- Solve a problem that you have or your immediate connections have
 
 
 - Find 10 people who love your product and do that in a way that doesn't scale. Don't advertise, instead, hand recruit these customers
 
 
 - Don't make these customers hard-to-get customers, these are bad customers for this stage
 
 
 - Instead, find customers that intensely have the problem that you're looking to solve, are willing to work with an early-stage startup, and are willing to pay for your product
 
 
 - Charge your customers right off the bat, if they don't want to pay, it is a signal that this is not a problem they care about that much
 
 
 - Qualify your customers, Create and refine a set of questions that answer how intensely they have the problem you are solving, and how willing they are to move quicklys
 
 
 - Only work with qualified customers, let go of other customers now and focus on them later on

<ol><li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WAXLTG9n7Kw" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to find your first 10 customers
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.inc.com/women-2/how-to-find-and-win-over-early-adopters.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The secret to finding (and winning over) early adopters
 </a>
 </li></ol>

How to find your first 10 customers

- Understand the urgency of the situation and commit wholeheartedly to the urgent.
 
 
 - Remarkable doesn’t mean remarkable to you. It means remarkable to everyone else.
 
 
 - Being noticed is not the same as being remarkable. It’s easy to pull off a wild stunt, but not always useful.
 
 
 - Extremism in the pursuit of remarkability is no sin. In fact, it’s practically a requirement. 
 
 
 - Remarkability lies in the edges. The biggest, fastest, slowest, richest, easiest, most difficult. 
 
 
 - Not everyone appreciates your efforts to be remarkable. Your goal is to please those that actually speak up, spread the word, buy new things or hire the talented.
 
 
 - If it’s in a manual, if it’s the accepted wisdom, if you can find it in a Dummies book then it’s boring, not remarkable. Part of what it takes to do something remarkable is to do something first and best.
 
 
 - It’s not really as frightening as it seems. The remarkable minority has always succeeded.
 
 
 - What’s fashionable soon becomes unfashionable. Instead of resting on your laurels, you must commit to being remarkable again quite soon.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-rCC6QEpFY" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Seth Godin Interview: How to be Remarkable | Simplify Podcast (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/15-ways-highly-remarkable-person.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 15 Ways To Be A Highly Remarkable Person (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.wikihow.com/Be-Remarkable" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Be Remarkable (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to be remarkable

Think about your startup or project and try to use its mission statement along with a few other qualities that you hope your brand represents. Use these as fuel to the brainstorming process. For instance, let's say I am working on a smart Dog Collar that can tell you how your dog is feeling, and some qualities of this collar are that it is transparent in its reporting as well as comfortable for the dog. Some words we could work with here are dog, collar, feeling, transparent, comfortable, and the synonyms of such words if they exist.
 
 
 Then try to come up with a name that fits as many of the following as possible:
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Have an inside joke (real or imagined, think Spanx or <a 
 href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/growing-carrots-how-i-chose-a-brand-name-that-drives-100k-sessions-month-cff9df2205?commentId=-Mv4zF8IO-GpOaegang6" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Singing Carrots</a>)
 </li>
 <li>
 Have a strong letter in them which is high value in scrabble e.g. Y, K, X, Z, or Q
 </li>
 <li>
 Have a strong sound (alliteration, digraph - a combination of two letters like “oo” or “sh”)
 </li>
 <li>
 Have a strong verb that demands emotion or action - ignore, stop, fight, fury, power, run, etc.
 </li>
 <li>
 Have a promise of some sort - no, yes, always, never
 </li>
 </ol>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-choose-a-brand-name-that-is-impossible-to-ignore-bdb81d2cba" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to choose a brand name that is impossible to ignore (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.wix.com/blog/2021/01/how-to-come-up-with-a-brand-name/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Come Up With a Brand Name: The Ultimate Guide (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to choose a good brand name

Most startup today fail not because of a bad product or bad execution, but a lack of customers or customer fit. The glorified term to describe it is Product-market Fit, and we see this term everywhere. 
 
 
 What's the antidote?
 
 
 The Customer Development Model - A framework that allows entrepreneurs to define, find, get feedback from, and onboard customers.
 
 
 
 Actionable Steps
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Look for people in different groups and communities who may be facing the problem you are trying to solve and don't stop until you find a good set of early adopters
 </li>
 <li>
 Get out of the building, talk to users, and focus almost 0% on creating the product at the beginning
 </li>
 <li>
 Create a repeatable process that works for you in getting a first user you will talk to, getting feedback from them, and you giving them value in return
 </li>
 <li>
 If you fail with a specific market or user segment, start from the beginning with a different market or group
 </li>
 <li>
 Once you have a lot of support from a group of users, have some interviews with them so you can brainstorm what a first solution should look like
 </li>
 <li>
 Start building when it becomes very obvious that the user group and market you honed in is very receptive to your solution
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://medium.com/@study_innovate/what-is-the-customer-development-model-how-use-it-to-build-successful-start-up-9565fb20cfed" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 What is the Customer Development model? How use it to build successful start-up? (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Four-Steps-Epiphany-Steve-Blank/dp/0989200507" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Four Steps to the Epiphany - Steve Blank (book)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

The Customer Development Model

Paul Graham writes,
 
 
 I was saying recently to a reporter that if I could only tell startups 10 things, this would be one of them. Then I thought: what would the other 9 be?
 
 
 When I made the list there turned out to be 13:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Pick good cofounders.
 </li>
 <li>
 Launch fast.
 </li>
 <li>
 Let your idea evolve.
 </li>
 <li>
 Understand your users.
 </li>
 <li>
 Better to make a few users love you than a lot ambivalent.
 </li>
 <li>
 Offer surprisingly good customer service.
 </li>
 <li>
 You make what you measure.
 </li>
 <li>
 Spend little.
 </li>
 <li>
 Get ramen profitable (make enough to pay for your business expenses).
 </li>
 <li>
 Avoid distractions.
 </li>
 <li>
 Don't get demoralized.
 </li>
 <li>
 Don't give up.
 </li>
 <li>
 Deals fall through.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/13sentences.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startups in 13 Sentences (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/really.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 What Startups Are Really Like (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Startup Advice in 13 Sentences

1. Make something people want.
 
 
 Nothing else you do will matter if you are not making something people want. To know what they want, you have to understand them. Talk to your users as much as you can, even if that means doing things that don’t scale early on. And be open to adjusting your idea, because most good ideas evolve.
 
 
 2. Stay focused.
 
 
 One of the most conspicuous patterns we've seen among the thousand startups we've funded is that the most successful founders are always totally focused on their product and their users. To the point of being fanatical. The best founders don’t have time to get caught up in other things.
 
 
 3. Don't worry about being a woman.
 
 
 There are some real obstacles women face as startup founders. However, if you want to start a startup, just go ahead and do it, and don't let yourself be intimidated or distracted by all the noise…all the news articles and Twitter controversy about how it's harder for you as a woman. That’s not only the best plan for you personally, but it’s also the best way to fix these problems.
 
 
 4. Measure your growth.
 
 
 If you have a good growth rate, which in a startup means at least 10% per month, you're on the right track. There is a famous Y Combinator saying - "You make what you measure. Pick a number you want to grow" measure and grow.
 
 
 5. Know if you're default alive.
 
 
 The critical question is whether you’re what we call "default alive" or "default dead" Default alive means if your expenses stay the same and revenue continues to grow at the rate it's been growing, you get to breakeven before you run out of money. Default dead means you don’t have a good growth rate and still die. Work towards being default alive.
 
 
 6. Keep expenses low.
 
 
 Overhiring is the big mistake in the second phase of a startup, as making something no one wants is in the first phase. If you start to run out of money before you have things working right, you have to raise more during a phase when the company is an "ugly duckling" which brings us to the next point.
 
 
 7. Fundraising gets harder.
 
 
 Founders who had a fairly easy time raising a seed round think it will be just as easy to raise a series A. Series A investors have a totally different attitude from seed investors. Seed investors are looking for promise, but Series A investor is looking for performance. To them there’s not much difference between a startup halfway along the right path, and a startup on the wrong path. Plan for this.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5l-how-not-to-fail" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How Not to Fail (article/video)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How Not to Fail

Paul Graham writes...
 
 
 Venture funding works like gears. A typical startup goes through several rounds of funding, and at each round you want to take just enough money to reach the speed where you can shift into the next gear.
 
 
 Few startups get it quite right. Many are underfunded. A few are overfunded, which is like trying to start driving in third gear.
 
 
 I think it would help founders to understand funding better—not just the mechanics of it, but what investors are thinking. I was surprised recently when I realized that all the worst problems we faced in our startup were due not to competitors, but investors. Dealing with competitors was easy by comparison.
 
 
 Let's start by talking about the five sources of startup funding.
 
 
 Friends and Family
 
 
 A lot of startups get their first funding from friends and family. The advantage of raising money from friends is that they're easy to find. The SEC defines an "accredited investor" as someone with over a million dollars in liquid assets or an income of over $200,000 a year. The regulatory burden is much lower if a company's shareholders are all accredited investors. A startup's life will be more complicated, legally, if any of the investors aren't accredited investors. In an IPO, it might not merely add expense, but change the outcome. 
 
 
 Consulting
 
 
 Another way to fund a startup is to get a job. The best sort of job is a consulting project in which you can build whatever software you wanted to sell as a startup. Then you can gradually transform yourself from a consulting company into a product company, and have your clients pay your development expenses. This is a good plan for someone with kids, because it takes most of the risk out of starting a startup. 
 
 
 To be a startup, a company has to be a product business, not a service business. The trouble with consulting is that clients have an awkward habit of calling you on the phone. Most startups operate close to the margin of failure, and the distraction of dealing with clients could be enough to put you over the edge. The biggest danger of consulting may be that it gives you an excuse for failure.
 
 
 Angel Investors
 
 
 Angels are individual rich people. The word was first used for backers of Broadway plays, but now applies to individual investors generally. Angels who've made money in technology are preferable, for two reasons: they understand your situation, and they're a source of contacts and advice.
 
 
 Another concept we need to introduce now is valuation. When someone buys shares in a company, that implicitly establishes a value for it. If someone pays $20,000 for 10% of a company, the company is in theory worth $200,000. 
 
 
 The best way to find angel investors is through personal introductions.
 
 
 Angels who only invest occasionally may not themselves know what terms they want. They just want to invest in this startup. What kind of anti-dilution protection do they want? Hell if they know. In these situations, the deal terms tend to be random: the angel asks his lawyer to create a vanilla agreement, and the terms end up being whatever the lawyer considers vanilla. Which in practice usually means, whatever existing agreement he finds lying around his firm. One solution to this problem would be to have the startup's lawyer produce the agreement, instead of the angel's. Some angels might balk at this, but others would probably welcome it.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/startupfunding.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Fund a Startup (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Fund a Startup (Part 1)

First, ask yourself these questions:
 
 
 <ol>
 <li>
 What do you do?
 </li>
 <li>
 How big is the market?
 </li>
 <li>
 What’s your progress?
 </li>
 <li>
 What’s your unique insight?
 </li>
 <li>
 What’s your business model?
 </li>
 <li>
 Who’s on your team?
 </li>
 <li>
 What do you want?
 </li>
 </ol>
 
 
 Long Pitch
 
 
 Then try to come up with a 2-4 sentence paragraph that can distill the most important parts from the questions above as concisely as possible. Remove any junk, fluff words, or filler words. Let's call this the long pitch.
 
 
 Short Pitch
 
 
 Then push yourself to shorten it even further to 1-2 sentences. Let's call this the short pitch.
 
 
 Analogy Pitch
 
 
 When you only have one breadth or a few words to say it might be highly effective to covey what your company does as "X for Y". For instance, if my company is looking at a shared model for pet owners where their pets can be taken care of by different owners, we can say "Airbnb for Pets" and most people will get it.
 
 
 An Exercise In Practice
 
 
 It is helpful to think about a pitch like being in an elevator and having to impress someone based on their interest level.
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Upon entering the elevator, someone asks what your startup does and you give them the short pitch.
 </li>
 <li>
 On the 4th floor maybe the interested party is intrigued and wants to learn more. In that case, give them the long pitch.
 </li>
 <li>
 Finally, when you reached the final floor, and the interested party still wants to learn more, just tell them the details of what you've accomplished, what your biggest wins or clients you have now, as well as your challenges.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/4b-how-to-pitch-your-company" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Pitch Your Company (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6q-how-to-pitch-your-startup" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Pitch Your Startup (video/article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.coxblue.com/17-things-you-need-to-consider-when-pitching-your-startup/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Pitch a Startup - 17 Things You Need To Know (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Pitch Your Company

Paul Graham writes...
 
 
 
 Startups are very specialized endeavors, so it is best to be in a place that has the most investors, startup experts, and other people working on the same problems the same way - via startup innovation.
 
 
 
 Here are the benefits of startup hubs
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Most investors are there, and ones who are the boldest, with the highest expertise, all willing to invest in you.
 </li>
 <li>
 Hubs are a place where it is normal to dream big and innovate. There will be dozens of groups and people all working towards the same goal - startups.
 </li>
 <li>
 The best startup resources and startup-focused tech talent will live in these areas.
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 Here are some reasons not to move to a startup hub
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 If someone already invested in you and they want you to stay in place X (where place X is not a hub).
 </li>
 <li>
 The hassle of immigrating to a new country or having to uproot your family from a place where you already have strong roots.
 </li>
 <li>
 The place where you live already has a strong user and investor base for the problem you are looking to solve.
 </li>
 <ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/startuphubs.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Why to move to a startup hub (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://medium.com/deminds-startup-tales/startup-hubs-769995117209" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Why Startup Hubs are beneficial to high-growth startups? (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.valuer.ai/blog/top-50-best-startup-cities" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The 50 Best Startup Cities in 2021 (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Why move to a startup hub?

So we built a product, but how do we know if this product is useful and captures value for its users?
 
 
 There are a few metrics for this, such as DAU/MAU or daily active users divided by monthly active users. This would be useful if you run a cohort analysis comparing it for the results in the month of January, then February, etc.
 
 
 A slightly better method created by the Facebook growth team is the Power User Curve. It is simply a histogram measuring the total number of days users were active in a month from the first day to the last day of the month.
 
 
 If the histogram resembles a smile, this is a great sign that you have successfully built a social product. What is more, it shows you that if you start using ads to advertise, most likely this effort will pay back dividends.
 
 
 If the histogram is packed on the left side (meaning most users just use it a day or two per month) that could also be fine, especially for products that are not very social, as long as you are able to still capture value from the users.
 
 
 Finally, you have the flexibility of measuring engagement not just by capturing the number of logins, but other critical information, tied to your product, which can truly tell you if someone is engaged. As an example, this would be browsing for clothes on your fashion/clothing insights app. You can even measure these results weekly if your product follows a weekly cycle such as a productivity app.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://andrewchen.com/power-user-curve/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Power User Curve: The best way to understand your most engaged users (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://kundank191.medium.com/what-is-a-power-user-curve-and-how-to-make-one-da389054e562" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 What is a power user curve? And how to make one? (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://web.utm.io/blog/how-to-measure-customer-engagement/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Measure Customer Engagement: 8 of the Most Important Metrics to Track (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Measuring Engagement With the Power User Curve

Whenever we display our message for the world to see, we must be aware that each person will interpret and internalize the message differently. This is because most people fall under 5 communication personality types.
 
 
 <ol>
 <li>
 Harmonizers - View the world through the lens of feelings and compassion
 </li>
 <li>
 Thinkers - View the world through the lens of facts and logic
 </li>
 <li>
 Rebels - View the world through humor
 </li>
 <li>
 Persisters - View the world through the lens of value and money
 </li>
 <li>
 Promoters - View the world through the lens of charm
 </li>
 </ol>
 
 
 Harmonizers, Thinkers, and Rebels make up a total of about 75% of people, so the best message you can craft is one that appeals to Feelings, Logic, and Humor. 
 
 
 
 Here's an example that uses all three:
 
 
 Petly has been the #1 pet grooming app in the app store three times in a row and has amassed numerous awards from experts (Logic). Use Petly if you want to feel good about taking care of your pet (Feelings). Just don't tell your dog's friends, they will be jealous (Humor).

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/One-Million-Followers-Massive-Following/dp/1946885371" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 One Million Followers: How I Built a Massive Social Following in 30 Days (book)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5UnTL1tYNg" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Welcome to the Process Communication Model (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Effectively Get Your Message Across to Reach the 5 Personality Types

A few days ago, digital pioneer Kevin Kelly turned 70 years old and published a wonderful post on tidbits of advice he wished he knew when he was younger. Here are the top points that apply to entrepreneurs and founders:
 
 
 
 
 Don't keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.
 
 
 
 
 Ask funders for money, and they&apos;ll give you advice, but ask for advice and they&apos;ll give you money.
 
 
 
 
 Three things you need: The ability to not give up something till it works, the ability to give up something that does not work, and the trust in other people to help you distinguish between the two.
 
 
 
 
 Ask anyone you admire: Their lucky breaks happened on a detour from their main goal. So embrace detours. Life is not a straight line for anyone.
 
 
 
 
 You cannot get smart people to work extremely hard just for money.
 
 
 
 
 Don't bother fighting the old; just build the new.
 
 
 
 
 Your group can achieve great things way beyond your means simply by showing people that they are appreciated.
 
 
 
 
 Every breakthrough is at first laughable and ridiculous. In fact, if it did not start out laughable and ridiculous, it is not a breakthrough.
 
 
 
 
 When you are stuck, explain your problem to others. Often simply laying out a problem will present a solution. Make “explaining the problem” part of your troubleshooting process.
 
 
 
 
 We tend to overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can achieve in a decade. Miraculous things can be accomplished if you give it ten years. A long game will compound small gains to overcome even big mistakes.
 
 
 
 
 When you have some success, the feeling of being an imposter can be real. Who am I fooling? But when you create things that only you — with your unique talents and experience — can do, then you are absolutely not an imposter. You are the ordained. It is your duty to work on things that only you can do.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://kk.org/thetechnium/103-bits-of-advice-i-wish-i-had-known/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 103 Bits of Advice I Wish I Had Known (article by Kevin Kelly)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

11 Great Tips to Know That Will Help You As a Founder

Let's keep things simple. Understanding a few metrics and continuously tracking them can go a long way to making sure your finances are robust.
 
 
 Track the following metrics:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Money you spend as an expense (money going out)
 </li>
 <li>
 Money you receive as revenue (money coming in)
 </li>
 <li>
 The balance in your bank account
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 Then calculate your:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Burn (in $) = how much you are spending every month to operate the startup
 </li>
 <li>
 Runway (in months) = current balance in your bank account / average burn per month
 </li>
 <li>
 Growth rate (in %) = (Money you receive in month 2 - Money you receive in month 1) / Money you receive in month 1
 <ul><li>Example to track this at the end of February = (Money you received in February - Money you received in January) / Money you received in January</li></ul>
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 Know if your company default alive or default dead?
 
 
 Or put another way, do you have enough cash flow to keep going until the next milestone? Also, when will you become profitable and how much money will you need until you do so?
 
 
 Here's a calculator to help you understand this - <a href="http://growth.tlb.org"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 http://growth.tlb.org
 </a>
 
 
 And here's an article that explains what is Default Alive or Default Dead? - <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 http://www.paulgraham.com/aord.html
 </a>
 
 
 Look at these metrics every week and be realistic and honest with yourself. Tricking yourself and your mentors will only derail you further.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/8I-managing-startup-finances-sus-2019" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Managing Startup Finances (SUS 2019) (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/9k-how-do-you-calculate-burn-rate-runway-and-growth-rate" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How do you calculate burn rate, runway and growth rate? (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Startup Finances (Part 1)

The best time to incorporate your startup is when any of the following conditions have been met:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Paying customers: You are starting to deal with customers and they will be paying for your services
 </li>
 <li>
 Business partnerships: You will embark on partnerships with other businesses where you are liable for your end of the bargain
 </li>
 <li>
 Committed Vision: You have a solid project or group of projects with a common theme that you will be working on for at least a short while (few years)
 </li>
 <li>
 Cofounders: You have cofounders with whom you will want to share equity and responsibilities, formally. Otherwise relying just on someone's word may burn you in the future
 </li>
 <li>
 Investors: Any 3rd party entity looking to work with you, and more importantly lend you money will take you much more seriously if your company has been incorporated
 </li>
 <li>
 IP: You have built something truly valuable and want to protect it
 </li>
 <li>
 Employees: You are starting to hire people to help you full-time or part-time
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/when-is-the-right-time-to-incorporate-3c30b9cf03" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 When is the right time to incorporate? (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.startupdecisions.com.sg/startups/launch-and-growth/when-and-where-to-incorporate-startup/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 When and Where to Incorporate Your Startup (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

When should you incorporate your startup?

