“Lifetime deals are great for tire-kickers who never actually use it. Free money!” I suppose if that's the whole business model, it might be a good one, if inbound interest is consistent and cheap. (1/2)

ICYMI: Remastered classic article: Worry when you’re planning. Don’t worry when you’re executing. 𝘕𝘰𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘦 and 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘤𝘵 but not dwelling. If you want to worry, go back to planning mode. That’s acceptable!

ICYMI: Remastered classic article: Intentional practice and experience is how you become capable and calm. So you don’t have that yet, for most things that you’d like to have. You could still be calm about it, though.

You’re such an asshole.... to yourself. You’re nice to others. Don’t stop being kind to others. Start being kind to yourself.

Incumbents are good at stuff; it's hard to change, and OUGHT to be. Don’t screw up what’s working! Startups are bad at almost everything, so it's easy to pivot to something else they're also not good at. How startups leverage this to win:

It’s great that your product eliminates pain, but “removing a negative” isn’t enough of a vision. A flashlight doesn’t “eliminate the problem of darkness,” it “creates light so you can see.” Construct a new future state in the customers’ minds.

ICYMI: Remastered classic article: Worrying is a self-fulfilling prophecy: it causes the very thing you’re worried about. Backstage, you’re second-guessing and fearful, and that comes with you onto the stage. Worry breaks things which aren’t broken.

At first your job is to say “no” to nearly everything so you can say “yes” deeply to the few things that matter. Later, it’s to show others why it’s a “no” without them feeling bad, or unheard.

Don’t focus on the competition. Keep your eye on the competition. When customer signals agree that a competitor is better at something, 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘯 focus.

Most ventures and projects fail, so if you're flinging yourself into one, you're ("irrationally"?) optimistic. OTOH, that’s the only way anything new or great ever happens. So, irrational or not, it’s admirable. (But find out ASAP if it’s not going to work.)

Just republished a classic article! 👇🏾 Worrying makes things worse. Replace worry with preparation and strategic planning. Many thanks for spreading the love with ❤️ and 🔁!

Too scared to publish something “not good enough?” Remember: 1) Very few people will see it, especially if you don't promote them. 2) You can always take it down. So, more courage, more action!

Growth-at-all-costs is a young company's game. Big profitable companies are valued on earnings. They can't sacrifice profits to compete with you - Wall Street won't let them. This is where you have an advantage.

Leadership isn’t 𝘮𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 people do stuff. It’s 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 people to do great stuff. Either showing what that is by example, or praising and holding up great stuff when it happens. Editing, not writing.

When you’re reading a great long article or book, and interrupt yourself with ideas and excitement, that’s not “distraction,” that’s intelligent work. When you’re muting yourself by doomscrolling, that is indeed “distraction,” and even a kind of death.

𝘐𝘯𝘴𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘈𝘭𝘢𝘪𝘯 𝘋𝘦 𝘉𝘰𝘵𝘵𝘰𝘯: (1/7)

Building confidence that you’ll be successful or rich or famous or powerful is egotistical narcissism. Building confidence that setbacks cannot halt your journey, that you can weave around mistakes and bad luck, is how you actually arrive at those things.

On your pricing page, say that telephone support only comes with the largest plan. But then just always answer the phone. Abuse will be rare. If someone does it consistently, just help them gently to upgrade or leave.

If you send someone an email, the chance they’ll remember the content 7 days later is far less than 100%. If you send to 20, the chance that everyone is “aligned” is asymptotically zero. So, if it’s important, over-communicate. More:

Would you rather control a large thing but be hated by 1000s of people, Or control a small thing and be loved by 100s of people? It’s an odd way to think about what kind of company or personal brand you want to build. Odd, but useful.

Looking at the iPhone on the iPad because I moved the iPhone Mirroring screen from the Studio onto the screen-extended iPad. Peak Apple.

When an outlier success in any field tells us how they learn and train, we’re tempted to copy it. But they’re also preternaturally talented. What they need to spend time on, and how, is unlikely to work for you. Outliers are inspiring, but not object lessons.

I always laugh when company pages say “The leading provider of…” If you really were the leader, we’d already know. So now we know two things: 1. No you’re not. 2. You lie easily. Great start!

Big companies have armies of developers, but can the customer talk to them? Can one customer really influence the product? With small companies, yes, it’s possible, in fact it happens every day. More pitches you can use:

As @_shankarganesh recently wrote, creative people need to embrace the grunt work. If AI is the only one who reads it, AI will average it out to something bland. And you remain dumb. And not creative.

