The Startup Weekly: #7
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The Ultimate Guide to Social Proof Marketing
Social proof is behind almost every purchasing decision we make. How can we channel it to drive our potential customers’ purchases too? This comprehensive guide explains social proof and the psychological levers behind it in great detail, and shows how can use it in your own business to drive greater sales.
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The startup framework to validate your idea before you spend $1
Most startups fail because they don’t solve a crucial, tier 1 problem for a large enough audience. In this article, Mitchell Harper (Co-founder, BigCommerce) outlines his idea validation framework to make sure, right from the start, that you’re solving a problem worth solving. I loved this simple action plan to verify that people really want what you’re building — I’m using this for my next big idea!
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8 Customer Discovery Questions to Validate Product Market Fit for Your Startup
In this article, Tom Tunguz (VC, Redpoint) shares the 8 key questions he asks customers when evaluating startup investment opportunities. The great thing about this list of questions is that it’s the very same that you’d need to ask your customers when starting up. A great complement to the $1 startup validation framework that we’ve shared in this issue!
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3 Fundamental User Onboarding Lessons from Classic Nintendo Games
I’m sure you’re old enough to remember Super Mario Bros. Not only was the game incredible fun, it turns out it has great lessons for people building apps today. Read this article to learn what Mario and Luigi can teach you about user onboarding. (And to learn why everyone liked Super Mario better than Contra).
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From Impossible To Inevitable: 3 Lessons
SaaS veterans Aaron Ross and Jason Lemkin offer three key lessons from their experience, highlighting the painful truths that founders, salespeople and marketeers tend to ignore for too long, keeping them and their companies from achieving their full potential. The article, borrowing heavily from their new book, talks about a lot of important things — how to hire the right people for the right time, how to tackle customer churn, and how to find the right deals to build your business successfully.
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Avoid Piecemeal Seed Rounds
Over the last few months, we’ve met several startups that are looking to raise money. Very often, the founders want to break their seed round into multiple steps, to optimize their valuations. Raise a little at a certain valuation, show traction, then raise some more at a slightly higher valuation, and so on.Leo Polovets (VC, Susa Ventures) shows, using an example, how that’s a suboptimal strategy — it wastes founder time, increases stress, and creates severe existential risk for the company. All for a piddly increase in the founders’ stake, in a company with a consequently lower probability of survival and success. Go figure.
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On Escape Velocity, Necessary Ruckus, & Working At The Edge Of Reason: 6 Thoughts
It’s hard to categorise this piece, really. I just want to say it’s definitely one of the best things I’ve read in a few months. 6 simple to the point thoughts that can have a huge impact. Covering aspects right from momentum needed to make it big, on the necessity of chaos, and on the bane of the rational. Do read this — and I’d love to know the thoughts this left you with.
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A Brief History Of Tech Bulls #IT
A superb piece from the Mattermark blog — this is also one of my pet peeves. How a lot of tech businesses today are spewing bullshit left right and centre. They have been, and continue to do so. Typically — it hasn’t ended well, so that’s not a road you want to venture down. GMV for instance being one such bullshit measure. Read on to understand what bullshit can look like, how to detect it, and I believe most importantly how to avoid falling into the trap yourself.
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Building a Startup in 45 Minutes per day While Deployed to Iraq
Very inspirational and motivating story of how Matt built a startup taking out what time he could *while posted in Iraq!!* Constraints and struggle are common to entrepreneurship and entrepreneurs — what sets the best ones apart are how they work within them and find solutions no matter what. Read — get inspired — get cracking!
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