from one customer type/ICP - thoughts?

• Open AI launched realtime API - interesting use cases that blow my mind on the speed of development and people building micro solutions for themselved.

Thanks for reading my bookmarks

Events I am organizing or excited to attend.

• Justin and I are hosting an investors only poker tournament where the winner will get to write a check with the winnings into one of the startups pitching, sign up here to play if you are a startup sign up here to pitch

That’s all I have for this week

And don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube if this gave you any value. You'll get new entrepreneurial stories every week.

Email me here if you want to share any feedback, or recommend a guest you think would be good on the show.

-Abhinav

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