As a reminder, each week I cover:
Reflections, insights, and learnings from the week's work and research;
Tools and resources relevant to entrepreneurship in the AI age;
Snippets and extra content related to The Complete Founder, particularly around entrepreneurial skills development.
The Week in Brief
🎟️ Free conference ticket and a new habit. Why I'm making more effort to get out, and a code to grab a free ticket to an innovation conference this month.
⚽ Kicktrader: first players, first lessons. Over 100 people expected to play. What I'd do differently, and a useful benchmark for anyone making free stuff.
📊 OKRs in 30 minutes. I'd been putting off setting up a measurement system. AI made it embarrassingly easy.
✂️ A £600 saving hiding in plain sight. A quick review of my pro subscriptions and a question worth asking yourself.
🎙️ AI Resource of the Week. The most level-headed take on AI I've heard this year.
Getting Out From Behind the Desk (Free Ticket Below)
I've noticed the contrast with my old job more sharply lately. Days that used to be full of meetings, events and varied projects are now quieter as I spend most of my time working alone at my desk.
We know that solo entrepreneurship can be isolating and that it’s good to have support and feedback. Returning this week to Queen Mary University of London for a startup pitch competition reminded me how energising a change of environment can be.
While I've been proactive about getting feedback on Founderval — useful conversations with connections, friends and former colleagues, and an invaluable monthly session with my accountability partner — I haven’t been outside much.
So I'm going to fix that. I'm heading to Evolve 26, an innovation and technology conference later this month, and I'm building in a new habit: find two new events each month, to see what comes of it.
Free ticket: I've been given a code to pass on — use STEVEGUEST at checkout for a free place at Evolve 26 if it looks interesting.
Kicktrader: First Players, First Lessons
I didn't go hard on promoting Kicktrader, as the point was the build, not the audience. But it found its way onto Reddit and a football forum, and I'm now expecting over 100 people to play during the World Cup.
Picking my own portfolio made clear how the gameplay could be simpler for users. And coming across this neat free country flag game this week set a useful benchmark: the bar for free products is very high now. If you're going to bother, it's worth doing it properly.
After the World Cup, once I've seen how people actually use it, I'll think about what an improved version looks like for next season.
What Gets Measured Gets Done
When I worked at a growth-led startup in the early 2010s, I saw what rigorous measurement could do. The company used the Rockefeller Habits — a one-page strategic plan and weekly scorecard — and grew from 40 to over 200 staff. I've been meaning to set up something similar for myself.
This week I finally did it. I used Claude as a sparring partner, starting with a deliberately vague brief: "This is what I want to achieve. Help me work out the metrics that matter and organise sensible targets. Ask me questions."
From there we dug into the detail, and Claude produced a simple scorecard and prospects tracker with formulas and a traffic light system, ready to go on my Drive.
In my head it had felt like a weighty task. In reality it took just 30 minutes. That's the kind of win I enjoy, using these new tools.
Could You Save $$$ Like I Just Did?
The financial literacy module on Founderval includes an exercise on income and spending. The idea is that good financial habits are mostly just good attention habits. This week I took my own advice.
I went through my pro subscriptions and cut the ones I wasn't using enough: CapCut, ChatGPT, Leonardo and Midjourney. That's £60 a month — over £600 a year — quietly leaving my account.
It's easy to prefer the comfortable delusion of ignoring your bank statements to the slightly uncomfortable clarity of actually looking at them. Worth doing!
The Founderval module also discusses Profit First, an accounting philosophy that puts the emphasis on simple cost-cutting activities like this.
AI Resource of the Week: The Most Level-Headed Take You'll Hear
The best thing I listened to this week was Benedict Evans on Lenny's Podcast. He's always clear-eyed, and that's a relief given how much noise surrounds AI right now.
A few things worth taking away:
AI is significant — comparable to the internet or mobile — but not uniquely world-ending. Some people are getting carried away.
Historically, new technologies automate some jobs and create others. The new ones often don't exist yet, and tend to emerge organically as adoption spreads.
Major AI companies — OpenAI and Anthropic included — are actually growing their headcounts, not shrinking them.
Simple predictions about wholesale job elimination are too crude to be useful. Senior roles can't be reduced to a percentage of automatable tasks.
His advice: learn what AI can do today, adapt, and resist the temptation to respond with moral outrage.
The Plan This Week
Measurements are in place for Founderval and the homepage is refreshed, so now it’s go-to-market. But I'm also reserving one afternoon for Iconic Cities, which has sat untouched since I launched it, and I've started looking into Meta ads best practice to get some eyes on it.
Have a good week!
Luke
🎩Hat-Tip Currently being tested in the US, but one to watch: Google has introduced a new profile page for creators which is likely to give them enhanced search visibility and control
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