Your product or service tells a story. It either tells one that’s clear and coherent, highlighting the challenges you’re most ready to solve for your ideal customer… Or it confuses them. The story you’re telling depends on whether you’re being thoughtful in the process, or building it blindly. And the difference between the two has a massive impact on
One of my favourite questions to ask someone is “Who’s the best [CMO/CTO/VP of Sales] you know?” I don’t care if they already have a job… I just want their name. Actually, I prefer if they’re already working because it allows me to build a relationship with them without the pressure. My approach once I have a name is to
The first thing I ever built that I charged for was an MP3 burning app. I had just learned Visual Basic in one of my elective programming classes in highschool, and I wanted to see what I could create. The problem I wanted to solve was simple… As one of the few people at the time with a CD burner,
Every startup wants to grow fast. And while there’s value in modelling the tactics and strategies that have fueled the rapid success of companies they look up to… There’s even MORE value in identifying the core, underlying principles that serve as the backbone for that success. Over the years, I’ve identified 5 core elements behind the perfect software business. I
When I started my SaaS (that stands for Software-as-a-Service) startup Flowtown my co-founder Ethan and I had a tough decision to make… How do we fund the company? Even though I had the capital to self fund the whole thing, as I had just sold my previous company Spheric, he was 23 and didn’t have a penny to his name.
Have you ever struggled with your marketing website? Sure, they have templates and super slick WYSIWYG editors. But that doesn’t deal with the hard part: The content. WTF do I put on those pages? How do I turn lorem ipsum into monthly recurring revenue? How many pages should I have on my site? What should those pages be?… I need
How much does it cost you to acquire a customer? Understanding that will help you understand your model. Most founders think it’s just the cost of your advertising spend. Nope. It’s everything you spend on marketing (people + ad spend + contractors, etc) AND sales (everyone involved in the process + tools, etc)… And that still doesn’t include anyone you
How do you build a $100M revenue business in 3 years? That was the question my coaching client Larry asked me with a straight face. Now, before you dismiss his question, you need to know that he just exited his previous startup a few months earlier. So I knew he had the chops. What a great question I thought …
Facebook looks at daily active users. Airbnb.com uses bookings. At Clarity – my previous company – we obsessed over completed calls. These are called North Star Metrics. It’s a clear metric that your growth team focuses on to move the needle. The key is that it captures the value created for your customers, and allows everyone on the team –
I can still remember the moment I became a millionaire. It took 10 years of failing, getting back up, testing, iterating till finally at 27 years old it happened. I can still remember the specific moment when I found out. I was cruising in my broke down, decade old Jetta when my accountant Marc called me to break the news.
