Entrepreneurs are ALWAYS builders.

All that changes is what they are building.

Stage 1: building a product

Stage 2: building a team

Stage 3: building a culture

Stage 4: building a strategy

Stage 5: building an organization

Audience Building 101

Every company in the world is an audience company.

Whether it's a Media, VC, or DTC business, if you're not building audience Day 1, you're not prioritizing the right things.

Here's my framework for thinking about & building a killer audience 👇

I call it the Audience Funnel.

The concept is simple, but it allows you to...

1) Think strategically about building your own audience

2) Analyze the relative strength of other companies' audiences

3) Understand the similarities & differences of different audience channels

The Audience Funnel is divided into three tiers, which include:

1) Rented Audience

2) Owned Audience

3) Monetized Audience

Tier 1: Rented Audience

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁: This is your top of funnel. It allows you to build mass awareness & is key for developing a relationship with your audience.

𝗣𝗿𝗼𝘀: High shareability, high discoverability

𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀: You don't own your audience

Examples of Rented Audiences

- Social networks (IG, FB, Twitter, TikTok)
- Video platforms (Twitch, YouTube)
- Search engines (Web content)

Examples of Businesses with Big Rented Audiences

- @BuzzFeed (Instagram)
- @GoPro (YouTube)
- @charlidamelio (TikTok)

Introducing The 50.

Where I share the story and lessons of a top 50 largest company in the world.

Time for #3.

What started as a failing textile business became the 6th largest company in the world.

Let's dive in 🧵

Berkshire Hathaway is a multinational conglomerate that owns 60+ well-known businesses like Geico, Duracell, Kraft Heinz, and Dairy Queen.

It's also a highly coveted stock with one Class A share priced in at $430,000.

And it all began with Warren Edward Buffett...

• The Greatest Investor of All Time

• The Oracle of Omaha

• The Dumbledore of Investing (my personal fav)

Warren Buffett is a value investing legend and is responsible for growing Berkshire Hathaway into the $655 bn behemoth that it is today.

Born during the height of the Depression, Buffett watched his parents struggle to make ends meet in their hometown of Omaha, NE.

One night, a young Warren declared that he would make $1 million by the age of 35 or throw himself off the tallest building he could find in Omaha.

Buffet had a passion for numbers from a young age.

He collected bottle caps left outside of soda machines and analyzed for which brands and flavors customers preferred most.

This soon turned into tracking and recording stock prices that he would see in his father’s newspapers.

Total case study in expectation-setting by @JeffBezos.

If you want to understand how to communicate directly & candidly with employees, customers, partners, just read this...

1997 shareholder letter for those wondering

So you're a freelance marketer, designer, coach, growth hacker etc thinking about building your business in 2021. VC platform teams can be your ace in the hole.

We need you! We love you! We can be a great stream of biz ... IF you know how to pitch us.

Here's my advice:

PSA: if you don't know, VC platform teams are the (usually) non-investing professionals who support portfolio companies in functional areas.

@upfrontvc has a Head of Talent, a Head of Legal, and a Head of Marketing (me!) We're all former senior operators in startups.

As individuals we can't *do* the work for ~ 100 active companies, but we *can* reco resources to teams who may not have the experience, and definitely don't have time, to find them.

I look for fit in functional skills, category, pricing & chemistry. One size does not fit all.

So! Cold pitches work! But not like this: "I'm a freelance graphic designer, here's my book, please consider me, good day."

Problem is now I have to work to figure out if/where you would fit & I couldn't meet with everyone even if I wanted to.

A better 1st pitch:

1. Give me a functional/skills scope. Instead of "I'm a comms consultant" (generic) tell me "I'm a comms consultant who works with startups on messaging, media training and media relations."

Or: "I'm a growth consultant w/ a core focus on paid Facebook & Instagram campaigns."

How To Have An Amazing First Meeting (thread).

Learning how to hold amazing first meetings with prospective clients is the single most important "sales" skill a real financial planner can learn.

Here's what I've noticed is important.

Start with getting your head straight.

All the tips and tricks in the world are just hacks without the right mindset.

There are 3 shifts to make:

Mindset 1:

Desperate ---> Confident

No one wants to work with a desperate advisor. The purpose of a great first meeting is for the prospect AND YOU to decide if it's a good fit.

Believe that and it will change the way you think, feel, and act.

Mindset 2:

Salesperson ---> Doctor

I love sales...but the purpose of the first meeting is NOT SALES. It's understanding. You CANNOT write a prescription before you diagnose.

Mindset 3:

Numbers ---> Feelings

You might think you're in the spreadsheet and calculator business, and maybe you are...but you're also in the feelings business.

People need to be heard in the first meeting. Make room for that. Plan on it. Create it.

Search-funders and SMB buyers with sales experience are starting on second base.

Thread on how sales abilities improve your success odds in acquisition entrepreneurship:

1. SMB Deal Sourcing ~ SALES PROSPECTING

In order to buy a SMB, you need to see hundreds of candidates. How do you do that?

Like in Sales, you have two main prospecting avenues:

1. Inbound - Advertise or network with SMB professionals in your target market, e.g. business brokers / SBA lenders / CPAs / lawyers.

2. Outbound - Find and contact owners of SMBs that fit your criteria to see if / when they want to sell.

Inbound is nice because the opportunities come to you. But they might be few and far between.

Outbound is grunt work, i.e. "Dialing for dollars." Because of this (not in spite of it), outbound has advantages:

- More opportunities.

Higher-volume deal flow → better odds of a successful acquisition. Remember, it only takes one.

- Less competition.

Educated people shy away from grunt work. Your willingness to sweat will be rewarded with buried treasure (off-market deals).

How to Price Your Services in a Way You Don't Get Busto

// A THREAD //

Whether you're a full-time freelancer or you just want freelance on the side you have to know your price so you don't get busto.

We will discuss the three most common ways how to price your services:

- Hourly rate
- Project rate
- Service as a product

But basics first.

Don't think about the price as a one-night-stand.

Rather build a very close relationship with it.

It:

- helps you to increase/decrease demand
- gives hints about how good/bad your service is
- positions yourself on the market

Know how to use this tool.

Cheaper ≠ Better

Imagine someone selling you a car for $350.

What would you think about it?

Exactly.

Set the fair price, not the scam inducing one.

The cheap price will bring you a specific sort of people.
- to be polite.

So always compete with quality, not price.

1. Hourly rate

This is the most straightforward way how to set your price.

How to set it?

The basic equation may look like:
[Monthly target profit ($) + All costs ($)] / no. of billable hours in a month

PS. Even if you're starting out don't get much lower under this price.

Giving a talk on goal setting and OKRs this morning @Montrealinc.

Presenting it as a thread here to get more leverage on it and to think out loud. Here goes! 👇

1. Goals are strategy in action. Strategy is your plan to win. Goals turn that strategy into measurable tasks that can advance you toward winning.

2. Goals help you win by forcing you to prioritize. There are lots of ways to win. Some are more immediate than others. Goals force you to choose the most important things to do now.

3. Goals help you win by creating alignment. Not everyone has the same idea of how to win. Goals force everyone to agree on a single plan.

4. Goals help you win by creating accountability. There’s lots to do in a startup and its easy for things to slip and slide. Goals help enforce clear ownership.