Hello! Hi! Is it still January?!
Welcome to the penultimate weekend of the month. Can you believe we still have one more to go? This month at Verse we’ve explored themes of inspiration, fiction and renewal. We’ve also made some exciting strides:
Launched new features, including Lists, to support your reading curation
Shared key results from our beta thanks to your invaluable feedback
I’ve taken this month super slowly, focusing on dreaming, creating and learning. I have longed for years to make time this, and this year I realised it was absolutely within my power to do. (If reflections on creativity and rest interest you, I wrote about this in my other newsletter.)
The culmination of this time means I am fired up and ready to go— full of ideas for the rest of the year. And today we are talking about growth.
Big news: We’re accelerating
We’re thrilled to share we’ve secured a place on a Product Growth accelerator for Verse. This programme supports a small cohort of founding teams to build ‘high potential product-led businesses’. How cool.
Over the next three months we’ll work with experts and investors to move Verse from beta to ready-to-scale. And, of course, we’ll bring you along on the ride— sharing insights, milestones and, most importantly, great book recommendations.
This wouldn’t be possible without your support, so thank you for being part of the Verse journey. 🫶
Books to help you grow
To celebrate growth, I'm sharing the best non-fiction I read last year— the ones that I am still thinking about. These cover start ups, businesses, personal development, courage, manifestos and creativity.
Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway by Susan Jeffers
Published in the 80s but you’d never guess this book is 40 years old. It’s a really great, quick read with some practical tips to remind you that whatever comes your way, odds are you’ll handle it. This book inspired me to add the risk category to my daily plan, to push myself out of my comfort zone more often.
More about this book here 👇.
Company of One by Paul Jarvis
A brilliant outline of how you can build a successful company by focusing on your customers, and on you. Despite what the VCs might tell us, growth is not the primary objective. Often it’s a vanity metric at the expense of speed, simplicity, autonomy and resiliency. This book is full of possibilities of how you could build a business to support the life you want.
Fave quote: “Millennials now view the traditional aspiration of a corporate job as something from a satirical sitcom (like The Office), than something they wish to strive for.”
New Methods for Women by Sharmadean Reid
This is broken into 49 life learnings, challenging you to take a different approach. If you are looking to unpick what you actually want from what society expects then this is for you.
“I feel there are not enough books outside of fiction or memoirs that outline women’s thinking or mental models to create a framework we might use to achieve self-actualisation.”
We’re so excited for the year ahead and all the growth it holds— not just for Verse, but for all of us. Whether it’s reading, dreaming, or learning, let’s grow together.
Support us through books 📖
If you love what we’re building, consider support Verse through our shop. Every purchases helps to fund our development efforts—at no extra cost to you! Thank you if you choose to do this! 💙
How does it work? Click any books links in this post to apply our affiliate code to your browser. Browse and shop at your leisure—the code last for 30 days so don’t worry if you want to return later. We earn a small commission on anything you buy, helping us to create a better reading experience
Say goodbye to bad recommendations and hello to a better reading experience 👇