IN THIS WEEK’S NEWSLETTER:

• 🚀 Back to School. Back to Startup Mode.

• 🌎 Launching a Top-Level Domain

• 🔥 How Great Businesses Start by Solving Everyday Problems

• 🤖 AI Tip of the Month

• ✅ From Idea to Action in the Age of AI

Watch Today’s Clubhouse!

🎙️ Catching the Next Tech Wave in an AI World - Today at 2pm ET on Clubhouse

Tech waves like AI create fortunes and failures. Come on stage and share the wave you spotted and how it turned out.


Listen to this newsletter👇

🚀 Back to School. Back to Startup Mode.

Every August, the world shifts back into learning mode.

Students return to classrooms. Parents settle into new routines. Businesses begin preparing for the final stretch of the year.

For entrepreneurs, this is also the perfect time to go back to startup mode.

U.S. projected business formations are up 17% year over year, while business applications have increased nearly 16%.

That matters because it shows something important: more people are deciding they do not need to wait for permission, a promotion, or the perfect economic environment to build something of their own.

And artificial intelligence is accelerating that shift.

AI Has Changed the Startup Equation

Starting a company used to require substantial capital, a large team, technical expertise, and months of preparation.

Today, one entrepreneur with the right idea, the right tools, and the willingness to learn can accomplish work that previously required an entire department.

AI can help founders research markets, analyze customer feedback, create marketing campaigns, build prototypes, write sales materials, improve customer service, and automate repetitive work.

It can also help entrepreneurs test ideas faster and more affordably.

A founder can now use AI to study an industry, identify recurring customer complaints, compare competitors, create a basic website, draft an offer, and launch an early test in a fraction of the time it once took.

AI does not eliminate the need for entrepreneurship.

It amplifies it.

The founder still needs to recognize the opportunity, understand the customer, make decisions, take risks, and execute. AI simply gives that founder a more powerful set of tools.

Think of AI as a new member of your startup team.

It can act as your researcher, brainstorming partner, copywriter, analyst, programmer, and assistant.

It will not build the company for you, but it can help you move much faster.

Start With a Problem, Not a Product

The best businesses often begin with an ordinary frustration.

A customer cannot find what they need.

A process takes too long.

An existing product is too expensive, confusing, or difficult to use.

Entrepreneurs notice these problems and ask a simple question:

How could this be better?

That question has launched countless successful companies.

The difference today is that AI allows you to investigate the problem much faster.
You can use AI to analyze online reviews, organize customer complaints, compare competing products, identify market gaps, and generate potential solutions.

You can then create a prototype, landing page, customer survey, or marketing test without spending months building a complete business.

The process is simple:

• Identify the problem.

• Research the customer.

• Develop a possible solution.

• Test it quickly.

• Learn from the response.

• Improve the idea.

• Repeat.

This is the essence of entrepreneurship, now operating at AI speed.

Catching the Next Technology Wave

Every major technology shift creates new winners.

The internet created companies that could reach customers around the world.

Mobile technology created entirely new industries built around smartphones. Social media changed marketing, communication, and commerce.

Cloud computing made sophisticated technology available to small companies.

AI may be the most significant wave yet.

In fact, AI could mint more millionaires than any other technological shift in history.
The biggest opportunity will not necessarily go to the person who invents the next large AI model.

It may go to the entrepreneur who applies existing AI technology to a specific industry,
profession, or customer problem.

There are opportunities in healthcare, education, real estate, finance, manufacturing, hospitality, professional services, transportation, entertainment, and nearly every other sector.

The question is not whether AI will affect your industry.

The question is whether you will participate in that change or watch someone else build the company that does.

Entrepreneurship Is Still a Roller Coaster

AI may make starting faster, but it does not make entrepreneurship easy.

There will still be setbacks, missed targets, difficult customers, failed experiments, financial pressure, and forces outside your control.

Every founder experiences highs and lows. One week, you feel as though you are building the next great company.

The next week, you are wondering whether anyone understands what you are trying to do.

