A Better Lemonade Stand #306

💛 Sponsor

📧 Get Bigger Sales from Email & SMS

Omnisend’s email & SMS platform helps 115,000+ merchants like you make more sales and reach more people than they ever thought possible.

📈 Trends

🔊 Visuals that Speak: The Rise of Explainer Graphics

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, we have constant information overload, and adding visuals isn’t just a preference, they’re a necessity for cognitive efficiency.

Explainer graphics leverage the brain’s ability to process images in just 150 milliseconds, turning what could be a two-minute written post into a visual that’s digested almost instantly.

With AI simplifying the creation process, you can now produce personalized visuals to enhance storytelling, align with users' cognitive patterns, and boost your overall retention rates.

The Brain Craves Efficiency

The shift from text-heavy to added visual content isn’t just a trend, it’s brain science. Research shows that 90% of information transmitted to the brain is visual, and visuals can improve learning and retention by up to 400%.

Creators like Janis Ozlin are capitalizing on this trend with shareable visual-first content on text-based platforms like Twitter and LinkedIn, where graphics stand out amidst the clutter of boring posts, massive creators like Steven Bartlett and Justin Welsh are constantly sharing them, too.

This not only resonates with the younger digital-native audience but also caters to the cognitive laziness of even top-level CEO’s, where users gravitate toward content that requires the least mental energy to consume but makes you feel smarter, too.

These Interesting visuals will also increase the time users spend on your content, positively affecting how the algorithm rates your content.

The Imperfection Advantage

Hand-drawn graphics tap into the psychology of imperfection. Unlike polished digital designs, hand-drawn elements feel human, relatable, and non-intimidating, creating an instant connection with viewers. This is the "Wabi-Sabi Effect", a Japanese philosophy of finding beauty in imperfection, now manifesting in digital media.

• Engagement Surge: Imperfect, authentic visuals can boost engagement by up to 30%, as seen in platforms where rough sketches or scribbles outperform sleek designs.

• Nostalgia Trigger: Hand-drawn visuals trigger a sense of nostalgia, evoking memories of learning with sketches, which deepens emotional resonance with your audience.

• Relatable Simplicity: Complex ideas explained through simple, rough sketches make the audience feel they are learning alongside the creator, fostering inclusivity.

These rough visuals could be as simple as text, like what Greg does here or how Janis intentionally draws out of the lines with content like this.

Challenges: The New Creative Divide

As people rush to try to include visuals, some common challenges can appear:

• Skill Gap Anxiety: Many companies/creators fear they won’t be able to keep up with the rapid pace of visual evolution. This has led to “Visual Burnout”, where companies continually pump out visuals without the emotional resonance or creativity needed to stand out.

• Innovation Overload: Constantly chasing trends in visual formats may dilute brand authenticity. The key will be to balance innovation with brand consistency without overwhelming audiences.

• Lack of Visual Touch: Many people use too much space in their visuals. Courses like Janis’s are good to take to learn that ‘less’ actually means ‘more.’

The Future is Rough and Raw

Visuals that thrive on authenticity present fresh opportunities for ventures by solving the challenges above. Here's how to jump into this emerging market:

• Rough Sketch AI Tools: Think beyond perfection. You can develop an AI tool that turns blog/newsletter content into rough, sketched visuals like Janis and Greg Isenberg’s posts. These visuals would mimic the DIY aesthetic, resonating with Gen Z’s preference for raw, unpolished content and making people assume you put much effort into them.
  
  One tool that’s caught my attention is Napkin, a free tool that turns your text into visuals. However, there is room for a tool to generate more rough/hand-drawn style content.
  

• Leverage Niche Communities: Visual subreddits like r/dataisbeautiful, r/visualization, and r/infographics are gold mines for untapped audience growth. You can build tools tailored to these niche communities where over 23 million members consume content like this.

💡 Insights

🔢 Learning How to Code With AI as a NoCoder

Even though Cursor can generate and manage code for you, understanding what’s going on can be challenging for someone with zero understanding of coding.

Greg helps us by giving some tips on where to start:

• Plan First: Before diving in with Cursor, sketch your app using the UI design tool ‘V0’. A little planning goes a long way in getting better results from the AI.

• Use Cursor Directory: Take advantage of pre-built prompts designed for specific tech stacks to level up your code quality.

