BC STARTUPS

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Justin Kan
@justinkan 6 years, 6 months ago 2898 views

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1/ Throughout my startup career, I’ve seen many founders have an aversion to sales. This is a mistake that can kill your startup.

2/ Sales is often viewed as either a saving grace or proof that the product isn’t good enough (because it should sell itself). Neither are ever true. Some common mistakes that result in...

3/ Mistake 1: Hire a sales rep before reaching product/market fit to get your initial batch of customers. This is a mistake because founders need to work through their MVP with early adopters to truly understand what it is they’re selling.

4/ Mistake 2: Reach product/market fit, need to scale, and rely entirely on self-serve. For enterprise products that require big commitments and internal shifts, almost no product is self-explanatory enough to sell itself.

5/ Mistake 3: Make a first sales hire who isn’t scrappy enough to help mold the sales process from scratch. Some salespeople are amazing at their jobs, but not cut out to establish the processes that others end up following. This skillset is what @rdedatta calls a “sales ninja”.

6/ At Twitch, we built an advertising sales team. We tried and failed several times before finding the right sales leader who had sold into the market before. The lesson here: if it doesn’t work at first, it might be how you are doing it (not the market’s fault). Keep trying.

7/ When I talk to founders about sales, I tell them that you need to get out there yourself and do your own initial sales to learn what your customers want.

8/ @rdedatta wrote a great piece about how to get first customers and hire a sales ninja: https://t.co/MFoL36DUFI

More from Justin Kan

Justin Kan
@justinkan

10 months ago we shut down Atrium after raising $75m in venture capital. Anyone hearing that knows I made tons of mistakes along the way. Someone asked me today what my biggest lessons learned were. Here they are:

Start with the mission
.

It is very hard to write the mission after the fact. You should start with a clear reason to exist and filter early hires for believers.

Start remote. SFBA is over for startups: the cost of housing and rent gives you much worse operating leverage. Many talented people choose jobs they want to be flexible re: location. Remote is better at this time in the market.

I wrote that before COVID, now it's extra true.

There is no skipping of the R&D phase of a company - if you try to skip this you miss the part where you are forced to develop something differentiated. Very hard to solve this with money.

Don’t build a services company. It’s more work to manage everyone and the reward isn’t there at the end of the day.

Justin Kan
@justinkan

With @ycombinator #demoday kicking off, @atrium gathered advice from past YC founders.

.@jaltma from @latticeHQ says “Don’t confuse investor interest with product-market fit. You’re about to be on the receiving end of a lot of hype and FOMO - use it to your advantage by taking the money and then keep your burn and ego low.”

.@typesfast from @flexport says “I like to remind myself that even Bruce Springsteen still gets nervous before his concerts. Remember that, and then try to focus on what investors want: First, not to be bored. Second, to get rich(er).”

.@collinmathilde from @frontapp says “Leverage your data to tell a story about what the business has achieved and where it is going. Metrics are necessary, but they are too often shared without a narrative arc.”

.@drusenko from @weebly says “Make it relevant. Investors can live in their own world, so try to find an angle that they can relate to.”

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Justin Kan
@justinkan

Just got a tip that Citadel reloaded their shorts before they told Robinhood to stop trading $GME.

If this is true, Ken Griffin and the Robinhood founders should be in jail.

This is class warfare.

@aoc there should be a congressional hearing

Justin Kan
@justinkan

1/ Silicon Valley has changed a lot over the past 13 years since I started my first company (an AJAX calendar called Kiko that was funded in the first batch of YC).

2/ Tech has gone from an industry no one cared about, to every random person I knew in college rushing to be part of it, to the evil industry destroying the fabric of society

3/ Starting a startup is easier than ever. Lots of resources: YC, more financing at the seed stage, much more information online. Starting a company is no longer a risky path.

4/ New businesses in every industry are now being built with methodologies that used to be just for tech startups (fast iteration, access to venture capital). Applies to D2C companies like Allbirds, full stack companies like Atrium, etc.

5/ Personally, I’ve felt recently that the overall risk appetite of the people working in tech has changed. People used to want to join frontier companies building something fun / cool; now everyone seems to be optimizing for salary / career stability.