That is normal.

Successful entrepreneurs learn to separate temporary events from long-term direction. They stay focused, communicate clearly, adjust their plans, and keep moving.

Technology changes.

Markets change.

Competitors change.

The founder’s responsibility remains the same: stay close to the customer, manage cash carefully, build the right team, and continue executing.

Your Back-to-Startup Assignment

As students return to school, entrepreneurs should return to curiosity.

Spend time learning about the new tools transforming your industry. Identify one recurring customer frustration.

Use AI to research the problem, evaluate the market, and develop a simple test. Do not spend the next six months creating a perfect business plan.

Create a small experiment.

Talk to customers.

Build a basic prototype.

Launch a landing page.

Try to make your first sale.

Ideas are everywhere, but ideas alone do not create companies.

Action does.

This fall, go back to school in the subject that matters most to your future: learning how to build, launch, scale, and continually reinvent a business.

It is time to get back to startup mode.

— Colin C. Campbell

Disclaimer: Startup Club and its AI resources are for informational purposes only and do not constitute legal advice. Consult a qualified lawyer for legal matters.

📕 Are You Ready to Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat?

Get inside the minds of 30+ experts, authors, and seasoned entrepreneurs and learn from their hard-earned lessons.

Build a competitive edge and protect your business with a proven formula to scale up, add zeros to your revenue and profits, and crush the competition. Avoid common pitfalls and master the art of hacking your way to growth.

Maximize your wealth by securing the right funding, navigating potential buyers, and cashing in big on an exit. With expert advice, you'll learn how to Start, Scale, Exit, and Repeat multiple companies.

Don't just dream of success, make it a reality. Get your hands on this ultimate guide to entrepreneurial success today!

Check out Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat. on Amazon for more!

🌎 Launching a Top-Level Domain

Most people see a domain extension like .club and assume the hard part is getting approved.

It's not.

On the latest episode of the Domain Name Wire Podcast hosted by Andrew Allemann, Colin C. Campbell shares what it actually takes to build a successful top-level domain, drawing on his experience launching .Club, growing it into one of the world's largest new domain extensions, and ultimately selling the business to GoDaddy.

Getting a TLD delegated is just the beginning.

The real challenge is building adoption. Unlike a typical startup launch, a domain extension is infrastructure. Growth happens over years, not months.

With the ICANN application window closing on August 12, Colin also explains why he's returning to the market and applying again.

Whether you're considering applying for a new top-level domain or you're simply interested in how internet infrastructure businesses are built, this conversation offers an honest look behind the curtain.

👉 Read the full article on domains

🤖  AI Tip of the Month

On July 8, OpenAI upgraded ChatGPT Voice, and it is the closest thing to a human conversation I have experienced with any chatbot.

Responses are fast and natural, it listens without constantly interrupting, handles background noise better, and can provide smarter answers, web research, translation, and visual information while you talk.

👉 Give it a try today.

🔥 How Great Businesses Start by Solving Everyday Problems

The best business ideas don't begin in a brainstorm. They begin with an annoyance.

Entrepreneurs love talking about "the next big idea." They chase trends, study markets, and wait for inspiration to strike. But in reality, the strongest companies rarely start with a revolutionary invention. They start with someone noticing something that shouldn't be that way.

That's how almost every successful entrepreneur I know got started.

For years, I spent more nights in hotels than I care to remember. Hotels offered comfort and consistency. Vacation rentals offered space and freedom. The problem was that you had to choose one or the other.

I cared about that gap. That frustration eventually became a business, built around one simple idea.

It wasn't a breakthrough technology. It was simply solving a problem that many travelers already had.

That's where ideas begin.

Too many entrepreneurs begin with the wrong question. Instead of asking, "What problem can I solve?" they ask, "How can I make money?"

The difference matters.

Startups are difficult. Every business hits obstacles. If your only motivation is getting rich, the first setback will probably convince you to quit.

Purpose keeps you moving when profits haven't arrived yet.

