🌊 Founder Info-Diet
Where to find great ideas, patterns, and frameworks in 2025
🤙 Hey, I’m Ivan. I write about how top 1% startups raise and grow.
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Hey folks,
I’ve been thinking about how founders and investors should curate their information diet, especially since I got rid of my smartphone (shoutout to Balance Phone).
I try to balance depth (substack, books, long-form podcasts, and YouTube) with quick bites (Twitter / LinkedIn). I (try) to stay out of YT Shorts / IG Reels / TikTok.
Obviously, founders can’t (and shouldn’t) consume all of this, you should stay laser-focused on the task at hand. But if you’re looking to fish for ideas, these are the places I’d recommend.
YouTube, Substack, and Evergreen Blogs are currently my 3 favourite ways to consume quality startup and venture capital information.
So I’ve built a quick curriculum for y’all:
1. YouTube
(Why YouTube? Pattern-matching, and often surprisingly in-depth. Watch founders think in real time, can listen on the go via YouTube Podcast / Music)
My First Million — idea generation reps; find wedges weekly.
BG² (Bill Gurley) — investor POV on moats, pricing, distribution.
Invest Like the Best — founder + investor operating frameworks.
Tim Ferriss — top performers’ systems; steal morning/evening routines.
Acquired — long-form case studies; strategy you can brief your team with.
Founders Podcast — biographies compressed into founder lessons.
20VC — unfiltered VC/operator takes; deals + GTM patterns.
Lenny’s Podcast — product/growth breakdowns you can copy next sprint.
Naval — leverage, compounding, and clear thinking.