Anyone else love a useful how-to?

I put together a mega-thread of mega-valuable how-tos that can transform your startup, career or life

All you have to do is read these 10 how-tos:

How to write a cold email:

- Be short
- Humanize it. Record a 60s selfie video
- Write a cold DM instead of a cold email if possible
- Never follow up by saying “just following up”
How to write copy that isn’t boring (and that sells):

- Don’t write copy, write stories
- Can be long or short, but must take you for a ride
- Focus entire story on the problem the customer has
- Share credibility
- Use inviting, warm words
- Create a clear call-to-action
How to come up with compelling startup ideas:

- Framework #1: X for Y (Robinhood for Canada)
- Framework #2: Anti-incumbent (Anti-Spotify, Anti-Amazon)
- Framework #3: Unbundling of X (Reddit, Facebook etc)
- Framework #4: Ask your community, they’ll tell you
How to sell a company:

- Spend 5% of your energy building allies at incumbents
- Get them excited about what you’re doing
- Make them feel invested and jealous
- Get them to ask if you’d be open to selling
- Profit $$

I've seen this strategy work for $10k-10B size deals
How to boost your productivity:

- Keep a productivity journal
- Time box your day (time for areas of focus)
- Set a timer (Google the “Pomodoro technique”)
- Exercise everyday
- Take small breaks (Google “Fika”)
- “Great acts are made of small deeds”
- Find work you love to do
How to know when to quit your job:

- You dread going to work
- Your manager brings you down not up
- Your health suffers
- You stop feeling useful & grateful
- You can find another gig that can support your needs
- You stop learning
- You hit your ceiling
- You’ll know...
How to avoid burnout:

- Avoid influencers who glamorize the grind
- Avoid screens when you can
- ~7h sleep
- Limit alcohol and caffeine
- Create boundaries from work. Unplug
- Take regular vacations
- Take regular “me time”
- Go for regular walks
- Eat well
How to get your first 1000 community members:

- Decide on a community worth creating
- Establish a common goal of that community (learning X, doing Y)
- Build an audience first
- Convert audience into community (IG account into private Discord)
- Use community ambassadors
How to get your first 1000 customers:

- Do community “drops”, small microsites that spread the word
- Build an audience of 10000 people
- FOMO is your friend (exclusivity sells)
- Partner with communities to promote
- Go to your customers offline. Offline matters more than ever
How to follow me on Twitter:

- Follow me @gregisenberg

Hope you enjoyed this thread. I love learning this way so hope you did too
How to get deeper insights from me:

- Sign up to my free newsletter https://t.co/o2YiBTeG4v

I write about internet communities, startup insights and community-based companies

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A brief analysis and comparison of the CSS for Twitter's PWA vs Twitter's legacy desktop website. The difference is dramatic and I'll touch on some reasons why.

Legacy site *downloads* ~630 KB CSS per theme and writing direction.

6,769 rules
9,252 selectors
16.7k declarations
3,370 unique declarations
44 media queries
36 unique colors
50 unique background colors
46 unique font sizes
39 unique z-indices

https://t.co/qyl4Bt1i5x


PWA *incrementally generates* ~30 KB CSS that handles all themes and writing directions.

735 rules
740 selectors
757 declarations
730 unique declarations
0 media queries
11 unique colors
32 unique background colors
15 unique font sizes
7 unique z-indices

https://t.co/w7oNG5KUkJ


The legacy site's CSS is what happens when hundreds of people directly write CSS over many years. Specificity wars, redundancy, a house of cards that can't be fixed. The result is extremely inefficient and error-prone styling that punishes users and developers.

The PWA's CSS is generated on-demand by a JS framework that manages styles and outputs "atomic CSS". The framework can enforce strict constraints and perform optimisations, which is why the CSS is so much smaller and safer. Style conflicts and unbounded CSS growth are avoided.