BC STARTUPS
Saved by @zmbnski

There are some amazing founders and indie hackers that have made 🤯-worthy progress this last year.

The stuff you can do in a year is seriously astounding 👇

 👉 @TransistorFM reaching $22k MRR in one year: https://t.co/BuKmXEeEtH

I was one of their first customers and the progress @mijustin and @jonbuda have made working mostly part-time has been crazy.

Now both are full-time. Follow them on @buildyoursaas
👉 @talk2oneup reaching $10k MRR in one year: https://t.co/SOoGkKA19r

@daviswbaer joined as a co-founder and through many different marketing tactics, pricing changes, and product updates, they've managed to carve out a niche market in a really competitive industry.
👉 @hostifi_net $9k MRR in one year: https://t.co/TknroGZWoK

After getting fired from his full-time job, @_rchase_ embarked on a year focused on building products to replace his salary in a year.

The dude seriously SHIPS and even took investment from @earnestcapital
👉 @ClosetTools $11k MRR WHILE WORKING FULL-TIME AND WITH A FAMILY: https://t.co/pKQ7pFvpZY

With a strong product, continuous improvement, and SEO, @unindie has really been inspirational.

There are no excuses.
👉 @PairWithTuple reaching ramen profitability with 3 co-founders and planning to publically launch this month: https://t.co/k2NnntqrtF

The team took on a BIG technical problem and have continued to lean in on their initial promise.

These guys are doing things right.
Who else has made huge progress in the last year?
👉 @casestudybuddy crossed last years’ entire revenue in three months this year and are tracking to hit $250k+ rev for 2019...

... all as a productized service specializing in creating case studies!
👉 @makerpad grew to over $100,000 in revenue in 6 months with virtually no expenses after @bentossell quit his full-time job and started teaching others how to create products using no-code tools: https://t.co/eQx2Tv9YCu

More from Startups

Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
1/ new essay: What's next for marketplace startups? Reinventing the $10 trillion service economy, that's what. Co-authored with @ljin18 https://t.co/fgKbrHTnH5. A short thread 👇

2/ Marketplace startups have done incredibly well over the first few decades of the internet, reinventing the way we shop for goods, but have been less successful services. It's bc services are complex, subjective, fragmented, and often in real life. Makes it hard

3/ There's been 4 major eras at making the service economy work online. The Listings Era, the unbundled Craiglist era, the Uber for X era, and the Managed Marketplace era


4/ Each era has added more value than the last, and utilized technology innovations, from internet to social / "read/write web" to mobile. The "Unbundling Craigslist" era was particularly epic at generating startup ideas


5/ The problem is, all the low-hanging fruit has been picked off. The techniques that got us to here won't get us to the next phase. So we have to do some pretty different things. That's why "Managed Marketplaces" have been a big deal - hire folks as W-2s, certify quality, etc.
STARTUPS
Gagan Biyani
Gagan Biyani
@gaganbiyani
At Udemy, we were 3 first-time entrepreneurs trying to raise seed capital. We made every mistake in the book.

We got 200+ no’s and wasted 12 months fundraising.

We eventually pulled through, just barely. 😅

This thread shares our mistakes as lessons for founders.

**Read On**

We built an impressive product, but we were nobodies.

We thought: we need money to build our vision, so let’s go talk to some investors.

WRONG.

Nobody gave a fuck that we needed money. We needed to prove we deserved their money.

We met some associates and intermediaries who might introduce us to investors.

Few decision-makers wanted to meet with us.

We should’ve stopped there.

If getting meetings is hard, it will take you forever to raise.

Instead, spend your time building product + getting traction.

I was frustrated with investors: treated them as adversaries who asked dumb questions. My derision turned them off.

Learn to understand and appreciate investors. Follow them on Twitter, listen to podcasts from @HarryStebbings or @eriktorenberg.

An investor's job isn't easy.

They kiss a ton of frogs just to find one deal that may make them money 10 years from now.

They only win if you become a billion dollar company.

Don’t kid yourself - if you aren’t the right fit, bootstrap.

Risk-adjusted, bootstrapping can make you happier and more successful.
STARTUPS
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Corey Haines \U0001f4a1
Corey Haines 💡...
@coreyhainesco
Just finished @ryanckulp’s new course “How to Buy, Grow, and Sell Small Companies”

https://t.co/wcX0zFXHgL

Here are some main takeaways + my verdict 👇

(1) Acquisition is the easiest path to entrepreneurship

Don’t have an idea? You don’t have to have one. Buy one.

Don’t know how to code? You don’t have to. Use revenue to outsource development.

Don’t have money? You don’t have to have any. Bring in an equity partner. Leverage a debt from family/friends, tech lender, or even the seller.

Capital is not an excuse.

(2) Acquiring has a few distinct advantages to building

Namely:
- Validated demand
- Leverage debt/equity partners
- Focus on going from 1-10, not 0-1

Validate demand:

Acquiring a business that has paying customers saves you the time and energy you would have spent trying to figure out if there was demand for it in the first place.

Acquiring skips that step altogether.
STARTUPS
Garry()
Garry()
@garrytan
Subtle real advantage nobody talks about: if founders can access deeper pools of capital early/quickly, they can get bigger faster without spawning lots of competitors.

If your startup is real, pitching Sand Hill is sometimes like giving away copies of your treasure map

This advice is seldom given because most of the time and for most founders, you are still better off talking about your idea as much as possible to better understand where the dead ends are in the idea maze. Can’t do that in isolation.

Asking investors what is hot is usually less useful than asking what has worked, and what didn’t work and why? That’s how you can skip ahead and avoid death.

