lunin.lens (@lunin) • Hey

Founder & CEO @ Shegby - a Network State with Proof-of-Personhood, addresses the challenges of sybil&bot attacks.

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**Every founder is special!** With enviable regularity I come across copies of startups and large projects, and almost every time the founder of whom is being copied is extremely upset. And every time my answer to such founders is the same - it is impossible to copy the founder! Yes, you can try to copy a business model, processes, resources, but every business is as individual as a person is in its essence. And yes, don't copy anyone, take the best and do what you personally think is right - then you will have that very unique business! It is important to understand that your "uniqueness" is not what "you like". For example, you may like basketball, but your height will not allow you to become an outstanding basketball player. Therefore, selecting ideas for your startup based on "I've always liked this" may not be a good idea. Your "specialty" is not even your "strength". Like shyness was not Zuckerberg's strength. Or how the ability to code is the strength of millions of experienced developers, not your personal characteristic. Before you study ideas and markets, you need to study yourself. What makes you different from others? What do you understand or see differently? How might that be useful? This is exactly what you need to do! Paul Graham once tweeted: "When I help someone come up with a startup idea, I start by finding out what makes them special. What do they know or care about that few others are thinking about? A good idea for that founder has to grow out of that characteristic." "However, few founders do this themselves," he continues, "they either do not pay attention to their characteristics or consider them weaknesses. Although even weakness can become a source of ideas." It is even said that Zuckerberg started creating his social network because he had problems meeting attractive classmates in person at Harvard.
**Customer Development is just Sales!** If you are afraid of losing interest in your own project, do not separate "sales" and "customer development" (CustDev). Many people think that CustDev is when you study and interview consumers. And sales is when you go around to potential customers with a presentation in your hand or an ad in your hand and close deals. As if you already know and understand everything - because CustDev has already been done. And this is a big mistake. First of all, people lie. Second, they don't know what they want. Third, they tell us about imaginary actions they would take under imaginary conditions, without risking real money or seeing an immediate opportunity to get what they want. Fourth, when we sell, we usually open our mouths but close our eyes and ears, and when we study customers through interviews and surveys, we don't make any money. But real CustDev begins only after we have built at least a minimal product - and started selling it. And here we have to react to two things: 1. When a person buys it, you have to ask them, "Why the hell did you do that?" Because our ideas about how and for what he will use the purchased product may differ from reality in important details. And we may get unexpected insights about other ways to use it - which can expand our product in an unexpected direction. 2. If he didn't buy it, you need to analyze why he wasn't convinced by what you thought should convince him. And try to find some completely different arguments - which can suddenly change his opinion. This way you can make money and develop your product at the same time. Without making sales a boring process. And CustDev is a speculative exercise without any real proof of its correctness.
**Who think clearly, speaks clearly!** Every founder knows what his project does. But they don't usually know how to explain why it does what it does and what the ultimate meaning is. Be careful - not "tell about your project", but "explain its essence". These are different things. And this is not because there is not enough time. The essence should be explained very quickly. Everything else is detail. It's not for nothing that Y Combinator graduates are forced to train to finish their Demo Day presentation in 1 minute. The problem is the inability to explain the essence. And this is terribly critical. Because it seems to founders that they understand everything, but they can't say it. But as Schopenhauer said, "Who thinks clearly speaks clearly". Failure to express the essence means that the founder himself does not fully understand that essence. This leads to a series of wrong actions in its implementation. The trick is that practicing talking about the project won't help. Because you will memorize how you understand this essence now. Which is usually not what you need! Only observation can help - how successful founders explain the essence of their projects. Or at least the same trained Y Combinator alumni. At the same time, it is important not only to watch them and see what they are "talking about". And to analyze - that is, to notice exactly what you don't normally talk about!
**A live rabbit is better than a sketched one** Training founders without projects is like training a greyhound to chase a sketched rabbit. There is no point. The greyhound needs to see the running live meat - and run as fast as possible to grab it with its teeth and feel the taste and smell of blood (in the sense of money). No analysis of business cases, no reading of success stories and business literature can replace this feeling and incentive. The founder can be trained and educated only on live projects - rabbits. Moreover, the rabbits can even be changed. After all, you are chasing the biggest rabbit in the forest. In general, the forest can be changed as well, but that's another story. In short, if you really want to benefit from smart books and videos about business and entrepreneurship, at least start doing something you can apply those smart thoughts to. And it doesn't really matter where you start. The important thing is that you see your first real rabbit. And what that rabbit can become, you'll find out along the way.
