BC STARTUPS

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Eric
@ericbahn 8 years ago 5810 views

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1/ Recently, I learned about the concept of ‘struggle porn’. This refers to the fetish of sacrificing nearly everything (health, relationships, time) for your startup. I fear that this label is creating more harm than good.

2/ @nateliason wrote a fabulous article about this topic, which first introduced me to this concept. Everyone should read it: https://t.co/eyyZkPXlED

3/ @alexisohanian also recently spoke about struggle porn, though referring to it as ‘hustle porn.’ (as the co-founder of @hustlefundvc, obviously I take issue with this pejorative definition of ‘hustle’, but that’s another topic) https://t.co/XnDT8Ly7UK

4/ Struggling in itself isn’t necessarily bad. Let’s be real here--if you’re going to start a startup, you will struggle. Founders should expect to work harder generally than employees. You will be challenged in many ways and also be super rewarded in others. This is normal.

5/ However, if you are over-indexing on hard work without clear purpose and degrading your mental health/relationships in the process--then this is very bad and we obviously should not celebrate this behavior.

6/ But when we start to say that struggling means that you are doing something wrong, or that struggling in itself is shameful--then that is dangerous. It may actually prevent more founders from openly talking about their struggles.

7/ I’m constantly working to earn a deep and authentic relationship with our fund’s founders. When they struggle, we want to know so we can try to help. We don’t want founders to internalize these mental challenges, but instead be open about them.

8/ Instead of discouraging founders from the Struggle, we should just recognize that it’s a natural part of the startup journey. As VCs, our job is to provide support and not judge when our founders need real help.

9/ Final note, getting back to what I think is the heart of struggle porn: If you’re sharing your own ‘struggle journey’ just to brag insincerely about how hard you’re working--then you are an asshole. You are not helping anyone.

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Hiten Shah
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Startup life can be summed up in three steps:

1. Find problem
2. Fix problem
3. Go back to step 1

Works for every thing you need to do in a startup.

Growth is determined by a combination of how fast you can go through the steps successfully and how long you can keep at it.

Finding the right problem to solve starts with understanding your customers.

Nobody says I wish I talked to less customers.

There aren’t any hacks or shortcuts to this.

Go talk to your customers.

Fixing problems in a startup isn’t usually straightforward.

You don’t have time, money or people to throw at the problem.

You have to go deep, dig for the details and think very creatively about solutions.

Then experiment like there is no tomorrow.

You can’t grow a startup without a fundamental understanding of how to problem solve really fast.

This skill comes from practicing jumping into the unknown.

You don’t usually get time to prepare for what’s coming next.

You’ll have to learn how to figure it out along the way.

Startup people have to become comfortable with the discomfort of uncertainty and the unknown.

This is why I say, nobody knows what they are doing.

We’re all just jumping from problem to problem expecting to figure things out.

Hopefully our past helps us not crash and burn.

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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.

1/6 Experiment with timing.

Here's a clever example:

@brooklinen "leaked" a time-bounded discount and had one of their *best* revenue days of the year.

Great startups experiment not only with copy/creative, but also framing.

2/6 Get people to FEEL the problem your startup solves.

Here’s how Muzzle (notification hiding tool) uses their site to visualize the problem:

• Shows cringey notifications
• Makes them super vulgar
• Points out how Muzzle puts an end to this during Zoom calls

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• Create landing pages that compare you against them
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• Show your product in action

Then, when people search for you versus your competitors, you'll show up on the Google results page.

4/6 Improve your attribution.

It's often unclear what drives a purchase.

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John Cutler
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Advice to a friend dealing with their chaotic startup...

Startups are inherently chaotic. No chaos = no opportunity. Startups exist because there is uncertainty, and new things to learn. (1/7) #startup

During a period of rapid growth, all things (structures, processes, etc.) eventually break. Some chaos is self-inflicted, and too much chaos can cause collapse / chronic harm (2/7) #startup

Agility is solving today’s problem, while not limiting your ability to solve tomorrow’s problem. There’s always a temptation to solve tomorrow’s problems.

There are good ideas everywhere, and opportunities everywhere. So focus is hard (3/7) #startup

Startups require an almost supernatural level of focus. You have to focus, while knowing full well many things are broken, and need work. Nothing is truly repeatable or efficient at this point, even when we want it to be (4/7) #startup

And that’s hard...so we tend to load up on the good ideas.

Pursuing all the good ideas will leave you (and others) burnt out. Self-inflicted chaos (5/7) #startup

Julian Shapiro
@Julian

14 steps for acquiring your startup's first customers:

1. Pay to interview people who've successfully grown a startup like yours. You can find them via LinkedIn Sales Navigator.

2. Ask them which 3 channels (ads, SEO, etc.) you should prioritize for acquiring customers.

3. Ask for examples of companies who run these channels well.

Some channels to ask about:

• PR
• Ads
• SEO
• Influencers
• Sponsorships
• Organic social
• Word-of-mouth
• In-depth content
• Referral incentives
• Product-led invites (think Slack, Zoom, Dropbox)

4. Reverse-engineer how those companies run their channels well:

A. Map each step the customer takes between the channel and becoming a happy customer.

B. Study what makes each step great: its pitch, its design, and its user experience.

Here's an example of steps.

• Someone sees your Facebook ad ← Channel
• They visit your page
• Enter their email
• Trial the product
• Pay for the product
• Stay engaged
• Refer more users

(Tools like Ahrefs + FB Ad Library show you competitors' ads and landing pages!)

Pat Walls
@thepatwalls

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

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