😸 How to beat a copycat
GM Friends,
Welcome to the Kernal newsletter: where we have a Ted Lasso level of optimism for your startup idea on and off the field ⚽️
In news this week: Shopify got a haircut, Snap got rekt, Elon had a sleepover and Monkeypox is going bananas. Layoffs keep soaring, Katy Perry keeps roaring and the first Tour de France Femmes begins next week. We're keeping today's script tight since our boss told us to we've been hit in the face with too many OOO replies this week. Let's rumble.
Today's Line-Up:
- 😸 Garry Vee's advice on startup copycats
- ⚓️ Startup ideas that'll float your boat
- 😂 Memes to wake you up
Kudos to Alexis Grant for pointing this founder to the best place on the internet to validate your startup idea. To be fair, Houck has been up late closing up his $10m fund for Launch house 💸
💪 Garry Vee's POV on Copying vs Executing
In the early days of Kernal when we were at sub 500 users, we got a bunch of questions about people copying ideas. Founders would say:
- what if someone steals my startup idea?
- what if they rip off the direction I wanna take this?
- what if an investor shares my deck with a competitor?
What if, what if, what if.
And TBH, they're valid questions. But not ones that we're concerned about. And if you watch this 30 sec clip by Gary Vee, neither is he. Why?
Because the best startup founders in the world aren't thinking about copycats. They worried about how fast they can execute on their idea
At Kernal, we're focused on the work-out-loud community.
Not the "I've got a secret biotech idea so I'm gonna work in my basement for 10 years" community. Let someone else help those folks.
What you realize after a couple years in Startupville, is 99% don't do anything with their idea. They just:
- talk about them at pour-over coffees, ☕️
- post about them in their Twitter threads 🧵
- and mention "aspiring entrepreneur" in their Linkedin title 👀
There's nothing wrong with those things. But our team got rallied up about how many people just sit on their ideas, when they could be building them out loud: quicker, more effectively and with proper accountability.
So we spun up the Kernal platform to be a place where builders around the world could see if their napkin startup idea had any legs.
A couple of chrome tabs later, we're now at 10,000 members that think the exact same way we do.
They are here to share startup ideas when they have 'em, and then put their head down to execute when they've seen the proper green light.
And we couldn't be more excited about serving this community to keep delivering on this purpose. So the TL;DR of handling copycats?
- Know that quick execution is the best defensibility to lazy copycats
- Understand that your distribution and your team are a moat nobody can copy
- Remember that our team is here for you if you spot any scammy behaviour
Last question.
If you know someone that's a work-out-loud executor, we want to meet them. Send them an invite to Kernal by smashing that green button.
🚀 Startup Ideas of the Week
Ya'll know the drill. Up-vote, comment and reach out to your favourite ideas below.
Yo. We're sorting a list of ideas to pass to investors each week. If your Kernal idea isn't updated with the correct stage, do that now.
To the top ideas 👇
Got a startup idea you've been sitting on? Toss it on Kernal and see where it goes.
🐦 Memes of the Week:
We're dropping 3 on you b/c our mentor told us to under promise and over deliver:
📣 PSA: trusted members of Kernal, David's been knocking on our door for a little while but we've got a long waitlist. Since he asked so nicely, should we let him? in Reply to this email "open sesame" and if we can 10 votes in the next hour we'll cut him some slack.
Now go out there and enjoy your Friday.
💚 the Kernal crew
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