The Startup Weekly: #34
The Startup Weekly is a journal committed to help startups grow. Here, you will find articles that will help you do just that and always stay ahead.
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Why ‘mobile first’ may already be outdated
What matters is screens, not devices. Mobile app driven companies are now building complimentary web apps.
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Will it sell? Ask Twitter
Ryan Holmes, the CEO of Hootsuite, is quite the hustler. In this article, he demonstrates step-by-step how you can test-drive your product ideas on social media, before you invest in building any of them. The other reason I like the article is that he illustrates the process with an actual product (a standing desk) he took from concept to shipping. Check it out, and start testing your product ideas today.
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Lessons From A Study of Perfect Pitch Decks
Every once in a while, you see some in-depth research that also offers practicable advice. This is one such piece of research. DocSend, a secure file-sharing service, has compiled some detailed learnings from analyzing 200 successful seed stage fund-raising pitches. Make sure to read the report that this article links to as well, for some very actionable input, including: 1. How long a pitch deck should be, and what information should be presented (in what order). 2. What the seed stage investing funnel looks like — how many people you’ll have to meet to land a single investment (Hint: a LOT!), and how long it will likely take. The most shocking stat for me: investors spend an average of 3 min 44 sec on your pitch deck, which you likely took weeks to make!
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The Ultimate List of Stock Photos For Commercial Use
Have you ever just jumped on to Google to find a stock photo, and the next thing you know, you’ve been infinite scrolling in the search results for an hour? Happened to me tons of times, till I found a couple of great stock photo resources. This article lists 22 great websites for stock photos that don’t look… ‘stocky’. My personal favorite is stocksnap.io, but check all of them out!
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How to Prepare Yourself to Be a Great CEO
Some great thoughts here, if you aspire to be a CEO soon (who doesn’t?). In my view, the critical thing is to start managing others, in ambiguous situations. Only then will you (a) start preparing for managing in higher-stress situations, and (b) start identifying your strengths and weaknesses as a leader and manager. Jason Lemkin has a few other great suggestions in this article — some may not be straightforward to implement, but some others are easy enough to start doing today. And all of them will prepare you to take the helm someday.
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8 things you need to know about raising venture capital
A very good primer on the basics of venture capital, and when you should try and get it (and when you shouldn’t). My key takeaways from the article: 1. Are your business and market VC-backable: Can you take an investment of millions of dollars and return many multiples of it? 2. Importance of understanding the Fund and the Partners. It’s very easy otherwise to waste your time with VCs that won’t invest in your sector / ticket size anyway. The writer also talks a lot about the dynamics of fund-raising from VCs. Really helpful stuff to know if you plan to fund-raise soon. But I won’t summarize here — else why would you read the article?
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How One Startup Grew From Zero to $100K in Monthly Revenue In Only 11 Months
A great interview of a serial founder who’s hit a crazy trajectory in just 11 months… without funding! A slightly long read, but there’s a lot of wisdom in here from Laura Roeder’s experience. She touches on a number of aspects, including content marketing and building an audience, SEO and Facebook marketing, surviving (and thriving) in a crowded marketplace, and how to hire for growth. My favorite bit was on the hiring — these 11 months also included a three month maternity leave for the founder! But the company still hit $100K because of hiring the right talent. So give this a leisurely read. It’ll be worth it.
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iPhone vs Android: Monetization Capabilities
As a lot of consumer-facing products now go ‘mobile first’, a key question is — what do you build first? iOS or Android? Deepak Abbott presents some very helpful data in this short article, to help make the choice. iOS ARPUs are 3.5X of Android, so if you want users to pay, iOS may be the way to go. On the other hand, given the much wider adoption of Android, that may be more attractive if your app is free to users. And as Deepak shows, in terms of ad revenue per app, Android more than holds its own against iOS. My take from the article — Android is still far and away the better choice, at least in India, for free apps.
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21 Tips for First-Time Entrepreneurs
I’m usually not a big fan of ‘lesson’ listicles — there are far too many of them, and most of them are quite ‘global’. This is not one of them — it’s clear that Andrew Medal has a ton of entrepreneurial experience, and what he says is quite useful to keep in mind as you set out to carve your own path. A number of his tips strongly resonated with me and my struggles over the last couple of years with my startup. Check this article out if you’re a first-time entrepreneur, or are planning to become one soon.
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From the Mouths of Startups: Making Freelancing Work
A key problem for a startup, especially if unfunded, is acquiring great talent. And if you’re lucky enough to find a brilliant resource, how do you pay his or her salary? One option for you is to explore the freelancer route. And as this article from Flexing It shows, numerous startups have employed freelancers with great results. What was most interesting to me in the article was the diverse benefits of using freelancers — each startup example had different needs from a freelancer, and was still able to find value. [Disclaimer: I freelance from time to time too, so I’m biased.]
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