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Wrapping Up 2024

A final post for the year. 🎆

👋 Howdy to the 2,886 new legends who joined this week! You are now part of a 75,988 strong tribe outperforming the competition together.

LATEST POSTS 📚

If you’re new, not yet a subscriber, or just plain missed it, here are some of our recent editions.

🎄 My Twelve Takes Of Christmas. Prediction markets, phone addiction, ESOP plans and other such things.
💅🏼 Let's Talk About Benefits, Baby. Three benefits everyone should have to supercharge their culture.
🔥 Unfiltered: The Inside Scoop On Attio Redefining CRM. Attio opens up about launching a category challenging company.

HOUSEKEEPING 📨

No original post today team. I took a week off a few weeks ago over and am using my end of year ‘get out of jail free’ card again now. Since finishing up for the year on the 23rd, I’ve literally walked Ziggy (pictured below), trained, walked Ziggy, and watched Succession reruns from the couch. I am six days into this schedule and have no real plans to change it.

I do have an original post I did as a guest post for Strategy Breakdowns that you can read if you are really hankering for some content. It was a banger.

I am also naming my favourite piece for the year, and dumping a recap of the years post for you as well.

While building out the recap, and listing all the posts I began to feel a real sense of pride for what we’ve achieved this year. We went from a newsletter that had a few followers and some decent pieces, to a real thing.

Today we have a seventy-five-thousands (typed in words for full effect) strong crew of ambitious tech and business folks who consume our stuff, and some I’d even go as far as to say they love it. We’ve also worked with some of the coolest companies on the planet as partners.

Our biggest partnerships—Deel, Sidebar, PostHog, Attio—are all companies I am a user of at Athyna, and we are just starting campaign with another company we use, Paddle, and one we are about to onboard with, Vanta. And with that, here is my recent piece and the recap of 2024. Enjoy!

Athyna’s Creator-Led GTM Strategy

“Implement average strategies, get average results.” Someone must have said that at some point. If not, I’m saying it, here, today.

Howdy all, my name is Bill Kerr, people call me Doc (long story) and I am here to talk you through how we at my startup, Athyna, are thinking about GTM in a different way.

Why—”In a different way?” Well, if we go back to our original quote, I firmly believe that if you do what everyone else does, you will by definition be what everyone else is. Average. And who wants to be average?

Take it from me, I’m the guy who concocted a plan to send 1 million outbound emails a day—with a 50 person startup—two years ago and got a quarter of the way there before Google crashed our party.

So today we are going to talk through what we are calling our ‘Negative CAC creator-led media pyramid.’ At the end of the post, if you have a more apt name for this strategy, I’ll be pleased to hear it. Ok let’s go!

Read the piece

My favourite post of the year

My favourite piece for the year was this piece I did with PostHog on their zero to one. It was my favourite for a number of reasons: a) their team was great to work with b) we love their product, and c) I think PostHog have the coolest brand in tech. So it was really just a pleasure to write the piece with them.

And the rest of 2024

Zero to one

⚡️ How Sidebar Went From Zero To One. Launching a startup from scratch is hard. Here is the breakdown of how Sidebar went about it.
🦔 Gone Hog Wild: PostHog’s Zero To One. Turning failures into features: How PostHog found its groove and made analytics fun.
📮 If CRM + The Future Had A Baby: Attio’s Zero To One. A deep dive look into growing a category challenger in the relationship management space.

Unfiltered

🌟 Unfiltered: How Do Chiefs of Staff Measure Success? Chiefs of Staff give us the juicy inside scoop on their success criteria.
🎨 Unfiltered: The Creative Chaos Behind PostHog’s Success. PostHog spills the beans on hedgehogs, pivots, and the fun behind the brand.
🔥 Unfiltered: The Inside Scoop On Attio Redefining CRM. Attio open up about launching a category challenging company.