The two most important things you can do as a startup founder are 1) building the product, and 2) getting feedback from users. Launching your product to a website, directory, or platform is one of the best ways to acquire new users that you could talk to. It is also important to understand which sites to start launching to, and which to hold off to until your product has a certain maturity.
 
 
 Simply go down this list to identify what stage you are in, then google "How to launch on <platform>" for the platform you are ready to launch in. Then get to it. Make sure to stay engaged with the users you acquire. 1 user in hand is worth 100 in the ether so treat them right and engage them.
 
 
 Good luck ☘ and happy 🚀 launch.
 
 
 
 <h3>1) Launch here first to find some initial users</h3>
 
 
 IndieHackers - You will get some great feedback and people willing to help you at the earlier stages if you stay engaged with them and give them value back.
 
 
 Reddit - Find the right subreddit in the right niche and think problem first. If your app is to help parents better manage their time, look for subreddits that include conversations around solving that problem and launch there or talk to users there. If all else fails try the Startups and Entrepreneur subreddits.
 
 
 
 <h3>2) Launch here after you have iterated with some initial users and want to expand to find more users</h3>
 
 
 Startup Directories - See this amazing <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/relaunch-like-a-pro-100-places-to-launch-relaunch-and-list-your-product-7c67875635" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">resource</a> for launch communities and look for the major platforms not listed on this post.
 
 
 Discord/Slack communities - Find some in the same niche or problem space as your product.
 
 
 LinkedIn - Better for B2B projects.
 
 
 Twitter - Great for early exposure, but you need to have a Twitter following first.
 
 
 Facebook communities - You need to find and contribute to the community first before spamming with launch material.
 
 
 
 <h3>3) Launch here when you are seeing a bit of traction and are ready to go viral (thus turning your hobby project into a real startup)</h3>
 
 
 HackerNews - If your project is related to tech, it is one of the best places to launch and can bring hundreds if not thousands of visitors to your product page.
 
 
 ProductHunt - This is THE place to want to succeed with launching at. Most projects that succeed turn into serious startup endeavors and get many early adopters. Bonus if you could get an accolade such as the product of the day.
 
 
 Betalist - Pursue this option only if HackerNews or ProductHunt went well, and go all-in by paying the premium required to feature your site to the maximum coverage possible.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/relaunch-like-a-pro-100-places-to-launch-relaunch-and-list-your-product-7c67875635" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Relaunch like a pro: 100+ places to launch, relaunch, and list your product (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/10-places-to-launch-your-startup-b78950844d" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 10 places to launch your startup (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Where and when to launch your startup project?

One of the most important and underrated skills of creating a successful project is communicating about it. Your landing pages, e-mails, support conversations, pitches, introductions, marketing copy, and everything else require you to be a good writer.
 
 
 
 Here are some great tips to remember when it comes to writing about your project:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Your first sentence or statement will always be the most impactful - make it count. Draw people in.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Less is better - focus on short and impactful rather than verbose.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Be honest, be you, and don't exaggerate - people resonate with honesty more than exaggerated facts these days.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Focus on what you can do for your customers, specifically - E.g. We help employ 10,000 workers in developing countries.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Use the active and direct voice instead of the passive voice - E.g. We will release this feature tonight (good) vs. This feature will be released by us tonight (bad).
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Use understandable words instead of buzzwords - think about how you would explain your product to your grandma. Think about how you talk - write this way too.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Be a maverick with your statements and don't be afraid to go against the grain. Be edgy instead of trying to please everybody.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Make sure content is properly formatted with the right spacing, headings, bold fonts, and other ways to create space in the text and make it more understandable.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Avoid adjectives and adverbs and be more direct and trite with your statements instead - Nobody cares if your plugin seamlessly and effortlessly works with that new browser, people only care that the plugin works with the browser.
 </li>
 
 <li>
 Write a memorable story instead of just spewing facts - I am guilty of this in this post :) - Don't do what I do here, or not always anyway.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/17-tips-for-great-copywriting-5d4786ddf7" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 17 tips for great copywriting (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qZcT9I8W4g" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Complete Copywriting Tutorial - Examples, Tips and Formulas (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://writtent.com/blog/stuck-writing-35-sure-fire-copywriting-tips-tricks-pros/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 35 Copywriting Tips & Tricks from the Pros (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Tips on how to best communicate your project via writing

<div>
 Talking to users and building your project are the two most important things that will push the growth of your idea forward. But how can we talk to users without being too forward, without trying to sell to them, and genuinely trying to help them? The following steps are somewhat of a "talk to your customers" bible that you should try to memorize and practice as much as you can. This process will yield the best results in understanding exactly what features to build next in order to get to Product-Market Fit, and ultimately a successful startup project.
 </div>
 
 <div>
 Some general strategies:
 </div>
 
 <div>
 <ul>
 <li>
 Avoid talking about your idea, and spend more time talking about the user's life.
 </li>
 <li>
 Spend less time talking, and more time listening and taking notes.
 </li>
 <li>
 Be specific, dive deeper, and ask "why" the user has done things the way they have.
 </li>
 <li>
 Start with users who might have this problem, and with time, try to narrow this list down into people who would be your best first customer (e.g. ideally it is a big problem for them, they tried to fix the problem themselves somehow, and are willing to spend money to solve this problem).
 </li>
 <li>
 Remember that in-person conversations > video chat > phone chat > email/text chat in terms of the value that you and your potential customer will get out of this.
 </li>
 </ul>
 </div>
 
 <div>
 Follow this conversation rubric and spend 20-30 minutes with each person you talk to:
 </div>
 
 <div>
 <ol>
 <li>
 What is the hardest part about doing X? (where X is the thing that you’re trying to solve).
 </li>
 <li>
 Tell me about the last time that you encountered this problem.
 </li>
 <li>
 Why was this hard?
 </li>
 <li>
 What, if anything, have you done to try to solve this problem?
 </li>
 <li>
 What don’t you love about the solutions that you’ve already tried?
 </li>
 <li>
 Ask any other questions that you may have in order to validate your main risks and hypotheses identified from above.
 </li>
 </ol>
 </div>

 <div>
 Tying it back together:
 </div>
 
 

 <div>
 Talk to as many people as you can, and try to find common patterns between users that might solve their problem - find that and build that.
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Talk to Users (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://nucks.co/notes/the-mom-test-rob-fitzpatrick" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Mom Test by Rob Fitzpatrick (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to talk to users

An indie project developer recently came up with a framework that can help us validate our ideas before we pour too much of our blood, sweat, and tears into our projects. Startups are hard work, and if we can be very diligent in doing the work up-front without spending too much time and money on building, we will thank ourselves and allow us to pivot to new ideas quickly.
 
 
 The simple framework
 
 
 Create an x and y chart like you used to in 5th grade Math class and one that looks like the illustration at the top of this post. On the x-axis you will have the validation type, and on the y-axis you will have the conviction level. The three validation types are:
 
 
 Problem Validation - Do people actually care about this problem enough?
 
 
 Solution Validation - Would people care about the solution I would create, and would they even pay for it?
 
 
 Market Validation - Are there enough people in the world who care enough about the problem, and are willing to pay for my solution, so I could have a valid business?
 
 
 At this point, check out both the original <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/stop-wasting-time-building-bad-ideas-with-this-new-validation-framework-2901446d65"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">framework</a> along 
 with the free Figma <a href="https://www.figma.com/community/file/1103108781784153631"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">design</a> for it so that you know which questions you need to answer in each of the three validation types. Go through these questions one by one and even create your own, then talk to enough users and do enough research to answer these questions to the best of your ability. The higher you get on the questions to the y-axis where the answer is "yes" for all three validation types, the more likely your idea will succeed and that you should continue investing in it! Good luck.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.productplan.com/blog/lean-market-validation-10-ways-rapidly-test-startup-idea/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Lean Market Validation: 10 Ways to Rapidly Test Your Startup Idea (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://mihaisplace.blog/2021/12/18/a-step-by-step-startup-guide-for-bootstrappers/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 A Step-By-Step Startup Guide For Bootstrappers (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

A practical framework to validate your ideas (so you don't waste time on ideas that won't work)

The founder of <a href="https://zerotousers.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Zero To Users</a> published a <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/11-marketing-channels-that-consistently-work-for-founders-8992a89a03?utm_source=pocket_mylist" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 post</a> that is worth reading and re-reading for nascent startups. Knowing where, when, and how to Market your product is very important as it allows you to hone in on your most viable audience, and ultimately get to product-market-fit.
 

 
 In summary, here are some of the most popular marketing channels in the order of popularity:
 

 
 <ol>
 <li>
 SEO (most popular), and only after gaining some ground with another channel from below 
 </li>
 <li>
 Launch Platforms such as Product Hunt, Beta List, etc.
 </li>
 <li>
 App Marketplaces such as Shopify, Salesforce app stores - some of these platforms still have a build it and they will come charm to them
 </li>
 <li>
 Sub-Reddits related to the problem you are trying to solve
 </li>
 <li>
 Email Outreach - A <a href="https://hbr.org/2016/09/a-guide-to-cold-emailing" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 well-written</a> cold email can be very powerful in acquiring new users, especially if you target users that you are certain would be a great fit for your product
 </li>
 <li>
 Having a "Powered by", "Made by" or "Built with" widget that links to your product
 </li>
 <li>
 Hacker News - it is easy to launch and re-launch there
 </li>
 <li>
 SEO right off the bat without any other marketing channel prior to it
 </li>
 <li>
 Word of Mouth done proactively and targeted toward segments of users
 </li>
 <li>
 Software Directories such as G2 or Capterra
 </li>
 <li>
 Freelancing Platforms (least popular) such as Fiverr or Upwork
 </li>
 </ol>
 
 
 Note that these insights are drawn from an Indie Hacker community observational survey, so while they may hold some truth in general, we should not take them as absolute facts.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.essentialstartupbytes.com/posts/where-and-when-to-launch-your-startup-project" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Where and when to launch your startup project? (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2020/07/29/how-to-promote-a-product" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 12 Ways to Effectively Promote a New Product or Service (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Marketing Channels to Expand Your Audience

Okay so you have a new idea for a project, but you're not making any progress or starting. It can be daunting to start when it can take weeks or months to build a website, blog, app, selling funnel, or platform. 
 
 
 This is the wrong way to think when starting out, however. Instead, we need to shift our mindset into how we can create the smallest product that achieves our goal, so that we can then put it out in the world and get feedback from users. 
 
 
 Luckily, we can do this with the deluge of NoCode tools and onset of the NoCode movement. Here are some tools that should get most of your work done:
 

 
 <ul>
 <li>
 <a href="https://zapier.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Zapier</a> - Use it if you need to automate anything such as sending emails, curating/publishing content, saving records to your database, and much, much more.
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.airtable.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Airtable</a> - If you need a database or a place to stay organized
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://retool.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Retool</a> or <a href="https://www.wix.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Wix</a> - If you need to create a quick front-end
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.typeform.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Typeform</a> - If you need to send surveys or receive payments
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.notion.so/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Notion</a> - If you want to write a book, or create an information platform
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://analytics.google.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Google Analytics</a> - If you need to track your users and their behaviors
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.twilio.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Twilio</a> and <a href="https://sendgrid.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">SendGrid</a> - If you need to send emails or texts
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.zendesk.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Zendesk</a> - If you need to integrate customer support
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.shopify.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Shopify</a> - If you need to sell physical products
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://studio.tailorbrands.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Tailor Brands</a> - If you need to create branding assets and logos
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.canva.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Canva</a> - If you need graphic designs and illustrations for your project
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.newmediarights.org/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">New Media Rights</a>, <a href="https://creatorslegal.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Creators Legal</a>, and <a href="https://www.rocketlawyer.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Rocket Lawyer</a>, - If you want to get your company formation, privacy policy, terms of service, and other legal matters settled
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://userguiding.com/blog/no-code-tools/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 32 No-Code Tools You NEED to Try in 2022 (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.nocode.tech/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 NoCode Tech (platform site)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

The All Inclusive Toolset To Build Your Project Quickly

Incorporating can be a daunting yet essential decision that all project owners have to make when they want to turn their idea into a business. This quick post aims to make the decision a bit more simple. Note that this is not rigorous legal advice and only quick intuitive advice to best help get you on the right track. For details on these matters please consult an attorney.
 
 
 
 <h2>
 What entity type to choose?
 </h2>
 
 
 
 Delaware C Corp. - For traditional startups with cofounders, the ability to issue stocks/equity among the team members, and fundraising through investors.
 
 
 C Corp. in your home state - Same as the Delaware C Corp, except with less favorable terms for startups and investors. This is better for small or bootstrapped businesses.
 
 
 LLC in your home state - Choose this option if you plan on only having a small business with less tax and governance fees than a C Corp., but also slightly more liability. Also, choose this option if you plan on conducting business in the state that you reside in (e.g. restaurant or coffee shop) and don't want to ever raise money from investors.
 
 
 Sole proprietorships - The most flexible and affordable entity type for people who want to be the sole business owners. This entity also comes with a lot of risk as there is more liability placed on the business owners if the company gets into legal trouble.
 
 
 Partnerships - Same as sole proprietorships but instead of one owner, there are multiple owners involved.
 
 
 501(c)(3) - Used for non-profits that seek to invest effort and revenue towards a good cause (e.g. charity, science, education, human rights, etc.) instead of keeping the proceeds as profits. These entities are typically not taxed as much as the entities above because they provide a public good.
 
 
 <h2>
 What services to use to incorporate?
 </h2>
 
 
 
 <a href="https://www.clerky.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Clerky</a>
 - Easiest and fastest service to incorporate your startup. It is also pricy and less flexible as it only allows the incorporation of C. Corps.
 
 
 
 <a href="https://stripe.com/atlas" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Stripe Atlas</a>
 - Provides a fully comprehensive and flexible incorporation experience for different types of legal use cases and lots of automation. Think auto-generated forms to quickly sign. It also provides a whole platform for legal advice and payments to integrate with your company. All of these services have their own separate cost and could add up to be quite expensive.
 
 
 
 <a href="https://www.rocketlawyer.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Rocket Lawyer</a>
 - Use this option if you have a more complicated situation and want an attorney to advise you or file for you. Note that this option could get very expensive especially if you have to talk to attorneys, but is well worth it.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://medium.com/@tylertate/startup-cheat-sheet-how-to-incorporate-your-company-c85384e8f7a0" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Cheat-Sheet: How to Incorporate Your Company (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/llc-vs-c-corp/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 LLC Vs. C-corp: How To Choose A Business Structure (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5C-tips-on-company-formation-and-fundraising" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Tips on Company Formation and Fundraising (YC podcast episode with transcript)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to incorporate your startup or business?

When you incorporate a startup and embark on this journey of a company with your co-founders, it is important to understand equity and ownership. So, you put on your favorite work hoodie, raise the flap of that laptop, and go to your favorite Legal service. You and your co-founders proudly say, we are ready to incorporate, now what?
 
 
 
 How many shares to issue?
 
 
 
 10 Million shares is the standard for venture-backed startups. This number is advantageous because it creates enough shares to spread between your co-founders, first loyal employees, and enough for investors to get you through a pre-seed, seed, and Series A fundraising if needed. This large amount of shares also creates the illusion of cheap abundance for future investors as you will likely have a large number of shares worth a smaller amount rather than a small number of shares worth a large amount. Valuable shares at a bargain price will encourage more investors to come on board.
 
 
 
 How should you split the shares?
 
 
 
 Between co-founders, it should be as close to even as possible. This is because execution is more important than who came up with the idea, or who is the CEO, and execution only happens in the future. If you're not willing to take a bet that the people you are going to embark on this journey with are going to pull through, then perhaps they are not worth being your co-founders after all. Out of your total shares, a good rule of thumb is to issue 40% of shares among co-founders, save 10% for future hires, and the rest of the 50% can be left for investors.
 
 
 
 What vesting schedule to use?
 
 
 
 Vesting schedules are important because they bind your co-founders and other collaborators financially so that they don't get in a situation of doing 10% of the work and then leaving you with 50% of the company. A typical plan is issuing a 4-year vesting schedule with a 1-year cliff. This means that if anybody leaves the startup within 1 year of working with you they get none of their equity. In year 1 if they leave, they will get 1/4th of their equity. If they stay longer, they get an additional 1/48 of their equity with each passing month that goes by until year 4 when they can get 100% of their equity. A single-trigger acceleration is also advised as it pushes all shares to be vested at 100% the moment a company is sold regardless of whether or not they had 4+ years to vest.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.startups.com/library/expert-advice/startup-equity-101" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Equity 101: Who Gets What Slice Of The Pie (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5x-how-to-split-equity-among-co-founders" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Split Equity Among Co-Founders (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://medium.com/@tylertate/startup-cheat-sheet-how-to-incorporate-your-company-c85384e8f7a0" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Cheat-Sheet: How to Incorporate Your Company - "Splitting Equity Among Cofounders section" (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Best practices in issuing startup equity

While the internet is rife with startup advice, here are four points of advice that I see echoed by many prominent and successful founders or backed by empirical research and said to be highly correlated with success. Work hard on these four and you might just increase your chances of success in the long term.
 
 
 Being relentlessly resourceful (a term coined by Paul Graham)
 
 
 Famously discussed in this Paul Graham <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">article</a>, being relentlessly resourceful refers to the fortitude to keep trying a lot of solutions and new solutions to solve your startup problems. Whether it is figuring out where the leaky bucket is, why users say they want a feature but don't end up using it, or solving an incredibly complex technical problem. Being relentless is solving it, and being resourceful in the approaches while never giving up is a really important skill to master.
 
 
 Focus, focus, focus
 
 
 Most people are not obsessed enough with a problem to keep it as their one and only. The effects are dire. A lack of focus causes people to hedge their bets, work on too many projects, or be downright lazy and demotivated to work on products that are not on the brink of becoming successful. The antidote is focus. Focus on one idea at a time and one that you are obsessed with or can get obsessed about.
 
 
 Having a high Q factor
 
 
 A scientist by the name of Albert-László Barabási has done research to ascertain what are some of the traits which cause entrepreneurs and scientists to be successful time and time again. The formula was remarkably simple "S = rQ". Where S refers to success, r refers to the randomness of the world or quality of the idea (right time and right place) which is often not in our control. And finally, Q refers to the amount of output we produce. In other words, the creator who can publish 20 projects in a year has a much higher likelihood of attaining success than the one that only publishes 3, even if 10 of the projects flop. The takeaway is to launch ideas time and time again and get better at launching them faster.
 
 
 Talk to the users and audience of your product
 
 
 You should spend at least 50% of your total effort talking to users, and especially at the beginning phases of your project. The more time you spend talking to users, the less time you will waste being confused and building the wrong features or products for your customers. Some founders don't build a single feature for their product until they have spent dozens of hours talking to customers.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/relres.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Relentlessly Resourceful (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://fi.co/insight/the-one-secret-to-a-successful-startup-focus-focus-focus" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The One Secret to a Successful Startup? Focus, Focus, Focus (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/09/a-physicist-developed-a-simple-formula-he-says-explains-the-key-to-long-term-success/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 A physicist developed a simple formula for achieving long-term success (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/6g-how-to-talk-to-users" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Talk to Users (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Four Things That Matter for Startup Success

There are two levers of success in the early stages of a startup. One is the product, and the other is getting the product out to your audience or new potential customers. A product with no marketing or sales strategy is failed on sight. This is mostly because customers are too busy living their lives to notice you, and even if they might, you are competing for attention against millions of other products vying for their attention. Here are some steps to get started with marketing.
 
 
 Take time to understand your target customer - Go and find people who have the problem you are solving and talk to as many of them as you can. You want to know your customers so much so that you can create a profile for them and understand exactly their age, gender, geographic location, profession, hobbies, life preferences, problems they typically have, etc. The more details the better.
 
 
 Find out where the target customer profile you created above likes to hang out online or offline - Go there. Perhaps you will have customers that like to spend time on the Knitting Subreddit and in real-life libraries, doesn't matter, go there and talk to them. Try to be helpful and create value with your product or solutions. It also doesn't hurt to spend money on ads at this stage but you have to be absolutely sure that your target customer is on the platform you are marketing on otherwise you will spend more money than gain new customers.
 
