Starting a startup is hard. This thread will contain some key advice I think are particularly noteworthy:

1. “If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” - @paulg The first version of my product was not great, but hey, it worked.

Candid and potentially controversial series of tweets coming up... (I hear twitter is good for that sort of thing 😅) read 👇🏻

Here’s what it feels like to launch something to the indie maker community:

Launching a free, open source tool:
“This is awesome! You’re awesome!”

Launching a commercial tool:
“TWO DOLLARS? You are literally Hitler”

I’m exaggerating for comedic effect of course. But there’s a lesson here...

I knew before I started working on Promomatic to be very wary of building a utility tool for makers. Makers are by definition problem solvers and their favorite hobby is finding a better / faster / cheaper way to do what your product does.

It’s so tempting to build things for makers because they seem accessible (thanks to PH, IH, Reddit etc) and you get an immediate feedback loop.

I'm doing an AMA on @IndieHackers.

Drop some questions in there! Happy to answer anything, esp around building side projects with a full-time job :)

https://t.co/da4Ael9TnE

My high level plans for Starter Story.

On almost quitting

cc: @daviswbaer

@daviswbaer How I find so many businesses to interview

@daviswbaer On balancing different projects

If you’re a SaaS entrepreneur, you need to study Hubspot

Here are the inbound strategies they used to grow from 0-100M+ users📈

A thread: 👇👇

1) Hubspot introduced/created the term inbound marketing.

Founders Brian Halligan and Dharmesh Shah grew their inbound marketing software business (founded in 2006) to an IPO in 2014 at $25/share (now around $450).

They are the 2nd fastest SMB SasS company to IPO

2) They noticed a shift in the way people shop/buy. Consumers weren’t tolerating interruptive ads and were ignoring them.

Part of this shift was due to the internet/Google. People now had the power to do their own research to find products that could help solve their problem

3)Theme: Inbound Marketing
They learned conversion rates from inbound/organic leads compared to outbound/paid were more than double. It was cheaper to acquire traffic and resulted in higher quality leads. 75% of their lead gen was inbound, focusing on blogs, webinars, free tools

4) Strategy 1: Blog
They share resources/tips/steps to improve your inbound marketing. They drew people to their posts, provided value, and added a unique CTA related to the topic at the end to capture the lead.

The blog resulted in 20% of their organic leads and 3x their leads

How to Use Cialdini's Influence Principles to Grow On Twitter

// A THREAD //

Robert Cialdini took various kinds of sales/marketing/door-to-door sales jobs to figure out what techniques those "magician of persuasion" use.

Then he defined the 6 principles of INFLUENCE.

How to use them to grow on Twitter?

1. Reciprocity

Don't be afraid to give away.

Give away:

- likes
- RTs
- engagement

The bigger accounts will notice... and reciprocate.

It's human nature.

Action step: Write 20 comments a day (don't ask for anything).

2. Scarcity

is an enormously powerful weapon but make sure you use it well so it doesn't look sneaky.

You can use it for:

- Get beta testers
- Running limited sales
- Doing AMA (1hr) [bigger accounts)

Action step: Before a launch write you're looking for max 3 beta testers.

3. Authority

cannot be built by tweeting platitudes.

You'll have to show you know what you do and you understand it.

The reward will be sweet.

Action step: Post a thread from your field of expertise 3x per week.

PS. Even if you don't consider yourself a pro yet.