I'm Dru Riley, I've spent 3,000+ hours researching markets and published 70+ reports. AMA 👇

@product_at_producthunt Without question, our daily standups.

@dru_riley Do you use the typical standup flow (yesterday, today, blockers) or something else? I'm guessing you're doing this remote, so how do you facilitate this (zoom, slackbot, something else)?

@product_at_producthunt Exactly. We use this format and share updates asynchronously in our community. On Mondays, we have masterminds (of no more than 6 people per group) with an icebreaker question and a similar format. We also have Trends Tribes meetups on Mondays led by @stewart_townsend. These are 3 random, 12-minute, 1-1 matches between members to catch up synchronously. We use Gatheround for Trends Tribe although it's been buggy lately. Looking for alternatives.

@stefan_smiljkovic Hey Stefan. Our style is more qualitative than quantitative, so this may have limited use. We may reach a point where the research process can be encoded. But we're far out. Here's an example: https://trends.vc/trends-0071-nfts/

@dru_riley Thanks for response. Yes, I am aware that even the data gather automatically, need to be sorted, cleaned, and just threw out there. Btw, have in mind this when I tried to bid on one of NFT

@stefan_smiljkovic Thanks for sharing and attempting to bid. In our emails, we mention that OpenSea has this warning for new collections. In case it's the name, I just removed the "-" and contacted OpenSea to expedite safe listing. 🙏

@hakon_verespej Thanks Hakon. Compounding takes time and we don't reap the rewards if we constantly switch goals. My philosophy on starting new projects is that we should build what we can stick with. It's summarized in this tweet: https://twitter.com/trends_vc/st... On traction, I had more doubts than feelings of certainty. It helped that I learned a lot from each report. Before there was a positive external feedback loop (traction), there was a positive internal feedback loop (learning). The first shot at monetizing Trends.vc completely failed. The next shot, even with a few sales under our belt, left me certain that it would work. But it was after months of doubt. Covered this in a "3 years. No Income." essay: https://druriley.com/3-years-no-... (Note: I need to fix SSL)

@whentheresawill Short answer: Yep! I've seen folks apply the Trends.vc model to specific verticals. Our Meta-Trends series (focused on things that don't change) will reveal why we've decided to stay general.

@senin Our community consists of Trends Pro Members. They've joined at that point. We discuss the idea of magnets and moats here: https://twitter.com/DruRly/statu... Basically lead magnets applied to community-building. On nurturing a community. The best tip I have is to focus on building rituals. We explain it more in this tweet: https://twitter.com/DruRly/statu... We have daily rituals (Trends Standups) and weekly rituals (Trends Tribe and Trends Masterminds).

@dru_riley thank you for replying !

@price2spy Great question. Specifically around least successful. Most successful: Turning reports into Twitter threads Least successful: Perhaps Reddit/Hacker News. Though I suspect that we didn't through enough resources at these channels to get them to work.

@jasj99sa On growth. I've mentioned Twitter threads a lot and expounded on that above. The less popular, more true, answer is a focus on quality. We have a minimum viable distribution strategy, no paid growth and put most of our effort into quality. This is why word of mouth is strong. General growth insights? It's interesting to see the law of large numbers at work. The larger any subscription business gets, the harder it becomes for growth to keep pace with churn.

@daevidthegreat On subscriber growth. Here are the rough numbers: • Our first 6-7k subscribers came from Twitter • Then 25k came from getting Product of the Month on Product Hunt • Then 6-7k more from word of mouth and Twitter • Then 10k more from our 2nd Product Hunt Launch

@olutosin_bello Hey Olutosin - If you plan to do the research yourself, make sure it's something you can stick it. It may take a long time for a positive external feedback loop to form. You might as well enjoy the process. - Based on your niche, find channels/communities to share the reports. - Build and share the reports. - Know that quality will improve over time. Don't panic or quit if it's not as good as you want it to be. Here's Ira Glass on this topic: This advice assumes that you plan to take a similar approach to Trends.vc. With hundreds or thousands of members. Instead of an agency approach with 10-12 high-paying clients. There's no right/wrong answer. It's a matter of taste.