 
 Prelaunch, then Launch, then Launch Again - Once you have a few dozen customers that you have helped and like what you are doing, spend time on a prelaunch. This will involve a sleek, yet simple landing page that tells the customers exactly what product you are offering, with a button or link to join the waitlist. Bonus points for charging to be on the waitlist because nothing speaks better to your customer loving your product and wanting to pay for it than this strategy. Afterward, continuously launch on as many platforms as possible (e.g. Reddit, Hacker News, Product Hunt, etc.) and engage with new leads there - be helpful instead of trying to sell people.
 
 
 SEO, PR, Testimonials, and Speaking Events for long-term brand awareness - For the long term it is important to create original content in writing or audio or video and link to it on your website. Make sure that your website and content is also SEO optimized as this has proven to be one of the most important ways to grow long-term. Don't neglect SEO, invest in it early. Secondly, focus on press releases, testimonials, and speaking events -- the moment you see a satisfied customer, media organization, or conference, don't be afraid to email them and make a connection or ask for a testimonial. List all of these engagements on your landing page (e.g. testimonials, speaking events, sponsorships, etc.) as this creates trust in the long run.
 
 
 Think outside the box - Most highly successful marketing stories involve entrepreneurs that are constantly thinking outside the box and trying new things (e.g. Crowdfunding campaigns, Growth Hacker Thinking, Engineering as Marketing, launching a new platform X, creating an innovative referral strategy, etc.) -- There is a lot to be gained by trying unique marketing strategies, as they can both create buzz and bring in new customers.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/marketing-doesnt-have-to-be-hard-here-s-how-to-get-started-58fac597ce" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Marketing doesn't have to be hard. Here's how to get started. (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/11-marketing-channels-that-consistently-work-for-founders-8992a89a03" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 11 Marketing Channels That Consistently Work for Founders (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/relaunch-like-a-pro-100-places-to-launch-relaunch-and-list-your-product-7c67875635" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Relaunch like a pro: 100+ places to launch, relaunch, and list your product (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2rpBhMY0ys" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Grow a Small Business: growth marketing for startups (Part I), then watch (Part 2) - (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/284271" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 9 Sales and Marketing Tips for Startups (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Marketing in the Early Stages

Did you create a great product for a market, or group of consumers, which solves one of their problems really well? Congratulations, you reached Product Market Fit. Arguably the most important event in the lifecycle of a startup, reaching Product Market Fit is no easy feat. Here are some definitions to help you measure it, and tips to acquire it.
 
 
 <h3>Definitions</h3>
 
 
 Marc Andreessen’s definition from his famous post - <a href="https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The only thing that matters
 </a>
 
 
 "The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it -- or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company checking account. You're hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can."
 
 
 The Sean Ellis test, where you poll all of your users with the following question, and if 40% of customers select "very disappointed" you are on the brink of Product Market Fit.
 
 
 How would you feel if you could no longer use [the product you are building]?
 
 
 
 - Very disappointed
 
 
 - Somewhat disappointed
 
 
 - Not disappointed
 
 
 - I no longer use this product
 
 
 
 <h3>Tips</h3>
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Focus on the market more than anything else, and find the right audience for your product. And it likely exists you just didn't look hard enough.
 </li>
 <li>
 Create a product that does one and only one thing really well for the market and audience.
 </li>
 <li>
 Do things that don't scale by talking to users 1-on-1 from your market and treat your users like they are your kings and queens. Go out of you way to help and wow them.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The only thing that matters (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/5z-the-real-product-market-fit" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Real Product Market Fit (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-know-if-youve-got-productmarket?s=r" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to know if you've got product-market fit (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/what-it-feels-like-when-youve-found" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 What it feels like when you've found product-market fit (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://productcoalition.com/how-to-find-product-market-fit-4b0249f34429" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Find Product Market Fit (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Product Market Fit

Working on a startup in a silo is not recommended for even the most seasoned entrepreneurs. Communities, people, and peers often help us in many ways than we can count. From mentorship to collaboration, a co-founder to lean on, a mentor to ask for help, or even a shoulder to cry on. Here are some communities where you can find some peers.
 
 
 <a href="https://www.startupschool.org/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">YC school</a> - For learning about startups, applying to YC, or looking to match with co-founders
 
 
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">IndieHackers</a> - For connecting with experienced founders and learning about advanced startup topics
 
 
 <a href="https://discord.com/invite/furlough" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Furlough</a> - For a free Discord community to hold you accountable
 
 
 <a href="https://www.beondeck.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">On Deck</a> - A niche and remote community with an application process that can provide you with most of the resources to succeed as a founder
 
 
 <a href="https://www.growthmentor.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Growth Mentor</a> - For finding mentors
 
 
 <a href="https://nomadlist.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">NomadList</a> - For founders who like to travel the world while working
 
 
 <a href="https://www.producthunt.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Product Hunt</a> - For being in the know of the latest products and innovations that others are working on
 
 
 <a href="https://nocodefounders.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">No Code Founders</a> - For non-technical founders or people looking to build their startups very quickly
 
 
 <a href="https://www.futurefounders.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Future Founders</a> - For young entrepreneurs
 
 
 <a href="https://secure.10xfactory.com/finalize-your-10x-factory-application-b" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">10x Factory</a> - For experienced founders focusing on scaling
 
 
 <a href="https://angel.co/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">AngelList</a> - If you want to work on someone's startup
 
 
 <a href="https://www.foundersbeta.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">FoundersBeta</a> - If you're looking for startup talent and resources

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://ortto.com/blog/startup-communities/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 11 communities for startup founders and leaders (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.growthmentor.com/blog/best-founder-communities/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The 15 Best Communities for Startup Founders (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://startupsavant.com/online-startup-communities" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 18 Best Online Startup Communities for Founders (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Some Great Startup Communities

Here are some of the most popular social media tools where you can market your product. If it is helpful, check out the use case for each as well as the frequency of the posts in order to succeed with your campaign and brand presence.
 
 
 Twitter - Use it for quick tips or messages in text form. Post 1-5 times per day and spend twice as much as that commenting on other people's posts that are related to your topic of interest. Engage with the community to create your brand presence.
 
 
 Facebook - Use it for long-form or in-depth content such as articles, blogs, or videos. Post 1-2 times per day.
 
 
 Instagram/TikTok - Use it for images, videos, stories, and other multimedia content. Also, use it if you want to appeal to younger audiences and collaborate with influencers to supercharge your presence. Post 3-7 times per week.
 
 
 LinkedIn - Use it for B2B pitches and thought leadership. Post 1-5 times per day.
 
 
 Reddit - Use it to hand-select your users from the areas or subreddits that you care about, and post between 1-3 times per day. Just like Twitter, spend more time providing value rather than creating original content so that people see you as an authority in the space.
 
 
 YouTube - Use it for in-depth and detailed video content, and post once per week.
 
 
 General tips - When possible, always include a catchy headline, and image with your post, then engage with the people that like, share, or comment on your post to create more buzz and make connections. Who knows, maybe they can be your future customers. Finally, focus more on how you can help your customers, or provide value to the community rather than self-promotion.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://100mba.net/mba2141/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 $100 MBA - How Often Should You Post to Social Media? (podcast episode)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.hootsuite.com/resources/social-media-strategy-guide" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Social Media Marketing Strategy (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.wordstream.com/social-media-marketing" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Social Media Marketing for Businesses (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Social Media Marketing Types and Posting Frequencies

It can be incredibly overwhelming to take into account all the web design tips and best practices. Sometimes one can argue it is more art than science to nail a website or app design.
 
 
 Nevertheless, here are some quick tips to steer in you the right direction.
 
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Use 3 colors - One for your font, one for your background, and one for your buttons. If you need to use more than 3, use a different shade of one of those 3.
 </li>
 <li>
 Create designs that are modular and self-contained. Make them optimized for desktop and mobile, not just desktop.
 </li>
 <li>
 Use one font throughout your site.
 </li>
 <li>
 Use your main color in graphic assets - When using photos and imagery, make sure to include your main color to be a prominent color of the design.
 </li>
 <li>
 Use high-quality and high-resolution images - You can find both free or paid options, there are many.
 </li>
 <li>
 Experiment with very large fonts in marketing pages (e.g. 100px or above)
 </li>
 <li>
 Use more horizontal padding - Whenever text is placed in the context of a box, create more horizontal padding than vertical padding.
 </li>
 <li>
 Use less words per line - If you have more than 20 words on one line, break it to the next line.
 </li>
 <li>
 Use bold and emphasis, but not everywhere.
 </li>
 <li>
 Create more space between different elements on a page that serve different functions (e.g. title vs. body, or movie cover vs. movie review)
 </li>
 <li>
 When in doubt, left align
 </li>
 <li>
 Larger fonts such as titles or headers should have smaller heights (spaces between lines) than smaller fonts.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/i-ve-made-over-2-000-000-designing-websites-here-are-my-top-5-tips-2dd32fd3f6" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 I’ve made over $2,000,000 designing websites - here are my top 5 tips (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1576997489529344001.html?s=12&t=DEBSW0_4NSQHe9j7iInI4w" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Design Tips (Twitter thread)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Website Design Tips

Most people find these two documents to be incredibly boring and a huge roadblock when the most exciting and important thing is building your product and getting users. While there is some truth in this, and there are quite a few people that end up not having these documents until well into the success of their startup, these are two documents you should definitely not ignore or you could get in trouble with the law. If you don't create these two documents sooner rather than later you are essentially rolling the dice and opening yourself up to get sued.
 
 
 
 Here's the gist and some good rules of thumb:
 
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 In a nutshell - Privacy Policy defines how you are using your users' data, and the Terms of Service establish how users should use your site.
 </li>
 <li>
 Create a Privacy Policy the moment you launch your site or product and it is interacting with individuals internationally, it is the law. Most recently, Europe's GDPR, California's CCPA, and Nevada's privacy laws create very strict measures in terms of reporting how you are using your users' data and so this must be taken seriously.
 </li>
 <li>
 Terms of Service are also highly encouraged from the start, but only mandatory once your product is successful via many recurring users or users paying you for your product.
 </li>
 <li>
 Use free and state-of-the-art generators like <a href="https://www.termsfeed.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">TermFeed</a> (there are others as well) to initially and quickly generate these two documents when you are starting out. It takes minutes, not hours.
 </li>
 <li>
 Once you incorporate and are seeing success in your product via users and profits, news features, and press releases you absolutely must consult a contract lawyer to fine-tune your privacy policy and terms of services for your particular business.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/privacy-law-compliance-new-start-ups/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Privacy Law Compliance for New Start-Ups (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://termly.io/resources/articles/why-you-need-a-privacy-policy/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 9 Key Reasons Why You Need a Privacy Policy (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.termsfeed.com/blog/5-reasons-need-terms-conditions/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 5 Reasons Why You Need Terms and Conditions (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Approach the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service When Starting Out

First of all, what are UTM Parameters?
 
 
 UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Module and these parameters are used in web links to track the performance of various marketing campaigns. Whenever you see links that look like this:
 
 
 ------
 
 
 https://somewebsite/somepage?utm_medium=paid&utm_source=google&utm_content=sponsored_ad&utm_term=utm+codes
 
 
 ------
 
 
 We can clearly see that all the parameters past the "?" symbol are tracking something. These links are tracking from what page, or campaign you have clicked on that link and can be highly customizable. What's more, is that it is incredibly easy and free to create links like this for your product using sites like Google's <a href="https://ga-dev-tools.web.app/campaign-url-builder/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Campaign URL Builder</a> and then track where your traffic is coming from via analytics platforms like Google Analytics. The URL Builder also explains what all the parameters stand for so that you can very easily set it up for your purposes.
 
 
 Now that we covered the basics, here are some best practices:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Avoid spaces, and instead, use underscores "_" or hyphens "-" in the names (e.g. utm_content=sponsored_ad and not utm_content=sponsored ad).
 </li>
 <li>
 Remember that the parameter names are case-sensitive, so just stick to everything being lowercase to not confuse you or your team.
 </li>
 <li>
 Create a UTM link for every single link to your product if it is coming from any other place other than your site (e.g. flyers, Twitter, Facebook ad campaign, someone else's blog, etc.).
 </li>
 <li>
 Create a shared spreadsheet for you and your team for all of the UTM links and have a system to identify who created the link, and when - so that you can easily improve or change things if needed.
 </li>
 <li>
 Clean the UTM links coming from your website with a UTM cleaner script to avoid confusion and misattributed campaign tags/clicks that are proliferated without your knowledge. Internally on your website, you should not have UTM links.
 </li>
 <li>
 Look into Google Analytics's default UTM groupings and naming conventions and follow them for best practices.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.adroll.com/blog/utm-best-practices-the-ultimate-list" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 UTM Best Practices: The Ultimate List (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://web.utm.io/blog/utm-parameters-best-practices/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 UTM Parameters Best Practices: 21 Tips & Use Cases for Amazing Campaign Tracking (article)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZs-KfVTm14" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 UTM Parameters and Tracking Explained in 100 Seconds (video)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

UTM Parameters - Best Practices for Effective Marketing Campaigns

One of the best ways to improve your brand in the eyes of your customers and stakeholders is to build in public. Long gone are the days of Stealth Startups where founders need to be secretive in order to protect their IP. In most cases, customers and people you work with really love the transparency in sharing what you are doing and how things are going. Even more importantly, building in public allows you to have a direct line of communication with your customers so that you can make sure that you are going in the right direction and serving their needs.
 
 
 Here are some best practices:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Find out where your future customers or fans are hanging out (Twitter, LinkedIn, Reddit, Email Inboxes).
 </li>
 <li>
 Include your existing customers - If you already have customers that are using your product, include them in the conversation. This allows you to get quick and very useful feedback for build cycles.
 </li>
 <li>
 Share a few things at a weekly or monthly cadence about how your startup is going. You could include growth metrics, valuable feedback that you got from customers, screenshots of what you are working on, industry reports, and anything else the customers may care to know.
 </li>
 <li>
 Stick with one platform at first and stay consistent.
 </li>
 <li>
 Keep customers engaged by encouraging them to build with you - send them polls or start communication threads with them to discuss features or improvements, and just help them out.
 </li>
 </ul>
 </p

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.failory.com/blog/building-in-public" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Building in Public: 20 Examples & a How-To Guide (Article from Failroy)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rrRjqTfEY_w" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Build in Public (Video from Max Haining)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Building in Public

Good startup ideas are just as essential as the execution of your startup. A great idea with fair execution can beat a bad idea with good execution and every edge helps.
 
 
 Here are some do&apos;s and don&apos;ts of finding good startup ideas:
 
 
 <h3>Do</h3>
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Start with a problem that you, and ideally others have as well.
 </li>
 <li>
 Pick an idea to solve a problem that is related to your expertise (e.g. you are looking to solve a problem in chef&apos;s kitchens because you were a chef for 10 years).
 </li>
 <li>
 Fall in love with the problem and your users, and not your MVP (minimal viable product). Create the MVP or your idea in order to get more and better feedback from your users.
 </li>
 <li>
 Pick a problem that you are very passionate about and can see yourself spending 5-10 years on.
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 <h3>Don&apos;t</h3>
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Start with the solution first - a solution in search of a problem is typically a death blow to your startup.
 </li>
 <li>
 Look for unique problems and solutions that have no competitors. Most of the time, having no competitors just means that the problem is not worth solving.
 </li>
 <li>
 Follow the crowd - find a unique insight that you have about the problem and solution that no competitor is doing.
 </li>
 <li>
 Shy away from big and bold ideas that might be too difficult, or too boring to solve - sometimes these are hiding in plain sight.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-brainstorm-great-business-ideas-ab51c3d51c" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to brainstorm great business ideas (Article from IndieHackers)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDXkpJw16os" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Get and Test Startup Ideas (Video from Michael Siebel)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://review.firstround.com/12-frameworks-for-finding-startup-ideas-advice-for-future-founders" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 12 Frameworks for Finding Startup Ideas — Advice for Future Founders (Article from First Round Review)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.failory.com/blog/how-to-get-startup-ideas" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Get a Startup Idea: 10 Actionable Frameworks (Article from Failroy)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Find Good Startup Ideas?

Starting a startup is enchantingly beautiful, grueling work. Needless to say, it is not for everyone. Some people love the high highs, the low lows, and the journey, but we must also be realistic and choose a career that fits our values and our aspirations.
 
 
 Perhaps this post can help you with some of these values and know what to watch out for when you take on the journey into founderhood.
 
 
 Reasons to be
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 You deeply dislike rigid schedules and someone telling you what to do
 </li>
 <li>
 The times in your life where you thrived in the past were when there were no rules, and you had to come up with a solution and create things yourself
 </li>
 <li>
 You are incredibly passionate about a problem or series of problems
 </li>
 <li>
 You consider yourself to be very resilient and very resourceful
 </li>
 <li>
 You have someone who you think can be a good cofounder, or are willing to put yourself out there to find one
 </li>
 <li>
 You can learn to be technical, or find a cofounder who is
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 Reasons Not to be
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 You care a lot about having a structure - plans and goals that someone else creates for you
 </li>
 <li>
 You value the safety net and steady salary that a traditional job brings
 </li>
 <li>
 You have a family who is relying on you to provide for them in the short and medium term
 </li>
 <li>
 You are too young or inexperienced (this varies but a good rule of thumb is younger than 21) - finish that college degree first, or get a job similar to a startup because that will get you where you want to go much faster than stumbling around at first
 </li>
 <li>
 Uncertainty scares you
 </li>
 <li>
 You don't find the qualities of determination, resilience, or resourcefulness as your strong suit
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/60-why-should-i-start-a-startup"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Why Should I Start a Startup? (Article by Michael Siebel)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUE-icVYRFU" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Should You Start A Startup? (Video from YC Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/notnot.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Why to Not Not Start a Startup - (Article by Paul Graham)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Reasons to be and Not to be a Startup Founder

This lesson is highly inspired by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWZbWzAyHAE"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 YCombinator's Startup School Business Models and Pricing Video</a>. If you want to dive into the details and have 30 minutes to spare, I highly recommend watching the full video.
 
 
 
 YCombinator (YC) is a famous startup accelerator program that founded over 3,000 companies since 2005. They have helped create some of the world's most successful and disruptive companies like Airbnb, Dropbox, Twitch, and more.
 
 
 
 Recently, they did a survey of the top companies they helped create, and these findings could help you decide what business models to use for your company.
 
