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


📈 Who is Dru Riley?

Dru Riley, 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.

Let us know what you think on Twitter, I’m @bzaidi and he’s @DruRly


🧠 What You’ll Learn

– 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


⏳Time Stamps (YouTube)

0:00:00 – Preview
0:01:25 – Intro To Dru + Trends
0:03:37 – Scale of Trends
0:04:19 – Software Engineering Background + Knowing When To Leave
0:06:54 – Starting Books In The Middle
0:10:26 – Making First $15 after saving up $250k
0:19:40 – Rejecting An Offer Of Investment
0:21:02 – Decision Dilution + Stakeholder Types
0:23:54 – Content vs Trust Treadmill
0:24:41 – Refining Like A Standup Comedian
0:27:14 – Signals To Look For In Feedback
0:30:17 – Meta-trends
0:32:24 – Democratization
0:34:58 – Ability To Build Smaller
0:36:46 – Coders vs Builders – “Code Is Being Commoditized”
0:39:36 – Decentralization
0:41:45 – Positive Sum Networks
0:44:06 – What are DAOs (decentralized autonomous orgs)
0:45:33 – Fractional Ownership
0:47:25 – NFTs
0:50:21 – Direct To Consumer
0:51:24 – Research + Writing Process
0:53:37 – Processing 172 Podcasts
0:57:50 – Podcast Speed + Dopamine Hits
1:00:54 – The Edit – “How Many, How Much”
1:02:32 – Filtering Feedback
1:04:29 – Constraints
1:07:14 – Starting From Scratch Today
1:10:16 – Behind The Mind – Rules To Live By
1:10:55 – Hard choices easy life. Easy choices hard life.
1:11:45 – Think Grey, Not Black + White – Annie Duke
1:12:49 – Stories vs Insight
1:15:39 – Incentives
1:16:36 – “Life Is Short, Not Fair”
1:18:07 – Don’t Try To Change Someone’s Worldview
1:20:00 – “It’s Not About The Bag”
1:22:04 – Memento Mori
1:23:09 – Life Is Not Baseball – Play Asymmetric Games
1:24:03 – Courage


⏳Time Stamps (Podcast)

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


Sponsors

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



Connect On Social

More Stories
Fereshteh Forough, Code To Inspire // Empowering Afghan Girls Through Code