⚒️ The startup founder's toolkit
⚒️ The startup founder's toolkit
Optimize your workspace and flow with expert-recommended apps and gear
What are the everyday items you need to succeed as a startup founder?
This week, we’re diving into these essentials, plus content creation, hybrid work challenges, and more.
Let’s dig in.
Today’s agenda:
🧠 Thought leadership + AI
📕 The ultimate founder’s guide
🏢 Overcoming hybrid work challenges
💼 Briefly: Templates & behavioral marketing
⏱️ Up & coming: Will AI “kill” websites?
🎭 Create content that performs
“Thought leadership” has become somewhat of a buzzword in 2024—mostly because what people are calling thought leadership isn’t actually it.
Jo Roberts, director of product development at MarketingProfs, references two definitions:
A “categorically different type of content” that has personal experience and is tied to beliefs, according to Orbit Media’s Andy Crestodina
Strong opinion + original research—which are formats most likely to get 10x performance, according to Steve Raison, cofounder of BuzzSumo
“If you can’t disagree with it, it’s not thought leadership,” Crestodina says.
So, if you’re calling most of your content thought leadership, it probably isn’t it.
Thought leadership with AI
First things first—you can’t use AI to write thought leadership, because this type of content needs your unique voice and perspective to really perform and build trust.
However, you can use AI to narrow down the perfect topics.
Here’s how:
Train your chatbot of choice (i.e. ChatGPT) on your persona, either by uploading a persona document or creating a custom GPT
Then, use AI to brainstorm with prompts like, “What questions are people in my industry afraid to answer?” or “What are the most important topics in my industry that are the least likely to be covered by the big blogs?”
💡 By helping AI think outside of the box using your specific prompts + unique persona, you can write a bold, compelling piece of content that gets people talking.
That is the idea behind thought leadership.
🎒 Startup essentials
Are you a startup founder looking for your ideal productivity setup?
Watch my latest video on the top apps, desk setup, and everyday carry items (EDC) I actually use every single day:
💡 Subscribe to my channel for more!
🧑💼 Unlocking hybrid harmony
Does your organization have a hybrid work arrangement? Do you struggle with employees following your hybrid guidelines?
If so, it’s a matter of reframing.
Mark C. Bolino and Corey Phelps of the University of Oklahoma’s Price College of Business have the following suggestions:
Make the focus about when it’s most important for employees to be physically present vs. how often they should be in the office
Emphasize the benefits of their in-person presence to the company or themselves vs. making the focus “improving company culture”
Check in to see what employees are working on or if they need help rather than focusing on how productive they’re being
Pinpoint specific tasks or objectives that should be reached and create milestones
The best advice may be to shift the focus to yourself first—what type of training or networking could you do to learn more about managing hybrid workspaces?
Briefly
☀️ The economy doesn’t seem to be as cooling off as much as the Fed would like, leading many to believe rate cuts aren’t in our future this summer
💬 Speaking of buzzwords—here are 50 marketing buzzwords you should be aware of (and some to maybe avoid using)
🏃 What keywords are your competitors using? Discover how to find these keywords—and outperform the competition
🔬 Behavioral science is helping businesses understand their customers better—read why it’s important and how to apply it
📱 Don’t have time for social media, but know it’s important for your business? Here are 71 templates to help speed up the process
Up & Coming
Online publishers are scared that AI search engines are going to kill website traffic—with some already seeing a decline since the introduction of Google’s AI overview.
Lean into the interesting insights and discussion here.