We found 6 startups that are growing way faster than everyone else.

We figured out their unconventional growth tactics.

This thread walks you through how to repeat them for yourself.

Twitter is, by far, the fastest way to build a high-quality audience.

Why?

It's quicker to write insightful tweets than it is to produce 10min YouTube videos or 1400-word blog posts.

Here's a thread of actionable tactics from studying the fastest-growing Twitter accounts.

2/ Fast-growing accounts have two things in common:

1. They spend 30+ minutes per day sourcing and refining 1-3 daily tweets. They don't wing what they say, and they typically sit on each idea for a few days.

2. Key: They write tweets that get *retweeted.*

3/ Retweets bring followers.

We polled people to ask why they retweet. They said:

1. "Retweeting is my bookmarking system for ideas."

2. "I retweet when someone's put elegant words to my thoughts."

3. "I want my followers to know I relate to this statement."

4/ So, to get more RTs:

1. Tweet referenceable content that people will refer back to later.

2. Challenge the status quo with elegance and wit.

3. Pick a debate and argue your side with a novel take.

The most RTed tweets? *Threads with advice like this.*

5/ How to write a tweet:

• Open with a hook: Make it counterintuitive or counter-narrative.
• Concise body: Satisfy the craving your hook created.
• End with a punchy zinger: Summarize implications of your finding and what it means for the reader.

THREAD: 10 significant lies you've been told about marketing:

On email marketing, ads, and referrals.

"Send a welcome email immediately after signup"

Don't. People will reflexively discard it as spam.

Instead, delay your welcome email by 15-45 mins.

The delay removes the subscriber's mental connection between signup —> your email, bypassing the reflex to ignore.

More opens.

"Only highlight your best product reviews"

Imperfect reviews can generate MORE sales than 5-star ones.

When a review weighs cons versus pros yet concludes the product was worth purchasing anyway, people see it's authentic & REAL.

So don't bury slightly negative reviews.

"You have to send a newsletter every week"

Most newsletters shouldn't be sent weekly.

High cadences force newsletter writers to rush and publish lower quality information.

Instead, consider only sending when you truly have value to add.

"Your startup needs a great referral program"

The referral programs that grew Airbnb & Dropbox don't work for most companies.

Instead, find your *social loop*:

E.g. An eCom pet store should get dog owners to post photos of their dogs on IG w/ you tagged.

THREAD: Read this if you're new to ads. Here's how to make each ad channel work.

E.g. Facebook, Instagram, Google, Snapchat, Pinterest.

(from our experience running ads for 400+ startups)

IMPORTANT. We're growth marketers. We believe that you should test most channels (in time). This is an 80/20 to help you prioritize which you might want to test FIRST based on your business.

2 types of ad targeting:

Behavior: Serves ads to people searching for your product. Better for conversion, but audience size is limited to ppl searching for you.

Profile: Uses social profiles/engagement to serve ads. Conversion is lower, but audience size is less restricted.

Top channels ordered by average cost/click for U.S. audiences (LinkedIn being most expensive)

1. LinkedIn
2. Twitter
3. Instagram
4. Facebook
5. Google Ads
6. Pinterest
7. Snapchat

We'll dive into each (and a few more)

LinkedIn offers uniquely granular company and employee targeting (firmographic targeting)

Clicks are expensive. Most companies won't be able to afford LinkedIn ads.

Good fit: B2B companies earning *thousands* per customer.

Poor fit: anyone earning < $10,000 USD in LTV

THREAD: How to make ads that get clicks.

(For Facebook and Instagram)

You'll learn:

• How to write ads for your audience
• Frameworks for messaging
• How to design ads

Copy & creative.

Copy = Text that is carefully crafted for a specific outcome.

Creative = Term for multimedia, such as images and videos.

Together, they determine the click-through rate (CTR) of your ads—a 25% difference in CTR can make or break paid acquisition.

Know your audience before creating ads.

The Ladder of Product Awareness (LPA) illustrates how aware and in-need an audience is for your product.

Focus on writing appealing copy to those higher up on the ladder, since it requires less time and energy to convert these people.

