Dru Riley, Trends.vc // Meta-Trends, Paid Newsletters + Crypto
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