Trends

When Frank Catalano’s doctor handed him a terrifying diagnosis — prostate cancer, 5 years to live — he did not expect to be handed his next multi-million dollar business idea as well.

Julian Shapiro is the founder of Demand Curve, a Y Combinator-funded training program that teaches companies and individuals to become expert marketers. You can follow him on Twitter and read his writing here.

His Trends lecture highlights the best growth marketing tactics for 2020.

The Signal: Since the start of the pandemic outbreak in the US, we have been tracking startup funding data. Based on Dan Primack’s indispensable Pro Rata newsletter, our latest analysis looks at 288 venture deals closed in June 2020.Over the month, the industries that have received the most funding were Health Tech (15%), Fintech (9%), Data (9%), Biotech (9%), Enterprise SaaS (6%), Cybersecurity (6%), HR (5%), and Real Estate (4%).

We recently published a deep dive on the newsletter industry. The feedback was very positive, so we decided to highlight more practical tips for growing a newsletter business.

At the very least, brands should have awareness videos, promotional videos, and retargeting videos.

Bob Pittman — the creator of MTV, former CEO of Six Flags, Time Warner, AOL, and Century 21 Real Estate and now current CEO of iHeartMedia — has had a hell of a career. 

The Signal: One of our fellow community members recently pulled the data on 2.4k+ Kickstarter campaigns, and we dug through the numbers to see what projects are running successful campaigns during quarantine. 

You can trace a direct line between today’s massive cannabis gummies market and Nancy Whiteman. 

This presentation was put together by Trung Phan. Send questions or comments via email or Twitter.

It was inspired by Blake Robbins’ Twitter thread highlighting the companies shaping the future of media & pop culture.

Blake is a partner at early-stage venture fund Ludlow Ventures. Follow him on Twitter and subscribe to his newsletter on Substack. 

One of our most popular reports last year was a deep dive on the out-of-home (OOH) advertising market.