The Soulja Boy Strategy
Hey everyone!
Welcome back to Spark Teen Weekly. Each week, we'll send you handmade, hand-picked, and handpacked content on teen entrepreneurship, investing, creating, and more.
It’s Mei writing to you this week! As July winds down, I’ve done some reflecting on my summer. These past months, I’ve been working on my productivity and establishing a daily routine—a skill essential to everyone, especially all you inspiring entrepreneurs. My motivational tip of the summer is to go and download a habit tracker (Kin is my favorite) and sync it with your friends. This gives a sense of mutual accountability.
Let’s dive in!
🥇 Last week’s most popular link: Wharton Pre-Baccalaureate Program
🧠 Resources and Opportunities
Gen Z Mafia - Discord community for young builders.
Diamond Challenge Curriculum - A comprehensive entrepreneurial curriculum for building a successful startup.
JUV Consulting - JUV is looking for members ages 14-24 to engage with clients, participate in brand ambassadorship opportunities, and gain business and leadership experience. Apply now!
📈 The Soulja Boy Strategy
Soulja Boy has taught us one thing: if you want to start creating content online but don’t know where to begin, start with curation.
Before he started rapping, people followed Soulja Boy for his music taste. He curated music playlists on YouTube and MySpace, where his audience grew.
One day, he slipped his own song “Crank That” into one of his playlists.
His career immediately took off. The song made its way to the top of the Billboard Hot 100 Chart, where it stayed for 7 weeks.
As David Perell writes in his essay:
Like Soulja Boy, if you want to start creating but don’t know where to begin, start with curation. It’s a gateway drug to publishing your own ideas because it gives you the license to experiment without the pressure of coming up with new ideas yourself.
📱 Mark Zuckerberg on how to build the future
Mark Zuckerberg started the most influential company in his Harvard dorm. Now, 1.73 billion people are on Facebook each day.
In his interview with Sam Altman, he shares his advice for building the future:
It’s all about people. People are driven by a desire to meet and understand others. Build things that meet those needs.
Learn and iterate. Build something that people want, then collect feedback to keep it relevant for them.
Connectivity. AI. Virtual Reality. These are Facebook’s projects for the next 10 years. See if you can get a head start.
In a world that's changing so quickly, the biggest risk you can take is not taking any risk.
📚 What else we’re reading
I’m feeling motivated: Robin Sharma’s famous 5 AM morning routine for those who want to maximize their productivity.
I’m feeling inquisitive: A book by Jonathan Bi on Rene Girad and his theories, some of which have been great inspiration for Peter Thiel.
That's it for this week!
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Mei from the Spark Teen team