🍀 3 Reasons Greg Isenberg Thinks Now is the Best Time to be a Founder
GM Friends,
Welcome to the Kernal newsletter: your bluetooth speaker of free startup ideas, except we never run out of battery 🔋
In news this week: It's August, Tech layoffs keep stacking, Forbes is eyeing up a $600M+ sale, and Tiger Global's YTD is getting lower than Flo Rida. Elon's Twitter game is still spicy, Kernal launched an Instagram page and the top thing stuck in our heads from last night's Office episode is Ryan started the fireeeee 🎸
Enough dabbling. Let's jump in.
Today's Line-Up:
- 💎 Why now is the best time to build a startup
- 🍗 Startup ideas to mention at your BBQ this weekend
- 😂 Memes to keep you from hitting that unsubscribe button
Let's play a quick game of testimonial pop quiz. Question: which one-liner below caused Lola to reply recommending Kernal? Was it:
- A) the top-ranked blog to learn about exotic birds
- B) a rotten tomatoes site for crime podcasts or.....
- C) a kick-ass way to validate your startup idea
DING DING DING. You got it, Einstein. "C" all the way. But "B" is a startup idea and a half if one of ya'll wanna run with it... (just saying).
💭 5 Gems We Spotted from Greg Isenberg
If you've heard the news for more than 3 seconds these days, you know it's doom and gloom out there...
- XYZ's laying off 800 staff
- This country's facing their biggest heat wave in centuries
- so on and so forth
To switch it up, we wanna drop a splash of optimism your way. Late last night while trying to reach our newsletter deadline, we were hit in the face by this power thread from Greg Isenberg.
And if you don't know Greg, here's a couple of reasons why you'd wanna treat him to poutine:
- He's advised brands you know like WeWork, TikTok and Reddit
- He founded Late Checkout, a product design agency, fund and studio hybrid which
- He's a nice Canadian and once won an arm wrestling match against Jack Dorsey*
*lied about the last one, but you get the point.
Since you're so busy catching up on the bachelor building a startup these days, we summarized his Twitter thread so you can skim it in 30 seconds. Here's 3 gems we dug up on why now is the best time to launch or join a startup:
💎 Gem 1: You can pick from thousands of startup ideas --> He says he's spotted 8,000 communities on Reddit alone that could be unbundled to build a ~$1m/year revenue business.
Better yet, he bets you can validate the untapped market with less than $500. There's never been an easier time to find a startup idea that gets you jazzed and has a ripe business opportunity. Just gotta start looking under the right rocks.
💎 Gem 2: You can build from anywhere --> let's do the math. If you have:
- a smartphone,
- good wifi connection
- validated startup idea
The sky's the limit. Ain't nothing holding you back. In the thread, Greg calls out a friend he knows in the middle of nowhere running a $100m/yr business of his phone. Customers don't know and they probably don't ask.
B/c they love the product and that's the 2022 founder life.
💎 Gem 3: You have unlimited funding sources available --> there's tons of dry powder (VC term for capital) out there. You just gotta go out there and claim it. How Greg thinks:
- VCs need to get a good return for their LPs by investing
- NFTs, tokens, SBA loans are a google search away to fund your monthly business costs
- equity-free grants, startup accelerators loans etc are all available at the ready
The writing is on the wall, you just gotta get moving.
He finishes the thread by reminding founders:
- Marketing's never been easier --> IG reels, tik tok, tweets all free to put out
- No-code tools let you build MVPs in days --> bubble, ghost, wix etc
- All the how-to tactics are accessible --> Youtube, AMAs, community forums etc
The TL;DR? There's never in history been a better time to build or join a startup. So what's it gonna be?
Hit one of the buttons below.
Complain about the Economy and Watch The Bachelor
Build a Startup Idea the World Wants
You know what to do.
And you know what platform to use to validate if your startup idea is worth chasing 🔎
🚀 Startup Ideas of the Week
Hats off founders. You've been putting up some killer ideas. And your Tweeting / IG'ing them our way which lights us up.
Quick Throwback: Remember that David guy we asked you to vote on accepting to the community last week? Well, dozens of you replied open sesame so we let him in. Bets decision of our year.
Get this. He's already:
- 1) filled out his entire profile,
- 2) posted a startup idea andddd
- 3) spun up an MVP
Whatever's in his morning coffee, we wanna know. Scroll the list of ideas that caught our eye and up-vote / comment on your favs:
Got a startup idea of your own? Smash the green button and toss it up hot shot.
🥁 New Ambassador Introduction
Help us give a warm welcome to Justin Harris who is joining the Kernal Ambassador team. Check out what he’s building here and drop us a reply if you wanna grab a coffee with him in LA.
Wanna join our Ambassador Program? Reach out here
🐦 Meme of the Week:
I don't know why podcasts don't recommend this sleep hack:
In the words of Chamath, go have yourself a SPACtacular weekend
💚 the Kernal crew
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