The areas where you have special ability or insight, is invisible to others, and thus not only an absolute advantage, but a competitive one, and one others are unlikely to be able to copy. You have blind spots too. Leveraging these special insights is how you win despite those blind spots. (1/2)

“AI is just like previous tech innovation -- it just makes us faster.” OK, so airplanes are just like cars because it goes faster? I see you have a driver's license. Why don't you get in that plane and show me how it's the same thing but faster?

You won’t believe how simple this formula is for detecting statistical significance with A/B testing. Yes I realize that sounds like some weird click-bait nonesense. It’s pretty unbelievable though:

Your competitors are out-marketing you. That’s why they’re winning. If you can't compete on distribution--often the case, even with VC backing--what can you do? 1. Niche down 2. Creativity 3. Ask happy customers to help Any other ideas?

If our success is dependent on us having brilliant ideas, outsized performance, and huge dollops of luck, day after day after week after year… It’s too unlikely. Success won’t come. Find consistent things that work, and take at-bats to gather good luck.

You can’t cut your way to growth. That is, the two components of R40 are not equal in value. Growth is always 10x more valuable than efficiency, because you can always decide to invest in efficiency, but you can’t just “decide” to grow.

How do you compare to others? Compare based on what… valuations, growth rates, retention, NPS, early-stage uncertainty, revenue per employee, CAC, cash-burn, LTV, gross margin. Satisfaction? “Success?” Comparison is the death of happiness.

“I have no ambition to preside over a vast bureaucracy. That is why we have only nineteen clients. “The pursuit of excellence is less profitable than the pursuit of bigness, but it can be more satisfying.” --David Ogilvy (Also the solopreneur’s credo.)

You know you're a real company when you start accepting PO's in addition to credit cards. And yes, you actually have to ship the product before getting paid. Sucks to be real. (Not really)

If 50% of customers want something that the other 50% absolutely doesn’t care about: 1. If just one is the ICP, now you have a better ICP, 𝘰𝘳 2. If both are the ICP, now you have a feature. The former is more valuable.

If you believe you can, you might be right. If you believe you cannot, you’re definitely right.

We're perpetually on a mission of self-discovery, because even if we figure it out completely, we change.

Which is more important: Product, or Marketing? Which organ is more important for staying alive: Heart or Brain? The answer to both questions is the same.

What if we have a botched attempt at improvement? Wow people hate that. They went through so much, only to be worse. Everyone: Be kind. Better to change and fail than not even try to change.

What doesn’t kill you, still hurts a lot, for a long time.

If you hire someone excellent and then micromanage them to death, you’re a bad manager. If you hire someone who isn’t capable, so you have to micromanage to get good work done, you’re a bad manager. In every case, it's bad management, and it's your fault. Instead…

Small independent teams move fast because they don’t have to build powerpoints, have many meetings, convince people of things, coordinate on work, etc.. It doesn’t scale, but it doesn’t have to. Stay small and independent (even inside a larger company), to stay fast.

Startup culture is supposed to be about novelty, innovation, control, individuality. And yet, especially on social media, it seems like it’s often fitting in, repeating the same phrases, mimicking success. But not 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 can be novel, nor should be! What to do?

At some point, you have to stop trying to do more "discovery" and just build. When? At minimum, when you stop being surprised, because that means you stopped learning. Even better: hard time-box on discovery, to prevent analysis paralysis. How else can you know?

The ancient Egyptians built monuments to be remembered. Rich people chisel their names into cornerstones of buildings. But what if our true legacy is the ripple effect of our ideas, not our names?

A smart, capable person in a lucrative industry will make more money at normal jobs than starting a business, if you calculate using "expected value.” That's one reason why I don't believe in using "expected value." 😄 Here’s my alternative:

"I'm building 12 startups in 12 months" You mean 12 projects in 12 months. With only a month of attention on each, it's almost impossible for any to become a "startup." Do you feel bad for the 7 customers of each, that they're using an abandoned project?

If you suddenly started charging $1/mo for your 'free' tier, most users would quit. That’s why free tiers 𝘢𝘳𝘦 useful but they 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰𝘵 customer development.

Had an awesome time with @mijustin.bsky.social and the rest of the panel talking about whether it’s true that “distribution is the new moat” and the best way to write for personal development:

Those that say “it can’t be done” or “it doesn’t make sense” or “but others failed when they tried…” …are usually correct. Also, if we listened, the world would never improve, startups would never form, and even the few successes wouldn’t exist.