cover of episode Dru Riley, Trends.vc // Meta-Trends, Paid Newsletters + Crypto

Dru Riley, Trends.vc // Meta-Trends, Paid Newsletters + Crypto

2021/3/18
logo of podcast Creator Lab - interviews with entrepreneurs and startup founders

Creator Lab - interviews with entrepreneurs and startup founders

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Shownotes Transcript

Dru Riley is the founder of Trends.vc, a community + newsletter that helps 35,000 entrepreneurs discover new markets + ideas.

Trends makes tens of thousands of dollars/month in subscription revenue + was ranked "Product of The Month" on Product Hunt.

In this conversation you'll learn about:

– the meta-trends behind what Dru writes about, the things that don't change, after studying the things that do change

– democratization, positive-sum networks + fractional ownership

– trends he's excited about including: DeFi (decentralized finance) + DAOs (decentralized autonomous organizations) and NFTs (non-fungible tokens)

– the 80/20 of his research + editing process, including how he processed 172 podcasts for 1 recent report

– we go behind the mind & discuss some of his rules for life, we touch on incentives, stories + courage

Let us know what you think on Twitter: https://twitter.com/bzaidi) https://twitter.com/DruRly)

Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/q5rdqLzy-Gw)

Timestamps:

  • 0:00:00 - Preview
  • 0:02:46 - Intro To Dru + Trends
  • 0:04:57 - Scale of Trends
  • 0:05:39 - Software Engineering Background + Knowing When To Leave
  • 0:08:14 - Starting Books In The Middle
  • 0:11:46 - Making First $15 after saving up $250k
  • 0:21:00 - Rejecting An Offer Of Investment
  • 0:22:22 - Decision Dilution + Stakeholder Types
  • 0:25:14 - Content vs Trust Treadmill
  • 0:26:01 - Refining Like A Standup Comedian
  • 0:28:34 - Signals To Look For In Feedback
  • 0:31:37 - Meta-trends
  • 0:33:45 - Democratization
  • 0:36:18 - Ability To Build Smaller
  • 0:38:06 - Coders vs Builders - “Code Is Being Commoditized”
  • 0:40:57 - Decentralization
  • 0:43:06 - Positive Sum Networks
  • 0:45:26 - What are DAOs (decentralized autonomous orgs)
  • 0:46:53 - Fractional Ownership
  • 0:48:45 - NFTs
  • 0:51:41 - Direct To Consumer
  • 0:52:44 - Research + Writing Process
  • 0:54:57 - Processing 172 Podcasts
  • 0:59:10 - Podcast Speed + Dopamine Hits
  • 1:02:15 - Edit - “How Many, How Much”
  • 1:03:52 - Filtering Feedback
  • 1:05:49 - Constraints
  • 1:08:34 - Starting From Scratch Today
  • 1:11:37 - Behind The Mind - 100 Rules To Live By
  • 1:12:15 - Hard choices easy life. Easy choices hard life.
  • 1:13:05 - Think Grey, Not Black + White - Annie Duke
  • 1:14:09 - Stories vs Insight
  • 1:16:59 - Incentives
  • 1:17:56 - “Life Is Short, Not Fair”
  • 1:19:27 - Don’t Try To Change Someone’s Worldview
  • 1:21:20 - “It’s Not About The Bag”
  • 1:23:24 - Memento Mori
  • 1:24:29 - Life Is Not Baseball - Play Asymmetric Games
  • 1:25:23 - Courage

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