Greg interviews Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc, a newsletter and community for founders interested in new business ideas and markets. They talk about growing newsletter subscribers, opportunities for 'faceless' YouTube channels built using AI, systemizing companies, and more.

Today I'm talking to Greg Isenburg of Late Checkout and Dru Riley of Trends.vc. In this episode, we cover a bunch of topics around media and community. I'll ask them where they get their content ideas, how they create product stickiness, how they stay productive and what new business ideas are sitting in their notes app. Follow Greg on Twitter: https://twitter.com/gregisenbergFollow Dru on Twitter: https://twitter.com/DruRlyCheck out Late Checkout: https://latecheckout.substack.com/Subscribe to Trends.vc: https://join.trends.vc/

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 Thank you to our sponsors: Space - the easiest way to engage your team over audio: http://www.JoinSpace.co Micro Acquire - the largest startup acquisition marketplace, join 50k+ others and buy or sell your startup: http://www.microacquire.com

Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc, talks about his 3+ years as a digital nomad. They discuss choosing the nomad lifestyle, favorite places to live, working across timezones, researching destinations, finding places to stay, social scenes, and challenges of nomad life.

Dru Riley, founder of Trends.vc, shares his journey of becoming an indie hacker and how he grew his newsletter from nothing to $20,000/mo in under a year. Topics include finding the right idea, living off savings, product-market fit, social accountability, and building trust for personal and corporate brands.