**To keep from going crazy, you need to grow** Some founders dream not of a billion-dollar startup, but of a modest "cash cow" that will provide them with a steady income indefinitely. Not realizing that they are sending themselves straight to the madhouse. This is not because it is impossible to create such a cash cow. On the contrary! Because it's real. A "stable" business is one that stays at the same level. However, for any business to survive, you have to work hard. At the same time, it is unlikely to work, as is usually the case, to completely entrust the management of your business to someone else, so that you can warm your belly on the beach yourself, without worrying about anything. And what happens? It turns out that you have to run as hard as you can all the time - just to stay in one place all the time. After a few years of such a life, you will inevitably begin to feel sick, and then you will go crazy. Therefore, it is better to discard the "cash cow" option immediately. And only do what can grow all the time. And so - so that it grows all the time. At least it will always be clear why you are working so hard. And when it stops being interesting, you can sell the growing business at a profit. To do something else more interesting. And you'll still have a "stable" business.
**The approach of "12 interesting problems and 12 interesting solutions"** Many people believe that ideas are born in a very simple way. First you pick a problem, then you blow your horn on it - and then you find the solution. This is how they solve textbook problems. But great discoveries are not made that way. Physicist Richard Feynman (who won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in quantum electrodynamics) offers an interesting approach: "At any given time, you should have 12 interesting problems in your head and 12 interesting solutions to completely different problems." That's the point: Sometimes there are interesting connections between problems and solutions. Also, every time you learn of a new interesting solution, you should try to apply it to one of those 12 problems. Whenever you learn of a new interesting problem, apply one of these 12 solutions to it. Sooner or later, an interesting problem and an interesting solution will combine in your mind - and you will become the author of a new discovery. At the same time, someone else had an interesting problem and an interesting solution. But you figured out how to connect them. It seems that brilliant business ideas are born the same way. Very often, an interesting problem arises in one market - and a suitable solution is found in another. It is better to think about several problems at the same time - because you do not know for which of them a solution can be found. And you need to collect interesting solutions - they are like master keys, each of which can open many locks.
**How do you identify a super-consumer?** 10% of all shoppers in a category generate 30% to 70% of the total sales of all companies in that category. This is because these people buy more, more often, and more expensively than others. They are called superconsumers. They are also the longest term subscribers to subscription services, and it is worth spending advertising budgets to attract them. Because everyone else will pay for a subscription once or twice - and then stop. But how do you find them? Or how do you identify them among your users to try to please them? The trick is that super-consumers in one category are usually super-consumers in an average of 9 other categories! And not necessarily in related categories - but in every category. Because what makes people super-consumers is not their passion for something, but their overall character and the financial security that supports that style of behavior. The first thing you can do is to buy from companies that sell even dissimilar goods and services, their base of frequent, expensive and long-term customers. Chances are you will find your super-consumers among them. The second is to make it a standard part of your user surveys to ask them what else they have been buying for a long time and often, or what they have been subscribing to for a long time. If they do, you should listen to their opinions and analyze their behavior very carefully. The word "long" is key! Because there are also "super fliers" who easily subscribe to something new... and just as easily unsubscribe. For example, a significant portion of video content consumers are people who have managed to unsubscribe from 3 or more video services in the last 2 years. The conclusion is paradoxical. You need to find good customers not by their interests, but by the way they buy things.
**The startup's ambition is clear on the Competitors slide.** If you only see your competitors as direct analogs of your product, it means you lack ambition. Ambition is not just the desire to make money with what you have. Ambition is the desire to go to the next level. To make a qualitative leap - including making your product something bigger than it was before. All of which means picking your competition to match it - from the next level. And not from where your product is now. And all its direct analogues along with it. This must be done even if these direct analogues are already very big. Because it is almost impossible to butt heads with the big guys. You can't butt heads, but you can jump over them. Which brings us back to the idea of taking your product to the next level - and making it something different and bigger than what it was intended to be. Here's a great challenge for you to develop your ambitions - who can you call your main competitors, other than direct analogues?
