founders.menu 025 » 7x backlinks you MUST build

Happy Sunday. ☼

Read time this week → 7.8 minutes.

A warm welcome to the new subscribers who got a template, an account or signed up directly for the founders.menu newsletter – it’s great to have you!

Starter » take bite-sized action

TOPIC: BACKLINK BUILDING
I’ve got a simple question for you today: how many websites is your startup currently listed on? If the answer is less than 3, then do yourself a favour and get to work with the 7 top sites you can list on via 𝕏. Tip: get started with these from top to bottom. The desired outcome of this bite-sized action is to build backlinks that generally benefit your startup in three ways:

1. Improved Search Engine Rankings → Backlink building significantly improves your website's rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). Search engines like Google view backlinks as indicators of your website's authority and relevance, which can lead to higher rankings for relevant search terms.

2. Increased Website Traffic → Quality backlinks drive more traffic to your website. When other reputable websites link to your content, their visitors may click on the backlinks to explore your site, leading to a website visitor increase overall.

3. Enhanced Brand Awareness → Backlink building from authoritative websites can help boost your startup's brand awareness online. By earning backlinks from popular sites with high traffic, you can reach a broader audience and attract new customers who may not have discovered your startup otherwise.

Backlink building is essential for your startup as it can ultimately help you stand out in the competitive digital landscape. The best part? It shouldn’t take you longer than 50 minutes to submit your startup to all of these websites. ↓

Side note: I am working on a database of sites that you can submit to depending on the stage of your startup. There are already 56 sites in there. If you would like early access or want to make sure certain sites are listed, simply reply to this email and I will get that sorted for you. :)

Main course » founders.menu update

ϟ Tools – 5x update highlights

• Startup Gifs → There is a GIF for every situation of your startup journey. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• Spline → 3D Design tool in the browser with real-time collaboration.

• Vectory → An online platform for creating and managing interactive 3D and AR designs that inspire, educate and solve problems. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• Morflax → Generate 3D device mockup in a quick and engaging way. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• Jitter for Figma → A fast, simple, and collaborative motion design tool on the web.

䷀ Reads – 7x update highlights

• How the Almanack of Naval Ravinkant got made → Eric Jorgenson writes about how The Almanack of Naval Ravikant came together almost entirely on Twitter.

• How the biggest consumer apps got their first 1,000 users → A deep-dive into how every major consumer app acquired their earliest users, including lessons from Tinder, Uber, Superhuman, TikTok, Product Hunt, Netflix, and more. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• What content-driven growth is & how to apply it → Advice from HubSpot, Ahrefs, Intercom, Slidebean, and Webflow amongst many great examples leveraging content-driven growth.

• How to grow a newsletter from 0 to 1000 subscribers and beyond → A case study in how a now (88K newsletter) grew their newsletter, showing all strategies that worked and what didn't work.

• 53 ideas to get your first customers → Find novel ways to attract your first 10, 100, or even 1000 customers with the best growth tactics no one (or few) have explored before. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• Rational optimism is the way out → Pessimism is self-fulfilling, so take the stance that all evils are due to lack of knowledge.

• Making something social destroys the truth of it → Social groups need consensus to survive and consensus is all about compromise, not truth-seeking – there might be an antidote. – MEMBERS-ONLY

⦿ Streams – 5x update highlights

• Building multi-million dollar newsletters → Learn from Matt McGarry's proven strategies, tips, and real-life examples to help you leverage your newsletter for business growth and sales. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• How to grow a newsletter business from scratch → Learn about the 4 stages of newsletter growth that got Hayden Bowles to 2,000+ new subscribers per day. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• Ira Glass on Storytelling → Ira Glass from This American Life shares deep experiential insights about storytelling and how to apply it to any creative endeavour.

• Choosing projects, creating value, and finding purpose → Sam Altman expands on ideas that have come up in several of his essays. Specifically: choosing projects, creating value, and finding purpose. – MEMBERS-ONLY

• How to get anyone’s attention with cold email → Alex Banayan shares how to leverage the third door theory with insights from his latest book and many more tips.

What’s next? Launch Guides filled with the 25 mental models from this newsletter and FOUNDERS Submissions as a template to get your startup listed in the right places.