 
 
 Of the top 100 YCombinator companies, here were their top business models:
 
 
 
 <ol>
 <li>
 SaaS (31%) - Software as a service.
 </li>
 <li>
 Transactional (22%) - Enables various financial transactions and collects a fee from the customer in return.
 </li>
 <li>
 Marketplace (14%) - Connects buyers and sellers, or two types of customers in a market.
 </li>
 <li>
 Hard-tech (11%) - Organizations that create breakthrough and innovative products and which require scientific and engineering breakthroughs.
 </li>
 <li>
 Usage-based (9%) - Offers a service to customers and captures revenue from them based on how much of the product they use.
 </li>
 <li>
 Enterprise (7%) - A company that sells services or software to large companies/enterprises.
 </li>
 <li>
 Advertising (3%) - Company offers a free service, then collects revenue from advertisements inside the service.
 </li>
 <li>
 E-commerce (2%) - Sells physical/digital goods online.
 </li>
 </ol>
 
 
 
 What's not in the top 100 YCombinator companies:
 
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Services/consulting - Because it does not scale easily and does not have recurring revenue.
 </li>
 <li>
 Affiliate businesses - Because they are too far from the monetary transaction (in contrast - close to the transaction would be a financial trading company that helps people exchange cash for a fee).
 </li>
 <li>
 Hardware businesses - Because they require a lot of capital upfront and have low margins.
 </li>
 <li>
 Businesses built on other platforms - Because there is too much platform risk (think this: you create a successful app on the Apple Store, but Apple either shuts you down or collects 40% of your profit because you have to abide by their policies).
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWZbWzAyHAE"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Business Models and Pricing (Video by YC Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.whataventure.com/blog/10-inspiring-business-models" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 10 Business Models That Will Inspire You (Article by What A Venture)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://medium.com/@davegoldblatt/startup-school-reference-guide-for-lecture-7-nine-business-models-and-the-metrics-investors-1515a0a9e04b" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup School Reference Guide for Lecture #7 — Nine Business Models and the Metrics Investors Want with Anu Hariharan (Article by Dave Goldblatt)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTg3RZPXgLg" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Anu Hariharan - Nine Business Models and the Metrics Investors Want (Video from YC Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Proven Business Models

'Tis the time for new year resolutions. Most people make them, and fewer finish them. Here are some quick tips to make sure your goals stand on solid footing.
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 Try the no zero days method - Explained <a href="https://meganeholstein.com/the-no-zero-days-productivity-mindset-might-change-your-life/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">here</a>.
 </li>
 <li>
 Create specific and measurable goals - the more specific the better. The bonus is that you can then break the goals down easier into monthly or weekly goals that add up to the year.
 </li>
 <li>
 Break down goals into small chunks. For instance, instead of saying you want to get to 1,000 active users per month this year, you can start by saying - week 1 I want to build up to 10 active users, week 2 I want to build up to 30, and so on. Bonus if you can measure these sub-goals and your progress.
 </li>
 <li>
 If you're facing resistance, break the small chunk for that day into a tiny form. Sometimes just getting started is all you need to do, but you have to give yourself permission to be okay with the minimal version of the task. For instance, if you need to run 3 miles today - the minimal version would be to just step outside and run around the block once.
 </li>
 <li>
 Work on having better discipline by training your no-go neural circuits - Explained
 <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/stanford-impulse-control-no-go-function.html"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">here</a>.
 </li>
 <li>
 Understand, feel, and breathe the <a href="https://www.inc.com/jessica-stillman/stanford-impulse-control-no-go-function.html"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Eisenhower Matrix
 </a> to help you make better decisions, prioritize better, and delegate more.
 </li>
 <li>
 Ask your peers and ask yourself what are the most important aspects of your business this year, and how do you need to grow or change in order to accomplish these things? Create some goals around these answers.
 </li>
 <li>
 Visualize yourself at the end of the year, having completed all of your goals. Sit with this feeling for a few minutes and acknowledge the alignment, misalignment, and hard work that has gone into it. This will create a filter for good vs. bad goals, and also prime you to stick to your goals.
 </li>
 <li>
 If all else fails, make it a habit to invest in yourself. Read books, take courses, watch educational content, or even hire a coach. This will pay off in dividends over the long term. Warren Buffet credits most of his successful career to this.
 </li>
 </ul>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/abdoriani/2022/12/30/5-new-years-resolutions-for-startup-founders/?sh=63932c3c7b4e"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 5 New Year's Resolutions For Startup Founders (Article by Forbes)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.lifehack.org/articles/productivity/6-things-every-day-ensure-you-stick-your-goals.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 6 Things To Do Every Day To Ensure You Stick To Your Goals (Article by Lifehack)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

New Year Resolutions for Startup Founders

Starting a business by yourself is incredibly difficult. This is why accelerators, VCs, and occasionally your spouse will tell you to find someone to help you on this journey. Some critically acclaimed programs such as YCombinator will rarely accept sole-founders, and when they do they will urge you to find a co-founder either before joining or during the program. There must be something to this, and if you think you work better alone, that's not a bad thing - you know who you are. You are probably one in a million, and if that works for you, then keep at it! 
 
 
 Here are some tips on co-founders:
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 The ideal number of co-founders when starting out is 2, one who deals with vision, strategy, sales, and customers, and one who deals with creating the product.
 </li>
 <li>
 Be very clear about who will have which role when starting out. Later you can change things but it would be very difficult if both people want to be the CEO.
 </li>
 <li>
 The best cofounders are typically people who you have worked successfully in a professional setting before (close co-workers from your past)
 </li>
 <li>
 What differentiates a good co-founder from a bad one is how they deal with very difficult circumstances, stress, or loss either at your company or otherwise. Cool-headedness vs. rashness should be idealized. Some good emotional intelligence goes well here.
 </li>
 <li>
 Identify very early on what motivations your potential co-founder has and reasons for being a founder. Also, identify what success means for them - try to stay somewhat aligned on this. If your desire is to bootstrap and grow your startup slowly and your cofounder wants to create a fast-paced scaled startup quickly this would not be a good fit.
 </li>
 <li>
 The best way to find co-founders is to attend events or be part of groups that share the same professional interests as you. At your university, if you're still in school, your local accelerator/incubator events in the area you live in, or <a 
 href="https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 YC's co-founder matching platform</a> if you prefer everything to be remote.
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 All in all, you want to have a co-founder because they will be instrumental in moving the idea forward faster, and they will help you get unstuck and motivate you when you're in a rut. Most importantly they will make the journey less stressful.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4SLDQDXdp0"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Find A Co-Founder (Video by YC Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://review.firstround.com/the-founder-dating-playbook-heres-the-process-i-used-to-find-my-co-founder" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Founder Dating Playbook – Here&apos;s the Process I Used to Find My Co-Founder (Article by First Round Review)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.entrepreneur.com/leadership/7-traits-you-should-look-for-in-a-co-founder/272150" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 7 Traits You Should Look for in a Co-Founder (Article by Entrepreneur)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Some Tips on Finding and Keeping Good Cofounders

It seems that just in the last few years or so we have been undergoing an AI revolution. AI for customer support, AI for marketing, AI for copywriting, etc. Most recently, ChatGPT was released which is almost like having a free personal assistant to help you write better, code better, and do almost everything better. Let's take advantage of these new innovations and supercharge our productivity!
 
 
 To supercharging your writing
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.copy.ai/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Copy.ai</a> or <a href="https://www.notion.so/product/ai" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Notion AI</a> - for automatically writing your first drafts and summarizing your work
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.grammarly.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Grammarly</a> or <a href="https://quillbot.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Quillbot</a> - for Grammar checks
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 To 10x your coding
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.tabnine.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Tabnine</a>
 or <a href="https://github.com/features/copilot" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Github Copilot</a> - or automatically generating code for you to solve various problems, and even offering suggestions/tips to help you code faster and better
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://zealdocs.org/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Zeal</a>
 or <a href="https://kapeli.com/dash" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Dash</a> - for having documentation and cheat sheets via code frameworks/libraries at your fingertips
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 To being a graphic design guru
 
 
 And automatically generating beautiful images, hero pages, or marketing banners for social media
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 <a href="https://midjourney.com/home/?callbackUrl=%2Fapp%2F" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Midjourney</a>, <a href="https://openai.com/dall-e-2/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Dall-E 2</a>, and <a href="https://stablediffusionweb.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Stable Diffusion</a> - These freemium tools allow you to generate any images based on your text prompts or instructions
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 To having a free personal assistant.
 
 
 Don't know the answer to complex questions or problems? For instance - "How do I hide my dock on my Mac?" or "How can I filter rows in a Pandas Data Frame in Python?"
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 <a href="https://openai.com/blog/chatgpt/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">ChatGPT</a> - Will generate short and sweet, and often correct, responses with examples to help supercharge your work. This will save you from sifting through the first few links of a google page or reading a manual for a tool. Note: Trust but verify the response, while this technology is groundbreaking, it still has a long way to go towards 100% trust/accuracy.
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I hope that the resources below can provide an AI or automation tool that can solve whatever problem you may be facing much faster.
 
 
 Happy building!

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://renaissancerachel.com/best-ai-productivity-tools/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 53 Best AI Productivity Tools of 2023 (Article by Renaissance Rachel)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLVQpTWxYys" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Top 10 AI Tools Like ChatGPT You Must Try in 2023 (Video by Adrian Twarog)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Tools to Help You Work More Efficiently

Search Engine Optimization or SEO is the process of ranking a website or product in web search pages (e.g. the results on a Google Search page). High-rank websites are typically the top search results when someone is looking for a solution to their problem. Hence SEO is incredibly important. By improving your website's SEO, you can increase your visibility, attract more organic traffic, and potentially generate more leads and sales for your business.
 
 <h2>
 Here's a quick and simple guide to improving your SEO
 </h2>
 
 - Use the <a href="https://search.google.com/search-console/about"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Google Search Console</a> to search for your site there, and register it with Google Search Console if needed. Once you do this, the tool will give you insights as to how your website is performing in terms of SEO and how people get to your website in the first place. This is good to know for future planning on how to improve things.
 
 
 - Identify the theme(s) of your website or service and find a few key leading keywords (e.g. tech, healthcare, taxes, etc.)
 
 
 - Use a tool like <a href="https://www.semrush.com/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">Semrush</a> or <a href="https://answerthepublic.com/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">AnswerThePublic</a> and type in the leading theme(s) you came up with from the step above. These tools will give you a large set of keywords to optimize for in order for your site to rank highly in terms of SEO.
 
 
 - Pick 5-10 of these keywords and include them in your site or service. When you pick them, please remember that the more specific or niche the keyword, the better, especially if people are still searching for these terms, and you truly provide value to solve these problems. More importantly, don't choose the hottest or most trending keywords as the larger companies with more market share are going to outperform you on those. Pick ones with less competition where you can come out on top when you are just starting out.
 
 
 - You can add these chosen keywords to titles of various pages, descriptions, or just content/blog pages. The more comprehensive the content which includes the keywords, the better for SEO. Think essays and not billboard banners.
 
 
 - Continue creating content to answer questions about these keywords (SEO is a long game).
 
 
 - Put your website in the Semrush website audit tool, and start fixing some of the bigger SEO issues or errors right away. Use this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SIR4Kn62bLQ"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">guide</a> to help you.
 
 
 - Search for your competitors on Semrush and see the keywords that make them an authority. As well as what people search for to get to their site. Take inspiration from this on how you might improve your product to also compete with some variation of these keywords that work in your niche.
 
 
 P.S. - Semrush is one of the best and most comprehensive SEO tools available right now. However, if you're not willing to pay for it, simply find free alternatives inspired by the video below.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.semrush.com/blog/seo-basics/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 SEO Basics: The Ultimate Guide to SEO for Beginners (Article by Semrush)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3Q-_A5lT7c" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 My 9 Favorite Free SEO Tools For 2022 (Video by Brian Dean)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Simple Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

At some point or another, you may need to raise money for your startup. Whether it is because you need it to get to the next phase in your milestones or to beat your competition, the day will come eventually. Even if it is not right away.
 
 
 Here are some tips to keep in mind for when that day comes.
 
 
 When is the best time to raise money?
 
 
 The best time to raise money is when you don’t need it. That's when investors may see more opportunity, and at the very least you won't seem desperate.
 
 
 What is the most important thing that increases your odds of raining money?
 
 
 Having traction or product-market fit can be a huge benefit to raising money and really raises your odds of successful fundraising by a lot.
 
 
 What is the second most important thing?
 
 
 When pitching, focus on selling the story of your startup and how great your team is.
 
 
 How to find people to invest in you?
 
 
 Look up, research, and ask around about VCs and Angels in your area willing to invest in causes like yours. Then try to really investigate these investors and see if there's anyone in your network that could help connect you to them. If all else fails, a cold email or LinkedIn message will never hurt.
 
 
 How much to raise?
 
 
 Raise enough to keep you running for the foreseeable future. It helps to consider that this might be the last time you will ever raise money.
 
 
 Other important things to know?
 
 
 Think about your next milestones and know exactly where the money will go towards those milestones. Both you and your investors will only benefit from being meticulous about spend.
 
 
 Know how equity and ownership dilution work. Here's a good example.
 
 
 Equity dilution from fundraising (an example)
 
 
 Let's say Bella and Zaire co-found a startup and each of them owns 50% of the company's shares. They start with 1,000 shares each, for a total of 2,000 shares outstanding.
 
 
 After a year, the startup made significant progress and they decide to raise $1 million from an investor in exchange for 20% of the company's shares. This means the investor will receive 20% of the outstanding shares, or 400 shares, in exchange for the $1 million investment.
 
 
 After the investment, the company will have a total of 2,400 shares outstanding, with the investor owning 400 shares (or 16.7% of the company) and Bella and Zaire owning 1,000 shares each (or 41.7% each).
 
 
 This means that Bella and Zaire's ownership in the company has been diluted from 50% each to 41.7% each, while the investor now owns 16.7% of the company. The dilution reduces the percentage of ownership of each co-founder but the value of their shares has increased because of the investment.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/7I-fundraising-fundamentals-sus-2018"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Fundraising Fundamentals (SUS 2018) (Video by YC Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://shashcoffe.medium.com/summary-of-fundraising-fundamentals-by-geoff-ralston-5d94d6150ffb" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Summary of Fundraising Fundamentals by Geoff Ralston (Article by Alexey Shashkov on Medium)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

The Basics of Raising Money

Branding colors are often a difficult and important topic that a lot of people either spend no time on or too much time on. You should definitely focus more on building a good product at the beginning, but using some basic tips can really help get you started in building your visual identity. In the long term, colors and branding are incredibly important.
 
 <h2>
 Here is a quick-start guide to colors
 </h2>
 
 Start with one main color to represent your brand based on color psychology (this <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/the-hustle/psychology-of-color" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">guide</a> could help)
 
 
 Generate two more supporting colors via tools like <a href="https://mycolor.space/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">(mycolor.space)</a>
 
 
 Use the 60/30/10 rule
 
 
 <ul>
 <li>
 60% - The secondary or background color will typically take 60% of your canvas.
 </li>
 <li>
 30% - Will be taken by your primary color and it will include part of your hero banner, text, and other important elements of your page
 </li>
 <li>
 10% - The accent color that will be used for highly-important elements of your page such as call-to-actions, promotions, and more.
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 Be consistent with these branding colors throughout the rest of your products (e.g. your website, newsletter, business cards, etc.)
 
 
 Consider accessibility to be an important aspect of your color scheme. Use colors that have maximum contrast so that the background and text can clearly be seen by people with vision deficiencies. Use tools like <a href="https://color.a11y.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">(color.a11y.com)</a> to help you with this.
 
 
 You can use the neutral colors of black, white, or gray to create even more depth in your color palette or keep things simple.

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.canva.com/learn/choose-right-colors-brand/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to choose your brand colors (Article by Canva)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://us6.mailchimp.com/mctx/clicks?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DKMS3VwGh3HY&xid=033c58a20c&uid=159975314&iid=9759cc227f&pool=cts&v=2&c=1679234115&h=5748fe50037dfa6e947e7f98c04cd162cf7c69589acf39508f7c6bee582eba38" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Choose Colors (Easy 3-Step Process) (Video by Flux Academy)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Colors for Branding

<div>
 One of the most important aspects of a new startup is the Minimum Viable Product or MVP. In layman's terms, creating an MVP is like creating a basic version of your product, with just enough features to make it work and be useful to your customers. This way, you can test your idea in the real world without spending too much time or money perfecting it.
 <h2>Tips for a Successful MVP</h2>
 <ol>
 <li>
 <h3>Start and be specific</h3>
 Start with the general problem you are trying to solve. World hunger? Better pet bowel movements? Be as specific as possible.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Define your target audience</h3>
 Focus on a small group of customers that have the problem you are solving and are willing to work with early-stage startups.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Talk to users pre-MVP</h3>
 Identify the core problem that your target audience has by talking to them. Use <a href="https://www.momtestbook.com/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">"The Mom Test"</a> resources to do this properly.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>MVP Creation</h3>
 Create just enough features to solve the problem well for your early customers. Any more features puts you in danger land because it bloats your product, confuses users, and takes away your precious time.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Be quick</h3>
 Create the MVP as quickly as possible. Think weeks not months.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Talk to users post-MVP</h3>
 Get the MVP in front of users as soon as possible to learn from them, then Iterate and improve: Based on user feedback and data, continuously iterate and improve your MVP to enhance its value and functionality. Be prepared to pivot if necessary, based on the feedback you receive. 
 Use <a href="https://www.momtestbook.com/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">"The Mom Test"</a> resources here again.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Pivot, pivot, pivot - this is progress not failure</h3>
 Be prepared to pivot and don't fall in love with your MVP. Most successful startups pivoted the solution and functionality of the MVP.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Fall in love with your problem, not your solution</h3>
 Be careful not to pivot the problem. Remember, you started this startup because you wanted to solve a problem - don't give up on the problem so quickly.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Build a lean and agile development process</h3>
 Build a lean and agile development process so you can quickly build features or improvements based on feedback from users.
 </li>
 <li>
 <h3>Establish your unique value proposition (UVP)</h3>
 Determine what sets your product apart from existing solutions.
 </li>
 </ol>
 However, the most important tip is to create the MVP as quickly as possible in order to get something scrappy but somewhat functional in front of customers so that you can get better feedback from them. Anything else falls to the second order of importance.
 Happy building!
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QRZ_l7cVzzU"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Build An MVP | Startup School (Video by YC School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://theleanstartup.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Lean Startup by Eric Ries (Book and Resources)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Create a Successful Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

<div>
 ChatGPT has revolutionized the world by showing us a faster and potentially better way to work. With providing personalized assistance in various fields such as coding, copywriting, marketing, and business, and more - ChatGPT has empowered individuals to pursue their dreams and aspirations.
 And so now is the time to think about leveraging ChatGPT for your work if you haven't done it already. Think of it as you being the main pilot flying a plane, and ChatGPT can be your co-pilot assistant - helping you along the way.
 <h2>A cheat sheet to get you started</h2>
 <ul>
 Where to try ChatGPT? The official place to try ChatGPT is using the following link from OpenAI - <a href="https://chat.openai.com" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">https://chat.openai.com</a> - Simply sign up and start chatting with it. The free account uses an older AI model (3.5 turbo) than the latest GPT-4, but it is still pretty darn good.
 How to use the latest and greatest models? If you're willing to dish out $20/mo. you can subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for more accurate and faster responses. For instance, using the exclusive GPT-4 model should get you better results, as well as faster (almost instantaneous) results when you use the basic GPT 3.5 model.
 Plugins: You can also sign up to join the waitlist for the new plugins feature (<a href="https://openai.com/waitlist/plugins" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">here</a>) that will allow ChatGPT to connect to the internet for recent information, do math with Wolfram, order food with Instacart, and more.
 ProTip to save money: If you want to use the latest ChatGPT models but want to save money, subscribe to the ChatGPT API and then use the OpenAI <a href="https://platform.openai.com/playground" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">playground</a> or another app that leverages your API key. This should cost you a few dollars per month instead of $20.
 </ul>
 <h2>Prompt Best Practices</h2>
 How to best communicate with ChatGPT to get what you want
 <ul>
 Start simple: when you’re first generating a prompt or question.
 Continue with as much detail as you can: As you expand and have more specific use cases and learn from your simple prompt – be as specific as possible in what you want it to do, almost too specific.
 Try again: If you're not happy with the suggestions and want more, simply type in something like "Generate more options" and hit submit.
 ChatGPT word limit - You can only input about 2,000 - 3,000 words in one given question for the traditional ChatGPT chat. If your data or question is longer than that you may need to split it in multiple parts and ask ChatGPT to work with these multiple parts. Using the API in the OpenAI playground and GPT-4 will allow you to input much more text, but this can get expensive.
 Tell it what to do, do not tell it what NOT to do: This can confuse it. Negation sometimes confuses it, but let's face it - negation even confuses humans!
 For logical or analytical prompts, adding the following phrase to your question “Let's think step by step” is a very useful addition that can increase accuracy.
 When working with complex tasks, break down complicated tasks into multiple steps and ask each step separately – this should increase accuracy in the responses.
 A specific chat conversation will have some level of short-term memory, so if you asked it to generate something a few hours ago, it should remember that context and you can ask it questions based on that context within the same chat. Different chat instances have different contexts and memories based on what you asked it. This memory is not endless however so it might forget sometimes, for now.
 Assign the Chatbot a role to increase accuracy in the field you are working with: You can be as specific as you want with the role. For instance, if you are asking it for recipes or food-related questions, you could say "You are a very good culinary chef." This should increase the accuracy of your response in the cooking domain for any further questions.
 Teach it how to respond by providing a few working examples: The technical term for this is one-shot or few-shot learning. It works like this - if you want ChatGPT to solve a problem, or write some code - simply provide it an example of how you would do it, then it should learn and do it automatically next time even for a new example. I mean, let's face it - ChatGPT helped me write the code for this post by me showing it how to do it :)
 </ul> 
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.promptingguide.ai/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Prompt Engineering Guide (Resource/Learning Website)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydjRYmM19DY" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The ULTIMATE Beginner's Guide to Prompt Engineering with GPT-4 | AI Core Skills (Video by Liam Ottley)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

The ChatGPT Cheat Sheet

<div>
 Crowdfunding has emerged as a vital lifeline for startups, granting them the opportunity to tap into the collective financial power of a global audience. This innovative funding model not only accelerates the realization of visionary ideas but also fosters a sense of community by directly involving backers in the entrepreneurial journey. Embracing crowdfunding, startups gain valuable market validation, early-stage feedback, and increased visibility. Needless to say that crowdfunding is more than a viable option for funding your startup, but how can you have a successful crowdfunding campaign? 
 <h3>Here are some helpful tips:</h3>
 Prioritize the Video: Keep it short and sweet, show your face, and walk through the product showing the users how it will help them. 
 
