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Your First 60 Days

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.

Patrick McKenzie

April 16, 2018
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  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 [email protected] or [email protected]
    ▸ 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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