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
2. BOARD MEETING KALZUMEUS SOFTWARE
3. YOUR FIRST 60 DAYS PATRICK MCKENZIE
4. 40 YEARS
5. DECISIONMAKING OVER THE LONG HAUL ▸Make more small bets. ▸Decide quickly on reversible things. ▸Do things which still matter in 40 years.
6. GRINDING, DUH.
8. WHAT SHOULD I BUILD?
9. WHAT SHOULD I BUILD?
10. WHO SHOULD I SERVE?
11. PICK PEOPLE… ▸…who you’re energized in talking to. ▸… whose problems are tractable. ▸… with money.
12. ςΩετ
13. ςΩετ
14. TALK TO PEOPLE
16. PLATFORM BEFORE PRODUCT
17. THE SUCCESS PATH ▸ 3 friendcatchers ▸ 5 emails ▸ ~45 days of grinding
18. THE IDEAL FRIENDCATCHER FIXES A PROBLEM WHICH IS… Tractable Underserved Resonant
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.
20. GET. THEIR. EMAIL.
22. EMAIL. LITERALLY. EVERYONE.
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
24. CHECKPOINTS ▸ 10 great conversations (25 for SaaS) ▸ 500 emails ▸ 10 commits to buy (in SaaS)
25. OBJECTIVE EXTERNAL INDICIA OF PROGRESS
26. BUILD THE ACTUAL THING
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.
28. CHARGE MORE
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
30. A BIT ABOUT STRIPE ATLAS
31. BORING BUSINESS ADVICE
32. IMMEDIATELY IF NOT SOONER ▸ Get a new credit card. ▸ Business Gmail / Google Apps account. ▸ accounts@ alias ▸ receipts@ alias ▸ Password manager (OnePass, etc)
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
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.
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