Steps to writing ad copy:

1. Identify the product's benefits and your audience's concerns.
2. Write a pitch addressing each.
3. Make the pitch compelling.
4. Make it concise.

Here's an example of an ad that checks all of the boxes.

You can use one of these copywriting frameworks to write purposeful ads:

1. Articulate the problem, solution, and benefit
2. Highlight your differentiation
3. Ask a pressing question
4. Match value props to audiences

One tweet on each 👇

Here’s how to double conversion on your startup’s homepage.

(From rewriting over 1,000 websites.)

A thread 👇

1/ Your "above the fold" (ATF) section is the part of your site that's immediately visible before scrolling.

When visitors see this, they decide to either keep scrolling or bounce.

In seconds, they attempt to assess:

• What you do.
• Whether you're a fit for them.

2/ If your ATF is confusing or uninteresting, visitors bounce.

This happens because of:

1. Weak messaging: Your product's purpose is unclear, uninteresting, or irrelevant.

2. Weak design: Your design is unprofessional or outdated.

3/ There are 3 things you can change on your ATF.

1. Header
2. Subheader
3. Design

Let's dive into each.

4/ Headers need to:

1. Identify how users get value from your product.

2. Include a hook—to get them to keep reading.

3. Speak directly to your customer personas.

🔥 A lesson in pricing

THREAD ...

Peter Thiel spends 6 months writing down everything he knows about business. His book sells for $10.

Adam Wathan and Steve Schoger spend 6 months writing down everything they know about design. Their “book” sells for $79.

Believe it or not, both prices make perfect sense.

Thiel is selling to the masses and the masses are sensitive to price changes (price elastic).

If he raises the price to $30 they wouldn’t think twice before substituting his book for one of the many cheaper alternatives on Amazon.

Adam and Steve are selling to hardcore fans and hardcore fans are insensitive to price changes (price inelastic).

They've all been following the Twitter tips, watching the screencasts, reading the Medium posts.

In their minds, there are no substitute resources available.

When demand for your good is inelastic, you raise your price.

In the case of Adam and Steve, all the way up to $79.

As the diagram shows, a 8x price increase ($10 to $79) results in just a 2x drop in books sold (20k to 10k) and 4x more revenue (area of the rectangles).

How to Get Rich (without getting lucky):

Seek wealth, not money or status. Wealth is having assets that earn while you sleep. Money is how we transfer time and wealth. Status is your place in the social hierarchy.

Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. If you secretly despise wealth, it will elude you.

Ignore people playing status games. They gain status by attacking people playing wealth creation games.

You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity - a piece of a business - to gain your financial freedom.

Want to try #NoCode but don't know where to start?

Here's a thread of ways to begin your no-code journey 🧵👇

1/?

Task: 📃 Create a simple single-page website for creating your online profile

Platform: @carrd

2/?

Task: 🏗️ Create a sophisticated website for your business

Platform: @webflow

3/?

Task: 🚀 Launch a website to publish articles or show off your portfolio

Platform: @readymag or @SubstackInc

4/?

Task: 🧭 Create a web app and/or a mobile app

Platform: @bubble and/or @thunkable

5/?

Just watched this 47-min presentation given by @adamwathan at @MicroConf in 2018 titled 'Nailing Your First Launch'. It was recommended by @RandallKanna

Adam shared a step-by-step guide for launching successful info products from idea to launch.

Thread 👇👇

1st Product: Nitpick (Automated PHP code review comments on Github in one click)

Total Revenue: ($3650.59 from 19 customers) Nov 1, 2015 - Apr 30, 2018

2nd Product: Refactoring to Collections (eBook to teach PHP developers some functional programming principles)

Launched: May 2016

1st Day: $28,299

1st 3 days: $61,392

After 2 weeks he quit his job to focus on info products

3rd Product: Test-Driven Laravel

Early Access: November 2016

1st Day: $82,919

1st 3 Days: $115,676

Sales from May 2016 - April 2018

Book $179,147

TDD Course $468,536

Total $647,683

Why an Info Product?

There is a finish line

Doesn't take much time

Unlike SaaS, it puts money in the bank quickly

Selling subscription software is hard, courses are easy