Interviews

🐝 Tyler Denk Interview. Co-Founder & CEO at beehiiv. Always be shipping and how to take over an industry.
🌟 Immad Akhund Interview. Founder & CEO at Mercury. Pioneering the future of financial services.
💝 Ross Chaldecott Interview. Co-Founder & CEO at Kinde. High-level technology driven by high-value culture.
💡 Elicia McDonald Interview. Partner at Airtree Ventures. Transforming Aussie tech with top-tier investments.
🛠️ Backend-As-A-Service & What Was Surprising Raising From a16z. An interview with Jamie Turner, co-founder & CEO at Convex.
🤩 Building The World's Most Beloved Neobank. An interview with Dom Pym, co-founder & ex-CEO at Up.
💵 Pay Transparency, Careers Growth & Compensation Philosophy. An interview with Matt McFarlane, Director at FNDN.
🤝 Building Sales Teams, Scaling Startups & Personal Branding. An interview with Scott Leese, Fractional CRO & GTM Advisor.
🚀 The Philosophy, Traditions & Leadership Behind Winning Culture. A follow up in interview with Dom Pym, co-founder & ex-CEO at Up.
🍊 The Future Of The Creator Economy. An interview with Jennifer Phan, co-founder & CEO at Passionfroot.
🦕 Turning Networks Into Growth Engines. An interview with Mac Reddin, CEO of Commsor.

Collections

🌱 Collection: How To Hire All-Star Talent. A collection of thoughts from a collection of leaders.
🌱 Collection: How To Set Company Goals. A collection of thoughts from a collection of leaders.
🌱 Collection: Hybrid, On-Site, Remote & Why? A collection of thoughts from a collection of leaders.
🌱 Collection: How Do You Get The Best Out Of Yourself? A collection of thoughts from a collection of leaders.
🌱 Collection: Explain Your Leadership Philosophy? A collection of thoughts from a collection of leaders.

Deep dives

🥰 Jeff Bezos Deep Dive. Founder & Ex-CEO at Amazon. Innovation via customer obsession.
🌐 Deel, EOR & The Future Of Global Teams. How to win the 2021 vintage and what the future of work looks like today.
🫠 Neumannomics: A Deep Dive. Co-Founder & Ex-CEO at WeWork. How to build a cult, burn it the ground and buy it back again.
🥅 Ted Lasso: The Lasso Way. Manager of AFC Richmond. Empathetic leadership. A fictional interview.
💨 Blue Ribbon, MJ & The Swoosh: The Story Of Phil Knight. How Nike was founded, the battle it fought and how it got to where it is today.
🍟 The Future Of Technology Belongs To One Man, Jensen Huang. Co-Founder, President & CEO of Nvidia. The man holding all the chips.
🦜 El Ascenso De Duolingo (The Rise Of Duolingo). The rise, rise and rise some more of the world's most loveable language app.
🍄 Mario, Luigi & The Long History Of Nintendo. A story of a video game behemoth beginning all the way back in the 1800s, and still thriving today.

Building in public

💫 New Year, New Newsletter - Our 2024 Plan. Exciting upgrades to the newsletter coming right up.
❤️ How Athyna Makes Remote, Work. Tech, meetings, culture & comms. How to do it and maintain 90% engagement.
📖 Chasing Lenny & Open Source CEO - Year 1 Recap. First year building in public wrap up of the newsletter so far.
🍒 The Perfect Onboarding In 7 Simple Steps. How to set your new members up for success from day one.
🌀 We Raised $2.5M To Build Athyna AI. Launching Athyna AI, how we got here, and how you can join the ride.
✨ Getting To Know Meee, Getting To Know All About Meee. A number of questions and tidbits on my companies, my worldview and other such things.
🧠 Getting To Know Me, Again. A deeper dive into the mind of the author, me.
🔥 One Million Outbound Emails Per Day. Our wild plan to send world record levels of outbound.
👋 Getting To Know M3. An handful of ideas and tidbits that I have had over the months, all rolled in to one.
📰 How (This & Other) Newsletters Make Money. A look into the business of newsletter media brands.
💆🏻 The Ultimate Founder Mental Health Stack. Psychedelics, depression drugs, dog walks, training, meditation, Whoop and loads more.
💅🏼 Let's Talk About Benefits, Baby. Three benefits everyone should have to supercharge their culture.
🎄 My Twelve Takes Of Christmas. Prediction markets, phone addiction, ESOP plans and other such things.

