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Ben’s List for Entrepreneurs W2 – Selected

As Dan Taylor says in the Selected Podcast… aaaaaaaaaaaaand we’re back!

In my absence, Dan shared his own reading list and it reminded my how much of a geek he is. And I am. Well, we are two different kind of geeks with a notable overlap… and that’s the beauty of the Internet: it allows geekiness to expand to unexpected extremes and connect extreme geeks together.

This week’s list (1 book, 11 articles and 1 kickass game ) focuses as usual on a bunch of valuable entrepreneurial resources and dumb investor practices. We also talk product, newsletters and the music industry.

And we’re geeking out on science, physics and quantum entanglement.


Book

I got this book recently as I got even more obsessed with quantum mechanics over the winter holidays. It’s supposedly one of the most simple way to understand Penrose’s work on quantum physics, computer science and AI.

I’m a nerd.

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BBC

Entrepreneurship

No Meetings, No Deadlines, No Full-Time Employees

Because I was burned out and didn’t want to think about working any more than I needed to, I instituted a no-meeting, no-deadline culture. For me, it was no longer about growth at all costs, but “freedom at all costs.”

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GIPHY

Why Did I Write An “Annual Report” From The Future?

You can’t just get away with waving your hands and saying, ’that’ll all get figured out..’. You have to do the work, at least at a preliminary level to determine what it is that’ll need to get figured out.

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MemeGenerator

The 30 Best Pieces of Advice for Entrepreneurs in 2020

From HR to management to personal development and more, this list is jam-packed with tips & tricks to keep kicking ass in 2021

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Venture Capital

Absurd Seed Rounds Arguments

A new breed of angel investors and founders started to arise, the funding capacity of institutional investors as well… And in no time the prom night turned into a 24/7 packed club where realities got mixed with signals.

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GIPHY

Product

But First, Product: Resources for Product Builders and Leaders

Building great product lives at the intersection of technology, business acumen and user psychology.

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GIPHY

Build An App For Your Newsletter Subscribers with Adalo [7 Step NoCode Process]

Especially now, with everyone trying to get into everybody’s inbox, why not look at a different channel?

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REDDIT
  • Link: freshvanroot.com/blog/2021/build-an-app-for-your-newsletter-subscribers-with-adalo-7-step-process/
  • Author: Rolf Mistelbacher

Events

B2B business events in Europe — A year of tough lessons learned, and a positive outlook for 2021

Above all, it is clear that the need to meet, network and learn from inspirational business figures as part of a tailored experience is here to stay.

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Writing

What Writers and Editors Do

…what any kind of boundary breaking always does is to draw attention to the boundary itself—in this case between editor and writer, who together with the text form a kind of Bermuda Triangle within whose force field everything said and done disappears without trace.

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GIPHY

Newsletters: Is This Progress?

Yet websites are treated as these embarrassing, ugly, ad-riddled things, whilst newsletters have established some kind of prestige for themselves somehow.

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GIPHY

Science

Could an Industrial Prehuman Civilization Have Existed on Earth before Ours?

“Then again, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.”

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Music

How More TikTok Stars Can Succeed in the Music Industry

Music culture is as multi-hyphenate as ever, especially in hip-hop. TikTok’s not going anywhere, so it’s time to make moves.

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Game

Play through all the major events of 2020: the Australia wildfires, COVID-19, the stock market crash, quarantine, the rise of TikTok, the US elections, etc.

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Events 2 days ago

Last week, I spent three days at Bits and Pretzels in Munich — a startup-focused event with a distinctly Bavarian flavor. Think Oktoberfest meets startup conference, complete with dirndls, lederhosen, and more beer than you might expect. As someone building an AI-powered event platform, I went in with a specific mission: Observe how startups actually market themselves at events. Here’s what I discovered: GoodBytz: The power of good demos What they did: Robotics startup GoodBytz set up a booth where its robots prepared kaiserschmarrn (a traditional German dessert) all day long. Why it worked: Nothing beats seeing a product in action. While other booths had brochures and demos, GoodBytz’s robots were actually cooking. The smell, the movement and the end result stirred together an experience that people will remember and talk about. The lesson: If you have a physical product, show it in action. The old writing adage generalizes well: Show, don’t tell.  Let people see, hear and touch the product. WeRoad: The bathroom hack What they did: Posted “Missing Investor” flyers in bathroom stalls with QR codes pointing to their website. Why it worked: Pure genius. Every startup at the event was looking for investors, but the “Missing Investor” headline, while a bit on the nose, proved irresistible. Plus, bathroom stalls are one of the few places where people have 30 seconds to actually read something. The lesson: Think about where your target audience’s attention will remain undivided. Sometimes, the most effective marketing leverages the most unexpected places. Emqopter: Visual impact matters What they did: Designed a bright orange booth that displayed their drone prominently. Why it worked: In a sea of grey, white, beige and brown, Emqopter’s bright orange booth was impossible to overlook. The drone was real, too, and proved a real conversation starter. The lesson: Your booth is competing with hundreds of others. Make it visually distinctive and ensure your product is the hero. Quests: Community building using the product What they did: Created a busy, branded booth with accessories (toy car, traffic cones, a bulletin board) and used their anti-loneliness app to build communities among founders at the event. Why it worked: Quests used their product to solve a real problem right at the event, and the busy booth design generated energy and curiosity. The lesson: Use your product to solve a problem at the event — if it’s possible, of course. Demonstrate your value in real time. Dyno: Event-themed marketing What they did: Distributed branded electrolyte packs with the tagline “Your hangover ends. Your pension lasts – with Dyno.” Why it worked: Dyno aligned its messaging perfectly with the Oktoberfest theme. Every attendee was thinking about beer and hangovers, so Dyno’s goodies were quite relevant. The tagline was clever, memorable, and directly addressed a pain point most people at the event might have to deal with later. The lesson: Tailor your marketing to the event’s theme and culture. The more you tie your messaging and product to the context, the more memorable you become. So, what did I learn? Event marketing is about more than just showing up and setting up a booth; you have to understand your audience and create experiences that people will remember. Here’s what really struck me: most startups and even big companies don’t know how to leverage events properly. They book the booth, show up and hope for the best; maybe they bring some branded pens and a pop-up banner. Then they’ll go back home and wonder why they spent €5,000 in exchange for 50 business cards that never convert. The startups that stood out at Bits and Pretzels understand something fundamental: event ROI isn’t about booth size or location; it’s about strategy, creativity and planning. None of the startups above improvised on-site, or planned something the night before the event in their hotel rooms. They laid everything out 4-6 weeks before the event. A solid pre-event strategy is what separates successful event marketing from expensive booth rental.  But what matters most for early-stage startups is that you don’t need a massive budget to stand out. WeRoad’s bathroom stall hack probably cost €50 to print the flyers. A standard booth package at Bits and Pretzels would go for €3,000 to €5,500. The ROI difference is staggering when you compare the cost per meaningful conversation. That’s the difference between simply spending money and investing smartly. Building Sesamers has taught me that helping startups find the right events is only half the equation. The other half is helping them understand how to maximize ROI once they’re there. Good props aren’t a marketing expense; they’re opportunities to meet customers, investors and partners, and strike up engaging conversations.

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New Materials 3 days ago

Lios Group, the Irish startup behind SoundBounce, was a winner of JEC Composites Startup Booster 2018, and has been making significant strides since taking home the award.

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New Materials 1 week ago

Tree Composites aims to accelerate the energy transition with innovative composite joints.

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