**The hacker mindset is critical for founders** The path of a startup founder is often long and winding. Those who hack the system are able to find a wormhole to shorten the path - will wins. We have to hack the system, or as my friend says, "If they won't let us in by the entrance, we'll go in by the exit". You can be a hacker not only in programming, but also in marketing, sales, hiring employees, and finding partners. The essence of "hacking" is that you stop following the usual paths in areas that are critical to your startup. You start looking for ways to "hack the system" - find a workaround, a back door, climb through a window. That is, do something unexpected to get the same result - but in less time, with less effort and less money. When you think about it, this is fundamentally important. Now, look - there are usually a lot of competitors doing the same thing as you. You don't think their founders are dumber than you, do you? And if many equally smart people are moving along the same path toward the same goal, who will win this race? Even the starting time is not of fundamental importance - unless you started when the others had already finished. Anything that is visible - the features of a product, for example - can be quickly copied and used to catch up with the leaders. Whoever finds a shortcut wins! Typically, the least compelling slides in startup presentations focus on competitive advantages. This is because these slides are not about competitive advantages - they are about some obvious features of the product that are easy to copy. But it should be different-about ways to take shortcuts in critical areas that are invisible to the outside eye. That's why Y Combinator's questionnaire includes two or three questions about "hacking the system" not just in a startup, but in life!
**More money, less competition** There are two major categories of entrepreneurs and one minor. The first big one only wants to deal with "hot" technologies, i.e. conditional startups. The second big one, on the other hand, is only interested in traditional businesses such as cafes or real estate. And only the third category, with a small number of entrepreneurs, is looking for ways to build a bridge between one and the other - to bring "new" technological solutions to old markets. And these solutions are only "new" for traditional markets. And for advanced markets, they are already taken for granted. And it is this small number of entrepreneurs who get the opportunity to enter huge markets, with two huge advantages. First, they don't have to come up with unique technologies - they take what "everyone already knows" and adapt it. Second, they have fewer competitors. Because most of them either compete with each other on technological novelty (the first big category) or bump into each other in an old, crowded market (the second big category). True, these people must have two important qualities - "understanding" (understanding ordinary people) and "simplifying" (using complex technologies in the simplest way possible). Although this is actually one quality, since only those who understand well can simplify. Here are some examples: Uber brought a mobile application with geolocation to the old taxi market, Airbnb brought online marketplace technology to the old apartment rental market. Tesla brought electricity to the old car market.
Don't confuse startup pivots with chaotic jumping from one idea to another. Such a pivot does not allow you to use your previous experience. And you start all over again. With the same odds of success. Pivot is the result of learning by experimenting. Either you start to understand more about your product and its hidden capabilities that you never thought about before. Or you begin to understand more about your target audience, their real and hidden needs. As a result, you have two options for what can legitimately be called a pivot: 1. You redirect essentially the same product, but to a different audience, for whom it turns out to be more necessary and important. 2. You create a new, more important and necessary product, but for the same audience. The most important thing about a pivot is that by selling this product to these people, you learn something about the product or people that no outsider would have guessed without first studying the details as deeply as possible. This becomes your competitive advantage - which can make your next attempt successful.
**If you don't know what to do, find something to break.** For example, break someone else's big business. Just like the iPhone broke Nokia's business, Airbnb broke the hotel business, Uber broke the taxi business, and Tesla broke the car business. Most founders, for whatever reason, come up with an idea first. Then they look for a competitor. Then they rack their brains for ways to compete. This sequence can be done in reverse. First, we decide whose business we want to destroy. Then - how to do it. And only then - how to do it.
**If you can't write, rewrite!** Coming up with something from scratch is very difficult. Try to take a blank piece of paper and write something brilliant on it. But surely everyone can take someone else's writing and explain why it's bullshit. And someone will even be able to tell you how to rewrite that text to make it better. There is such a profession - it's called literary editing. It turns out that rewriting is a profession that can be learned. But whether it is possible to learn to become a brilliant writer is a big question. Probably not! So let's leave aside the brilliant startup founders (writers from scratch). What should we do - all the other founders who still want to launch successful startups? Everything seems easy! Take something that many people already use. Then explain to yourself why it is bullshit. And then figure out how to "rewrite" it to make it much better. The trick is that the ability to rewrite is trained. So sooner or later you will be able to figure out what and how to rewrite - so that it flies. This makes even a long process of trial and error meaningful. As opposed to endless attempts to splash brilliant text on a blank sheet of paper.
