Is Personal Branding a waste of time?

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Welcome back to The Startup Podcast’s community newsletter - we’re excited that you’ve joined us as we provide a guide through the unique mindset and approach that drives Silicon Valley style disruption at scale.

This week, we welcome special guest Michael Houck to discuss personal branding and the insiders return to discuss ChatGPT, AI layoffs and Google’s leadership failures.

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Edu: Personal Branding - Key To Success Or Vanity Exercise?

🤔Should founders care about building a personal brand?

Isn’t there enough “real work” to be done that posting on LinkedIn is a total waste of time?

We don’t think so and neither does Michael Houck, a founder and investor who has built his personal brand to create Houck’s Newsletter, which is read by 75,000+ founders every week.

Here’s what we discussed:

✅ The benefits of having a strong personal brand for as a founder

✅ Being intentional about building a brand for maximum impact

✅ Tactics for growing engagement

✅ Why personal brand is even more important for non-traditional founders

✅ Personal brand vs. company brand.

✅ Overcoming posting anxiety and finding your voice.

✅ How to get the most value from your personal brand.

✅ The FIVE MINUTE PER DAY habit that you can use to grow your personal brand.

✅ Does AI change the game for personal brand building?

Whatever your opinion on personal branding, this episode will get you thinking.

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Reacts: ChatGPT Used For Warfare, AI Layoffs & Google Leadership Failures

The insiders are back this week to discuss the hottest topics coming out of the tech and startup ecosystems.

This week Emil, Chris and Yaniv discuss:

🔍 Carta's Controversial Pivot:

💹 Cryptocurrency ETF Impact:

🌐 OpenAI's Strategic Shift:

🤖 Google's Layoffs & AI Blame Game:

Engage with critical discussions on the intersection of technology, ethics, and leadership. Don't miss the insights—watch the full episode on The Startup Podcast now! 🚀🎙️

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Stop Using These Terms and Communicate Effectively

If you want to communicate effectively, STOP using these terms:

"MVP"

"Agile"

"Performance Marketing"

"Product Management"

Many words in our industry suffer from what I call "semantic exhaustion": they reach a point where they mean so many different things that they effectively mean nothing at all.

Every discussion of MVPs I've been a part of devolves into a debate over what the term MVP means.

This is wasteful, pointless navel-gazing. You're trying to get stuff done, not argue the meaning of words.

If a word has lost shared meaning, it has lost its value as a word.

There is only one cure for semantic exhaustion: stop using that term! Find a different word or term that is less ambiguous and use that instead.

What are some examples of semantic exhaustion that you have come across?

How Much Money Are You Going To Waste This Year?

How much money are you planning to waste this year?

How much did the gap cost you?

The gap between what’s in your mind and the quality of your team’s day-to-day execution. How much lost business and lost customer confidence did that shortfall create?

How much did the indecision cost you?

Endless conversations trying to reach consensus. Endless research and analysis trying to find conviction. Going around in circles with your team. How much did you spend on salaries during that time? How much productivity have you lost from diminishing team morale? How much progress did your competitors make in that time?

How much did your bad decisions cost you?

Remember those days, weeks or months going down the wrong path and building the wrong thing? What was the price of leaving a bad impression on investors, partners, customers, employees, and more?

How much did that ineffective execution cost you?

How much did your ugly, broken, buggy, hard to understand, hard to adopt, hard to use, hard to love product cost you? How many customers landed on your home page but didn't understand your value props? How many couldn't be bothered finishing your signup process? Do you even have a signup process that doesn't require sales and engineering support? How many tried your product for a few seconds or even for a few days but then never returned? How much time, effort, and money did you spend trying to acquire those users only to see them walk out the door?

How much did those missed opportunities cost you?

How many sales didn't close? Which partnerships failed?.Which investors passed on investing in your business because they "just didn't get it"? What profits did you miss by not investing your time and money in other, better investments?

This is just a taste of the size and shape of opportunity cost.

All because you…

a) Hired that less effective employee
b) Avoided hiring that expensive advisor
c) Balked at the price of that better tool
d) Avoided making that hard decision
e) Put off that difficult conversation

Or countless other “cost-saving” or face-saving activities.

How much money did you waste?

How much money are you willing to waste next month? Next quarter?

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Until next week,

Chris and Yaniv