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Today’s Edition
📚 Textbook version comparison tool
✅ Step by step checklist for starting a business
🙅 Lead Gen manager quits after one day of working at a toxic AI company
🤔 Think like a billionaire
💡 Idea validation community
💡 Today’s Minimum Viable Idea
📚 Textbook Version Comparison Tool
IDEA: College textbooks are ridiculously expensive. Throw in access codes and other school supplies and you are looking at almost a thousand dollars of expenses on top of tuition. Professors always list the most recent versions of textbooks in the syllabus, but in most cases, the information does not change very much from year to year. And only a handful of instructors will tell you when an older version will suffice. How can a student know if an older textbook will cover the same material without buying both the old and new? Students need a tool that will compare textbook versions and save them hundreds, if not thousands, a semester.
PRODUCT: Train an AI model on multiple versions of various college textbooks. Using the comparisons, create a platform for college students to compare versions and provide a determination on whether an older, cheaper version will cover enough of the same material. Regardless of the outcome, provide links to purchase either the new and old version. Partner with a publisher to receive commissions on sales.
MVP: AI platform trained on a few college textbooks showing percent difference between versions.
REVENUE MODEL: Commission based by driving sales to textbook companies.
EXIT STRATEGY: Sell to a large textbook reseller like Chegg for 3-5x revenue.
Find your customers on Roku this Black Friday
As with any digital ad campaign, the important thing is to reach streaming audiences who will convert. To that end, Roku’s self-service Ads Manager stands ready with powerful segmentation and targeting options. After all, you know your customers, and we know our streaming audience.
Worried it’s too late to spin up new Black Friday creative? With Roku Ads Manager, you can easily import and augment existing creative assets from your social channels. We also have AI-assisted upscaling, so every ad is primed for CTV.
Once you’ve done this, then you can easily set up A/B tests to flight different creative variants and Black Friday offers. If you’re a Shopify brand, you can even run shoppable ads directly on-screen so viewers can purchase with just a click of their Roku remote.
Bonus: we’re gifting you $5K in ad credits when you spend your first $5K on Roku Ads Manager. Just sign up and use code GET5K. Terms apply.
🚨 Startup News, Trends, and Resources 🗞️
Publication: NDTV
Summary: A US employee, Jared Steele, quit the AI startup Giga after just one day citing a toxic work environment. He alleged the company demanded 12-hour shifts every day, revoked pre-approved leave, and misrepresented compensation. Steele described the culture as “red flags everywhere,” including founders joking about spending large sums on “illegal stuff” and performing a goat sacrifice when revenue goals were met. The startup recently raised around $61 million in a Series A round.
Spin: No way of knowing how much of this is exactly true or what was said as a joke or taken out of context. I am sure we have all had experiences starting a new job where you wanted to run for the hills on your first day. And to be fair, realizing that I was not going to be paid what I was promised would have done it for me and I would not have stuck around for the “illegal stuff.”
Here is a link to his X post that led to the article.
Publication: Indeed
Summary: When starting a business for the first time, you can feel directionless and scared. Forgetting an important step can cause tons of headaches down the road. Typically, when we hear about startup stories, it goes idea, building a product, selling a customer, and success. No one talks about the boring administrative tasks, government filings, taxes, accounting, HR, legal, etc. that everyone must go through. It is nice to have a playbook on your side to help guide you.
🚂 Motivation Station
🧱 Ready to run through a brick wall or do you need an extra push?
Today’s motivation comes from a compilation of interviews with the world’s top business leaders and billionaires. There is a lot to learn from billionaires and this video is just scratching the surface. One thing that you will notice a lot is that these people do not think like the average person. Their mindset is almost a superpower and while some naturally think this way, it can be learned and used to help create your own luck.
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🔥 HighDEA
💡 Idea Validation Community
IDEA: It seems like everyone starting a business drags their feet after coming up with an idea. I get it. You don’t want to spend a ton of time and money on a business that ends up falling flat. There are tons of aspiring entrepreneurs out there who need their idea validated so why not help each other out? Create a Reddit thread or other online forum and set up online meetings for founders to present ideas and get constructive feedback. Or SEE BELOW 👇.
🔑 Major Key: If you want to be part of a community of serious founders and aspiring entrepreneurs, send your unique referral code to three people and if they sign up, we will add you to the exclusive Minimum Viable Slack community.
📣 We Want to Hear from You! 📢
Send us an email! Let us know what you’re building, what you thought about today’s newsletter, or whatever else is on your mind.