Inboxed

🌎 Inboxed: Great Decisions In The Making. The BTS on decisions that shaped the business world.
🍿 Inboxed: Tech Partnership, Tech Poaching. A BTS look at one of the common elements that drives partnerships apart.

Guest posts

🤡 Memelords Make Millions. How startups are using memes & how you can too.

And more

🫡 The Job Description Of A CEO. Five roles to rule them all. The most detailed CEO job description to date.
🤵🏻‍♂️ So, What Does A Chief Of Staff Actually Do. The Pandora's Box of startup roles. We deep dive into the Chief of Staff.
📣 A Guide To Crafting Your Brand Voice. A step-by-step guide on creating a tone & identity your audience will love.
❤️‍🩹 Dust Yourself Off & Try Again: 8 Famous Founder Failures. If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.
😩 Your First Product Will Be A Dumpster Fire. Teething problems of world leading companies.
🗺️ The Four Type Of Managers & How To Manage Them. A leadership performance matrix to assess your team.
💰 Media + Tech = Negative CAC. How the smartest companies are building a lead gen machine that pays them.
🤯 How Companies Are Owning Emojis. How to transform your brand by claiming your own emoji.
🌐 Remote Work Is Eating The World. The pros, cons and pros of building out a global team.
📝 Mastering The Founder Letter. A BTS on the collaboration and competition driving the tech industry. 🤝
🚀 The Most Successful Remote First Companies. From anywhere to everywhere. How remote companies are reshaping industries.

Before you go though, I do have a quick survey for you that I’d love to ask, just to see where everything is landing for you now with the content, so please let me know this one below.

What is your favourite post type that we do?

Zero to one pieces.

Building in public type posts.

Interviews with founders and leaders.

Deep dives on companies / entrepreneurs.

Original pieces on brands, strategy, growth etc.

Inboxed piece diving in the BTS of tech and business.

Anyway, that’s it from me, now please enjoy the rest of the content of this email. See you in 2025!

BRAIN FOOD 🧠

Only a short one this week. And not a channel I subscribe to—this one was from the recommendations—but hearing Arnold Schwarzenegger discuss his role models growing up gave my goosebumps. This is a fun one.

Who INSPIRED Arnold Schwarzenegger? | 2 Bears, 1 Cave Highlight

TWEETS OF THE WEEK 🐣

The Intellectualist @highbrow_nobrow

A Tale of Two Americas: Comparing Harris-Won and Trump-Won States to Global Standards of Living

Introduction

The United States is often regarded as a global leader in wealth and development, yet its internal disparities tell a different story.

The divide between Harris-won… x.com/i/web/status/1…

3:32 AM • Nov 24, 2024

1.72K Likes 813 Retweets

51 Replies

Matt Turck @mattturck

Founder spirit is deciding an avalanche is the perfect time for a backflip

8:34 PM • Dec 24, 2024

1.88K Likes 123 Retweets

60 Replies

Ben Lang @benln

a16z’s big ideas in tech for 2025:

3:31 PM • Dec 8, 2024

6.07K Likes 867 Retweets

132 Replies

TOOLS WE USE 🛠️

Every week we highlight tools we actually use inside of our business and give them an honest review. Today we are highlighting Attio—powerful, flexible and data-driven, the exact CRM your business needs.

See the full set of tools we use inside of Athyna & Open Source CEO here.

HOW I CAN HELP 🥳

P.S. Want to work together?

Hiring global talent: If you are hiring tech, business or ops talent and want to do it for up to 80% off check out my startup Athyna. 🌏
Want to see my tech stack: See our suite of tools & resources for both this newsletter and Athyna you check them out here. 🧰
Reach an audience of tech leaders: Advertise with us if you want to get in front of founders, investor and leaders in tech. 👀