LfM

Who's Dru Riley 🧐

Dru Riley, software engineer, is a very talented serial maker. I discovered Dru's work through his reports, trends.vc, which I religiously read whenever I get it in my inbox. I am very ashamed that I only recently discovered how much Dru is building and sharing! I mean... Go check out his website. Mind blowing I know!

What is trends.vc ?

trends.vc is made of reports on different market trends and ideas. Hoping you're not superstitious because thirteen reports have seen the light of day so far 🚀Bootstrap funds, Cloud Kitchens, Nocode... All trends we have seen emerged beautifully digested in each report. I absolutely love the format and style of each digests. It takes no more than 5 minutes to get a strong grasp of the new trend Dru is sharing with us. It is presented as such:

1. 🔍 Problem: A one-liner problem statement which makes this trend one to follow
2. 💡 Solution: The solution the problem stated above duh... (added in the 4th edition)
3. 🏁 Players: Who are the current startups & companies in the space
4. 🔮 Predictions: Why this trend is not going away in a few straight shooting points
5. ☁️ Opportunities: The business opportunities worth exploring following this trend
6. 😠 Haters: Some quotes (found in articles or Twitter I would guess) taking a shot at this new trend
7. 🔗 Links: Some articles, 5 to 10, about the trend

As I said, I love how these reports are built. It allows me to discover a new market trend in a few minutes and gauge my level of interest quickly. Spoiler Alert! I am always interested. If you feel the need to dig deeper into a trend, Dru drops a few links leading you to best content about the trend which I know he has personally selected.

Top quotes 🤓

No-Code ➡ Low-Code ➡ Code — New businesses will follow this path. Mature companies will have all three.

You know, or will know, of my bias for this topic as a nocode maker myself. I have the chance to be going through this process with Hello Tyro which is slowly moving toward code. Fingers crossed. The speed of development when building without code with tools such as Webflow, Bubble, Glide, Airtable, Zapier, well don't get me started, is unparalleled.

Full post here 💡

Reach 1,000 free subscribers then monetize. The founders of Substack estimate a 10% free-to-paid conversion rate if you have:
- >1,000 subscribers
- >50% open rate
- Good feedback from your readers

You definitely don't need a fancy tech product to make money. You are the product and the feature is your knowledge your share with your audience so make 'em pay.

Full post here 💡

Anything else?

Well here is another newsletter/resource that is going to make it on Learn from Makers made by the multi-tasking Dru Riley, Product Examples, and Nocode wizard 🧙‍♂️@Sharath 🎉