After I accepted my offer to join CommandBar (now Command AI), but before I actually joined, I asked James for recommended reading for new team members. Here’s what he said:
Few things are as important at a startup as continuing to grow, learn and eedutcate yourself.
Working on a startup means you have to evolve as much as your company. Not sure how to do something? Figure it out. Don’t know if you’d make a good manager? Let’s see. Never heard of this new initiative? You’re in charge of it now.
That’s why it’s so important to be great at learning - and to know where to learn things. As the rest of the internet converges on just being TikTok on another URL (even LinkedIn has succumbed), one of the few bastions of real information are newsletters.
At Command AI, we read a ton of newsletters, many of which are on Substack. In this article, I’ll briefly highlight our favorites and why they’re great.
Lenny’s Newsletter/Podcast
Yup, this is the obvious one. We’re deep in the product world and Lenny’s is the no. 1 product/growth newsletter.
We love Lenny’s because:
- He highlights guests you don’t hear everywhere - CPOs and senior PMs at fast-growing companies that stay under the radar because they’re actually doing the job, not just talking about how to do it.
- The newsletter is simple, but chock-full of useful info and nothing unnecessary.
- Lenny’s content is super original. He doesn’t give you yet another template or explain yet another framework (ever hear about RICE?). Lenny does original research and shares the findings.
Growth Mates
Kate Syuma’s Growth Mates (which we’ve collaborated with) is one of the most thoughtful, tactical newsletters at the intersection of product-led growth, UX and design.
Kate led and grew the product growth design team at PLG champion Miro. Her newsletter has some of the best visual examples for PLG and UX that I’ve ever seen.
The Generalist
This is my personal favorite. The Generalist, mostly written by Mario Gabriele, is the best-written newsletter in tech. The Generalist doesn’t write in the Grammarly-fueled generic dumb-down-everything internet writing style.
The Generalist publishes beautiful pieces about startups and investing that sometimes feel more like novels than like articles about startups. It’s The New Yorker meets tech.
Not Boring
Most writing about tech is either boring or pessimistic. Packy McCormick is neither. His breakdowns of tech industries and companies are both not boring (hehe) and optimistic. If I want to feel better about the (tech) world, I read Not Boring.
How They Grow
How They Grow is a newsletter best consumed on a Saturday morning with a fresh cup of coffee. Jaryd Hermann pieces are the most in-depth growth breakdowns of startups you can find anywhere (he recently featured us, too).
If you ever want to dive deep on a fast-growing startup (or explore why a startup failed), check out How They Grow.
Wrap Text by Equals
Equals founder Bobby Pinero promised an investor one thing: He’d have to write a blog article every week. Bobby (and later on his team) have kept that promise and regularly publish lessons learned.
The most striking thing is their honesty. Other startups trumpet their wins years after they happen, glossing over the years of struggle and “wtf are we doing?” moments in between.
In Wrap Text The Equals team shares lessons as they happen. It’s like reading the diary of a founding team as it happens - not the sanitized Twitter thread after the acquisition.
Product For Engineers
PostHog’s (a fellow YC startup) newsletter Product For Engineers is about, well, building product for engineers.
PostHog shares how they do things that matter to every startup: Hiring, product, etc. and share actionable “how to” articles like “How to get a job at a startup” and “How to hire cracked engineers.”
Dwarkesh Patel
Few tech podcasts have grown faster than Dwarkesh Patel - and now he’s coming for Substack. His insights are always deep - and he’s one of our favorite tech creators (which you know if you’ve listened to his Mark Zuckerberg episode)
GTM Strategist with Maja Voje
Too many newsletters are too frameworkey to be useful - or too general to be useful.
Maja Voje’s GTM Strategist is both incredibly specific to GTM strategy and features tactical information from people actually doing it.