 Build an Audience: You cannot expect to have a successful campaign with 0 people who know you and what you do when you post the campaign. Start the pre-work months in advance and accumulate users that might get behind your product, start an e-mail list and stay in touch with them. Get feedback early on and have them rally behind you when you launch the crowdfunding campaign. 
 
 Have something to show: Try to build the MVP of your product or at the very least showcase what the MVP would look like in a high-fidelity concept such as a video, Figma concept app, or 3D rendering. This way you can make it real and have users envision your product. A tangible product also shows initiative and vested interest on your end. 
 
 Prepare for months to create the most polished version of the post, filling out all the details, and incentives to the best of your abilities. Most successful campaigns spend months building this out so take your time. 
 
 Prepare the Pre-launch: Get a few supporters to back you right off the bat to get you 10-20% there quickly. This will help build momentum and incentivize others to think the product is popular and therefore they will pitch in as well. See the point above about the audience as this is related to that. 
 
 Contact the Press Early: Find journalists, bloggers, or influencers and network with them for months or years before launch. Pitch them on your idea and work with them to publish an article about it to create buzz when you launch. 
 
 Make an event out of the launch: Communicate with users in the comments, engage the audience, and think of it as a long launch party as long as the post is up. The crowdfunding campaign is a fun way to engage the community who cares about the problem you're solving and to gather supporters. Don't think of it as just a financial instrument or way to raise money. 
 
 Set realistic funding goals: Pick just the right amount of money you need. Not more, and not less. Bonus if you can show the users where the money is going specifically (e.g. 50% for building the app, 20% for partnerships, and 30% for building out the community, etc.) 
 
 Consistent marketing and transparent communication are key. Share your thoughts on social media and keep your backers informed about the progress of your campaign, product development, and any challenges you face. 
 
 Kickstarter and Indiegogo are the places to gogo (as of 2023)
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QwEjsQOQyhQ"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 10 Kickstarter Tips from Crowdfunding Experts (Video by Salvador Briggman)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.wix.com/blog/2019/05/best-crowdfunding-sites/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 15 Best Crowdfunding Sites to Kickstart Your Dream Business (Article by Taira Sabo)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Tips For Crowdfunding Success

<div>
 In the exhilarating and fast-paced world of startups, one factor consistently plays a pivotal role in their success or failure: networking. Startup founders face an intriguing blend of challenges, opportunities, and risks that are unique to the entrepreneurial landscape. Within this ecosystem, the ability to establish, foster, and leverage connections can be a game-changer 
 
 <h3>Here are some tips to help you on the networking journey:</h3> 
 Make a plan of where you want to be next in your journey. What’s the next immediate level you want to reach? Find people who are there and just one step ahead of you. Look for them on email lists or networking apps or LinkedIn and reach out to them for advice, see how you can help them too, they will pay you back later. Seek these people out as mentors if you can. 
 
 Seek out how you can help people instead of how you can be helped. 
 
 Remember to develop personal relationships and not transactions. Transactions may work short-term, but long-term personal relationships are always the most helpful. 
 
 Contact investors, angels, and VCs in your region or area. Try to connect with most of them just so that you can keep them top-of-mind on what you are doing. Those relationships will be very important later on when you fundraise. 
 
 Once you start making connections it is also important to maintain contact. Make a deck of people you really want to stay in touch with and make a plan to reach out to someone again every few months and ask them how they are doing. 
 
 Join local and (ideally) in-person communities like coworking spaces, hackathons, meetups, virtual communities, accelerators, and incubators and truly make an effort to connect and provide value. 
 
 Establish a b online presence. Be active and engaged on LinkedIn, Twitter, your blog, website, or other communities you are part of. That should help you make solid connections tied to your problem space. 
 
 Know that there are no shortcuts. It takes hundreds of hours to make a solid connection like a board member or key investor or cofounder. Be patient and keep at it knowing in the end it will be worth it. 
 
 Use apps to help you make connections like <a href="https://bumble.com/bizz" target="_blank" style={{color: '#007C89', textDecoration: 'underline'}}>Bumble Bizz</a>, <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/cofounder-matching" target="_blank" style={{color: '#007C89', textDecoration: 'underline'}}>YC's Co-Founder Matching</a>, <a href="https://cofounderslab.com/" target="_blank" style={{color: '#007C89', textDecoration: 'underline'}}>CoFoundersLab</a>, or <a href="https://webapp.shapr.net/signin" target="_blank" style={{color: '#007C89', textDecoration: 'underline'}}>Shapr</a>. Just keep in
 mind that Shapr recently got acquired by a search firm, so the future of that app is unknown.&nbsp;
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://fi.co/insight/9-tips-for-startup-founders-to-build-a-stronger-network"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 9 Tips for Startup Founders to Build A Stronger Network (Article by the Founder Institute)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrqZjIDE44" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Hack Networking | David Burkus | TEDxUniversityofNevada (Video by TEDx)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Networking Tips for Startup Founders

<div>
 Let's talk about a highly underrated and stigmatized topic for startup founders: Mental Health. The truth is, if your mental health isn't at its best, neither are you or your business. In this article, we'll discuss why mental health is critical for founders, practical steps for maintaining it (like sleep, exercise, and nutrition), and advanced methods for enhancing mental well-being and productivity (like work-life harmony and effective task management). Together, we can start to de-stigmatize mental health in the entrepreneurial community and help founders succeed not just professionally, but personally too.
 
 <h3>The Basics</h3>
 
 Prioritize these things regularly and your mental health will be 80% of where it should be. These activities are more connected to our mental health than we may think.
 
 <ul>
 <li>Sleep for 7-9 hours every night.</li>
 <li>Get regular exercise. Ideally 10-20 minutes every few days.</li>
 <li>Eat healthy - More veggies, less sugar, more water, more organic, and less processed foods.</li>
 <li>Meditate - Start meditating for a few minutes every day and work your way up. Use an app like Headspace to get started if you need extra motivation.</li>
 <li>Take regular breaks to do things that energize you. These could be talking to a friend, drinking a cup of coffee, and watching some TikToks. But most people say that taking a short walk in nature really does the trick.</li>
 <li>Take time off every once in a while and completely disconnect from work. This will help prevent burnout and allow you to come back to work fresh and recharged.</li>
 </ul>
 
 Now for those of you that want the edge on the final 20%, here it is
 
 <h3>Advanced Methods</h3>
 
 <ul>
 <li>Harmony not balance: Don't think about Work-Life Balance, but instead, think of it as Work-Life Harmony. You want to have a fulfilled life at work, and also a fulfilled life outside of work with your hobbies or family. Try to create an internal culture that allows you to take time to recharge whenever you need it, guilt-free.</li>
 <li>Have a TODO list comprised of two sections. The first section includes all of the necessary things you should do that day and make it easy enough so that you could finish it in half of the day. The second section will be the bonus items you should finish that day. This way you are operating out of accomplishment and plenty rather than falling behind and feeling stressed. Momentum and perception are more powerful than we know for motivation and energy.</li>
 <li>Create buffer space in your day for serendipity or other tasks that may come up instead of trying to plan every minute. Set aside 20% just for unexpected events like important e-mails, impromptu client calls, or fixing a server issue.</li>
 <li>See a therapist and talk about things that stress you out, take your energy away, or burn you out. Problem-solve and take action on how to remedy your situation.</li>
 <li>Delegate when you have too much on your plate. Take at least one brainstorming session per week to
 think about what you can delegate and to whom just to make your life easier.</li>
 <li>Duvet Days: Take a page out of Simon Sinek's handbook and embrace the concept of "duvet days" for your company. This is where employees could take a day off without explanation, and encourage people to be honest about taking time off for personal reasons. We need to trust people to set their own boundaries when it comes to work and personal life, and that the two should work in tandem for the individual, not against.</li>
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/marenbannon/2020/02/10/startup-founder-mental-health-why-it-matters-and-how-to-boost-it/?sh=19ec5a051bf1"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Founder Mental Health: Why It Matters And How To Boost It (Article by Forbes)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vVNxZlksq98&list=WL&index=31" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Founders explain how they find Work-Life Balance | Had to Ask (Video)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Mental Health Advice for Founders

<div>
 Today, we delve into two iconic books in the startup landscape, "The Lean Startup" and "Running Lean." These guides and methodologies unlock the secrets to efficient business operations, conversion of assumptions into actionable insights, and honing your product to meet market demands. Explore the refined techniques of incremental evolution, maximizing customer engagement, and identifying the shortest route to a viable business.
 
 But why read or re-read them when you have a quick guide you can check right here?
 
 <h2>The Guide</h2>
 
 <h4 style="font-size:16px">Step 1: Find a problem to solve</h4>
 Look for a problem that needs solving, and that you are passionate about. Immerse yourself in your passions or areas you care about to find problems.
 
 <h4>Step 2: Validate the problem </h4>
 Do some market research to understand if and how this problem is being solved today. Use tools like SEMRush or HubSpot to find keywords, behaviors, and trends for your problem space.
 
 <h4>Step 3: Create and fill out a few Lean Canvases...</h4>
 From Leanstack (or any place you choose from – just search for "Lean Canvas" and go to images - to brainstorm a few business models.
 
 <h4>Step 4. Create more hypotheses to test and more Lean Canvas business plans...</h4>
 If needed depending on your hypotheses. The goal of this step is to validate or invalidate your hypotheses by talking to users. An example of a good hypothesis is that people want to listen to books on their phones instead of reading them (Idea for Audible). The founders then talked to many users to find out if this is the case before building anything significant.
 
 <h4>Step 5. Pick the best Lean Canvas to go with...</h4>
 Which can maximize learning and success
 
 <h4>Step 6. Identify a few potential early adopters and talk to them</h4>
 You should have a rough idea of what types of people you are aiming to talk to from your market research in step 2. Find out where these people hang out online, and in person - and go there to talk to them. If that platform is working, keep at it, if not, find another place to find them.
 
 <h4>Step 7. Create a very low-fidelity solution to solve the problem...</h4>
 Ideally in days/weeks instead of months/years. This is your Minimum Viable Product or (MVP). Think NoCode and LowCode instead of hiring expensive dev shops or spending too long building your product.
 
 <h4>Step 8. Monetize your project right away if applicable</h4>
 The best way to know is with a landing page asking for funds/support or even a Kickstarter campaign, that is the best validation that you are solving a big enough problem that people are willing to pay for it.
 
 <h4>Step 9. Launch first, then again and again...
 </h4>
 Based on user feedback. Make every new big feature a launch, or every pivot a launch, and launch on as many platforms as you can. You can read our previous <a href="https://www.essentialstartupbytes.com/posts/where-and-when-to-launch-your-startup-project" target="_blank" style="mso-line-height-rule: exactly;-ms-text-size-adjust: 100%;-webkit-text-size-adjust: 100%;color: #007C89;font-weight: normal;text-decoration: underline;">guide</a> on this topic if you're curious.
 
 <h4>Step 10. Talk to users about your solution...</h4>
 Using Solution Interviews. These interviews are still with early adopters, but this time with your MVP from step 7 to show them. Gauge their reaction, interest level, and most importantly their commitment to paying you for your solution.
 
 <h4>Step 11. Come up with and measure a few impactful progress metrics...</h4>
 That can enable you to measure success, and avoid useless or vanity metrics. Good examples are (daily active users, length of user sessions, etc.) and bad examples are (hours spent coding, people giving you compliments on your idea, etc.).
 
 <h4>Step 12. Engage the lean startup cycle</h4>
 Keep spreading the word, talking to users to get feedback, improving your product based on feedback, and measuring success
 
 <h4>Step 13. Pivot if needed</h4>
 If success metrics stay stagnant for many weeks, adjust your Lean Canvas based on user feedback, and start again from the beginning of the Loop (Step 4). Don’t be afraid to remove or recycle what you have built.
 
 <h4>Step 14. Understand the three engines of growth to continue progressing</h4>
 1) The sticky engine of growth focuses on retaining customers and avoiding churn. 2) The viral engine of growth explains how users are bringing in new users, hence making your product go viral. 3) The paid engine of growth involves using revenue from your current customers to then acquire more customers via sales or advertising. Focus on one engine at a time and optimize it, don't try to do all three at once.
 
 <h4>Step 15. Continue this Loop until you get to Product-Market Fit </h4>
 You got this! Here are some signs that you have Product Market Fit: Your product keeps growing and very few customers leave. Customers are very happy with your product and you are starting to get profitable based on the user payments. People are referring your product to others at high rates. So many people are using your product that you are barely keeping up with server maintenance, user requests, bugs, customer service requests, etc.
 
 <h4>Step 16. You have hit Product-Market Fit! </h4>
 Congratulations, this is the hardest milestone for startups to achieve. Now you can think about how you can continue your startup legacy by improving the product, scaling it, and even contacting investors to help you. There are separate books for all of these things and a topic for another day.
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://mihaisplace.blog/2021/12/18/a-step-by-step-startup-guide-for-bootstrappers/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 A Step-By-Step Startup Guide For Bootstrappers (Article by Mihai Avram)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://medium.com/@steve_mullen/an-introduction-to-lean-canvas-5c17c469d3e0" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 An Introduction to Lean Canvas (Article by Steve Mullen)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSaIOCHbuYw" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 THE LEAN STARTUP SUMMARY (BY ERIC RIES) (Video by The Swedish Investor)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

A Practical Guide to The Lean Startup and Running Lean

<div>
 Okay, so you hit Product Market Fit and have some traction. You have revenue coming in and your business is finally turning into something real. What's next? For some people it is scale. Scaling a startup refers to the process of growing the business in a manner that can support an increase in sales, output, or market reach without compromising performance or revenue. Many companies fail because they don't scale responsibly and they crumble under their own weight or fail to maintain their momentum. 
 
 The book "Scaling Lean" by Ash Maurya provides an in-depth guide for startups to go from an initial idea to a growing company. It builds on Maurya's previous book, "Running Lean," and contains some very useful tips to make sure you are able to scale responsibly. 
 
 <h3>Scaling Tips from the book "Scaling Lean":</h3> 
 
 Happy Customer Factory - Keep this mental model in your mind. It covers five stages: Acquisition, Activation, Retention, Revenue, and Referral. 
 *We cover these below 
 
 1. Acquisition: This is the first stage where potential customers are introduced to your product or service. It involves all the activities and processes that attract people to your business. The goal is to convert these people from strangers to visitors. 
 
 2. Activation: This stage involves turning those visitors into users. It's about providing a great first experience that encourages them to start using your product or service. The goal is to convert visitors into active users. 
 
 3. Retention: This stage is about keeping the users you've acquired and activated. It involves ensuring that your product or service continues to deliver value to the users, encouraging them to keep using it. The goal is to convert active users into repeat users. 
 
 4. Revenue: This stage is about monetizing the value you're providing to your users. It involves strategies and processes that convert users into paying customers. The goal is to convert repeat users into customers. 
 
 5. Referral: This is the final stage where satisfied customers become advocates for your product or service. It involves encouraging and incentivizing customers to refer others to your business. The goal is to convert customers into promoters. 
 
 Quantify the Happy Customer Factory Model and focus on the Bottleneck: Record every week how many users are flowing through each of the steps above and where the bottleneck is (e.g. where users are failing to progress to the next stage). The bottleneck is often the area you need to focus most of your efforts in. For instance, if you have a marketing channel to acquire 100 users per week, but of those users only 3 get activated (stick around), then you need to talk to the users and tweak your activation offerings to make it more compelling for them to keep using the product. 
 
 Improve Throughput:&nbsp;The ability to progress your customers through the Happy Customer Factory as efficiently and quickly as possible. A high throughput creates good traction which is a great measure of how well your startup is scaling. 
 
 Focus on the One Metric That Matters (OMTM): At any given time, there should be one metric that the startup focuses on above all others. This helps to maintain focus and aligns the team's efforts. Tie this metric to your customer factory and specifically where the bottlenecks are. For example, if a company's main objective is acquisition, the OMTM could be the number of new users per week. If the main objective is retention, the OMTM could be daily active users or the average time spent on the platform per user. 
 
 Keep Experimenting: Identify the bottlenecks in your customer factory model, create hypotheses for why they exist, and attempt to solve the problems. Iterate on this over and over again until your Throughput and metrics improve. 
 
 Pivot or Persevere: It is important to decide when to pivot (make a fundamental change to the business model) or persevere (keep improving the existing model). Persevere if you are still in the process of trying different experiments that can increase the efficiency of your Happy Customer Factory. Pivot if you have tried dozens of experiments and nothing has worked, or you have learned something new about your market to inform you that the idea needs to change. 
 
 Remember that for a successful startup this must happen: 
 Created value &gt; captured value &gt; cost 
 *We define these below 
 
 - Created Value: This refers to the total value that your product or service creates for your customers. It's the reason why customers choose your product over others. It could be the unique features of your product, the problem it solves, or the benefits it provides. 
 
 - Captured Value: This is the portion of the created value that you capture as a business, typically in the form of revenue. Not all the value created is captured by the business. Some of it is enjoyed by the customers, which is why they are willing to pay for your product or service. 
 
 - Cost: This refers to the total cost of creating your product or service. It includes all the resources you've invested in creating the value, such as time, money, and effort. 
 
 Keep these balances in check, focus on your OMTM and throughput through the Happy Customer Factory and you are well on your way to successfully scaling your startup!
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://us6.mailchimp.com/mctx/clicks?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Fk%3Dscaling%2Blean%26hvadid%3D241677848867%26hvdev%3Dc%26hvlocphy%3D9021536%26hvnetw%3Dg%26hvqmt%3De%26hvrand%3D6653437111614891126%26hvtargid%3Dkwd-16238731351%26hydadcr%3D16371_10302015%26tag%3Dgooghydr-20%26ref%3Dpd_sl_8eyxgkwun6_e&xid=391c100171&uid=159975314&iid=a7b01ebcb2&pool=cts&v=2&c=1687609216&h=8f555b91ff3b19b696731b1d1506e2384e9dce8d2cd393fa07705f3f9e8d4d36"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Scaling Lean by Ash Maurya (Book)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://us6.mailchimp.com/mctx/clicks?url=https%3A%2F%2Fnever-stop-learning.online%2Fen%2Fscaling-lean-book&xid=391c100171&uid=159975314&iid=a7b01ebcb2&pool=cts&v=2&c=1687609216&h=e1c03435d3c5d00ddca75f6d33146833f3812c4fb31e17c124905a24ff26c7a4" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Scaling Lean Book from Ash Maurya – My Top 5 Learnings (Article by Gregor)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://us6.mailchimp.com/mctx/clicks?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3D6MuHpds6MLI&xid=391c100171&uid=159975314&iid=a7b01ebcb2&pool=cts&v=2&c=1687609216&h=8da2117a37454839ff479691e74045c014cf4fa3718b26f39ac393fa00520de5" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 "From Running Lean to Scaling Lean" by Ash Maurya at Lean Product Meetup (Video by Dan Olsen)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Scale a Startup

<div>
 Growing your email list is a fundamental aspect of effective digital marketing. It serves as a direct channel to reach your target audience, allowing you to nurture relationships, promote your products or services, and establish a loyal customer base. Therefore it is important to know how to grow it.
 <h1>Here are some tips to help you do so:</h1>
 Identify your niche: Hone in on the specific group of people that this email list is for, and only target them at first
 Initially, don't use a double-opt-in, that creates too much friction for users to join, and you want to reduce that friction at first
 Simplify the user sign-up process via the <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/how-to-get-more-user-signups-using-the-sniper-link-technique-47690dfbf1" target="_blank">Sniper Link technique</a>
 Place Opt-ins in the Right Places: Ensure that you have email opt-ins in the usual places such as on your homepage, in your sidebar, social media profiles, and at the end of your blog content. It's better to have something more targeted to your audience’s desires in your opt-in rather than a general statement.
 Create high-quality content: People may join your email list because they are intrigued or they know you, but they will only stay if the content is constantly serving them well.
 Publish regularly: Whether it is once a week, or once a month, stick to it
 Optimize SEO: Make sure your e-mail content or blog can be crawled by Google and can rank high for SEO
 Watch your email open rate: The open rate refers to the percentage of users who have received your email and opened the email as well. A good open rate is between 15-25% - If your open rate is under that number you might need to change the content you are publishing or the users that you are acquiring.
 Use Lead Magnets: A lead magnet is an incentive you offer to potential subscribers in exchange for their email addresses. This could be a free digital download, such as an e-book, a cheat sheet, or a tool they can use.
 Scale using paid ads or clever word-of-mouth campaigns: Once you have thousands of subscribers and a great open rate, survey your subscribers to have more statistics and demographics about them. Once you have all of these details and stats that make up your high-value customers, pay for a service like Facebook AdSense or other ad services you like to target more of those customers. Leverage social media for word-of-mouth campaigns as well. Think competitions and referrals.
 Don't forget to monetize your newsletter as well: It can be costly to maintain hundreds of thousands of users especially if you scale, so make sure you are capturing value back from them by having them pay for paywalled content, exclusive guides, or other perks.
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://essentialstartupbytes.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f06aad1bb4d19413472565f37&id=cb474ab5e0&e=87d765313c"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 START AND GROW YOUR EMAIL LIST FROM 0 - Step by step for beginners (Video by Modern Millie)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://essentialstartupbytes.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f06aad1bb4d19413472565f37&id=b83500b4a0&e=87d765313c" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Grow Your Email List: 23 Proven and Simple Ways (Article by optinmonster)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://essentialstartupbytes.us6.list-manage.com/track/click?u=f06aad1bb4d19413472565f37&id=da81849057&e=87d765313c" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 MBA1689 - How to Grow an Email List From Scratch (Podcast episode via the $100 MBA Show)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Grow Your Email List

<div>
 Today we talk about the top-notch essay - How to Do Great Work - by Paul Graham

 Paul Graham is a highly influential figure in the startup world, renowned for co-founding Y Combinator, an accelerator that has incubated successful companies like Dropbox, Airbnb, and Stripe. Aside from this, he's also respected for his insightful essays on entrepreneurship, and for his pioneering work in developing the programming language Lisp.
 
