Startup to Last

Here are some other topics we discussed: Tyler bought a house. Tyler is starting to do some startup mentorship. Rick's interns are gone. Rick has made progress on his positioning work.

Here are the topics we discussed: LACRM shipped a handful of small improvements the interns had been working on. Tyler gives an update on the price increase. Rick is applying the positioning framework we applied last week which involved competitor analysis. Tyler officially decided to go with Sococo as a virtual office for the team while everyone is remote. Rick decided what to do with this Slack...

Most of this week's discussion was about Obviously Awesome by April Dunford. We also gave some updates on the following topics: Now that Rick is fully committed to Legup Health, he's getting used to giving something his all again. Tyler is considering tweaking the plan for the coding fellowship. Tyler is evaluating Sococo to help with remote team culture.

Note from Tyler: I'm sorry that my dog is whining in the background throughout this episode. I'll banish him from my room in future episodes. He's such a wimp. Here are some of the topics from this episode: Tyler's price increase went into effect, but it's too early to draw any conclusions. Rick has gotten great feedback from sharing his slide deck. Tyler has been tweaking how his team communicate...

Topics discussed in this episode: Tyler's growth is still going strong. Rick is going to write content to build trust with his early leads. Rick created a slide deck to explain his business. Check it out here and let him know what you think. Tyler is making long-term product decisions. Tyler is thinking about making no-code a core part of the coding fellowship next year. Rick recorded an interview...

Here are some topics from this week: Less Annoying CRM was named the #1 CRM by U.S. News and World Report. Tyler restarted employee raises after temporarily freezing them when the pandemic started. Rick now has fully self-serve onboarding. We discuss how to write a terms of service and privacy policy. Rick is making trade offs between sales and product time. Rick wants to retain some of his intern...

Here are some of the topics we discussed this week: All of Rick's interns are onboarding, and things are going well Rick is building up a bit of sales momentum We discuss whether or not it makes sense to create artificial scarcity by requiring a referral before signing up.

Topics from this week: Tyler talks about the reaction he got when telling his customers about an upcoming price increase. Rick launched his referral program. Tyler is working on a new API for LACRM. Rick has finalized the interns he'll bring on this summer. Rick wasted a bunch of time talking to the IRS about a notification that was sent in error. We discuss HEY, the new email program from Basecam...

Here are the topics we discussed this week: Rick's interns are acting as a forcing function to keep him more productive. Tyler has decided on a plan for LACRM pricing changes. Tyler has refined how he talks about project priorities with his team. Akshay from UserBit (a boostrapped company that makes software for UX teams ) wrote in to ask about how we should handle inbound enterprise leads.

Here are the topics from this week: Tyler and Rick both have interns and need to figure out what projects they should be working on. Rick has been working on a client referral program. Tyler is wondering if there's anything for him to do to partner with customers who love LACRM. Rick was considering an intrapreneurship opportunity (working as an entrepreneur within a larger company) and decided ag...

Disclaimer: This is an awkward topic to discuss, but it needs to be discussed. We do not claim to be experts, but we believe that as privileged white men, it's our responsibility to try to learn, challenge ourselves, and evolve. This conversation is a part of our attempt to do so.

Here are some of the topics we covered this week: Tyler's interns started and they're keeping him busy. Rick took a vacation over Memorial day weekend and feels refreshed. Tyler has been brainstorming his product strategy more since last week. Tyler gives an update on how May has been for Less Annoying CRM financially. Rick has added his first non "beta" client. Tyler used GDPR to get a company to...

Here are some of the topics we discussed this week: Rick made his first revenue with LegUp Health Tyler pimped out his home office with a new chair Rick is using Heap for product analytics Less Annoying CRM had a "CRM Coach day of rest" where developers handled support for the day Rick's intern has started and is already paying off Tyler has a new framework for thinking about product improvements...

Here are the topics we covered this week: Tyler got a new standing desk. Rick hit a wall with his product. Both Rick and Tyler have interns starting soon. There's a lot of work to do to prepare. Less Annoying CRM had a breakthrough with their demo call workflow. Rick learned from the wisdom of Charlie Munger. Tyler is thinking about analytics because of a fan suggestion. LegUp Health got their fir...

We tried out a new format in this episode. Instead of picking a deep dive topic and spending most of the time on that, we both had a lot of updates to give, so we spent the entire episode on that. Here are some of the topics we covered: Rick finished a project for a consulting client that probably won't get used. He talked about how deflating that feels, and how managers should be careful when doi...

The main question we addressed this week was whether Rick should spend his time selling within his personal network (which would be sure to work, but isn't really repeatable or scalable) or start building out a repeatable marketing channel. The main takeaway is that the repeatable channel would be more effective if he had more budget to spend on it, and the way to get there is by getting his reven...

Takeaways from this episode: It's important to separate marketing tactics from strategy. It's possible that specific tactics make sense, but you need to understand why you're doing those things? What's the goal? It's important to focus on a segment or niche, but not all niches are created equal. The goal is to find a niche where the people within it share with each other so that your work can have...

Takeaways from this episode: Rick isn't at a point where he needs to figure this out right now. He thought he might need to know this so he could start courting potential employees for the future, but he can do that without knowing the details of compensation. Compensation is a combination of salary, benefits, equity, and other perks. One way or another, you need to put a package together that is...

There were a variety of different ideas thrown around in this episode. Here are some of the takeaways: Ideally, a healthy remote culture won't just mimic an in-person culture, it will actually take advantage of the unique characteristics remote has to offer. After companies start going back to in-person work, we shouldn't just go back to business as usual. We should try to maintain the things that...

Here are some takeaways from this week's episode: There are two common reasons for a manager to feel impatient: someone isn't motivated to work hard, or they're working hard but not getting enough done. The first type is best to avoid entirely by hiring people who are intrinsically motivated. If you can trust that they aren't intentionally slacking off, it takes a lot of pressure off your plate as...

Here are some takeaways from this week's conversation: It's easier to optimize interactions with existing customers rather than new customers who are onboarding because with new customers, every change is more likely to mess up your onboarding funnel. Existing customers have more isolated support events. Start by collecting data from the support team on what they're spending their time on. Iterate...

First off, sorry about the terrible audio this week. This is probably related to the fact that Tyler is recording from his apartment instead of his office due to COVID-19. We'll get this figured out before next week. Here are some takeaways from this episode: There are three possible audiences for a startup manifesto: customers, founders, and employees The customer-facing version is very different...

This week we take a break from our normal deep dive topics to talk about current events. Between the coronavirus and the stock market volatility, a lot has been happening that could potentially impact our businesses and lives.

Here are some of the takeaways from this episode: Even if your product is good for a large group of people (all small businesses in this case) it can be helpful to focus on a specific segment rather than "boiling the ocean" because it gets easier to acquire new customers as you become more dominant within the segment. There are different ways to segment your customers (industry, job title, age, lo...

Rick's new business is ramping up, and he's starting to think about how he's going to fund it until it's profitable. He definitely doesn't want to give up any equity at this early stage, so he needs to consider non-dilutive options. Here are some things we cover: There are a few main ways to fund a new business without giving up equity: Consult or work a normal job to make money and funnel that in...