Justin Kan
@justinkan

I just gave a talk to the W2021 YC batch. It's my favorite startup audience to talk to. Here are some of the highlights:

Finding product market fit is the critical thing to do in a startup.

Everything else: demo day, what investors you get, how much you raise, what press covers you -- it is all window dressing.

Many founders don’t want to talk to their customers because it makes them vulnerable, because it's hard work, because it's scary. Creating a tight feedback loop with customers is the one thing that will help you discover PMF.

If a customer isn't one of your cofounders, try to create a customer panel that allows as tight of a loop as possible. Call them daily. Put them in your Slack.

My Twitch cofounder Emmett Shear has a great analogy on PMF here: it's like rolling a boulder downhill.

1/ What is \u201cproduct/market fit\u201d? I\u2019m not sure I can give you a definition. But maybe I can share what the subjective difference is in how it feels when you have it and when you don\u2019t. Founding a startup is deciding to take on the burden of Sisyphus: pushing a boulder up a hill.
— Emmett Shear (@eshear) July 27, 2019

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Justin Jackson
@mijustin

Yesterday, I wrote about how easy it is to sell ice cream on a crowded beach: https://t.co/a9z2ZTixb7

Today, I’m at the local fair.

There are hundreds of vendors.

But there are also huge crowds who are hot and thirsty; lots of demand for cold drinks!

Go where the crowds are!

Again, this is just a metaphor!

But it’s a good reminder:

🍋 If you have a lemonade stand, it’s better to go somewhere hot, where there are a lot of thirsty people.

💻 If you want to make software, it’s better to go where there are a bunch of potential customers.

BTW - targeting a good market doesn’t mean you’ll automatically win!

There are a TON of factors that influence a business’ success (or failure).

But choosing a market that has a lot of demand (and good channels) is essential for future success.

In business, nothing is guaranteed.

You might be in a good market today, but tomorrow it could fall apart.

Markets are fickle.

Some days they want 🍦, other days they want 🥤.

The economy can go up, or it can crash.

A good competitor can come in and grab market share.

But this reinforces the point:

“Business is already hard, why make it harder?” – @asmartbear

Why try to enter a niche where there’s no demonstrable demand?

Why try to serve a total addressable market of 500, when you could go after 500,000 potential customers?

Harjeet
@Harjeet

1/ Today I prepared for talking about common mistakes startups make (founding -> growth stages) by writing it in tweet form. I ramble too much when public speaking and hoped it would make the core ideas clearer in my mind and more concise. Think it worked. Here are the tweets

2/ Earliest mistake is picking the wrong co-founders. You have to be value-aligned (don’t have conflicting personal goals) and respect each other. With both of these, any other differences are irrelevant - can be worked out. Without them everything else you do is irrelevant.

3/ If you launch, next mistake is chasing top-line vanity metrics (sign ups) instead of growing the number of users who *really* love you. @paultoo advice - better to have 10 users who depend on you than 100 who a lukewarm. This requires patience and killing your ego.

4/ If you raise a seed round, it’s tempting to ignore retention. With money, there are always ways to grow top-line (buy ads, launch a new location). Strong fundraisers can do this for multiple rounds (though investors are more savvy to this now). Eventually, the bottom falls out

5/ Once you’re growing without churn, you find you have a diverse set of customers and can’t make them all happy -it’s easy to fail trying. Commit to a long term strategy for going public and build for the users who get you there, even if you lose the others. You have to focus.

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Justin Jackson
@mijustin

You can't pull the market towards your solution.

Markets move towards desired solutions naturally.

(Like folks lining up for ice cream on a hot summer's day).

Our ability to influence the market is much lower than you think.

It's better to build your product to conform to the direction the market is moving.

Before folks start mentioning Steve Jobs and the iPhone ("Steve built a product we didn't even know we needed!")

Nope.

Steve recognized the market's existing momentum and saw an opportunity.

"Everyone has a cell phone." (momentum)
"But nobody likes it." (opportunity)

Markets move towards solutions on their own; founders can't pull markets over to their solution.

