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In partnership with
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In This Edition:
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Rank #1 on
Amazon—Effortlessly
with
Micro-Influencers!
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Ready to reach
the #1 page on
Amazon and
skyrocket your
recurring revenue? Stack
Influence
empowers brands
like Magic Spoon,
Unilever, and
MaryRuth Organics
to quickly achieve
top Amazon
rankings by
automating
thousands of
micro-influencer
collaborations
each month. Simply
send free
products—no
influencer fees,
no
negotiations—just
genuine
user-generated
content driving
external traffic
to your Amazon
listings.
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Stack
Influence's
fully automated
platform allows
you to
effortlessly scale
influencer
campaigns,
improving organic
search positioning
and significantly
boosting sales.
Trusted by leading
brands who've
experienced up to
13X revenue
increases in just
two months, Stack
Influence provides
complete rights to
all
influencer-created
content, letting
you authentically
amplify your
brand.
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Start scaling
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Get 10% OFF
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Investors
Check
Founders’
Feed
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The Founder’s
Guide to Social
Media That
Actually Gets
You Meetings
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One investor
recently said he won’t even take
meetings
with founders who
don’t post on X (Twitter).
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Why?
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Because without
warm referrals,
your social
presence is often
the only way they
can see:
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What this means
for you as a
founder:
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Social media
isn’t just
marketing—it’s due
diligence in
public.
If investors are
checking your
feed, what do they
find? Silence… or
signals?
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A simple
playbook:
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Post 5–10
times a
day
→ Share
non-obvious
insights,
not generic
advice.
-
Comment
early
on industry
posts → It’s
free
distribution,
gets you
noticed.
-
Re-launch
your
product
every 2
weeks
→ Don’t
assume
people saw
it the first
time.
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The goal isn’t to
go viral. The goal
is to build
apublic record
that shows:
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You can
ship
consistently
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You can
think
clearly
-
You’re
worth
betting
on
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In today’s
market, your feed
is your open-source
resume. Investors,
partners, and
early adopters are
all watching—even
if they never hit
“like.”
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Want to go
deeper?
We’ve put
together a full
deep-dive on how
early-stage
founders can turn
social media into
an investor-magnet
strategy.
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Read the full
guide
here.
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a16z Just
Dropped the
Top 100 GenAI
Apps You Need
to Know
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a16z Top 100
GenAI “All
Stars” Keep
Winning Year
After Year
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After 2.5 years
of explosive
growth, AI’s wild west
is settling. The
market is
consolidating
around durable use
cases.
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-
Google
Emerges
– ChatGPT
still leads,
but Gemini
is closing
fast (12% of
web traffic,
~50% on
mobile).
Grok hit
20M+ users
in
months.
-
China’s
Rise
– 22 of the
top 50 apps
come from
China, with
video models
beating
Western
rivals—though
most aren’t
used
domestically.
-
Vibe
Coding
Boom
– Lovable
jumped to
#22, showing
100%+
revenue
retention.
Supabase
growth
mirrors the
trend.
-
The GenAI
“All
Stars”
– 14 apps
(ChatGPT,
Perplexity,
Midjourney,
ElevenLabs,
HuggingFace,
etc.) have
stayed on
every list.
Only 5 built
their own
models—proof
distribution
&
differentiation
matter as
much as
tech.
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Takeaway: The hype is
fading.
Stickiness,
retention, and
niche strength now
define the
winners.
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Access the
full a16z
report
here.
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a16z has
released the
5th edition
of the “Top
100 GenAI
Consumer
Apps” report
2.68 MB •
PDF File
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Download
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From
Rejection to
$91B: Airbnb’s
Pitch Deck
Story
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Airbnb was
worth $0 in
2008. Today it’s
$91B.
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Sixteen years ago,
Airbnb launched.
Today, it’s worth
$91B.
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But rewind to
2008—Brian Chesky
and team were
struggling to
raise just $150K at a
$1.5M
valuation.
A $150K check back
then would now be
worth $3B+.
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The reality? Even
billion-dollar
ideas get
dismissed at the
fundraising
stage:
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❌
5 investors
rejected
them.
