I’m Sophia, and I've dedicated my career to helping entrepreneurs build their dream businesses. I'm the founder of a $350M business, New York Times bestselling author, writer, and run a venture capital fund called Trust Fund. Every week, we'll send you the most interesting and useful news in business, marketing, productivity, and finance so you can know more, do more, and make more money.
Shock Horror: Childless 40-Year-Old Not Crying into Wine Glass Every Night!
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Notes from a Messy Desk
Last week, I posted an Instagram reel that unexpectedly went viral, garnering over 1.1 million views.
In it, I shared a simple truth about my life: I'm 40, single, child-free, and genuinely happier than ever
The response was overwhelming – it’s wild how a few words shared on social media could resonate so strongly with so many.
Why? Someone in my position isn’t expected to be happy, so much so that the Daily Mail wrote a piece about it, with a headline that may as well have been something like "Shock Horror: Single 40-Year-Old Not Crying into Wine Glass Every Night!"
Whatever. It sucks that the baby-industrial complex is so deeply ingrained in our culture that this is news.
But because I don’t give a fuck, it also serves as a weird ad for being single (especially since I moved to London like 48 hours ago).
Okay, onto stuff that really matters.
– Sophia
In today’s issue:
College kids are hiring interior designers to deck out their dorm rooms
Tweens are the new Marie Kondo
Brand namers are the new graphic designers
And more…
➤ This Etsy business is killing it by selling custom cremation urns.Death isn’t a dying business. If anything, it’s getting more interesting, and there may be opportunity for you to make something so difficult easier or more beautiful for people.
➤ Tweens are the new Marie Kondo. They’re growing up with a constant flood of “the world is burning” news in their feeds, so it makes sense that they care about how their purchasing choices affects our dying planet. Like me in this new era, they want less, and they want it to be sustainable.
➤ This may be the next side hustle: college kids are hiring interior designers to deck out their dorms and monogram their shit. An 18-year-old and her roommate spent $3,000 for interior designers “to create a modern-looking, New York City-style dorm room with a touch of Southern charm.” They’re paying for things like custom wood shelving, monogrammed removable wallpaper, and fancy curtains.
Gen Z and Alpha are also interested in less cluttered, more sustainable purchases, so if you can make their shitty, bland dorm room a minimalist dream that doesn’t end up in a landfill, you may just have a business.
➤ Don’t make the same mistake as Meghan Markle and Kim Kardashian:You can’t trademark a geographical location Meghan Markle was denied the trademark for American Riviera Orchard for her lifestyle brand, and for Kim, it was the scandalous original name for Skims, Kimono.
➤ Are brand namers the new graphic designers? The creative industry is being disrupted – in an era where AI can spin up product photos *cough cough, Trust Fund portfolio company AI Fashion* in no time and draft content about subject matter better than experts, there’s still room for humans.
➤ Don’t get banned from doing business in other states. If you hire an employee to do business in another state, you need to register, and (unfortunately) pay taxes as well.
➤ Marketers don’t want to advertise on Elon Musk’s X. Musk told brands pulling their ad dollars that they can go fuck themselves, and 26% are – citing things like hate speech and toxic content on the platform.
➤ This guy has made millions as a professional whistleblower thanks to an obscure US law provision. We love a success story: Entrepreneur Richard Overum goes undercover and gets shady businesspeople to confess to financial wrongdoing. That’s because there’s a provision within federal whistleblower programs that awards a tipster 10 to 30 percent of sanctions collected from their tip. Someone made $279 million last year. Overum has made tens of millions. It’s always good to read the fine print.
There’s no cheat code or check you can write for getting the coveted “top pick.” Their filter is one or both of two things: a quality product that delivers on its promise better than the competition, or the best option for those on a budget.
The Wirecutter team uses meticulous, color-coded spreadsheets to track how each product performs in certain categories. If your product excels across all categories, it’ll visually stand out from the rest, securing it a spot in the final ranking. If it sucks, it’s an easy veto.
A few questions to ask yourself:
Does your product do what it’s supposed to do in the most extreme conditions?
What’s the unboxing, set-up, and cleanup experience like?
How intuitive is it to use?
Does it stand the test of time?
Get people talking about your product (even if it’s your team and your friends). The Wirecutter team consults customer reviews and sources from Amazon, other retailers, and message boards to see what people are into. Hot tip: consider hiring a freelancer from Fiverr to post on Reddit about your product.
Consult an outside expert, because the Wirecutter team is. Find an authoritative voice in your industry to internally review your product. Maybe they’ll spot a weakness or flawed claim that you can get ahead of.
Don’t throw money (or a free product) at them. The Wirecutter team might earn affiliate revenue from their recommendations off readers, but they’re not swayed by the promise of a free product. They’ve said so. Sure, they might ask you to send one for free for a review, but they’re willing to pay, and whether or not they have to doesn’t impact your standing.
Remember that Wirecutter updates their reviews. If your product could replace an incumbent, don’t be afraid to reach out to the reviewer and editors who wrote the original review.
A few things I packed for a weekend in Italy
Last weekend, I spent three days drunk on olive oil in an Italian paradise. I swear I have a job. I went straight from the Italian countryside to a London cafe, using my knuckle on my iPad screen to catch up on emails and find cool and interesting stuff for the newsletter.
But here are a few things that carried me through a dream of a weekend away from the city and reality.
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I'm Sophia.
I built my first business to over $100M in revenue... in my 20s. It was hard. Today, I use what I learned to mentor and invest in a new generation of founders through my digital membership for entrepreneurs, Business Class, and my early-stage venture fund, Trust Fund.
I'm Melanie.
I'm the Head of Content and Community at Business Class. After ~a decade as a tech culture reporter, I started consulting for early-stage startups on all things content and community building. Now, I'm focused on making this newsletter your favorite weekly email.
I’m Sophia, and I've dedicated my career to helping entrepreneurs build their dream businesses. I'm the founder of a $350M business, New York Times bestselling author, writer, and run a venture capital fund called Trust Fund. Every week, we'll send you the most interesting and useful news in business, marketing, productivity, and finance so you can know more, do more, and make more money.
