⚡ Signal - Advice from a Y-Com Co-Founder
Hello!
Welcome to our 61 new members this week!
🏡 In case you missed it: Last week was a where we did a deep dive into a business idea - . I got some great feedback - thanks everyone who wrote in, or left a rating.
📚 Recommended Reading: Every now and then a book really grips you. I read over my notes on James Clear's Atomic Habits which I first read a few years ago. If you haven't - it's a book everyone should read.
Startup Labs
// A business idea, discussed
✅ Work From Home Productivity
Every week another big tech company announces their staff are going to be allowed more WFH time. This is a significant shift away from the norm, and as with all big changes, there are teething problems.
I've covered the WFH transition quite extensively. Because the majority of people are not set up to work efficiently from home, there are opportunities.
One of the biggest issues facing people right now is productivity. Last week , to help separate the work life from their home life.
This week, there's an opportunity for a tool which helps people be more productive.
⚡ The opportunity: Create a digital tool which helps people working from home be more productive.
💥 Features:
Pomadoro-type timer for time scheduling
Randomized break suggester: Stretch, Facebook, walk outside etc.
Daily task selector: What are 3 tasks you're working on today). This would sync with your calendar and assign the requested amount of time blocks with your
Time-block task selector: What are your working on for the next hour.
Employer incentives: Let employer's provide incentives for a certain number of tasks/level of productivity reached.
Work playlist curation and recommendations.
Daily journal.
Automatic employer reporting for tasks completed + project updates.
Rate-your-day feature for energy and mood tracking (for both user and employer)
Gamification!
👨💼 Players:
// We're playing somewhere between the "incentivize to complete" model like the last three links, and the "organize to complete" model like the first two.
🚀 Gameplan
Build an MVP using no-code tools like Webflow, Bubble, Instapage
Hack your way to 50 users using posts on HN, Reddit, Makerpad and manual Twitter outreach.
Collect feedback. Did it work? Most valuable features? How much would you pay for it?
Build a landing page and collect emails. Create scarcity by having an invite only beta-testing programme. You can apply to be on the waitlist.
Incentivize first 50 users to share with their friends by offering them future revenue share.
Send personalized emails with on-boarding instructions to sign-ups as you're ready to have them test the tool.
Do custom development if its absolutely required, and you have the capital (or the skills). Otherwise ship with the features you have and keep note of what needs to be developed for when you have the resources.
Once you've reached a product that you're happy with, and people are going to pay money for, do a launch on Product Hunt and aggressively go after press. If you can get onto the front page of Hacker News, have the battle is won. Start with small pubs, it makes getting into bigger ones easier.
Work with employers to pay for their employee's subscriptions. Start with small tech companies and offer for free to gain traction, in return for testimonials and their logo's on your website.
Grow using paid ads and clever SEO.
Skill Builder
// A byte of information to build your skill set
Writing.
Clear writing is something you'll need no matter what you do, or what business you start.
It is more valuable in some situations compared with others, but it is a skill every founder should have in their tool belt.
Good writing is mostly about two things:
Writing a lot;
Editing even more.
The best way to accelerate your learning curve is to write publish your writing.
I started on Medium. Having other people read my thoughts and resonate with them encouraged me to keep going and improve.
Here are 5 quick tips for writing things that people like to read:
Write in short sentences. More periods, less comma's.
Write in short paragraphs. People don't like sifting through thick blocks of text.
Remove unnecessary words Edit ruthlessly. When you're editing, ask yourself if you could say the same thing without that word. If you can, remove it.
Write how you speak. No one ever greets you with "Hope this hand shake finds you well". Be genuine, it's much more relatable.
Highlight the important bits. I like to use bold lettering to draw the readers attention to the main points.
From the Founder's Mouth
// A valuable piece of advice from someone who's done it before
Paul Graham on doing things that don't scale. Here, he's talking specifically about acquiring your first users as a startup. Sometimes, you have to do things that don't scale.
The Stripe founders were experts at this - despite there being a significant need and demand for a product like theirs. They got dubbed the "Collision Brothers" because of their rigorous drive for new users.
There are two reasons founders resist going out and recruiting users individually.
One is a combination of shyness and laziness. They'd rather sit at home writing code than go out and talk to a bunch of strangers and probably be rejected by most of them. But for a startup to succeed, at least one founder (usually the CEO) will have to spend a lot of time on sales and marketing.
The other reason founders ignore this path is that the absolute numbers seem so small at first. This can't be how the big, famous startups got started, they think. The mistake they make is to underestimate the power of compound growth.
Paul Graham - Y Combinator Founder, VC & Serial Entrepreneur
You can read the full article here. It's an oldy, but a goody.
Yes Coach!
// Something you can do right now to improve your business
Do you own your audience?
Too many businesses are built off the back of platforms where their audience is not entirely in their control.
This happened with Facebook. Business owners spent boat-loads of cash garnering likes on their Facebook business pages so they could appear on their followers' organic feed.
Facebook then changed their policy and business pages could no longer market to their audience for free. You now have to pay to market directly to your followers.
Build an email list, database and relationships with your customers. Own your audience to protect yourself from outside influence.
When you own your audience, you own your distribution. And distribution is a large part of the "make your business viable" equation.
Clickworthy
// Valuable tidbits from around the interweb
🤔 "Facebook employees who wish to work remotely, and are approved to do so, will be paid based on their new location." - The Zuck in an interview regarding Facebook's new WFH policy.
This sparked an interesting conversation on remuneration policy. Should you be paid less because of where you choose to live?
Buffer have an interesting take. Their entire company's salaries are available for anyone to view (along with how they are altered according to location) in this spreadsheet.
📱 Peloton, Hims, Casper, Harry's - what do they all have in common? All D2C brands with killer ads that they've spent oodles of time and money developing. So, what? Well, here's a breakdown of each of their Facebook ad strategies. Some advice? Copy 'em!
📈 Digital ads have been a hot-topic of conversation during the worldwide economy-slowdown. Did you know customer acquisition costs are over 50% higher than they were 5 years ago? As ad platforms become more user friendly and more people move towards tech to find answers to their problems, I see that number increasing. That's why the customer retention is becoming the ultimate growth strategy, according to Segment.
🍤 A bit off-topic, but I love cooking and made these Chilli Crisp Shrimp and Green Bean's over the weekend for my family. Delish! 10/10 would recommend. (I'm vegetarian so I swapped out the shrimp for marinated Tofu for myself - quite a nice alternative.)
The End Notes
// I know, I know. I can almost hear you saying "Don't go, don't go."
That's it for this week. Hope there was some value in there for you.
How did you find this edition?
👍 YES - I liked it
〰️ MEH - Average
👎 NO - Almost no value
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If you've found this interesting, valuable or entertaining, a few of your friends might too. Please forward on to them. Seriously, please do. I'll say a very nice thank you.
See yah next week, thanks for reading!
- Simon