The 7 Day Startup Notes

Beginning

Avoid steps like:

1. Sexy Ideas — instead solve a problem and sell a service fast
2. My failure — don’t blame yourself
3. Permission asking — you don’t have to ask people to start
4. Assumptions
5. Small stuff — waste time for logo, name and description
6. Pricing decision — take one and just leave it. You will change it later.
7. Perfect payment gateway — just setup a PayPal button in few minutes

StartUp

A human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme

1. High impact potential
2. High levels of innovation
3. High levels of uncertainty

Idea, Execution (Put your best here), Hustle (Hustle on things that will bring customers)

The most important thing after launch is to get customers paying.

• Validation does not work well when the answer to your idea is not a clear YES
• Email opt-in and beta sign-ups do not indicate purchase intent
• People saying “It is a good idea” doesn’t mean it
• Coverage in Tech Press doesn’t work as expected
• Targeted surveys don’t work — people don’t know what they want until you force them to pay
• Pre-selling is flawed experiment

You fail to build momentum if you pre-sell

• The concept of “Validation” is too simplistic

Work harder

When the brain realizes which is the though part of a job it focuses on the small things instead of working.

7 Pre-launch tasks

Days:

1. Generate idea
2. Minimum viable product
3. Create a business name
4. Build a website (online presence)
5. Find methods to get the business in front of many people
6. Set success goals
7. Have to launch

The 7 Day Startup

Day 1 — The 9 elements of a great bootstrapped business idea

Things that matter

1. The idea
2. Execution
3. Ability to find customers (Hustle)
4. Timing matters
5. Luck matters

You should change idea once started learning from customer data.

9 elements of a bootstrapped business idea

1. Enjoyable daily tasks — be passionate about growing your business, not to follow your passion. Jay Lens is passionate about cars but won’t fix them for living. Don’t have a business that will make you work things that you don’t like.
2. Product/Founder fit — Thing of your skills and if they fit within the idea.
3. Scalable business model — startup founders should want the business to scale. Start thinking how you can charge customers. Can the idea grow per month.
4. Operates profitably without the founder — can you see the idea becoming a real business that operates profitably without you?
5. An asset you can sell — A third party validation is valuable to see if there is value in the business. Assets are built over time by ignoring short-term distractions in favor of bigger, long-term vision.
   - List of paying customers
   - Product design . Intellectual property.
   - Your team is an asset
   - Website is an asset
   - A large email list
   - If you work on this idea for 5 years what will you have in the end?
6. Large market potential
7. Tap into pain or pleasure differentiators — What will your customers really care about? Does your idea tap into a big pain or pleasure point? Or is it just a cool idea?
   - Unique lead generation advantage (consumer interest) — How are you going to generate leads? What will make you and your company unique?
8. Ability to launch quickly
   - Is your idea good?
   - Don’t pick low hanging fruit!
   — Don’t resell other stuff or etc.
   — Create something real — write content, software app. Creation is something that happens every day.
   - Don’t try to be Steve Jobs!
   — Solve problems where people are already paying
   — Playing visionary is for 2–3 time entrepreneurs
   — Everyone can say your solution is great but whether or not they are paying for a similar solution — it will tell you how hard it is to make them pay

Summary

1. Enjoy daily tasks
2. Product/Founder fit
3. Scalable business model
4. Operates profitably without the founder
5. An asset you can sell
6. Large market potential
7. Taps into pains or pleasure different
8. Unique lead generation advantage
9. Ability to launch quickly

Day 2 — MVP (Minimum viable product)

MVP — the version of the product that enables a full turn of the build-measure-learn amount of effort and the least amount of development time

1. Don’t overemphasize the minimum and underemphasize the “viable”
2. Build what you need, not what you think others need
3. Charge from day one
4. Stop trying to build the perfect product
5. Ship fast, ship frequently
6. Price for the customers you want

!! Think how mvp will look like

• How you can perform a service or offer a product?
• How will you get them to pay you after 7 days
• How close the MVP will be to the final vision of the product
• What can you do manually
• What can you do yourself instead of delegation
• How can you make your offer as real as possible for the end customer

!! Write down what you will launch on day 7. What will the customers get, what is included and what is excluded. What is automated and what is manually done.

Day 3 — Business Name

1. Come up with few options
   - After a place
   - Two words to create a new one
   - Acronym — IBM
   - Industry terms — (WP) Wordpress
   - Dictionary
   - Extends a related word — wordroid.com
   - Outsource it — crowdsprint.com
2. Business name
   - Is it taken? — knowem.com
   - Is it simple <= 12 chars
   - Is it easy to say out loud
   - Do you like it
   - Does it make sense for your idea
   - Broader is better

!! Come up with a bunch of potential business names and evaluate them against the criteria above.

Day 4 — Website in 1 day

Approaches

1. Create a site to capture emails before you launch in 4 days
2. Create a site that pre-sells your product
3. Create actual sales page you will use on launch day

On day 7 you need payment button.

Marketing funnel — the process by which one will become a customer. — MailChimp, PayPal, Google Analytics.

