Creativity, Openness, Essays ✍️
👋 Welcome!
Anne-Laure Le Cunff writes that “the creative process often feels like a constant battle between an inner child and an inner critic.” In her latest post for Ness Labs, she looks at whether this “creative battle” can turn into “creative balance”? The older we get, the more self-doubt creeps in when we question ourselves. We tend to listen to our “inner critic”, not to achieve better creative work, but more conformative work. The goal is not to kill off the inner critic, but to reprogramme it. We want it to interact with our inner child, “unlearning the self-doubt, the meaningless competition, and the fear of failure”. If we can turn self-criticism into self-reflection, we can fuel our creativity. She explains different methods of positive self-talk that can help this process. The goal, she writes, is for you to “kill your inner critic with kindness so it turns into your inner coach, and embrace the playfulness and curiosity of your inner child to increase your creativity.” Read the full post.
Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash
😺 Products of the Day
July 2, 2020
🥇 Designmodo: Timesaving tools for designers, developers and marketers.
🥈 Levels.fyi Salary Calculator: Visualize your pay growth and compare offers.
🥉 Hexowatch: Your AI sidekick to monitor any page for changes.
🚀 Maker News
Not Boring Performace Review
Packy McCormick gives an insightful review of the Not Boring Newsletter performance in June. Actions taken include eight newsletters sent, launching a new landing page on Product Hunt and introducing a referral program. This helped him grow his subscriber base by 219%. It now stands at 5,360 signups. His seven learnings include the following. Compounded growth is amazing but it takes a long time to get there. The launch on Product Hunt had a massive influence on growth, but for it to succeed one needs to build an engaged community beforehand. Also, involve your community in your journey, be open (like this thread), share your metrics, ask them for support. It takes time, but getting the hang of Twitter will boost your growth. When tweeting, be yourself and share what you learn. Last but not least, surround yourself with great people to help you build your product! Read the whole thread.
Source: Packy McCormick, Not Boring Newsletter
Viral TikToks
Espree Devora, host of the @WeAreLATech and @WomenInTechShow podcasts, shares the eight steps she’s been learning to create viral TikToks. Aim for 10 seconds total length and for a strong first 2 seconds. Create overlays only once clipping is completed. Use a background for prominence. Only when all overlays are complete, choose where to place them in the video. Lastly, create captions, select hashtags and chose a rad thumbnail that will tell the story. Then post or save for later. Read thread.
Explainer Videos
In this Indie Hackers Growth Bite, we learn how explainer videos can improve your conversion rates. They are a great way to better showcase your product or service and clearly communicate the value proposition. Some websites have seen a 144% growth in their conversion rates by adding them to their homepage or landing page. Learn more.
Creator Spotlight
Gumroad puts the spotlight on creator Daniel Vassallo. The thread gives a review of Daniel’s journey, from leaving Amazon to self-employment and making $200,000 in the past six months on Gumroad. His growth on Twitter played an enormous role in this success. One of those was his book/video on how to build a twitter audience. Read more.
Building an Audience
The next Substack Writers Workshop is taking place on 9th July, at 11 am PT. This time, the topic is how to build an audience when starting from zero. Abigail Koffler, who writes This Needs Hot Sauce, shares how she grew her email list without a big platform. She launched her newsletter in 2017 with a simple Instagram story. Since then she has changed careers by leveraging her newsletter, adding paid subscriptions, and more. Register here.
🖥️ NoCode & Automate
Women in NoCode
In can seem that NoCode like coding is male-dominated. Colin Winhall shares a list of some amazing women who are active in the NoCode movement. These include @TaraReed_, @RitaRoloff, @romymisra, @lilyotron, @KseniaGoron, @profeshsam, @angrigoryan__ and happily many more. Read the thread to see all mentions.
Airtable Webinar
Want to improve your Airtable skills? Tom Osman (Makerpad) and David Peterson (Airtable) are giving a free webinar on July 22 at 6 pm BST (10 am PT). Among other features and use cases, they will be covering scripting blocks and buttons. Register here.
💭 Afterthought
To finish the week, a short post by Patrick O’Shaghnessy on the power and benefits of writing a great essay. I can only add what David Perell recently wrote: “Each article you publish is like a permanent wingman for personal and career opportunities. The more you share, the more you invite serendipity into your life.” Take care, have a great weekend and see you Monday.
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