Dear Brit: 'How Do You Stay Informed on Trends in Entrepreneurship?' Five ways Brit Morin keeps up to date on news and trends without wasting time.
By Brit Morin Edited by Jessica Thomas
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Brit Morin was 25 when she left Google to start Brit + Co, a lifestyle and education company aimed at helping women cultivate creative confidence. Now — 10 years, $50 million in funding and 1.2 billion pageviews later — Brit's passion is empowering more women to take the entrepreneurial leap. She's a managing partner at VC fund Offline Ventures, host of iHeartRadio podcast Teach Me Something New, creator of Selfmade, a 10-week start-your-own-business course for women founders, and most recently — Entrepreneur advice columnist. Find her here answering the most personal and pressing questions of women entrepreneurs.
Have a question for Brit? Email it to dearbrit@brit.co, and she could answer it in an upcoming column!
Q. How do you stay informed? Where do you find fresh enterprise and VC trends?
With so much content being created every day online, staying up to date is a full-time job in itself. In today's fast-paced world, trends happen quickly and fade out just as fast. As a result, it can be challenging to keep up with the trends in entrepreneurship and venture capital without a steady stream of information at your fingertips. Luckily, many great sources for inspiration and trends can help you stay on top of things.
Here are my hacks:
1. Email subscriptions (but filter them!)
I'm a big fan of subscribing to the emails you love and that curate the news for you, but I limit myself to 5-10 max, or else it's total overload. I also ensure they are in a folder called News so that they don't clog my main inbox. Some days I miss skimming them; other days, I try to read them all. Some of my favorites include The Hustle, The Information, The Broadsheet (great for women in particular), The Morning Brew, Term Sheet, Axios Pro Rata (great for investors), and of course, the Brit + Co newsletter.
2. Watch the lists
You can learn so much by watching the data yourself. I constantly check ranked feeds like the App Store, Billboard/Spotify music rankings, podcast rankings and more. It's fascinating to see how they change week over week. When I see a new brand pop up on the feed, it encourages me to go check it out and learn more.
3. Scan the curated news
I'm a big fan of sites that curate the news. In the tech and media world, those are sites like TechMeme and MediaGazer. I also love the curated news on Twitter and LinkedIn. It's helpful to see the articles that are most shared at any given moment.
4. Scan the actual news
I have so many go-to sites, but mostly read the New York Times and my Apple News feed. I have dozens of sites bookmarked!
5. People-based news
I scan Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn daily for the articles and news people are posting, but I have recently found an app called Clay that lets you connect all your social networks and then aggregate the news about all the people that you follow. It's my favorite new way to catch the news that is also relevant to my interests and relationships.
All in all, I'm an avid reader, but more than that, an avid scanner. When topics truly intrigue me, I dive in. Or, if the articles are too long, I bookmark them for the weekend. But I definitely try to start my day by catching up on the 411, and I believe I'm a better entrepreneur and investor because of it. What do you read each day? I'd love to hear from you. Send me a DM on Twitter or Instagram; I'm @brit!