❌
2 never
responded.
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No funding. No
belief. Just
rejection.
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Yet Airbnb broke
through—and the
rest is
history.
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The lesson for
founders: your
pitch deck isn’t
just slides—it’s
the bridge between
being ignored and
being funded. Even
the next $91B
company can look
“too risky” if the
story isn’t told
right.
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That’s why a
resource like 490+ Pitch
Decks That
Raised
Millions
is
invaluable.
496 real,
investor-winning
decks from
startups that
actually secured
funding.
Perfect for
founders,
freelancers, and
creators.
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️ OpenAI’s
gpt-realtime
Voice
Agents
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️ OpenAI’s
gpt-realtime
Voice Agents Is
Here
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OpenAI just moved
its Realtime API
out of beta, introducing a
next-gen
speech-to-speech
model with:
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⚡ 82.8% accuracy
on audio reasoning
(up from
65.6%)
Natural
conversation flow
with nonverbal cue
detection +
language
switching
️ Image inputs for
reasoning on
photos/screenshots
Model Context
Protocol (MCP)
support for
seamless external
integrations
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Why it
matters: Voice agents
are no longer
futuristic—they’re
becoming
enterprise-ready.
From customer
support
to custom voice
apps, this upgrade
brings
conversational AI
closer to
human-level
interaction.
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Explore the
full rundown
of OpenAI’s
gpt-realtime
and what it
means for
the future
of
AI-powered
voice agents
here.
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Startups
Buzz
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Startup exits
are finally back
in play.
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2025 is shaping
up as the year of
billion-dollar
IPOs and mega
M&A:
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Figma,
Circle,
Chime
are
reigniting
public
markets.
-
Alphabet’s
$32B bid
for Wiz
headlines
the
acquisition
wave.
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Momentum is
building—and
founders, VCs, and
operators should
pay
attention.
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️ Full
Crunchbase
report
here
|
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⏱️ After 60+ hours
diving into
Musk’s
biography
and distilling 40
pages of notes,
this Founders
episode reveals
exactly how he
thinks, works, and
builds.
|
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️ Listen to the
episode
here
|
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7 Mental Models
Jeff Bezos
Swears By to
Build Amazon’s
Empire
— from regret
minimization to
the two-pizza
rule, reversible
decisions, and
always working
backwards from the
customer.
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️ Read the full
breakdown
here
|
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✨ Why Some
Founders Are
Skipping
LinkedIn and
Building on
Discord
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Communities are
shifting. Founders
are finding Discord more
effective than
LinkedIn
for authentic
engagement, niche
networking, and
real-time
conversations.
|
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See why
Discord
might be the
new growth
hub for
founders
|
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The New Breed
of Founders: AI
Agents as
Co-Founders
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Startups are now
experimenting with AI agents as
actual
co-founders—handling tasks
from strategy to
execution. It’s
not science
fiction, it’s
happening.
Explore how
AI agents
are shaping
the next
generation
of
startups
|
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How AI Sales
Agents Are
Quietly
Replacing SDR
Teams
|
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Traditional SDR
teams are under
pressure—AI sales agents
are automating
outreach,
qualifying
leads, and
booking
meetings
at scale.
Discover
how AI sales
agents are
changing the
sales
playbook
|
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Why VCs Are
Buying Small
Newsletters for
Deal Flow
|
|
Venture
capitalists are
snapping up niche
newsletters as sources of deal
flow,
trendspotting,
and founder
access—a quiet but
powerful
shift.
Find out
why
newsletters
are becoming
a VC’s
secret
weapon
|
|
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Founder Hacks:
Creative GTM
Strategies That
Actually
Worked
|
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From scrappy
viral campaigns to
clever
partnerships, founders are
proving you
don’t need huge
budgets to win
early
traction.
Steal 5
go-to-market
hacks that
worked for
real
startups
|
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The Startup
That Investors
Rejected—Now
Worth
Billions
|
|
Canva’s founder
faced 100+
rejections
before building
one of today’s
most valuable
startups. Proof
that persistence
(and a strong
vision) beats
skepticism.
Read how
rejection
turned into
a
billion-dollar
success
story
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