Philip Larkin, the renowned British poet, famously decreed on his death bed that all his diaries should be destroyed. During his life, he even wrote five full-length novels and burned every single one of them right after completion. Larkin allowed for nothing but perfection. Meanwhile, I regularly share the crudest drafts of my work on … Continue reading Building in Public and Legacy
Category: Uncategorized
Make it Easy to Cancel
It is a great retention strategy to make it easy for your customers to cancel your product. You may lose a few payments, but you gain something much more important: an ex-customer who feels respected. I see way too many founders paying way too little attention to the last interaction with their customers. They're missing … Continue reading Make it Easy to Cancel
Why Reading Fiction Is Important for Entrepreneurs
I recently heard a saying: "leaders read, and readers lead." It made me reflect on my reading choices over the last few years and what I have discovered from switching things up a little. A few years ago, you would have been unable to find any fiction in my library. All I consumed were non-fiction … Continue reading Why Reading Fiction Is Important for Entrepreneurs
Say Thank You
I've had an amazing year so far. I launched Zero to Sold a year go to great success, and in May, I launched The Embedded Entrepreneur to even greater success. I can't adequately express how incredibly grateful I am for the support and encouragement I have received. Whenever I see someone talking about my work, … Continue reading Say Thank You
Competition Isn’t Always a Business
When founders do market research, they are well-advised to look for competition. But many entrepreneurs have a very limited understanding of what "competition" means and therefore overlook many interesting — and often critical — competitors in their chosen markets. It usually goes like this: a founder spots a niche in the market they're interested in. … Continue reading Competition Isn’t Always a Business
SaaS, Self-Talk, and Many Small Bets
I often find myself trapped in the stories I tell myself. This week, I switched out the payment system of my SaaS PermanentLink. This is a critical part of my business, so I expected the actual coding part to be a high-pressure activity. After all, if I mess up the account management logic, paying customers … Continue reading SaaS, Self-Talk, and Many Small Bets
The Goals of Audience-Building
Too many people see audience building as a means to an end: they expect to build a following of people that are just sitting there, waiting to be sold something. The goal of this very limited audience-building approach is to find as many potential sales targets as possible, sell to them, and that's it. I … Continue reading The Goals of Audience-Building
Open-Source and Bootstrapping
This week, a few remarkable things happened in the open-source scene. First, Mapbox decided to change the license on their popular Mapbox-gl-js library, used by many to power their fancy in-app maps. They went from the very permissive BSD license to one that contains these fragments: "This license allows developers with a current active Mapbox … Continue reading Open-Source and Bootstrapping
“Audience-First” Is Not Just “Building an Audience”
We live in overly practical times. More and more entrepreneurs have been conditioned to look for the quick fix, the growth hack that will get them months' worth of success within a single day. Many founders are looking for immediately actionable tactics, ignoring the long-term strategies in which those should be embedded. That approach has … Continue reading “Audience-First” Is Not Just “Building an Audience”
Preparing for the Sale From Day One: Getting the Documentation Right
Before any acquisition can happen, many prerequisites need to be in place. There will be an extensive due diligence process. Commonly, "buyer-side due diligence" is the procedure of an acquirer making sure that everything is in order with the business they are about to acquire. It's a detailed investigation, making sure that everything you claimed … Continue reading Preparing for the Sale From Day One: Getting the Documentation Right
