A Better Lemonade Stand #263

👋🏼, Richard from A Better Lemonade Stand.

Every week, I write an email filled with the most intriguing insights, trends, tools, and opportunities that can empower you to create profitable digital products and businesses.

This week:

• 🔥 Opportunity Report: Are newsletters the new frontier?

• 🌐 Recent NoCode Product Updates: Great tools, get better.

• 🛠️ Top 5 Tools: New tools to build and grow your digital empire.

If you’re interested in learning more about who I am and my entrepreneurial journey, check that out here; otherwise, let’s explore this week’s insights and opportunities.

Reply to this email to let me know what you think of this issue or to say 👋🏼 and introduce yourself.

🔥 Opportunity Report: The Golden Age of Newsletters

Over a decade ago in Vancouver, my journey into ecommerce began, inspired by "The 4-Hour Work Week".

At that time, the world of ecommerce was just taking baby steps.

Enter Shopify: An ambitious platform swiftly iterating and redefining ecommerce norms.

• They were making it easier to start an online store.

• They were making it easier to get paid.

• They were making it easier to grow an online store.

• They bought smaller companies to accelerate their mission.

• They got more funding.

• Rinse and repeat.

It was an exciting time to be in ecommerce.

It felt like a new frontier.

So why am I telling you about this?

Because since those early days of ecommerce and Shopify, I haven’t personally felt that buzz again.

But guess what?

buzzzzzzzz

Accidentally Stepping on a beehiive

beehiiv caught my attention early this year as I was exploring nocode tools and immediately started following them.

An ambitious platform swiftly iterating and redefining newsletter norms.

As I continued to follow beehiiv over the next few months, I noticed a few things:

• They are making it easier to start a newsletter business.

• They are making it easier to get paid.

• They are making it easier to grow a newsletter audience.

• They bought smaller companies to accelerate their mission

• They got more funding.

Sound familiar?

Pioneering the Path for Creators

Notably, two weeks ago beehiiv launched the beehiiv Ad Network, allowing newsletters to monetize with premium brand sponsorships, all without ever having to leave beehiiv.

And yesterday, they announced the acquisition of Swapstack, a leading newsletter ad network.

beehiiv’s mission is to empower creators, entrepreneurs and knowledge experts to monetize their newsletter however they want, and now offer three built-in options to monetize your newsletter:

• Premium Subscriptions: A platform for creators to monetize directly from readers, and importantly, without any revenue cuts.

• Boosts: An avenue for newsletters, regardless of size, to earn by promoting within the beehiiv ecosystem.

• Ads: Elegant, native ads from premium brands integrated seamlessly into newsletters.

The newsletter space is brimming with potential, and beehiiv stands at the forefront, promising unmatched opportunities for independent creators, entrepreneurs, and solopreneurs.

Maybe, just maybe, this is a new frontier.

🌐 Product Updates

There were a lot of big no-code app updates this past week. Here’s some of the biggest:

Glide Apps Introduces Glide AI

Glide has just introduced Glide AI, a set of building blocks that make it easy to create AI-powered apps with your business data.

You can now empower your apps with built-in AI capabilities effortlessly. Integrating AI is as straightforward as including a new column in a table

Here are some Glide AI templates to get you started.

Lemon Squeezy Adds Customer Portal

Lemon Squeezy, the all-in-one platform for selling digital products and subscriptions, just introduced their new self-serve customer portal, giving customers an easy way to manage billing.

Give customers the ultimate convenience with a simple, secure, all-in-one hub for managing everything related to payments — subscriptions, payment info, invoices, and more.

Tally Launches Version 2.0

Tally, a super robust and useful tool for creating all types of forms, launched version 2.0.

New features include a redesigned dashboard, a command menu for keyboard shortcuts, and improved payment integration. Enhanced security is available with two-factor authentication, and numerous minor updates boost user experience.

🛠️ Top 5 Interesting New Apps/Tools

A few interesting apps and tools that caught my eye this week:

1. Toddle

Build complex, efficient web apps without a line of code; it's a limitless no-code builder, from startup to scale-up.

2. Course Factory

Automate course creation and delivery, leveraging AI to scale your educational product without coding.

3. Storez

Create online stores with AI-enhanced features, no coding required, scaling your retail business effortlessly.

4. Frond

Frond is your go-to for launching a community without the coding hassle. With a few clicks, you can set up a forum that's AI-optimized for user engagement.

5. Graphy

Graphy is a platform that allows you to create and sell digital products, online courses, host webinars, and build communities. It offers features like an AI-powered course builder, membership sites, and integrated payment gateways.

Ok, that’s it for this week.

Your feedback fuels this journey, so hit reply and share your thoughts, or just say 👋🏼.

Until the next newsletter, stay adventurous.

Richard

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This communication is not intended as business counsel. It serves as a weekly briefing on entrepreneurship and my initiatives, designed for informational and entertainment purposes. Revenue may be generated through sponsorships, affiliate links, and digital product sales.