Happy Late August! Enjoy the sunshine while you can! In todays email:

1. Personal Update: Back from Germany, diving into a 35-day sprint, and ready to support early-stage founders in their 0 to 1 journey.

2. Artifacts: A quick rant on AI.

3. Insights on ditching the MVP, a B2B2C CRO interview, a blog post on scratching your own itch

4. Vancouver Founders Day and six curated links

Personal Update

Since my last issue in March, I’ve traveled to Germany with family for the Scotland vs. Euros matches and engaged in a fierce Strava competition. Added a few photos of Germany at the bottom of the email.

I’ve been on a newsletter break, torn between the pull of AI, business and art. But I’m ready to start sharing again, experimenting with different formats, and putting out content that’s less polished. Paul Graham’s essays have shown me how writing can shape and tighten ideas, but sometimes that led me into idea mazes without an exit.

A huge part of vision or new ideas is about remixing with others or sharing new ingredients that can help others. Not all ideas or mazes are meant for you; they might be most valuable to someone else.

So, I’m kicking off a 35 day sprint to increase my output and write more consistently. I’ll be sharing insights for founders, along with updates on my personal projects and experiments. I’m still determining how this email newsletter will evolve, so I’m open to your feedback.. both positive and critical.

Accelerate Your Growth

I’m here to help founders navigate the 0 to 1 phase. If you're overcoming initial challenges or aiming for rapid growth, let’s collaborate to drive your business forward and reach your goals faster. Hit reply or schedule a call with me.

Featured

🔸 Artifacts. Day Zero User Journey? I’m paying close attention, are you?

Yesterday, Anthropic dropped Artifacts and it’s been reconfirming a few thoughts or ideas i’ve had on where we might be heading next. I met up with Boris Mann earlier in the month and we were brainstorming on just this, which I’ll save for another newsletter, but this latest drop from Anthropic (creators of Claude, the best LLM imho), is a text to prototype thingy that is worth 2 minutes of your life. The lander has videos and i’ve attached a few screenshots

Artifacts lets anyone build app prototypes, KPI dashboards, graphs, and other tools directly from text prompts, all within a web browser link. It also supports remixes, allowing you to take an existing version and tweak it as needed. When I first saw this, I immediately wondered how ReTool would survive.

It seems like everyone is racing to become the 'day zero' user journey, the Origin Engine - the starting point for productivity or getting anything done. This makes me question how long it will be before Anthropic and OpenAI create their own 'browser.' Who’s best positioned to own the day zero user journey? And what do you think happens to the Apple + Android App store? 💀 

🔸 Product Management

Missionaries and creatives might appreciate this 7 minute video. Forget the Minimum Viable Product, aim to create something truly exceptional. Have taste, stand for something, and build your vision.

🔸 Marketing Land

B2b2c - The Proven Customer Acquisition Strategies Behind Toast

$1.5B ARR and 29% growth !!! Hear from the CRO in this video:

🔸 New Blog Posts

🔸 Vancouver Founder Day

Last Thursday, I reconnected with founders in town and was once again struck by how stunning that Vancouver Convention Centre is. Truly world-class event space. Those views! It was great catching up with mostly founders, a few VCs, and I was pleasantly surprised to see so many founders still going strong. It's a positive sign, especially during this VC winter. Despite the slowdown in funding, most of the conversations centered on reaching break-even as quickly as possible and potentially avoiding raising venture capital altogether. Plus, everyone and their dog is now integrating AI into their go-to-market strategies. It was an awesome event and felt like everyone is gearing up for a big end of the year.

Other things

This doc was circulating on the internet this past week. I may not agree with everything, but it's definitely worth a quick read or a review of your own flow. The Olympic athlete mindset is solid, but ultimately, it's about finding what works best for you.

🔸 Interesting Links

Wait, what? Kids under 10 are using X? And check out this comparison between the dotcom bubble and the AI boom!

Wrap Up

As part of my 35-day sprint, I’ll be writing each week. I’d love to hear your life updates, what you're currently building, any feedback or thoughts on what I’m sharing, or if you have a link you think should be featured in the next issue. Let me know!

Thx for reading — have a great last weekend of Aug!

Kenny

P.S. Whenever you're ready, there are 2 ways I can help you:

1. Ready to grow your startup from 0 to 1 in less time? Let's chat. >> Schedule a call with me.

2. Want an extra pair of eyes on your product or pitch deck?

Newsletter Vibecheck

How'd I do? Slam dunk or airball? Lmk your thoughts on this issue so I can level up future content.

About

Hi there! I help b2b2c startups go from 0 to 1 with resources, consulting, advisory, and writing, spanning product, marketing, team formation, frontier technology, and the good life. Prev helped 50+ startups and launched 20+ digital products. Although my perspective is universal, I mainly cover the frontier of North America and Southeast Asia.

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