If you're struggling to gain traction, you likely have a problem in your:

- market
- product
- channels

(or all three)

$Savio Martin \u26a1\ufe0f$

Savio Martin ⚡️...
@saviomartin7

I gathered the best design tools for startups.

Save 100+ hours researching.

A thread 🧵👇️

1. https://t.co/JuO4PMIkK6

Checklist Design is a collection of best UI and UX practices to provide a complete, honest and rewarding experience for your users.

Price: Free

{ 1 / 12 }

2. https://t.co/pBbmgt6ITD

Coolors is a super fast color schemes generator for designers. Create, save and share perfect palettes in seconds!

Price: Free

{ 2 / 12 }

3. https://t.co/GYboviE1yX

Blush makes it easy for anyone to add stunning illustrations to their work with a huge collection of designs from artists around globe.

Price: Free + Paid

{ 3 / 12 }

4. https://t.co/eLsLkLAyNm

Feather is a collection of simply beautiful open source icons. Each icon is designed on a 24x24 grid with an emphasis on simplicity, consistency and readability.

Price: Free

{ 4 / 12 }

Freedom Designer
@FreedomDSGNR

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.

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Here is a special thread introducing our series on “The Making of the Islamic World.” It offers 10 episodes about the transformation of Islamicate societies between the 7th and 17th centuries. You can find the series page here: https://t.co/7mL9eWmMmz

This is Chris Gratien posting. I created this series during Fall 2020 for my students as asynchronous material supported by readings and discussion. This is going to be a long thread, but it will be a great shortcut for those looking to make similar use of these materials.

There are two items worth pointing out: 1. This is an overview of the political, social, and cultural history of Islamicate societies. It does not deal with the origins of Islam or many theological questions. It does discuss Islam’s spread and the transformation of Islamic law.

2. This is the first part of a two-part sequence that takes the history of the Islamic world into the present. It emphasizes developments and themes that have particular relevance for later periods.

This is really a multivocal narrative of Islamic history. We feature over 20 scholars from almost as many institutions. Many of those who worked on it, myself included, study the early modern and modern era but have teaching obligations that take us further back in history.

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@ReassessHistory

So when it first appeared in Normandy, the Sherman Firefly and it's meaty 17 pounder represented an ideal combo of reliable chassis, great gun and devastating firepower right?

Ummm...

Truth is a bit more complex. /1
#WW2 #SWW #History

Deliveries of Firefly to units only commenced in April 1944,
just a few weeks before Overlord & left minimal time for familiarisation.

Armoured Regiments mostly utilised Fireflies on a basis of 1 per troop of 4 tanks. /2

Finally each armoured regiment troop had access to integral, meaty, anti-tank firepower capable of dealing serious damage to any German AFV likely to be encountered. /3

The dual purpose 75mm gun was quite capable of laying down a reasonable HE shell or AP round for dealing with Panzer III or IV.

Firefly's 17 Pounder had.... problems with HE, but excelled at tank killing. So Tigers and Panthers would need to be wary. /4

Firefly's design history dated back to March 1943 when the General Staff published "Policy on Tanks" which effectively stated the majority of tanks should have a good HE weapon and...

[See image below] /5

$Kitze @ \U0001f1e9\U0001f1ea\ufe0f$

Kitze @ 🇩🇪️...
@thekitze

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📈 ~12000 vistis
☑️ 109 transactions
💰 353€ profit (285 after tax)

I have spent 1.5 months on this app. You can make more $ in 2 days.

🤷‍♂️

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- backend for processing payments (+ permissions, webhooks, etc)
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etc.

These things seemed super scary at first. I always thought it was way too much work and something would break. But I'm glad I persisted. So far the only problem I have is that mailgun is not delivering the license keys to certain domains like https://t.co/6Bqn0FUYXo etc. 👌

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Mangottu Bhagavathi Temple
#Palakkad #Kerala
#keralatemples 🚩

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Mookken Chathen, situated on the Northern 👇

side of the temple, is guarding Devi here.
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in Vigraham flew. Kuttan immediately decorated Devi with his cloth which stuck to Vigraham and returned to his village and with his Umbrella. Devi came with him in that Umbrella and stayed in his place. This place is Mangottu Bhagavathi temple now.

Amme Narayana
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