 His <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">essays</a> are quite renowned and recently he published one that shines among others and most startup resources on the internet. In other words, it is a must-read. The essay is quite long as it takes an average person about 30-45 minutes to read it. This post is meant to surface what is important from that essay, but to eagerly beckon you to read the essay in its entirety is an understatement. Do read it eventually if you find the time as you won't regret it.
 
 <h2>Here are the main takeaways:</h2>
 
 The recipe for great work is ability, interest, effort, and luck: Luck we cannot control, and if you are reading this article you are likely motivated enough to put in the effort. This means that ability and interest are the two most important aspects to focus on. PG encourages us to think about finding work where our ability and interest yield an explosion of new ideas.
 
 How to hone in on your ability and interest to find the right field for you? Follow your interests and curiosities, and remember that the only way is by doing. If you want to be a doctor, spend one summer shadowing one and helping out. Taking a course is not going to help you as much. Focus on being curious and trying lots of things, reading lots of books, meeting lots of people, and asking a lot of questions.
 
 Once you've found your field now what? Make incremental progress every day, as small as it might be. Make it a habit to finish what you start, and trick yourself into being incredibly productive by lying to yourself. Lie to yourself and say that you will only do 5 minutes of this task, and only accomplish 1/10th of the work right now. More often than not, once you get started you will get sucked into it, especially if you love what you are doing and are genuinely curious about it. Try to also schedule blocks of uninterrupted time to do focused work. Fragmenting your work into dozens of chunks throughout the day and being distracted will not yield productivity gains as focused work tends to do.
 
 For complex problems, interweave focused parts of problem-solving, and focused parts of rest where you allow your mind to do something else (listen to a song, go for a walk, etc.). Don't worry, your subconscious mind is still working on the problem, so next time you go to your problem-solving session, you will have an edge.
 
 Notice gaps in your field by being comfortable with breaking rules (in life and in general - this is a lifestyle and it translates to your work). Always question the status quo and try to learn as much as you can about your field until you feel like you know almost everything. That's why it helps to focus on something very specific. Once you feel like you know everything, start to question the fundamentals, really question them and see if they make sense. Many scientific and technical discoveries were the result of this.
 
 Be earnest - which means to be intellectually honest with yourself and with the information you consume. Always seek the truth, and always look a layer deeper to question what is being said and the status quo. Being earnest allows you to do great work easier and faster because your guiding compass of truth is well aligned.
 
 Do not be afraid to fail. If you seldom fail, then you are being too conservative. The younger you are, the more you can afford to fail because you are time rich. The older you are, maybe you can't fail as much but you will have the wisdom to fail with grace and quickly pivot.
 
 Create solutions and products so quickly, that the first version will be one that you will be embarrassed about and people call a toy. Most great products started that way, and it is only through many iterations of improvement that they turned into the monoliths they are today (e.g. Google, Uber, ChatGPT, etc.)
 
 Remember that the education industrial complex in the world is broken. The real world does not work by studying a rubric to game a score on a test. It is far more complex than this. Instead, focus on critical thinking and being curious. A teacher who sees a curious student that thinks outside the box, and is willing to lead their discovery will consider that student to be far more valuable. This might help your grade, and even if it doesn't, the real world will recognize this in a heartbeat (as long as you don't flunk). And the real world is more important than a test.
 
 Surround yourself with the right people. Pick people that you feel you are always learning from, and avoid pessimistic people who consider themselves victims. People who do great work know that they still have agency and control at the end of the day - of their fate, and are motivated to do so as well.
 
 Remember that you can have multiple fields and interests, so don't be afraid to fold and move on to another field that excites you more if the opportunity presents itself.
 
 In conclusion, focus on ability and interest, be curious and earnest, be consistent and not afraid to fail, create products quickly, and surround yourself with the right people. Do this and you are well on your way to doing great work.
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/greatwork.html"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Do Great Work (Article by Paul Graham)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRVgUkwhU7w" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Paul Graham - How to Do Great Work (Full Essay) (Video by Thoughtful)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://inzhener.medium.com/paul-graham-how-to-do-great-work-1b7f2afc023f" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Paul Graham: How to Do Great Work (Article by Olexiy Oryeshko)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Do Great Work by Paul Graham (Summarized)

<div>
 When starting a startup, should you go at it alone as a sole founder or join forces with co-founders? Embarking on the entrepreneurial journey alone offers complete control and autonomy, allowing for quick decisions and a singular vision. On the other hand, having co-founders brings diverse skill sets, shared responsibilities, and potentially richer brainstorming, but with the need for compromise and alignment. Both paths have their merits and challenges, making the choice highly dependent on the individual's personality, the nature of the startup, and the intended goals. Ultimately, this decision lays the groundwork for the company's culture, growth, and success.
 <h2>Here are some guidelines to help you make your decision:</h2>
 <h3>Pros of Being a Solo Founder</h3>
 <ul>
 - The chance of success is slightly higher where 52.3% of companies with successful exits were founded by a solo founder (n = 6,191). And 45.9% of companies that raised more than $10 million were also solopreneur companies (n = 7,348) according to <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2016/08/26/co-founders-optional/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Tech Crunch</a>
 - Companies started by solo founders have higher longevity.
 - Progress can move faster because you are the only one making decisions so you can make them quicker.
 - Solo founders have more control and freedom.
 - Many startups fail because of co-founder conflicts.
 - Simpler to operate: With fewer personalities and opinions involved, conflicts are less likely, and decision-making can be more streamlined.
 - Greater Equity Retention: As the only founder, you retain all equity, which may result in a more substantial financial gain if the company is successful.
 - Unified Vision: With no need to compromise with others, the company's direction is solely in your hands, leading to a more consistent and unified vision.
 </ul>
 <h3>Pros of Having Co-Founder(s)</h3>
 <ul>
 - VCs, incubators, and accelerators all have a bias for funding and helping companies founded by more than one founder.
 - If decision-making and passions are aligned can tend to move faster than solo founders.
 - If you have gaps in your knowledge and expertise, it helps to have founders.
 - It can be more fun to have a group of peers to share the journey with.
 - Startups are risky, and you can spread the risk out with other founders.
 - Startups are challenging and stressful, and the load can be shared among founders.
 - Diverse Perspectives: Multiple founders often bring different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to the table, fostering creativity and innovation.
 - Emotional Support: The entrepreneurial journey can be a roller coaster of emotions, and having a co-founder can provide vital emotional support during the ups and downs.
 - Redundancy: If one founder is unavailable or leaves the company, having others can ensure that essential skills and knowledge remain within the business.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YTi5VLLYzbg"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Starting a Company as Solo Founder vs. with Co Founders (Video by The Unconventional Founder)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://tinyseed.com/latest/founding-team-vs-solo-founder" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Founding Team Vs. Solo Founder, Which Is Better? (Article by TinySeed)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Solo Founder vs. Co-Founder(s)

<div>
 Starting a business is an exhilarating journey, painted with dreams of success and freedom. However, beneath the surface of this ambitious endeavor lie potential pitfalls that have toppled many promising startups. From failing to grasp the true essence of a business to legal oversights, the path to entrepreneurial success is riddled with avoidable mistakes. Understanding these common missteps can be the difference between a flourishing enterprise and a forgotten idea. Dive in to uncover the key mistakes that every aspiring business owner should sidestep.
 <h2>Key Mistakes to Avoid</h2>
 <ul>
 Not researching your industry and competitors - By doing the research you have an intuition of what the market wants, as well as what has been tried before. Do this so you can build it better.
 Assuming you can do it all on your own - We all thrive with the support of others. It's vital to be involved in a consistent mastermind group, online group, or the like. If you believe it'll enhance your chances of success, think about securing a dedicated business partner.
 Starting with too many partners or the wrong partners - Starting a business with too many partners can lead to conflicts and difficulties in decision-making. Moreover, choosing the wrong business partners can lead to conflicts about the end goal of the business or how resources should be allocated.
 Not understanding what a business actually is - Your free blog or podcast is not a business. Make sure that you create something people want and that you are able to capture sustainable income in return from your creations.
 Not Preparing for Failure or Pivots - Every business will face setbacks. Entrepreneurs who aren't mentally prepared for failure, or who don't have contingency plans in place, may struggle to navigate these challenges. Moreover, the business landscape is dynamic. Entrepreneurs who are rigid and resistant to feedback, or who don't pivot when necessary, often face challenges.
 Not choosing a topic that you are passionate about - The passion is what will get you past the seemingly insurmountable challenges of continuing with your business, so make sure you can do it even on a bad day.
 Underestimating Costs - Many entrepreneurs underestimate the amount of capital required to start and run a business. This can lead to cash flow problems, which is one of the top reasons startups fail.
 Not Having a Clear Business Plan - A well-thought-out business plan serves as a roadmap for the company, detailing the goals, strategies, and operations. Without one, entrepreneurs might find themselves directionless.
 Neglecting Marketing and Branding - Even the best products need visibility. Many entrepreneurs underestimate the importance of consistent branding and effective marketing.
 Ignoring Financial Management - Poor financial record-keeping, not understanding profit margins, or failing to plan for taxes can cripple an otherwise successful business.
 Launching prematurely - Some entrepreneurs get so excited about their idea that they launch their business too soon, without having everything planned out properly.
 Launching too late - Sometimes founders spend years creating their idea instead of getting it out there sooner at just the right time so that they can get invaluable feedback from their customers.
 Misunderstanding the real value of their product - Entrepreneurs can set their prices too high or too low if they do not understand the true value of their product.
 Not Setting Up Proper Legal Structures - This includes issues like not formalizing partnership agreements, not protecting intellectual property, or not complying with regulations, all of which can lead to significant legal problems down the road.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://soundcloud.com/businessrepublic/mba2345-5-mistakes-to-avoid-when-starting-a-business-in-2023-free-ride-friday"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 5 Mistakes You Should Avoid When Starting a Business (Podcast Episode by $100 MBA)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.thebalancemoney.com/top-mistakes-when-starting-a-business-2948567" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 10 Mistakes To Avoid When Starting a Business (Article by The Balance)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://100mba.net/5-mistakes-you-should-avoid-when-starting-a-business/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 5 Mistakes You Should Avoid When Starting a Business (Article by $100 MBA)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Mistakes to Avoid When Starting a Business

<div>
 In the intricate ballet of business, few relationships are as simultaneously promising and precarious as the one between entrepreneurs and their investors. At its core, this partnership is a symbiotic dance where both parties seek mutual growth and shared visions. Yet, the path to harmonious collaboration is often riddled with misunderstandings, mismatched expectations, and unspoken anxieties. Understanding how to effectively engage with investors is a critical skill every entrepreneur must hone. This article aims to provide you with some tips to ensure that your interactions with investors lead to fruitful outcomes and sustained relationships.
 <h2>Here are the tips:</h2>
 <ul>
 An okay investor: will be respectful of you and your time and will move quickly with their decisions and actions to help you.
 A great investor: will be respectful, quick, and also problem-solve with you, ideally helping strategy for your company in a meaningful way, and even helping you get to the next round of funding.
 Remember that great investors are rare, okay investors can be found if one knows what to look for, and bad investors are aplenty. Don't take money just from anyone.
 A bad investor is exponentially worse for your company than a good investor is good - avoid them at all costs.
 Pitching: When pitching to investors prepare for the worst-case scenario when it comes to outcomes and questions they might have, and don’t get discouraged. Investors not buying your pitch is almost always the case and it might not mean anything per the quality of your idea/execution so don't hold it against you.
 Manage Expectations: It is okay to say or do things in order to please investors but also be practical and mindful that you have to build your product and solve a problem. So don’t overfit on pie-in-the-sky ideas just to please investors even if they just give you money to do these things. Investors are not all-knowing and they can burn your company to the ground.
 A Truism: Ask for advice and you might get money, don't ask directly for money as you probably won't get anywhere doing that.
 Due Diligence Goes Both Ways: Just as investors conduct due diligence on startups, you should research potential investors. Understand their track record, the other companies they have invested in, and speak to founders they've previously backed. This will give you insights into their working style and potential value addition.
 Clear Communication: Always be upfront and transparent about the progress, challenges, and roadblocks your company is facing. Investors appreciate honesty, and a transparent approach builds trust.
 Know Your Worth: Be confident in the valuation of your company. While it's essential to be flexible during negotiations, don't undervalue your business. Understand the market and where your company stands within it.
 Define Roles and Boundaries: Make sure to establish clear roles and boundaries. While some investors prefer a hands-on approach, others might be more passive. Ensure there's a mutual understanding of involvement from the start.
 Network: Leverage your investor's network. A significant advantage of having seasoned investors on board is the access to their connections. They can introduce you to potential partners, clients, or even future investors.
 Think Long-Term: Choose investors who align with your long-term vision for the company. An investor relationship is more than just a financial transaction; it's a long-term partnership.
 Term Sheets and Legalities: Always ensure you fully understand any term sheets, contracts, or agreements put in front of you. If necessary, get legal advice to clarify any ambiguities.
 Feedback Loop: Create a regular feedback loop. Periodic updates, even when not explicitly asked for, show professionalism and keep your investors engaged and informed.
 Finally, learn how to present to investors and convince investors via some of the links below (especially the ones by Paul Graham).
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljVan7CGBiE"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Startup Experts Share Their Investor Horror Stories (Video by YCombinator)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://fastercapital.com/content/How-To-Deal-With-Investors-When-Raising-Capital-for-a-Startup.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Deal With Investors When Raising Capital for a Startup (Article by FasterCapital)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/investors.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Present to Investors (Article by Paul Graham)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/convince.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Convince Investors (Article by Paul Graham)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Deal With Investors

<div>
 In today's digital age, a startup's success isn't just determined by its innovative solutions but also by its commitment to security. From the foundational step of installing SSL certificates to the nuances of data compliance laws, this comprehensive guide lays out essential cybersecurity practices for startups. Dive into a checklist that covers every corner, from encrypting data in transit to ensuring your team is security-aware. Remember, a breach isn't just a technical glitch; it's a dent in your brand's trust. Equip yourself and your startup with the knowledge to build a fortified digital fortress.
 
 <h2>Here are some tips:</h2>
 <ul>
 Install SSL for all of your public-facing sites/apps.
 Encrypt at rest, and in transit.
 Use cloud-based providers instead of hosting your own infrastructure.
 Use Duo or Two-Factor Authentication whenever possible.
 When sharing passwords with employees, share over secure channels, split the pass into parts, and share the parts over multiple channels.
 Be careful not to commit private keys and passwords, and use tools like the ones from this <a href="https://spectralops.io/blog/top-9-git-secret-scanning-tools/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">article</a> to prevent this from happening, or audit your repositories.
 Back up your data often, create a schedule for it.
 Make it a habit for your employees to not store any private or sensitive data on their local machines.
 When onboarding new team members or users do not give anybody more access than they actually need. Create one admin or handful of admins and make sure they guard their access/password with their life.
 Keep your server OS, machine OS, and all software up-to-date.
 Audit any code packages or libraries for security vulnerabilities every once in a while using tools like <a href="https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v8/commands/npm-audit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">npm-audit</a> and <a href="https://pypi.org/project/pip-audit/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">pip-audit</a>. If such packages are found to be guilty, find another library. Most languages should have such auditing tools; not just Javascript and Python.
 Use a password manager like the ones from this <a href="https://www.pcmag.com/picks/the-best-password-managers-for-businesses" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">list</a> and/or enforce strong/complicated passwords.
 Understand common attacks such as phishing, cross-site scripting (XSS), SQL injections, distributed denial-of-service attacks (DDoS), or cross-site request forgery attacks (CSRF).
 Understand data compliance and privacy laws that may be relevant to you such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, COPPA etc.
 Create a strong privacy policy and terms of service that protects you and your users.
 Use a VPN in places with public wifi such as coffee shops or airports.
 Only collaborate with third parties that take security seriously.
 Install great antivirus software across all your machines and servers. Make sure the antivirus also provides a firewall that can check to make sure any new downloads or internet requests are clean.
 When the team is small, have everyone be aware of security and have a best-practices document that everyone reviews often.
 As the team grows have someone own security like the CTO and have them hold everyone else accountable.
 Make security exciting by hosting fun security games, hackathons, show-and-tells, and getting employees to talk about security more often.
 </ul> 
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.knowledgehut.com/blog/security/cyber-security-for-startups"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Cybersecurity for Startups: (Article by Knowledgehut)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.coursera.org/articles/cybersecurity-best-practices" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 9 Cybersecurity Best Practices for Businesses in 2023 (Article by Coursera)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Security Best Practices for Startups

<div>
 
 In a highly competitive business ecosystem, startups often strive to outshine with novel solutions, optimized operations, and an exceptional user experience. Integrating the latest that ChatGPT has to offer can act as a catalyst for achieving these objectives.
 
 
 <h2>Here's the latest and greatest:</h2>
 
 
 ChatGPT Plugins (note that you can only use these tools if you subscribe to ChatGPT Plus) 
 Wolfram - Useful for solving complex problems and mathematical equations 
 Voxscript - Provides assistance with seamless, and automated data retrieval from the web 
 PDF Reader/Ask Your PDF - Allows for the search, summarization, and creation of PDF documents 
 Show me diagrams - Can create and edit process flows and diagrams 
 Zapier - Automates Zapier flows for you that can run multiple functions across the web (e.g. turning emails into tweets). 
 Video Insights - Can generate transcripts from videos, and create video analytics, among other things. 
 Link reader - Can search for and distill any information on the web 
 OpenTable - Can help book online reservations at restaurants 
 Expedia and Kayak - Seamless booking/integration of trips 
 Milo - An AI copilot to help parents manage tasks in their life 
 Prompt Perfect - Enhances the quality of your generative AI prompts 
 Wikipedia - Allows for deep informational searches 
 
 
 <h3 style="font-size:16px">ChatGPT Custom Instructions</h3>
 
 
 What are they? - They allow you to better configure and guide ChatGPT to give you exactly the answers you need in the format that you need. 
 How to configure them? - Follow this short <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rvd8VS_1CwY" target="_blank">video</a> from Daragh Walsh 
 Other best practices? - Give precise instructions, consider your audience in the crafting of the response, experiment with different instructions, and create step-by-step instructions for complex directives. 
 
 
 <h3 style="font-size:16px">ChatGPT Code Interpreter Best Use Cases</h3>
 
 <ul style="font-size:16px">
 <li>Analyze data upload (.csv, .xlsx, .json, .mp3, text, images, and many other files are supported)</li>
 <li>Create charts and predictive analytics from your data</li>
 <li>Convert files into different formats</li>
 <li>Modify and filter images</li>
 <li>Create QR codes from URLs</li>
 <li>Analyze PDF files (and other file types as well) for insights</li>
 <li>Analyze code</li>
 <li>Write code from scratch</li>
 <li>Edit videos in many formats (e.g. mp4, avi, mov, etc.)</li>
 <li>View geolocation data </li>
 </ul>
 
 
 P.S. - Very soon OpenAI will release DALL-E 3 to the ChatGPT interface, so we will be able to rely more on ChatGPT for image processing and a bit less on Midjourney perhaps.
 