Business opportunities rarely arrive with flashing lights announcing themselves. They're usually hiding inside everyday inconveniences, conversations, complaints, and trends.

The entrepreneurs who consistently discover great ideas aren't necessarily more creative than everyone else.

They're simply paying closer attention.

The full article covers how to tell a good idea from a great business, the three questions to ask before you invest a dollar, and why the best founders fall in love with the problem, not the product.

👉 Read the full article here

✅ From Idea to Action in the Age of AI

Ideas are cheap.

Execution has always been the advantage. AI just makes that more obvious.

For the past decade, entrepreneurs have obsessed over finding the perfect idea. Today, AI can generate a hundred business ideas before you've finished your morning coffee. It can write business plans, build prototypes, design logos, and even create marketing campaigns in minutes.

None of that matters if you never ship.

If AI helped you think of an idea, chances are it helped thousands of other entrepreneurs think of it too.

The only differentiator left is execution.

Many founders treat AI like the business itself. It isn't. AI is simply leverage. Use it to validate demand faster, build prototypes, write copy, and generate your first website.

But don't confuse productivity with progress.

You can spend weeks prompting ChatGPT without talking to a single customer. That's still procrastination.

Colin C. Campbell learned this lesson years before Uber existed, when he and his partners imagined an app to summon a nearby taxi and watch it arrive. They even bought the domain.

Then they moved on.

Someone else executed.

In the full article, adapted from Chapter 2 of his bestselling Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat., Colin breaks down what actually moves you from idea to action: when to share your idea, why customers come before investors, and the one piece of timeless advice that still beats any AI shortcut.

👉 Read the full article here

🚀 TTSI Update: A 2026 Forecast of 30.7

If the IPO market reaches 375 public offerings in 2026, the Startup.club Time to Sell Index (TTSI) would rise to 30.7, up from 26.8 in 2025.

With a historical trough of 154 IPOs, a peak of 873 IPOs, and an estimated 375 IPOs in 2026, a TTSI of 30.7 suggests the IPO market continues to recover, but we remain in a buyer’s market.

Historically, the strongest environment for founders looking to exit has been when the TTSI climbs above 50, with the most frothy seller’s markets occurring above 70.

The recovery also appears to be constrained by higher interest rates. Elevated borrowing costs reduce the amount of leverage private equity firms can deploy, putting downward pressure on acquisition valuations and making it more difficult for founders to achieve premium exit multiples.

While liquidity is gradually returning, higher-for-longer interest rates continue to temper the pace of the recovery.

While no single metric can perfectly predict the best time to sell a business, I believe the TTSI provides founders with an objective way to measure the strength of the exit market.

Rather than relying on headlines or emotion, it tracks one of the most important drivers of acquisition activity: liquidity. Like any index, it should be used as a guide rather than a guarantee, but understanding where we are in the market cycle can help founders make better long-term decisions about when to build, buy, or sell.

My advice remains the same: focus on building a great company, improving profitability, and creating strategic value.

When the TTSI eventually moves into a true seller’s market, you’ll be in the best possible position to capitalize on it.

🔥 Check Me Out on TikTok!

@startupclubhq

Scaling isn’t luck — it’s momentum, and nobody knows that better than Joe Foster, founder of Reebok. Some entrepreneurs dream of one cozy ... See more

🚀 How to Support Startup Club

You can further support StartUp.Club by:

1. Sharing it with a friend or fellow entrepreneur! We’ve got a great referral program!

2. Responding to this email and letting me know what you think.

3. Picking up your copy of Start. Scale. Exit. Repeat.

And if you made it this far, thank you for reading.

— Colin C. Campbell

Entrepreneur Fact of the Month: Only about 48% of new businesses survive to their fifth birthday, per U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data but the "9 in 10 fail" myth gets repeated everywhere.

The real story is more useful than the scare stat: failure is usually a market problem, not a money problem. Validate demand before you build, and you sidestep the single biggest killer.

Source: SegmentOS