“All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” —Munger
STARTUPS
Freedom Designer
Freedom Designer
@FreedomDSGNR
How to Use Cialdini's Influence Principles to Grow On Twitter

// A THREAD //


Robert Cialdini took various kinds of sales/marketing/door-to-door sales jobs to figure out what techniques those "magician of persuasion" use.

Then he defined the 6 principles of INFLUENCE.

How to use them to grow on Twitter?


1. Reciprocity

Don't be afraid to give away.

Give away:

- likes
- RTs
- engagement

The bigger accounts will notice... and reciprocate.

It's human nature.

Action step: Write 20 comments a day (don't ask for anything).


2. Scarcity

is an enormously powerful weapon but make sure you use it well so it doesn't look sneaky.

You can use it for:

- Get beta testers
- Running limited sales
- Doing AMA (1hr) [bigger accounts)

Action step: Before a launch write you're looking for max 3 beta testers.


3. Authority

cannot be built by tweeting platitudes.

You'll have to show you know what you do and you understand it.

The reward will be sweet.

Action step: Post a thread from your field of expertise 3x per week.

PS. Even if you don't consider yourself a pro yet.
STARTUPS

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Jaya_Upadhyaya
Jaya_Upadhyaya
@Jayalko1
WEAPONS OF MAHADEV

Sarvaripati Shiva is one of the most fearsome manifestations of Mahadev. Assigned with destroying all of the universes at the end of time, Shiva is one of the most fearsome warriors. He is the Mrityunjaya.
Here are some weapons associated with him:


TRISHULA: the 3 pointed blades denote creation, maintenance, and destruction or the 3 Kalas – Past, Present and Future. They also represent 3 Gunas – Sattva, Rajas and Tamas).
Shiva’s trishul can only be stopped by Shiva himself.
@onlyonenetra @DetheEsha


Trishul is also said to represent Ida, Pingala, and Sushumna. These are the three basic nadis – the left, the right and the central – in the pranamaya kosha, or the energy body of the human system.
@iamkamyabuch @unever_followme


PARASHU: axe with 4 cutting edges which Shiva gave to Parashurama. In his anger, Parashurama used the parashu to get rid of the all the Earth’s tyrannical kshatriya caste twenty-one times over.
@harshasherni


CHANDRAHASA SWORD: The divine sword Chandrahasa literally means ‘the laughter of the moon’. Ravana gave this sword to Indrajit on different occasions especially to fight against Devas.
GIRISH: A special sword of Shiva with unique characteristics.
ALL
Elizabeth May
Elizabeth May
@_ElizabethMay
This is NONSENSE. The people who take photos with their books on instagram are known to be voracious readers who graciously take time to review books and recommend them to their followers. Part of their medium is to take elaborate, beautiful photos of books. Die mad, Guardian.


THEY DO READ THEM, YOU JUDGY, RACOON-PICKED TRASH BIN


If you come for Bookstagram, i will fight you.

In appreciation, here are some of my favourite bookstagrams of my books: (photos by lit_nerd37, mybookacademy, bookswrotemystory, and scorpio_books)
FUN
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Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie
@patio11
So the cryptocurrency industry has basically two products, one which is relatively benign and doesn't have product market fit, and one which is malignant and does. The industry has a weird superposition of understanding this fact and (strategically?) not understanding it.


The benign product is sovereign programmable money, which is historically a niche interest of folks with a relatively clustered set of beliefs about the state, the literary merit of Snow Crash, and the utility of gold to the modern economy.

This product has narrow appeal and, accordingly, is worth about as much as everything else on a 486 sitting in someone's basement is worth.

The other product is investment scams, which have approximately the best product market fit of anything produced by humans. In no age, in no country, in no city, at no level of sophistication do people consistently say "Actually I would prefer not to get money for nothing."

This product needs the exchanges like they need oxygen, because the value of it is directly tied to having payment rails to move real currency into the ecosystem and some jurisdictional and regulatory legerdemain to stay one step ahead of the banhammer.
CRYPTO
Shaun Russell
Shaun Russell
@_ShaunRussell
"I really want to break into Product Management"

make products.

"If only someone would tell me how I can get a startup to notice me."

Make Products.

"I guess it's impossible and I'll never break into the industry."

MAKE PRODUCTS.

Courtesy of @edbrisson's wonderful thread on breaking into comics – https://t.co/TgNblNSCBj – here is why the same applies to Product Management, too.


There is no better way of learning the craft of product, or proving your potential to employers, than just doing it.

You do not need anybody's permission. We don't have diplomas, nor doctorates. We can barely agree on a single standard of what a Product Manager is supposed to do.

But – there is at least one blindingly obvious industry consensus – a Product Manager makes Products.

And they don't need to be kept at the exact right temperature, given endless resource, or carefully protected in order to do this.

They find their own way.
TECH
Andrew Chen
Andrew Chen
@andrewchen
👇Thread.

Published a new essay: The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in your startup’s metrics – 80 slide deck included!


This was a deck that I created on my (longish) interview process with @a16z. It was a long path, starting with meeting folks at the firm 10 years ago. But the purpose of the deck was to explain how I would use my superpower in an investing context

Here's what I explain in the deck. As investors (whether angel or VC) we're often confronted with an up-and-to-the-right graph. Is it going to go up? Or down?


One solution to forecast these growth curves is the Growth Accounting Framework, where you add up New+Reactivated and subtract churned users. In each time period that gives you the difference in monthly actives.


The problem with this is that it's a lagging metric, not a leading one. We need to go one level deeper and look at the underlying loops that drive these numbers, to understand the quality.
STARTUPS