Hey Founders,

☕️ Welcome back to the Kernal newsletter: your friend at the conference that covers your lunch bill b/c they’re baffled by your list of startup ideas.

📰 Latest news: SpaceX’s Starship rocket wowed the world. Y’all are partying at TED and Coachella. Everyone in SF’s trying to drop their office space. Microsoft’s developing its own AI chip. India's population will overtake China by mid-2023. Snapchat’s AI chatbot is now available to 750m users. Elon’s still working on a rival to OpenAI called X.AI.

Enough yappin’, let’s get rappin’ 🎶

✨ Partner of the Week: Zendesk

All the great startup legends know a smooth customer experience is a prerequisite to hockey stick growth. Well, It’s 2023. And you have a startup you wanna grow. So, you should link up with our friends at Zendesk.

Zendesk’s the $10B juggernaut that’s built its name on being the best service-first CRM company with support, sales, and customer engagement products designed to improve your customer relationships. Founders from Kernal that use our Zendesk for Startups program receive:

• 6 months of free access to Zendesk Suite and Zendesk Sales CRM,

• 30% off their first annual subscription,

• and dedicated 1-on-1 onboarding with their success team

If you’re a Kernaler, grab this Zendesk discount package.

🍽 Today's Menu:

• 🎈 7 Frameworks Learned from TED 2023

• 📰 Newsworthy startup ideas to know about

• 🖼 Top visuals of the week

🎈 7 Frameworks Learned from TED 2023

You already know your fam at Kernal are startup idea addicts. So as you might have guessed, we thought it was only fitting to call in some favours to land a pass to TED this year.

Well kids, it worked. We got in the door and learned plenty.

So instead of sharing a news piece this week, we’re gonna break down our favourite lessons learned from TED so you can apply them to your startup.

Sound fair? Let’s Dougie.

🎈 7 Frameworks Learned from TED 2023

Last year TED reeled in speakers like Elon Musk and Bill Gates. This year’s roster included the founders/CEOs of Open AI, TikTok, Duolingo, Scale AI and manyyyyy others that’d likely be your dream coffee.

And since you’ll all see the TED talks later online, we wanna break down a few lessons we learned from behind the scenes of being an attendee.

1. 🎈Show Up 100%: in-person events all depend on what you make of it. Just like life. If you have a question, ask it. If you say you wanna meet a speaker, send them a note. If you promise you’re gonna make an email intro after meeting someone, make it. In the chaos of our startups, showing up speaks volumes of your character.

2. 🎈Real convos happen outside the event: we build our best relationships outside the professional sphere. TED’s no different. The after-party and out-of-venue walks are where the best chats were had. With your users/investors, how are you cultivating a similar approach?

3. 🎈Content’s not enough anymore: Content is endlessly available. Podcasts, Netflix, youtube, audible are all in our pocket etc. Wow factors are 10x more memorable. How can you increase WOW and decrease content efforts to wow your audience? For TED 2023, it was the food, the backpacks attendees got, the VR exhibits, the venue and the in between convos people had before/after the speaker sessions.

4. 🎈Don’t be afraid to talk your book: Greg from OpenAI did a great job at literally positioning his product in front of the audience. But again, I guess he was invited b/c OpenAI scaled to 100m users faster than any app in the world. Be okay with pitching your idea if people wanna learn about it.

5. 🎈In person opens doors faster than online: you can ignore cold emails, but it’s hard to ignore a human tapping on your shoulder with a quick question. Online connections are powerful, but saying hello to a stranger in person is exponentially stronger. Maximize these possibilities when they open up.

6. 🎈Treasure your curiosity and ask creative questions: everyone knows the company you work at by your Twitter or Linkedin. Nobody knows what you do on the weekend or your recent family vacation. Ask fun questions to deepen relationships. Don’t ask google-able questions.

   

   7. 🎈We remember stories not answers: one TED speaker reminded us we build our best relationships through the art of stories. Not when we get a great answer to a question. If you’re wanting to deepen a relationship, dig into questions that open up stories vs dead-end answers.

   8. 🎈BONUS: Get comfortable seeing more of AI: TED’s #1 talking point from the speakers was AI. Metaphysics founder Tom Graham spoke about the power of their platform and how they were able to generate this Tom Cruise video outside the conference within minutes. Instead of being worried, continue to learn and see how your startup can stay ahead of the curve.

      

Whether you’re picking, pitching or scaling a startup idea, we hope these 7 frameworks can help you out.

✨Fresh Startup Ideas✨  

• Would you wanna build this idea?

• Would you pay for your startup to have access?

• Would you invest in the founding team?

If you said “yes” to any of those, smash the button below.

• The facts: recipe content market size was valued at ~USD $5 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12-15% through 2025, according to several reports.

• The customers: Anyone who loves to cook or bake and is looking for new and interesting recipes to try.

• The Solution: Provide users with a personalized and ad-free recipe experience. Creators will have the opportunity to monetize their content and build a loyal following, and users will have access to high-quality and easy-to-follow recipes.

Sound up your alley? Hit the button below.

• Idea posted by Alexis Grant, a serial founder w/ great background

• Easy to spin up an MVP virtually and get it into marketing

• What do you think? Smash the button below to get involved

💡 More Ideas

🎁 Goodies in our Inbox

• ☕️ To the windowwww, to the Walls: Wanna learn from a top entrepreneur? We’re hosting a tactical AMA with Pat Walls who’s grown StarterStory to 1.4 million monthly visitors and $500K in annual revenue. RSVP here.

• Wanna host a Kernal workshop to our members about a particular skill you’re amazing at? Sign up.

• Trung wrote about Hello Kitty's $80B+ Secret Sauce

• Don’t worry be happy: Housel wrote about what makes humans happy

• Scott dished some advice about angel investing 101

📰 Early Days Interview: Jean VAN

Remember Jean Van from the other week? Well, we found his story so inspiring we decided to spin up an interview in his early days. Dive in here for the full breakdown of what he’s learned as a founder.

Visuals That Stopped Our Scroll

Enough chitter chatter. Go have an awesome weekend friends.

💚 The Kernal Fam

Laughed or learned something new in today’s newsletter? Help us get a raise by smashing that fire emoji below.