Day 5–10 ways to market

Get product in front of qualified buyers

1. Create content for the site
2. Start sending emails
   - Add people early on
   - Setup landing page for emails
   - Send HQ info
   - Give away something relevant
   - Create great content
   - Keep emails private and encourage people to reply
3. Podcasting
4. Forums, online groups
5. Guest blogging
6. Listing sites add your idea in sites like alternativeto.net
   - Startup — betali.st, killerstartups.com
   - producthunt.com
   - app — appvita.com, cloudli.st
7. Webinars
8. Presenting
9. Doing free work
10. Media coverage
    - Lists of journalists to contact
    - Chase friends who have been featured
    - Pay attention to part of the newsworthy stories
    - Do everything for opportunities to be featured
    - Talk about yourself
    - Sent the best articles to other sites
11. Retargeting — a hidden cookie that tells other sites to display your ad
12. Testimonials — anything that makes you look trustworthy
13. Referrals
    - Current customers
    - Indirect competitors
    - People who have helped or networked
    - Affiliates who get paid to promote
    - People who have heard about us
    - Things to do
    — Ask existing customers for referral
    — Survey existing customers to make sure they are happy
    — Thank personally anyone who send a lead
    — Network with competitors. Send leads that don’t fit nearby
    — Network initiatives with influencers
    - Simple affiliate program
    - Partnership with companies who share the same audience
14. Social media
15. Influencer outreach — find influencers and reach them. followerwonk.com, klout.com, relate.ly, inkybee.com, getlittlebird.com. Engage them and write back if they reached you. Help them. After doing this for a while ask for a specific thing.
16. Online advertising
17. Attend physical events
    - Do a research
    - Introduce yourself to the group
    - Be geniune and ask specific questions
    - Move along after few minutes
    - Be helpful
    - Be awkward
    - Bring business cards
    - Practice your introduction
    - Personally thank the organizer
    - Don’t spam people with your business
    - Value your time
    - Be prepared
    - Don’t hang around influencers like a bad smell
    - Cold contact — random contacting people

!! Build a list of what marketing tools you will use. Put a list for the first week or two.

Day 6 — Set targets

You don’t need to set targets if you have many people Focus on OMTM (One metric that matters). For launch focus on people who sign up and pay you. Shoot for new customers and set a realistic growth rate. A similar amount can be 40 000$. 10% growth a month, 10 customers first month.

OMTM:

• Make it a financial metric
• Pay attention who is signing up and not friends
• Set a goal first month and revisit later each month
• Change OMTM over time

Problem/Idea

Do people need it?

Ask if customers will be disappointed if service is closed. If 40% say yes — success.

MVP Launch

How many people have signed up?

Total sign ups in first week or month — up to you if you think it is very important.

Business model validation

Profit margin

The percentage of profit if:

• Founders were in business
• You had replacements for founders.

Aim for around 50%.

Growth

CPA and LTV

How much customers cost to acquire. Ideally LTV should be a lot higher than CPA. It can take a while to get there

!! Day 6 task — create a spreadsheet that covers first few months in business, the numbers of signups, revenue, estimated costs and monthly growth.

Day 7 — Launch

1. Put up live site with the payment button
2. Include options for people to contact you — live chat, email, phone
3. Email anyone who is on the pre-launch list
4. Update on social forums and networks
5. Add call to action in signatures
6. Tell friends and make them share it
7. Thank people who have helped you
8. Continue with the influencer outreach
9. Publish a post on the blog
10. Ask entrepreneurial friends to help. If you help 90% and ask 10%.
11. Execute the marketing plan

Don’t stress

!! Launch and start executing

Refine your business model

Are real customers:

• Paying
• Staying
• Referring

Self sufficient business model. Fit the business model to the customer.

Business that cannot grow:

1. Creates more leads
   - Hire a salesperson or content creator
2. Increase the cost of the project
3. Hire more people
4. Do physically more work

All of these doom a project to fail. They lead to more spend and stress. It requires more staff, more clients etc.

Business with growth in its DNA

1. Profit margin — 50% margin means 50% cost, 50% profit
2. Large market — don’t fall into the niches
3. Asset building — What are you building today that will make you indestructible tomorrow?
4. Simple business model — work on one simple offering like DropBox or Buffer.
5. Recurring or predictable revenue
   - MRR — Monthly recurring revenue is easier. You can predict customres, revenue, easy growth etc. MRR means less customers
   - SAAS — high margin, large market, simple, recurring — dropbox

14 Business rules to live by

1. Test every assumption
   - Why does everyone in your industry do the things the same way?
   - What do customers like about your service?
   - Why aren’t people buying your product
   - Why are they buying
   - Are people using it
   - How are they using it
   - Why do they love it
   - What do they tell when refer
   - Are certain parts of the product needed
   - Do you need an office
   - Do you need a business card
   - Do you need a logo
2. Solve problems as they arise — don’t invest in things that may happen
3. Do what you say will do — be true to your word
4. Benchmark against the best
   - For logos — compare against Apple
   - For posts — KissMetrics
   - Website — bench.co
5. Learn from others and yourself — check if others have solved it
6. Outlearn competition
   - Build Measure Run
   - Ready Fire Aim
   - Getting Shit Done
7. Always consider how your business looks without you — work on and in your business. Do both. Consider business growth.
8. Look for sources of momentum — do more of what is working
9. Manage motivation — if you are not excited there is something wrong. You should be more excited about Monday than about Friday. If it is not the case — things won’t work out.
10. Cull difficult customers — price time
11. Focus on retention
    - Subject: Did we do something wrong?
    - Body: Hey, [first_name]
    I noticed you cancelled your subscription, did we do something wrong?
12. Avoid short-term thinking
    - Spreadsheet for 12 months growth
    - Have an “abundance goto” saying
    — “There are surely 70 million websites for WordPress. Surely 500 will pay 79$ pay month to make sure they don’t have to worry for their site.”. Focus on building your business.
13. Focus on product
14. Love your work!