At Udemy, we were 3 first-time entrepreneurs trying to raise seed capital. We made every mistake in the book.

We got 200+ no’s and wasted 12 months fundraising.

We eventually pulled through, just barely. 😅

This thread shares our mistakes as lessons for founders.

**Read On**

1) Core attributes of a promising founder worth following:
- Progress/trajectory over time
- How well they lead a team &
- Make the vision happen
- Most impressed when someone is way ahead of where you thought they would be when you check up/see them a few months later.

2) Indie Makers have such a benefit of being small, fast, nimble workers in comparison to big companies.

We can easily pivot and vastly change a project of ours. We can change as we learn more about our users.

Big companies can take months/years for even the smallest of pivots.

3) Before you find a product market you can pivot your project as many times as necessary until you find something that works.

Then you only have one thing to do: scale, scale, scale.

4) Be obsessed with the little details.
- listen to every single person who uses your product
- reply to every single person who emails you about your product
- ask them what they like and do not like
- iterate your product, make changes, pivot if necessary

5) Paul Graham's (@paulg) name came up with a feeling of great admiration! Naturally! It was Paul who said:

In the early stages of a company just;
- write code
- talk/sell to customers to stress test your idea

Nothing else.

It has been super tough to end up here but: Today, I have finally signed an offer for my next gig. TBA, still, but finally after such a tough 2018, honestly!

I learned so much about interviewing and negotiating globally that I thought I'd write a master-thread on my thoughts:

First of all: Everybody always thinks that there are "stars" in this industry who can go anywhere and get a job in an instant - some people would count me as one of them.
Let me tell you: It's a myth. Star or not, companies differ WILDLY in their needs, culture and requirements.

There is no guarantee for a job, ever. There is no holy grail level you can reach that will make you into this being that can pick and choose wherever they want to go. In the end, you need to find the exact right fit for both you and the company. That's a marathon, not a sprint.

Further: Interviewing in this industry takes FUCKING FOREVER. At every place I had interviews with I got at least to mid-tier stages and that always means at least 2-3 interviews. 3-5 interviews before an offer is STANDARD. Jup. I know. It's a lot.

With some companies I have been in on and off discussions for literal months. 2-6 months to get an offer ANYWHERE is completely normal. If you're looking for a job, you need to be really patient. I know that's super tough, especially when you desperately need a new job.

A couple months ago, I got an email out of the blue from someone I had never met or heard about.

Today, that person co-hosted a webinar with me that had over 470+ registered and 130+ live

👇 Quick lesson on how to successfully pitch partnerships and co-marketing opportunities

How did he get in contact with me?

He sent a cold email, but not just any email. It was clearly personal, relevant, and conversational.

Lesson: Notice the language he used and how he tied it back to previous webinars.

Not only was it well written, but I could also easily judge if he'd be a good fit based on the article he wrote and linked to.

It's SUPER well-written and proved that he knew what he was talking about.

Lesson: Make your "ask" as easy as possible to consider.

There were three things that made the webinar a big success:

1. Tyler sent the webinar to his email list and did a lot of promotion.

2. He prepared ahead of time and put a lot of work into the deck, even incorporating some Baremetrics assets and references.

3. He had fun

Super appreciate all the work @TylerHakes put into today's "SEO for SaaS"

If you missed it, here's the recording:

Subtle real advantage nobody talks about: if founders can access deeper pools of capital early/quickly, they can get bigger faster without spawning lots of competitors.

If your startup is real, pitching Sand Hill is sometimes like giving away copies of your treasure map

This advice is seldom given because most of the time and for most founders, you are still better off talking about your idea as much as possible to better understand where the dead ends are in the idea maze. Can’t do that in isolation.

Asking investors what is hot is usually less useful than asking what has worked, and what didn’t work and why? That’s how you can skip ahead and avoid death.

“All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” —Munger