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2M_paJf48I"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Top 10 ChatGPT Plugins You Can't Miss (Video by Howfinity)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://lifehacker.com/a-beginners-guide-to-using-chatgpt-plugins-1850578719" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 A Beginner's Guide to Using ChatGPT Plugins (Article by Lifehacker)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Some Useful ChatGPT Tips as of Oct. 2023

<div>
 With Elon Musk's new biography hitting the shelves last month, many Elon sleuths, aspiring founders, and stargazing creators have lined up to read it. While Elon is a very controversial and almost Machiavellian character in our era - it goes without saying the impact he has had on our society. From making electric cars a viable alternative, to inspiring projects like ChatGPT/OpenAI, and ushering an age where it will be normal to land on Mars. It goes without saying that Elon is a force to be reckoned with, and maybe we can learn from him and borrow some of his habits that could also work for us:
 <h2>Elon's Habits (use at your own risk):</h2>
 <ul>
 Delete, delete, delete - For most projects that he embarks on, Elon focuses a disproportionate amount of time on removing features or items that are not necessary. This forces one to think very deeply from first principles about the perfect design structure for the job which can save the most money, time, and have a very high chance of success.
 Work very hard and play very hard - Elon has been found saying many times that working 70-80 hour weeks allows one to get 2-3x the amount of goals done than someone who is only working a standard 40-hour workweek. While this is true, it also comes with many costs including jeopardizing your health, your relationships, and is difficult to sustain in the long term. Elon combats this by also playing very hard as well, by doing things like playing the videogame Elden Ring until 5:30 am.
 One singular focus and vision and a 20-year roadmap - It was very clear for Elon what he wanted to accomplish, even as he was in his early 20s. Elon's ultimate goal is to help us understand more about the universe so that we can be able to ask better questions that can help us better answer the question "What is the universe and what is our purpose in it?". While this seems very out of reach and SciFi, he found a way to backtrack and plan for it by first focusing on selling easier products to make some initial money such as with Zip2 and PayPal. He then knew that in order for us to be a space-faring society, we needed to master energy, and in particular renewables - so he founded Tesla. Fast forward to the present day and he is running SpaceX, a company whose mission is to make humanity multi-planetary. Find your 20+ year vision, and backtrack your way to make it worthwhile. And don't forget to shoot for the moon, because if you miss you will still land among the stars.
 Learn to channel your inner Demon Mode if needed - It is noble and honorable to be a kind and generous individual. However, there are some points in time, where the stakes are very high, and where you need to tune your empathy down and focus ruthlessly on the logical facts, then have a deep determination to come out ahead without hopefully burning too many bridges. It is this get-stuff-done attitude at all costs that enabled him to have such big wins in his life.
 Live like you only have $1,000 in your account this month - Even after making $180 Million from his PayPal exit, Elon still managed to live frugally and live off of friend's couches. Most of his energy and attention was focused on his next venture. There is some wisdom in there. You don't have to live like a monk but you should probably re-evaluate if what you are spending your time and money on is truly aligned on your singular goal.
 Forget about stability and balance and embrace chaos, uncertainty, and do things that might scare you but move you closer to your goals. Sometimes it is the things that scare us that are the #1 areas that need attention for us to grow.
 Be fearless and put yourself in positions to act fearlessly this will build up your courage even more - From a very early age dealing with bullies and an adverse environment, he learned that he needed to act in a fearless way in order to get what he wants. This skill is one of the most important to master because only by being fearless we can start to embark on bold journeys that will create paradigm shifts in our lives. Start small, and build this muscle up.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_1/135-2350303-5523752?pd_rd_w=04wvS&content-id=amzn1.sym.116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_p=116f529c-aa4d-4763-b2b6-4d614ec7dc00&pf_rd_r=1TCDBV30C9NE1GNVNVY3&pd_rd_wg=l2hrl&pd_rd_r=ceb71ca8-d5a4-47a3-b771-e7d37c3bb313&pd_rd_i=1982181281&psc=1"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Elon Musk (Book by Walter Isaacson)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/what-weand-muskcan-learn-from-walter-isaacsons-rufus-griscom/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 What We—and Musk—Can Learn from Walter Isaacson's Biography (Article by Rufus Griscom)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZMNiND8ZIc" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Elon Musk&apos;s Business Lessons (Video by Brighter with Herbert)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Top Lessons From Elon Musk's Biography by Walter Isaacson

<div>
 Reddit is an often overlooked gold-mine in finding loyal users for your product. Most people think of product launches, Twitter/X or ad-sense for B2C or LinkedIn for B2B. But I am here to propose an overlooked alternative where you can meaningfully build connections with the community you are looking to serve. This is because Reddit is created as a community with sub-channels that welcome everyone (granted you abide by the rules). And you can treat these conversations as deeply or superficially as you would like, but you probably shouldn't do the latter. There is a growing advantage of treating your users like your loyal friends instead of just numbers on a spreadsheet.
 
 <h2>Here are some tips to get you started with acquiring users on Reddit</h2>
 
 <h3>The Required Pre-Work</h3>
 
 <ul>
 Join all relevant subreddits to your niche that pertain to your product.
 Read the rules of those subreddits thoroughly and beware of self-promotion rules (most subs have them).
 Build up your Karma (point system that shows how much you have contributed to the community) to develop trust by truly engaging with posts and the community and helping out.
 Make sure you have a memorable Reddit username and avatar.
 </ul>
 
 <h3>The User Acquisition Aspect</h3>
 
 <ul>
 Remember that the more you show up to help your community and get upvotes, the more people will remember you - and when you try to acquire users your success rate will skyrocket.
 Be genuine and transparent - focus more on helping the community rather than having a sole goal of dropping links to market your product.
 Contact moderators if you want to self-promote your product and the request will go smoother if you are offering a free and valuable service that directly helps users in that sub. You can contact moderators through Modmail.
 Responding to comments with your tool as a link in case it is free, helpful for that question, and very relevant. This is gray territory and some moderators might take measures against this - so the more you abide by the free/helpful/relevant guidelines, the better your odds.
 Consider doing free giveaways such as free trials, educational content, or the freemium part of your site.
 Try using tools such as <a href="https://accounts.reddit.com/adsregister" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Reddit Ads</a> and <a href="https://howitzer.co/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Howitzer</a> to automatically stay up to date on important conversations related to your product and chime in if needed.
 </ul> 
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.indiehackers.com/post/reddit-marketing-101-2fa228b3f7"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Reddit Marketing 101 (Article by Yasser)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0F1JrmoxTw" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Reddit Marketing 101: 5 Steps Ways to Drive a Ton of Free Traffic from Reddit (Video by Neil Patel)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://zapier.com/blog/reddit-marketing/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Reddit marketing: How to get it right (and wrong) (Article by Danielle Antosz)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

User Acquisition on Reddit

<div>
 Okay, so you have a website, app, or online presence. You also spent a great amount of time doing things that don't scale and talking to your customers, getting the word out, and bringing them to your site. Without a way to nurture these customers, all of your efforts will be in vain. You must find a way to get those customers to convert. Convert into paying customers, recurring users, and ideally get the word out to more customers. But how does one do this? It is a very hard thing to do with various studies pointing to about a 3% conversion rate on average for e-commerce websites. But this is something we must do regardless, and we should strive to do better than 3%.
 <h2>Here are some tips that could help:</h2>
 <ul>
 Social Proof: Include a banner or a revolving testimonial section with the clients that work with you or that endorse you. Check out <a href="https://www.invisionapp.com/inside-design/testimonial-page-examples/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Inside Design</a> for examples.
 Call to Action: Have a clear call to action that is consistent and repeated as the user scrolls down the page. Avoid too many calls to action or different actions, as this can overwhelm users and reduce participation.
 Frictionless Sign up/Onboarding: Simplify the sign-up process with as few steps as possible, like using Google login instead of creating a new account and password.
 Perfect Who and What Messaging: Be very clear and concise about what the product is and who it’s for.
 Increase Page Speed: Aim to increase load speed to less than 2 seconds, ideally less than 1 second.
 Most Important Information Above the Fold: Place the most critical information, such as the call to action and who/what messaging, on the first page without the need for scrolling.
 Simplicity Wins: Keep messaging and design simple. Overly complicated designs can overwhelm users and distract from important parts like the call to action.
 Include an Onboarding Tutorial: Guide new users step by step on what to do next after signing up. Focus on important features and blur out the rest.
 If the Product is Complex, Include a Video on the First Page: Highlight relevant parts of the video for the user's comfort level and unique selling proposition. Blur insignificant parts and avoid overwhelming users with too much information.
 Include Lead Magnets on Your Page: Offer valuable information like blog posts, white papers, or a freemium part of your product in exchange for contact info or account creation.
 Create User Email Sequences: Continuously nurture customers with email sequences, guiding them through the funnel.
 For Better Conversions, Include Live Chat on Your Site: Offer live help via chat for users browsing your products. This personalized interaction can be very appealing.
 Build Community: Create spaces like Discord/Slack/Private Facebook groups for your users and continuously engage with them.
 Use A/B Tests to Experiment: Test different website/product variations using tools like <a href="https://www.optimizely.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Optimizely</a> or <a href="https://vwo.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">VWO</a>. Refer to this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIT-Uo5gV58" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">guide</a> for more help.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJTxDqjO4vg&list=WL&index=111"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Design Tips to Convert More Customers | Design Review (Video by Y Combinator)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dobgpL_Rqmk&list=WL&index=120" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 96% Of Your Landing Page Visitors Will NEVER Convert (And How to Improve That) (Video by Neil Patel)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf9IOEohZBM&list=WL&index=119" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Turn Ice Cold Visitors Into Loyal Customers (Video by Neil Patel) </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Converting Visitors to Customers

<div>
 We stare at dozens of types of platforms, websites, and phone layouts on a daily basis. There's a certain type of magic that makes these designs look useful, functional, or even inspiring, and we often take it for granted. But to create this magic, we must first understand some important laws of design.
 Let's start with the three most important ones that you should remember if you remember nothing else from this post. Let's call these the beginner and fundamental laws.
 <h2>Beginner Level Laws</h2>
 <ul>
 Fitt's law - Ensure that forms and buttons on your screens are large enough, spaced out enough, and close enough to where a user's cursor or attention is, helping them interact with the website faster.
 Jakob's law - We are creatures of habit and culture, so it's crucial to incorporate similar design elements and paradigms from other popular sites. For example, in designing a magical door, you would place the doorknob in the middle, not at the top or bottom, for intuitiveness.
 Hick's law - Simpler designs are better. Limit the elements and features of your page to the essentials that convey your message without overwhelming the user. If a page has too many components, consider splitting them into different user journeys or pages.
 </ul>
 Continuing on, if you have more energy, let's move on to the intermediate laws.
 <h2>Intermediate Level Laws</h2>
 <ul>
 Miller's law - Related to Hick's law, it suggests that the average user can only keep about seven items in their working memory. When designing a part of your website, try not to include more than 7 components, breaking each part into smaller chunks.
 Doherty threshold - Aim for load times of 1/2 a second for different parts of your application, as this has been found to be the optimal wait time for user productivity and engagement.
 Von Restorff Effect - When many elements are similar, the one that differs will stand out and be remembered the most. This is useful for making important content look and feel different from the rest.
 </ul>
 Finally, to become a design expert, it's helpful to understand and implement the following advanced laws.
 <h2>Pro Level Laws</h2>
 <ul>
 Postel's law - Be strict and detailed in your instructions, but flexible and empathetic in how you allow the user to interact with your product.
 Tesler's law - There is a certain amount of complexity in a system or website that cannot be reduced. The key is to hide or absorb this complexity for the user, making it simple for them and more complex for us, the creators.
 Aesthetic Usability Effect - Users perceive products that are aesthetically pleasing as more usable. Strive for beauty in design.
 Peak end rule - Users tend to remember the first or last thing they see more vividly. Make these experiences memorable and superior to the rest.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fYs2Mdyasuc"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Laws of UX - 19 Psychological Design Principles (Video by Joseph from LearnSketch)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://lawsofux.com/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Laws Of UX (Interactive Website by JON YABLONSKI)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Universal Laws of Design

<div>
 In the dynamic world of business, success hinges on the ability to set clear goals and effectively manage daily tasks. This guide provides a two-pronged approach to business growth and personal productivity.
 <h2>Through the lens of business</h2>
 <ul>
 Pick a primary KPI (key performance indicator) metric like revenue/usage for B2C, letters of intent/pilots for B2B, positive research results for hard-tech - pick the standard ones and don't get too clever here.
 Pick ancillary metrics that can build up to that KPI metric. Think of these as levers to optimize in order to increase that primary KPI metric as it can get quite complex and you need these sub-metrics to help you stay closer to practical aspects of improving your KPI metric. For example: the main KPI metric of usage could be broken down into the ancillary metrics of a user's session length, frequency of use, churn rate, retention rate, etc.
 Focus on increasing the main KPI metric by optimizing your ancillary metrics.
 Talk to users, and build: When all else fails focus on talking to users for feedback and building your product based on that feedback.
 Paying customer feedback &gt; Free customer feedback: It is important to get feedback from paying customers because the feedback from free customers might be wildly different, and at the end of the day you want to work on a business and project that pays.
 Put less emphasis on things that might feel productive or look cool (e.g., social media posting, talking to investors, finding the best lawyers, etc.)
 Share your KPIs with your community and friends to keep you accountable.
 Break things down: Turn your KPIs and Ancillary Metrics into goals and try to break these down into granular tasks, as granular as you are comfortable with.
 Be prepared to pivot and reorganize your goals/KPIs as you learn new information.
 Celebrate big wins as they can keep you and your team going when the times get tough.
 </ul>
 <h2>Through the lens of the day-to-day</h2>
 <ul>
 Use a task-tracking tool that works for you (e.g., Todoist, Trello, Asana, Google Keep, Evernote, Notion, etc.)
 Create your to-do list and schedule for tomorrow the night before.
 Prioritize your list by having an easy-win as your first task to help you build momentum, then add the most important tasks that you need to get done that day, followed by some nice-to-haves - rank these in the order of priority.
 Offload to the next day: Whatever does not get done today gets added to tomorrow's list.
 Create a few main goals for the next few years - these are your grand goals and your true north.
 Zoom in on this year: Think of the goals that you need to hit this year in order for you to stay on track for your grand goals, write these down.
 Zoom in on this month: At the start of every new month this year, create a few main goals that can help you achieve your yearly goals.
 Zoom in on this week: At the start of every new week, create a few main goals that can help you achieve your monthly goals.
 Zoom in on today and tomorrow: Constantly check your weekly goals when creating and prioritizing tasks for the next day.
 Repeat this cycle and don't be afraid to pivot when you have new overwhelming information that things need to be done a different way.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJIBAp48Pv8&list=WL&index=87"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Michael Seibel - How to set your KPI? (Video by Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DTK9yDP6p0&list=WL&index=80" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Setting KPIs and Goals | Startup School (Video by Startup School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://asana.com/resources/make-better-to-do-lists" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 15 secrets to make a to-do list that actually works (Article by Asana)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Introduction to Strategic Business Planning and Daily Task Management

<div>
 Before we delve into the specifics, it's important to understand why someone might pursue this path. Companies like OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, and other large language model (LLM) creators are primarily focused on artificial general intelligence (AGI). This means their primary goal isn't to fine-tune AI models for specific business cases or niche products. Their focus on AGI offers us a significant opportunity. We can tailor these general models like ChatGPT, Gemeni, and Llama to our specific problem areas in fields such as sports, hospitality, music, and more.
 We are still at the dawn of this major transition. A good analogy is when Apple first introduced the App Store, and every developer wanted to publish their app due to the lack of competition. The same principle applies to ChatGPT chatbots fine-tuned for specific market problems. But how do we create one? Using OpenAI and ChatGPT, it's much easier than you might think.
 <h2>Custom ChatGPT Creation Guide</h2>
 <ul>
 1. Subscribe to ChatGPT Plus for approximately $20/month.
 2. Visit the ChatGPT website on OpenAI and navigate to Explore -&gt; Create a GPT.
 3. Follow the provided instructions to guide the creation of your chatbot.
 4. Note that you can define its tone of voice, personality, operational instructions, and integrate resources like internet search, web pages, code interpreters, or your own database by uploading text, PDF, JSON, CSV, Excel files, etc.
 5. After creating your custom chatbot, you can share it privately with your users or create a public link.
 6. Remember, the service is currently in Beta and may have some limitations and bugs.
 7. The launch of the Custom ChatGPT marketplace is expected in early 2024, featuring a shared revenue model, enabling you to earn from users who utilize your chatbot.
 </ul>
 <h2>Adding the Custom ChatGPT to Your Website or Service</h2>
 <ul>
 The custom ChatGPTs are primarily developed on the OpenAI infrastructure and bot store. Your GPT creation will be accessible on the OpenAI website through a private link. But if you want more control over where your users interact with your chatbot, such as integrating it directly into your product or website, follow these steps:
 1. Learn how to use the ChatGPT <a href="https://platform.openai.com/docs/assistants/overview" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Assistants API</a> or consider hiring a developer for assistance.
 2. Create an assistant instance and develop a user interface for your product's users to interact with the assistant API.
 3. If you prefer a NoCode approach, explore platforms like <a href="https://www.voiceflow.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Voiceflow</a> and follow tutorials like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk5f3ajkfSs&list=WL&index=75" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">this one</a>.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://zapier.com/blog/custom-chatgpt/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to build your own custom ChatGPT with OpenAI's GPT builder (Article by Zapier)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://player.fm/series/the-100-mba-1567472/mba2400-how-to-create-your-own-chat-gpt-free-ride-friday" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How To Create Your Own Chat GPT (Podcast Episode from The $100 MBA Show)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk5f3ajkfSs&list=WL&index=76" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Add Custom GPTs to Any Website in Minutes (OpenAI GPTs Tutorial) (Video by Liam Ottley)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

How to Create Your Own Custom ChatGPT For Your Business

<div>
 One of the most interesting and revealing aspects of Elon Musk's new book by Walter Isaacson speaks to something called "Elon's Algorithm". This algorithm has created 10x to 100x efficiencies in his businesses and drove his engineers mad, pushing them to either hit a breaking point or thrive. While this approach is quite extreme, there is no question that it can yield results that are thought to be unimaginable. One of the most phenomenal results was getting his Tesla factories a few years ago to produce 4,000 cars per week when most of the car manufacturing field thought that even 1,000 cars was pushing it. Imagine what we could accomplish if we applied Elon's Algorithm to our creative endeavors:
 <h2>Elon's Algorithm</h2>
 <ul>
 1. Question every requirement: Make sure that every task, To-Do item, meeting in your calendar, or action you take is fully tied to the most important parts and KPIs of your business.
 2. Delete as many parts as possible: Of the things you are working on, start deleting tasks until it makes you uncomfortable to only be left with the ones that will truly push your business and KPIs to success. A good rule of thumb is that if you are not adding 10% of those tasks back later, you are not deleting enough.
 3. Simplify and Optimize: After the first two steps above are completed, think outside the box before you start each one to see if there is a way to do it faster, or simplify it. For instance, if you are looking to implement an authentication scheme for your app, maybe you can stop to think whether using Auth0 or Firebase could make your life much easier/faster in the long run.
 4. Accelerate Cycle Time: So you tried to simplify the tasks and got some improvements, and you have done tasks like these before. Now, before you start the tasks, try to spend a little bit of time brainstorming to see how you can do the tasks faster next time around.
 5. Automate: This step only applies after having done a task many times and having a clear path forward - knowing that the task needs to stay, and the only way to truly make progress is to completely automate it. Remember that this step should happen last, because if we try to automate from the beginning we are bypassing important aspects of Elon's algorithm and we could get stuck in a suboptimal state by automating things that are either unnecessary or ones that require too much ad-hoc tinkering.
 </ul> 
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281/ref=sr_1_1?dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.ErJ4P2lX4pbBPppmmzbJ0lh2MDEuPwiRbEA5-zr0hutDZ2d3KnMjnNqivYsDClDYK9lH_nz6Qjew3FSwodlQSJkmh0pgf9sEdy13WpfHJTP751yX9mgMPPIE5j-Tpy1spIhaKM_qyHBF4UPggpoTkQNCh7T2I6ldpaa7lTmUvpnxIw0Q-Dzhm4WCZIh4RjdY4HnVDb-k7t5hmKOrnNpd3cNhM1t7zjySC3E8RJ6iWrA.goElMtrsYdNqFKmkm2QKoIM_rjzwiBhLzCYFYzJZtHI&dib_tag=se&hvadid=677030092682&hvdev=c&hvlocphy=9028801&hvnetw=g&hvqmt=e&hvrand=14432864483592793554&hvtargid=kwd-1934003453932&hydadcr=22136_13517515&keywords=elon+musk+book+walter+isaacson&qid=1705363536&sr=8-1"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Elon Musk (Book by Walter Isaacson)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.inc.com/jeff-haden/elon-musks-algorithm-a-5-step-process-to-dramatically-improve-nearly-everything-is-both-simple-brilliant.html" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Elon Musk's 'Algorithm,' a 5-Step Process to Dramatically Improve Nearly Anything, Is Both Simple and Brilliant (Article by Inc)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Elon's Algorithm - Applied to Your Business

