Your First 60 Days

Many entrepreneurs are lost on how to actually get started. This is a quick opinionated guide for bootstrappers on how to do marketing from a cold start, balance product development against the other parts of the business, and do the minimum viable amount of back office work.

Transcript

1. BEEN HERE A
   WHILE
   

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2. BOARD MEETING
   KALZUMEUS
   SOFTWARE
   

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3. YOUR FIRST 60 DAYS
   PATRICK MCKENZIE
   

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4. 40 YEARS
   

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5. DECISIONMAKING OVER THE LONG HAUL
   ▸Make more small bets.
   ▸Decide quickly on reversible things.
   ▸Do things which still matter in 40 years.
   

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6. GRINDING, DUH.
   

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8. WHAT SHOULD I
   BUILD?
   

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9. WHAT SHOULD I
   BUILD?
   

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10. WHO SHOULD I
    SERVE?
    

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11. PICK PEOPLE…
    ▸…who you’re energized in talking to.
    ▸… whose problems are tractable.
    ▸… with money.
    

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12. ςΩετ
    

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13. ςΩετ
    

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14. TALK TO PEOPLE
    

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16. PLATFORM
    BEFORE PRODUCT
    

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17. THE SUCCESS PATH
    ▸ 3 friendcatchers
    ▸ 5 emails
    ▸ ~45 days of grinding
    

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18. THE IDEAL FRIENDCATCHER FIXES A PROBLEM WHICH IS…
    Tractable
    Underserved
    Resonant
    

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19. FRIENDCATCHERS
    ▸ Stick-a-fork-in-it-and-it-is-done guide to one broadly
    applicable, tightly scoped problem.
    ▸ Calculator which replaces an Excel spreadsheet.
    ▸ Definitive curated list of resources.
    ▸ Cheatsheet.
    

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20. GET. THEIR.
    EMAIL.
    

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22. EMAIL. LITERALLY.
    EVERYONE.
    

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23. EVERYTHING ABOUT EMAIL COURSES IN ONE SLIDE
    ▸ Make a promise with every subject line. Keep it.
    ▸ 75% education; 25% sales. You need both.
    ▸ Frontload delivery. 3x in first week is fine.
    ▸ After end of course, email 1x every 2~4 weeks
    

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24. CHECKPOINTS
    ▸ 10 great conversations (25 for SaaS)
    ▸ 500 emails
    ▸ 10 commits to buy (in SaaS)
    

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25. OBJECTIVE EXTERNAL
    INDICIA OF PROGRESS
    

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26. BUILD THE
    ACTUAL THING
    

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27. ABUSE YOUR ADVANTAGES
    ▸ “This is what I do.” is an amazing sales message.
    ▸ Be irrationally responsive to customers, especially early.
    ▸ Move fast and make things.
    

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28. CHARGE MORE
    

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29. REASONABLE FLOORS, BUT NOT CEILINGS!
    ▸ E-book: $49 / $99 / $249
    ▸ Video Course: $99 / $249 / $499
    ▸ Online training (half day): $249 / $499
    ▸ Online training (2 days): $499 / $999
    ▸ B2B SaaS: $49 / $99 / $249 or call us
    ▸ One-off software: $49 / $99
    ▸ Your time: $250 per hour; $10k per week
    

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30. A BIT ABOUT
    STRIPE ATLAS
    

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31. BORING
    BUSINESS ADVICE
    

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32. IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER
    ▸ Get a new credit card.
    ▸ Business Gmail / Google Apps account.
    ▸ accounts@ alias
    ▸ receipts@ alias
    ▸ Password manager (OnePass, etc)
    

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33. MEDIUM TERM
    ▸ Get an accountant.
    ▸ Find a peer group to talk shop with. Meet regularly.
    ▸ Derisk your family life:
    ▸ Retirement savings
    ▸ Insurance (term life & long-term disability)
    ▸ Go to the gym like it is your job
    

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34. WE ARE HERE FOR YOU
    ▸ @patio11 or patrick@kalzumeus.com or patio11@stripe.com
    ▸ bit.ly/patio11-mc18 <— Don’t tweet it.
    ▸ See the MicroConf Slack for email addresses of every Stripe
    attending. We really and sincerely want to hear from you.
    

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35. FUNDING FOR THIS PROGRAM MADE POSSIBLE BY THE INTERNET
    PHOTO CREDITS
    ▸ Big Jigsaw: Alan Levine, by CC: https://flic.kr/p/mDYE
    ▸ Unfinished Jigsaw: a2gemma, by CC: https://flic.kr/p/wTUmk
    

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