BC STARTUPS
Saved by @ngeshlew

Startup life can be summed up in three steps:

1. Find problem
2. Fix problem
3. Go back to step 1

Works for every thing you need to do in a startup.

Growth is determined by a combination of how fast you can go through the steps successfully and how long you can keep at it.

 Finding the right problem to solve starts with understanding your customers.

Nobody says I wish I talked to less customers.

There aren’t any hacks or shortcuts to this.

Go talk to your customers.
Fixing problems in a startup isn’t usually straightforward.

You don’t have time, money or people to throw at the problem.

You have to go deep, dig for the details and think very creatively about solutions.

Then experiment like there is no tomorrow.
You can’t grow a startup without a fundamental understanding of how to problem solve really fast.

This skill comes from practicing jumping into the unknown.

You don’t usually get time to prepare for what’s coming next.

You’ll have to learn how to figure it out along the way.
Startup people have to become comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty and the unknown.

This is why I say, nobody knows what they are doing.

We’re all just jumping from problem to problem expecting to figure things out.

Hopefully our past helps us not crash and burn.
There is no startup training.

No school will make you great at starting up.

You will gain knowledge and you will feel smarter.

Until you get your hands dirty and realize the feeling of being humbled on a daily basis because of how little you really know.
Before you start your first company you don’t realize that the only way to truly learn is by doing the work.

You believe that listening, reading, watching and getting advice are invaluable.

At best, these things inform your direction and at worst distract you from doing work.

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Corey Haines \U0001f4a1
Corey Haines 💡...
@coreyhainesco
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.
STARTUPS
Paul Metcalfe \U0001f3a7
Paul Metcalfe 🎧...
@pauldm
New startup does $150K in 12 months but still doesn’t have a landing page 🤔

Listened to Jeremy Thiessen explaining how and why, on the Sales for Founders podcast

3 takeaways...

1/ When you build a landing page, you’re putting all your assumptions out there. In the early stages of a business you need facts. To do that, you’re better off talking to a prospect. Instead of making wrong assumptions, in a place where you can’t control the conversation. 🤷‍♂️

Later, when you’ve got facts, build the landing page

2/ Figure out who you’re serving and where they are. Then start calling. Need to have one person who wants this “thing” other than you 📱

3/ When cold calling get to the point. Don’t sell. Ask good, authentic questions. Show that you want to help 🎯
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Jan-Erik Asplund
Jan-Erik Asplund
@janerikasplund
.@zapier built a $140M ARR business on $1.4M in VC that has become the logic layer of the no-code industry.

But it has the potential to be something even bigger: the Netflix of productivity.

Our report and a thread 👉

We believe @seqouia and @steadfast got a good deal buying into Zapier at $5B.

We value Zapier at $7B based on:

- 30-50% YoY growth over the next five years
- Zapier’s monopoly status in the solopreneur/SMB market
- 30-40% YoY growth of no-code TAM

No-code is huge and growing, but as @edavidpeterson has written, no-code is about more than tools: it’s about a philosophy that emphasizes interoperability and customizing your software to your needs.

https://t.co/UJY6BRtXwl


.@zapier enabled interoperability by building a solution to one of the intractable problems in SaaS: APIs that don’t talk to each other.

The product took off and hit $100M ARR in just 9 years, comparable to companies that have raised 100x as much money.

https://t.co/0Thk42eRpJ


Zapier was riding an explosion in APIs that started the same year they were founded—2011.

Suddenly, every SaaS business wanted to offer its users extensibility, but not spend time figuring out what integrations to build or building them.

That’s where Zapier came in handy.
STARTUPS
Traf
Traf
@traf
A few things I've learned this year from building a small, profitable internet business from zero to $100k ARR in 8 months.

Ride the wave:

People often ask what we do for marketing, and I don't really have a good answer. You don't have to push your product as hard if you're building for a vocal community of passionate people within a growing market. They'll do most of your marketing for you.

Scratch your own itch:

If you don't experience the problem you've set out to solve, you’ll have a slight disconnect between what your problem actually is, who’s experiencing it, and how to reach them. I’ll probably never do another user test in my life.

Get specific:

The web hosting space may be crowded, but the web hosting space for Notion is not. I used to think a niche would limit the total size of my business, but If we capture 1% of all Notion users, we'd be making at least $720k/month—far beyond what's enough for me.

Use side projects as marketing:

Some of our record signup days came from one of my side projects. The only mention of it was a link to it in the footer of the page. Your side projects don't have to be clearly correlated in order to still correlate.
STARTUPS
Shahed Khan
Shahed Khan
@_shahedk
8 things startups can do early on to optimize for focus & productivity:

1. Synchronous meetings only for p0 and p1 items

All meetings should be 25 minutes by default with the ability to extend by 15 minutes if necessary.

Each meeting should have a clear agenda that outlines its context, asks, action items, etc.

Meetings should be brief & impactful

2. Asynchronous for everything else

- Stand ups
- Project demos / updates
- Design / Eng handoffs
- Documentation walkthrough

A simple flowchart for meetings:


3. Strive for 90% focused work / 10% meeting & sync time

- No meetings on Tues & Thurs
- Encourage turning off Slack & distracting notifications
- Track your time to better understand your distractions
- Buy your team a copy of Deep Work & Getting Things Done

4. No recurring meetings

Recurring meetings are a productivity killer. Try to avoid them when possible.

Instead, assess whether a follow-up meeting is needed at the end of each meeting.
STARTUPS

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