🗞 What's New: Optimizing your time as a founder

As a founder, it's essential to optimize your time:

• Don’t try to do everything every day. Identify recurring tasks, batch them, and assign batches to certain days. Finish the quickest one first.
• Culture is the heartbeat of a company, influencing everything. Build a strong culture by defining and communicating core values.
• $1K+ in revenue in 10 days. This AI headshot generator differentiated itself from other products, and its growth skyrocketed.

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by Joshua Tiernan

If you don’t learn to optimize your time as a founder, you will find yourself quickly overwhelmed. These tips can help!

Identify recurring tasks

You can’t do every single task required for your business on a daily basis. Think about the types of tasks that you need to do on a recurring basis. These could be things like emails, social media posts, administrative tasks, etc. Write them all down. Then, think about how often you need to do these tasks.

Organize your tasks into batches

Identify the tasks that go well together, then put them into batches. Here’s an example of a typical founder’s day:

And here are those tasks moved into batches:

Assign your batches to specific days

Now that you have your batches, take it a step further and apply them to specific days. Ideally, you would have just one batch a day.

Do the quickest task first

An easy trick here is to organize your tasks by how much time each one is likely to take:

• Do the five minute task first.
• Move on to the 15 minute task.
• Next, do the one hour task.
• Finally, complete the three hour task.

It can sometimes be hard to get started, and by doing the easiest thing first, you jumpstart the process and gradually build up momentum. Then, it’s much easier to blast through the bigger tasks.

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by Marc Bromhall

Culture is not just a buzzword. It's the heartbeat of a company, influencing everything from employee satisfaction to productivity and innovation. These key strategies can help you foster a vibrant, positive culture.

Define and communicate core values

Your core values are the guiding principles that shape the behavior and decisions of every team member.

Start by identifying the values that are fundamental to your company's mission and vision, and make sure these values are articulated and shared across the organization.

Communicating core values is not a one-time effort; it's an ongoing process. Regularly revisit and reinforce these values through team meetings, internal communications, and daily interactions.

Lead by example

Leading by example fosters trust and credibility, key components of a healthy workplace culture. When employees see leaders actively living the company's values, they are more likely to follow suit, creating a culture that is not just talked about, but lived.

Prioritize team building

Encourage activities that promote collaboration, communication, and camaraderie. This could include team building workshops, offsite retreats, team lunches, and after-work social events.

Team building provides an opportunity for team members to understand each other's strengths, weaknesses, and working styles.

Foster open communication

Create channels for employees to express their ideas, concerns, and feedback.

Encourage vertical communication (from leadership to employees, and vice versa), and horizontal communication among team members.

Embrace flexibility and adaptability

When individuals feel empowered to adapt to change, it enhances their personal growth and contributes to the overall resilience of the organization.

Leaders should communicate that mistakes are viewed as opportunities for learning and improvement, rather than as failures. This mindset shift fosters a culture of continuous improvement, where employees are not afraid to take calculated risks and push the boundaries of what's possible.

Invest in employee development

Supporting the professional growth of employees is a cornerstone of a positive culture. Provide opportunities for training, mentorship, and skill development.

Recognize and celebrate achievements

Acknowledging and celebrating successes, both big and small, is crucial for fostering a positive culture.

Recognition can take various forms, from public shoutouts in team meetings to tangible rewards, like bonuses or extra time off. Celebrating milestones not only boosts morale, but also creates a culture where hard work and dedication are valued and appreciated.

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by Ken

I recently launched an AI headshot generator that hit $1K+ in revenue within its first 10 days!

Identifying the gap in the market

The idea for this product stemmed from noticing the cumbersome nature of many AI avatar applications on the market. They often required over 20 photos, hours of waiting, and came with a hefty price tag. We found a new technological solution that needed just one selfie and 10 seconds to produce stunning images.

Development and launch

The product development phase lasted about two weeks. We focused on creating a user-friendly landing page and an efficient editing interface. For payment processing, we integrated Stripe services.

Our initial marketing strategy was to target websites that collect AI products, like Toolify and There's An AI For That. We purchased services and got featured on these websites, ensuring at least 48 hours of homepage visibility.

The initial traffic and conversion data from these sites were mixed. Toolify had decent visitor numbers, but a paid conversion rate of 0.5%:

There's An AI For That had less traffic, but an impressive paid conversion rate of 4.7%:

The turning point

The real turning point came when we were featured in a newsletter, AI Tool Report. This exposure brought in 1.5K unique visitors, with a staggering 21% paid conversion rate.

Within the first 10 days post launch, we reached a sales milestone of $1K+. This was a significant achievement, proving the viability and profitability of the product.

Reflections and moving forward

Although traffic and revenue have since normalized, I consider this launch a success. The key takeaway for fellow founders is to rapidly launch your AI product, and leverage AI-focused websites. The initial traffic and conversions are promising, and the influence of these platforms can bring unexpected attention.

We've been busy enhancing our website, packing it with even more powerful generation features and a wider variety of styles!

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Special thanks to Jay Avery for editing this issue, to Gabriella Federico for the illustrations, and to Joshua Tiernan, Darko, Marc Bromhall, and Ken for contributing posts. —Channing