<div>
 Omar Zenhom, founder of the successful webinar platform WebinarNinja in 2014, gained prominence with its rapid growth by 2018. He also hosts "The $100 MBA Show," a hit podcast named one of Apple's Best of 2014, with over 200 million downloads globally. His significant contributions to online business education are rooted in his vast experience in business and teaching.
 And now, he sold his SaaS business WebinarNinja, and published a really good podcast episode about the timeless lessons he learned along the way.
 <h2>Omar's Lessons</h2>
 <ul>
 Market momentum is key - Work on a big and painful problem and a main pain point for a type of customer.
 Constraints are a boon - When funds or resources are tight it forces one to focus and be innovative as well as resourceful to make things work.
 Hire slowly but fire quickly - Take your time to find the best person for the job as taking the wrong hire may cost you a lot.
 You must keep evolving for your customers - If you stay the same your product will tank over time as the user's interests change and the market changes.
 People Network is super important - You need people to help you when you have gaps, get stuck, or make useful connections for you.
 Cashflow is paramount - Being profitable is more important than anything else, so focus on that when making decisions. Have a P&L sheet and review it daily or weekly.
 To create something great, sacrifices must be made - Focus on what is important to you such as your business, your family, or your health. Everything else is a bonus depending on how much time you have left.
 You are not your business - A business is a means to an end, this allows you to create something and sell it, and while the product is no longer yours, the experience and growth you acquired will always stay with you.
 Every day in business is a gift - If you are profitable take the time to stop and be grateful that you are part of the selective club of 5% of people in the world who operate a business, and it is a blessing to have this. So enjoy the moment and enjoy the journey.
 "The cowards never started, the weak died along the way, that leaves us - Phil Knight"
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://100mba.net/mba2418/"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 MBA2418 Why I Sold WebinarNinja and What I Learned Along The Way + Free Ride Friday (Podcast Episode by Omar Zenholm)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://noahkagan.com/validating-product-ideas-omar-zenhom-webinarninja/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Create a Successful SaaS Business: Lessons from Building WebinarNinja (Article by Noah Kagan)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Omar Zenhom's Top Lessons After Selling His SaaS Company

<div>
 Y Combinator (YC) is a prominent American seed money startup accelerator renowned for its pioneering approach to funding early-stage startups. Over its 20-year history, YC has played a crucial role in launching more than 3,000 companies, including tech giants like Airbnb, Instacart, Coinbase, and Stripe. The partners at YC, with their extensive experience, have seen a vast array of startup successes and failures. They have shared their insights widely, offering valuable advice on what aspiring entrepreneurs should and shouldn’t do to succeed.
 <h2>According to YC, here's what not to do if you want your company to succeed</h2>
 <ul>
 Give Up - One of the most common stories is the founder giving up on the startup because they no longer believe in it. Most highly successful founders somehow go through these seemingly insurmountable lows where all the signals point to the company not working out, and somehow still (almost deliriously) believing that it will. This is an important skill to have and cultivate, and the founders that have it, are indomitable. If you ever find yourself in this position, a good rule of thumb is to ask yourself if you are still enjoying the journey and see how many more strong moves you have left. If you don't have many more moves left in your company for it to succeed, and are only coming up with bad ideas (e.g. increase ad-spend), and don't think you are enjoying it anymore, then maybe it is time to move on or pivot.
 Be a Single Founder - Another common problem is trying to succeed on your own as a single founder. Having at least one other co-founder creates an emergent effect where the result is much more than the sum of its parts. Moreover, people have their strengths and weaknesses. So having a co-founder who has your weaknesses as strengths, and vice versa - your productivity will skyrocket.
 Not Talking To And Understanding Your Users Intimately - A lot of founders, and especially ones with an engineering background, really don't like to talk to users. Or they think that talking to them only at the beginning for a little bit, is enough. The problem is that your startup needs to solve your customers' problems, and so everything you need to be working on is an extremely tight coupling with what the users actually want. Without continuously talking to them at every stage of your startup's growth, you run the risk of veering off track.
 No Product Market Fit - This is a derivative of not understanding your customers deeply enough. Without an intimate knowledge of what your customers want, who they are, and where they hang out - it is impossible to understand what the market is, and whether your product offers a solution to what the market needs.
 Not Solving A Big Painpoint - So your customers like your product, but it doesn't solve a big enough problem for them where they are beckoned to use your product all the time, and maybe even pay you for it. If you don't see users coming back or paying, and when talking to them, they seem quite nonchalant about the problem space you are innovating in - chances are you are not solving a big enough problem and need to pivot.
 No Openness to Pivot/Change - There are very few startups that succeeded which didn't have to do a major pivot in their lifetime. Change is growth, even when it seems like the wrong thing to do - listen to what your customers want.
 Co-Founder Split/Fights - Just like romantic couples divorce, there may come a time when you and your co-founder either become incompatible or get into big fights and arguments that are existential to your startup. While this is very difficult to avoid, it certainly helps if you know your co-founder very well, and are over-communicating so that small fights don't turn into existential threats later on. Your co-founder(s) running off with ~50% of your company creates enough chaos to throw a huge wrench in your company's progress and vision.
 Spending Too Much Money Too Quickly - Scarcity forces innovation and forces you and your team to be very meticulous about how to spend time and resources. This is incredibly hard to achieve if a VC or accelerator gives you 500k - it may seem like you're on top of the world. However, that 500k runs out faster than you think if you are not incredibly meticulous and reserved in how you use it. Live and work like a cash-strapped bootstrapper and give yourself more runway!
 Not Moving Fast Enough - Speed builds momentum, and momentum creates success/serendipity. If you are not spending at least 10 quality hours on your company per week, chances are that you are not moving fast enough for the company to ever get anywhere - in most cases.
 Not Having A Rockstar Technical Co-Founder - First of all, find a technical co-founder if you're not one yourself. Then make sure that whoever is a technical dev has had enough experience to not be phased about creating something that they haven't done before, from scratch. Make sure that they have been put in that position time and time again and succeeded. Also make sure that they understand how startups work, and how quick/lean they have to operate. Spending two months building out the end-to-end test suite for your product is hardly a good time investment unless you are working on launching rockets.
 Scaling Too Fast - You have Product-Market Fit and users are begging to use your software, breaking things in the process as users are flooding your servers - what a great problem to have. Instead of trying to 10x everything (e.g. employees, servers, procedures, etc.) you should think twice about what the right scaling is for your company. Scale to fit the demand or maybe even slower, so that your employees, customers, procedures, and culture can keep up with the change. Super rapid change over the span of a few months can cause havoc on your culture, profits, churn, and much more - scale carefully.
 Raising Too Little or Too Much Money - Be extra judicious about how much money you need, and only ask for that. It helps to think and run lean, most teams that run this way tend to be very creative, resourceful, and innovative - succeeding in the process.
 No Differentiation in the Market - Do something different, and do it better. This ensures you stand out in a saturated market and captures the interest of your potential customers effectively.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.ycombinator.com/library/8t-the-18-mistakes-that-kill-startups"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The 18 mistakes that kill startups (Article by YCombinator)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dgmmje5WHWA" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The 5 things that kill startups after their seed rounds with Michael Seibel, CEO of Y Combinator (Video by Michael Siebel from YCombinator)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://longform.asmartbear.com/avoid-blundering/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Avoid blundering: 80% of a winning strategy (Article by Jason Cohen)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

The Biggest Mistakes That Kill Startups

<div>
 What is Retention?
 Retention is all about how well a business can keep its customers over a set period. In the world of B2C SaaS (Business-to-Consumer Software as a Service), it’s a measure of how many users stick around and/or keep paying for the service after their initial subscription. It’s usually expressed as a percentage, showing how many customers stay subscribed at the end of a period compared to the beginning. High retention rates mean users find ongoing value in the service, while low rates signal potential issues with customer satisfaction or the product’s relevance.
 Why is it Important?
 Retention is vital for B2C SaaS companies because it directly influences long-term revenue and growth. High retention rates ensure a reliable stream of recurring revenue, which is crucial for sustaining business operations and profitability. Moreover, keeping existing customers is generally more cost-effective than acquiring new ones, as it demands less marketing and sales effort. Strong retention also indicates customer satisfaction and loyalty, leading to positive word-of-mouth referrals and a strong brand reputation. In short, focusing on retention helps SaaS businesses build a stable customer base and achieve sustainable growth.
 The best way to calculate it: Cohort based analysis
 Note that a picture is worth a thousand words, so read the logic below and then refer to the diagram called "Subscription Retention" around the 1/3rd mark of the following article called - <a href="https://www.chargebee.com/blog/chargebee-churn-rate-cohort-analysis-retention-strategies/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">How to Conduct Churn Rate Cohort Analysis to Improve Retention (Article by Chargebee)</a>
 <ul>
 1. Pick one metric that shows that the user is retained for your startup. It could be that the user needs to log in 3 times, is still paying for your service, or they must share a post in your social media app. Whatever measurement from your findings that is a good indicator that the user has your product top-of-mind and is using it consistently.
 2. Find a cadence of measurement. It could be daily, weekly, or monthly; although monthly is a popular choice because it is a Goldilocks zone where enough time has passed from the previous month to understand if the changes you made and features you built are reflected in the new cohorts one month later. Weekly also works, but daily is too often and only works in very rare cases.
 In all the future steps, we will assume a cadence of 1 month, but this could be different for you. You may also download
 3. At the end of the month (say June 2024), a new cohort is born. Create a new row for this month and count the number of users that made an account and are retained that month based on your retention metric and cadence. Make a note of these users because you will be tracking these June 2024 users forever.
 4. One month later (say July 2024), for the cohort from before, track if those users are still retained and write how many are still retained. As time goes by, every new month will get a new column that tracks how many of the original users from June 2024 are still retained. Ideally, the number will stay the same, but very likely it will go down (e.g. 100 retained users in June, 80 of those users are still retained in July, 50 in August, 40, 38, 35, etc.). So in our example in July we will have 80 out of 100 total users so we will have 80% there.
 5. Repeat for next month. Remember that one month later (July 2024) we also need to start tracking a new cohort. So create a new row for this month and count the number of users that have made an account that month. Do the same thing we did in June and remember that this should not take into account any of the users that made an account in June or any month prior.
 6. Do this until present day continuously. Keep doing this until the present day, adding a new row and column for every new month, and track how many users sign up in the new row for that new month, and how many users are still retained from your previous cohorts converted to a percentage of the total for when that cohort was born (e.g. what month).
 7. Now you have a matrix of sorts that tells you how users are retained in various parts of your product lifecycle. For instance, let’s say you pushed a huge feature in August that created a lot of buzz and fixed a lot of problems. You might see from this retention matrix how effective your feature release was by seeing spikes in retention in August and beyond.
 8. To compute churn, you simply take the original users at the start of your cohort measurement (month 0) as the total. Then for month X, your churn will be = 1 - (retained users in month X / total) * 100 (as a percent). So the same matrix that computes retention can also compute your churn.
 </ul>
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwCATJh4lNg"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Customer Retention & Cohort Analysis | How VCs Calculate Customer Retention (Video by Eric Andrews)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.chargebee.com/blog/chargebee-churn-rate-cohort-analysis-retention-strategies/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Conduct Churn Rate Cohort Analysis to Improve Retention (Article by Chargebee)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Scaling-Lean-Mastering-Metrics-Startup/dp/1101980524" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Scaling Lean: Mastering the Key Metrics for Startup Growth (Book by Ash Maurya)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

The Best Way to Measure Retention for B2C SaaS Startups

<div>
 In our fast-paced digital age, the sheer volume of information available at our fingertips can be overwhelming. Just as we carefully choose what we eat to maintain physical health, it’s crucial to curate the information we consume to nurture our mental well-being. A healthy and effective information diet helps us stay informed without becoming overloaded, enabling us to make better decisions, stay focused, and ultimately be more productive. In business, these are priceless virtues.
 
 <h2>Useful Information Habits I've Picked Up Over The Years</h2>
 
 Consume with the purpose of retaining and taking notes - As professionals and growth-minded individuals, we consume potentially dozens of hours of content per week in the form of books, articles, newsletters, podcasts, and more. At some point a few years ago I fell into the trap of trying to consume more and more without truly asking myself what's the point. Over time I started to forget what I was consuming at a rapid pace, mostly because my attention was degrading. I was paying attention to too many things. Since then, I have tried to really pay attention to what I consume, actively try to listen, and write down my favorite insights. If nothing else, I try to mark down at least one thing that I learned in my notes, to-do list, or an ever-growing list I own called the "Gold Nuggets" which you will learn more about below. Over time, if you are listening to content that does not beg you to write it down somewhere (unless you are consuming content for leisure of course), you might be wasting your time with that content. As I've continuously worked on this habit, I have started to be very selective with what content I consume and truly pay attention - this habit has helped me tremendously.
 
 Have a place for notes you really want to review and remember - One can really expand on this, as I keep my notes fairly simple. I have a list on my Apple Notes app called "Gold Nuggets". That's where I write down very insightful things I read that I want to remember. I review random items from this list every week so I can keep these notes fresh in my mind. An example of a gold nugget would be something like "Prioritization beats efficiency any day of the week" which is an insight I learned from a podcast a long time ago.
 
 Have a list of desired qualities for your life and your business, and review these every week - We all have things we wish we did more of in order to live a life more in tune with our values. For instance, being health conscious - I always need to remind myself to not slouch when I sit down or when I walk, or perhaps I need to get better at saying no so that I can prioritize my business. I write down all of these actions and review them weekly so that, at least at a subconscious level, I can self-correct and live a life that is more true to who I want to be.
 
 Prioritize Intentions - What good is having lists if you don't act on them? I try to have a monthly intention, weekly intention, and daily intention and review these intentions every morning. Moreover, I create new daily intentions for the following day every night, new weekly intentions at the end of the week, and new monthly intentions at the end of the month. For example, this month my intention is to be a little more active and assertive in conversation when talking to people instead of just being a good listener. My weekly intention is to double down on audience KPIs and tasks for my business, and my daily intention is to live in the moment. These intentions could be around business, personal life, or both!
 
 Have a list of all the tools you stumble across - We live in a time where there are new tools published every day whether they are physical tools or software tools and as you stumble across them you might not have time to try them right away but they might be useful later. Simply write down the URL and name of the tool in a list. Bonus if you could also write down what it does in a sentence so that you can quickly find it later.
 
 Have a list just for the sake of writing something down so that you might review or remember it later. If you need to write something down from a piece of content and it doesn't fit in any other list, you could call this your overflow list.
 
 Create an elaborate notes system - I personally write down my notes mostly on Google Keep, and use the search functionality in the app to find notes I need later on. Google Keep is also very fast, simple, and works on all my devices. These are the top characteristics that I look for. However, you can also look for other characteristics such as the ability to turn notes into to-do items (try <a href="https://todoist.com/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">todoist</a>). On the other hand, if you want your notes to be categorized and linked together so that they help foster a deeper understanding and recall for your brain - you can try out the Zettelkasten method and tools such as <a href="https://obsidian.rocks/getting-started-with-obsidian-a-beginners-guide/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">Obsidian</a>.
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLclCI-ZLn8"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 Low Information Diet - Tim Ferris's Productivity Hack (Video by The Life Formula)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OMOWb0AooY" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 14 BEST Note-Taking Apps of 2024 (Video by Tool Finder)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FvYJhpNvHY" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 The Science of Learning: How to Turn Information into Intelligence | Barbara Oakley | Big Think (Video by Big Think)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

A Healthy and Effective Information Diet

<div>
 Discover the unexpected SaaS trends of successful startups in 2024 from Rob Walling - the founder of MicroConf, TinySeed, and Drip.
 Note that you can also access the full report <a href="https://microconf.com/state-of-indie-saas" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer">here</a> if you're curious.
 Rob Walling recently administered one of the largest surveys to date in an aim to understand what makes founders succeed. One important thing to note about this survey - most of the founders in this survey are bootstrapped, non-venture track founders focusing more on B2B business and some on B2C businesses. If this is not you, take these results with a grain of salt.
 3 founders is better than 2, which is better than 4 and 1 for month-over-month growth rates.
 Require a credit card upon sign-up if you need to learn more about your market and who your target customer who is willing to pay is — if you know all that, don’t require it and work on optimizing your funnel in other ways by getting more people in the door with less friction (i.e., no credit card).
 Here is the ideal customer type and market for the best growth, so choose your market wisely if you can!
 <ul>
 <li>Enterprise: 27% (Average month-over-month growth rate)</li>
 <li>Mid-market Business: 22%</li>
 <li>NGOs: 18%</li>
 <li>Creators: 13%</li>
 <li>Small Business: 12%</li>
 <li>Aspiring Entrepreneurs: 10%</li>
 <li>Education: 6%</li>
 <li>Consumers: 5%</li>
 <li>Government: 2%</li>
 </ul>
 Having a free trial and requiring a credit card upon sign-up leads to the highest growth and lowest churn, but it can also widely depend on your market.
 Having a free trial with no credit card required, as well as using the freemium model, has slightly less growth and more churn, but it can also widely depend on your market.
 Not requiring a credit card leads to the highest lifetime value for the customer long term, followed by requiring a credit card, followed by freemium - but again, it can also widely depend on your market.
 Top 3 advertising channels: Google Adwords by far, Meta/Facebook Ads, LinkedIn Ads (especially for B2B founders).
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZYKy5bM_9nc&t=1164s"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 7 Surprising SaaS Trends Every Founder Must Know in 2024 (Video by MicroConf)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://microconf.com/state-of-indie-saas" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 State of Independent SaaS 2024 Report (Report by MicroConf)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Surprising SaaS Trends Every Founder Must Know in 2024 (Summary)

<div>
 Improving customer retention is crucial for startups as it not only boosts revenue but also strengthens long-term relationships with customers. Loyal customers are more likely to make repeat purchases, recommend your brand to others, and contribute to building a sustainable business. By focusing on retention, startups can reduce customer acquisition costs and foster a community of brand advocates, leading to steady growth and long-term success.
 Here’s a short guide to help you improve customer retention for your startup:
 
 Seamless User Experience
 Conduct walk-through interviews with your users to identify areas where they may encounter difficulties using your product. The user experience should be as intuitive as daily tasks, like using Google to search the internet. If the experience isn’t that smooth, keep refining it until it is.
 
 Smooth Onboarding
 Complementing the user experience, your onboarding process should quickly guide users from their initial interaction to a meaningful, valuable outcome. This transition should happen with minimal effort and thought. The longer and more complicated this process is, the less likely users will return—especially for consumer-focused products. Automate time-consuming onboarding tasks and make the process as simple and hands-on as possible.
 
 Find Better Users
 Every product that solves a problem has an ideal set of users who experience that problem more acutely than others. These are your target customers. The challenge lies in identifying who they are and where to find them. Once found, these users tend to be more engaged and loyal. You can identify them by segmenting your user base, pinpointing those who use your product the most. Talk to these users and track key information, such as how you acquired them, their demographics, and interests. This data will help you attract more users like them.
 
 Enable Network Effects
 This is particularly important for consumer startups. Gone are the days when an app could capture attention just because there were fewer alternatives. Today, apps compete with millions of others, along with videos, social media posts, and online experiences. For users to return, your product must create a multiplayer experience. The user should find the product or their interaction with it so compelling that they want to share it with friends—or better yet, use it together. Incorporating features that make your app a shared experience is essential for high retention.
 </div>

<ol>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNxBZ7ka5J0"
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 How to Improve Cohort Retention | Startup School (Video by YC School)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-retention-strategies" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 22 Examples of Customer Retention Strategies That Actually Work (Article by Hubspot)
 </a>
 </li>
 <li>
 <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/business/customer-retention-strategies/" 
 target="_blank"
 rel="noreferrer">
 14 Customer Retention Strategies That Work In 2024 (Article by Forbes)
 </a>
 </li>
 </ol>

Omar Zenhom's Top Lessons After Selling His SaaS Company

Omar's Lessons

If you want to learn more