🔗 Learn How to Build AI Apps Now

💪 The 8 Truths to Making Money as a Writer

10 years ago, Nicolas Cole was broke, living in a tiny studio in Chicago. Now, he’s running multiple writing businesses and pulling in over $6M a year.

If you're serious about turning your writing into a real income stream, this video has the unfiltered truth. No sugarcoating, just 8 hard-hitting lessons for writers who want to make a living from their craft.

• Earn While You Learn: Get started with ghostwriting, it’s the bridge between your current job and writing full-time, and it’s a fast-track way to improve your skills and get paid. Not only do you rack up writing hours, but you also get paid to practice, meaning more time to invest in your projects.

• Think Long-Term: Writing for a living isn't a one-year sprint, it’s a multi-decade marathon. Most real wins, like publishing bestsellers or landing six-figure deals, only happen after years of grinding. Stick with it, and momentum will come.

 🔗 Here’s How to Make Your Words Pay

😡 Roasting as a Viral Twitter Growth Strategy

Nick Buzz is a faceless creator making waves by using "design roasts" on Twitter as a smart way to attract attention and prove his expertise in the design space. These roasts weren’t just humorous critiques; they became conversation starters that went viral, helping him build his business and bring in clients.

• Engagement-Driven Roasts: By offering free, witty critiques of designs, Nick sparked high engagement on Twitter, driving viral interaction while positioning himself as an expert. His approach turned followers into potential clients.

• Roast-Based Tools: This concept goes beyond design. Tools like Wordware successfully used Twitter profile roasts to engage users, collecting 300k signups in just 40 hours. It shows how critique-based content taps into a viral feedback loop, whether for design, social profiles, or your niche.

🔗 Check Out Nick Buzz’s Growth Strategy

🤝 Opportunity

📅 Take Part in International Generalist Day

The first-ever International Generalist Day kicks off tomorrow, and it's made for all you multi-passionate, jack-of-all-trade pros. 

Don't Miss Out On:

• Networking: Over 1,000 generalists are meeting up in cities around the world. It’s your shot to connect with people who get your love for variety and big-picture thinking.

• Learning: Jump into some cool panels and discussions, including one hosted by LIS with experts from LinkedIn, Amazing If, and UCL to help turn your interdisciplinary skills into real-world advantages

• Community Building: If you're an entrepreneur, freelancer, or juggling multiple gigs, this event is prime for making connections that could lead to new collaborations, business opportunities, or leveling up your network

🔗 RSVP now to Secure Your Spot

🧰 Apps & Tools

📊 The Bricks: AI spreadsheet tool that simplifies creating reports, presentations, charts, and visuals from your project data.

🧠 Meiro: Create interactive quizzes and tests to boost brand engagement and lead generation.

🔄 Gumloop: Build custom automation tools with drag-and-drop simplicity for web scraping, SEO, document processing, and more.

📝 Machined: Automate keyword research, interlinking, and publishing SEO-optimized article clusters to platforms like WordPress and Webflow.

🎥 Videolulu: Generate faceless viral shorts for TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube.

🧵 Fabric: The new tool I’m using to save links for newsletter research.

🤖 Product Updates

🔢 OpenAI’s New Chatbot Now Has Deeper Reasoning

OpenAI just dropped its o1 model series and is set to improve AI's reasoning abilities, making it highly capable of solving complex problems by thinking more deeply before responding.

• o1-preview: The big brain of the two releases, built for those challenging, intricate problems in science and coding,

• o1-mini: A smaller, more optimized model for speed and efficiency and is 80% cheaper.

• Who’s this for? It’s generally useful for programmers. They’ve made it easier to see the AI’s thinking as it adds a workflow of what the AI does to generate the result.

🔗 Get an Example of the Workflow Here

🎨 Canva's AI Push Comes with a 300% Price Hike

Canva is significantly increasing prices for its Teams subscription, in some cases by over 300%, as the company rolls out more advanced AI features such as Magic Media and Magic Expand.

• Price Breakdown: In the US, prices are rising from $120 to $500 per year for five users, though a temporary 40% discount lowers it to $300 for the first year.

• Customer Reaction: Many users are unhappy with the drastic increases, and some even consider switching to Adobe as an alternative.

  

🔗 Read More About the Price Change

🖇️ Everything Else

🚀 Turning 4k Subs Into $150k: A great real-world example of how you can turn a newsletter into a profitable project without a significant sized audience. (🔗Insights)

📝 Get Marketing Clarity: Create a simple marketing plan for your project in 5 minutes. (🔗Insights)