**Tenacity as the luck of startup founders.** Intelligence is no longer a competitive advantage, and neither is wisdom. There is such a human quality as persistence, and I'll write about it briefly below. At the table next to me, the head of an agency is communicating with a client. He is presenting very intelligently - starting from the definition of a marketing task for a client and ending with a KPI system for his performers. You can hear that this person is smart. But then I hear - "And this month we have a cash shortage, so we are offering you our services much cheaper than usual". Well, that's a good thing, but the problem with many founders is that they think intelligence is their competitive advantage. Although smart people do not always become successful entrepreneurs. Those who agree with this statement say that the main thing is the ability to be proactive. Which is important, of course, but not the key to success. I know many small business owners who are extremely active. It turns out that the most important thing is the ability to find the right point of application for your efforts. This compensates perfectly for lack of intelligence and laziness. It forces you to take the simplest and shortest path to the goal, delegating everything possible to smarter and more active people. It is this ability that these smart or active people usually call luck. This is because they do not understand how these people ended up in the right place at the right time with the right product. And also because they cannot accept the fact that their intelligence and activity do not allow them to be successful in their chosen endeavor. So it's better not to train the mind and the ability to be active from morning to night, but to train curiosity and the ability to notice where and what has begun to move. Probably the best description of such a person is "persistent. When he saw something somewhere, he got hooked on it - and kept digging in that direction until he got the result.
**How to properly develop a product?** Once you have successfully launched your product, where will you develop it? Most founders immediately decide to "expand the market" by reaching an audience that is not interested in the current version of the product. This is a dangerous mistake. Because attracting a different audience is not "developing" an existing product, it is "creating" a new product instead of an old one. Again, experiments with little chance of success. As a result, you may even reach the point where the existing product no longer meets the needs of the existing audience. "Developing" a product means "developing success" on an already captive audience, not running in a perpendicular direction. A "captive" audience is not just those who bought the product and continue to use it. But even those who were interested in it (registered, subscribed to the free version) did not buy it. They fell for it, but you weren't able to squeeze them. But for those who paid once but fell off, it's better to exclude them, on the contrary. Because this product was not for them after all. The first task of "development" is to make new money from the part of the customers who can pay more. Offer them something extra for significantly more money. There is usually a conditional 10% of customers who are willing to pay 10 times more. You just have to find out what you can sell them for that amount of money. The second task is to analyze what was missing for those who took the bait but did not buy. How to strengthen an offer? What to add to the product? How to improve the sales funnel? These people just didn't have enough to buy. It is that "little something" that needs to be found. So "development" is development, and "creating something new" is creating something new.
**Don't advertise, sell** It is silly to describe the target audience of your product as "people who want to use our product". For example, for a health monitoring application, "people who care about their health. If we describe it that way, what targeting will we use to advertise it? Based on the "health" interest suggested by the social network? So we will capture a bunch of "extra" people - on whom we will spend a lot of "extra" money. And besides, the offer will turn out to be too general, which will not work well. How can this be specified? People who already take such and such medicines or go to such and such doctors? Then the question is - how to find them? Or people who reach a certain age when certain problems start? For example, "senile myopia", which occurs at the age of 40-45 in all people with previously normal vision. Or "our target audience is all online shops". What, that's it? Or by size range? Or by the number of orders? Or spend so much money on advertising? Or by the product they use? Or, on the contrary, those who do not use it? Prospecting is the identification of your potential customers based on a set of criteria. The goal is to create their base. Then to systematically communicate with them in various ways - trying to turn them into real customers. Proper prospecting can save us from spending money on blind advertising altogether. Especially in the early stages of startup development - when we need to "skim the cream" by selling our product to the most obvious customers. Make very specific offers to them. Of course, creating such a base also requires brains and money. Buy data from someone or build a robot that searches the Internet for the right people or companies. Agree on cooperation with the communities where these people are gathered. Or something else. However, this usually turns out to be cheaper than massive advertising. And 1,000 times more effective!
**Look the other way and win!** An expert is someone who knows more and more about less and less. The same thing happens to startup founders. When we delve into the topic of our startup, we always dive deep. This prevents us from seeing new opportunities that exist outside the "box" in which we are tinkering. To make matters worse, the ability to think abstractly is the lot of the few. Most people only understand simple examples and recipes that are directly relevant to their jobs. This, in turn, does not allow them to transfer successful concepts and solutions that exist in other markets to their topic - they are "about something completely different". The conclusion is that you just have to take a look at other interesting startups that are successfully growing in completely different areas. What interesting features have they implemented, what cool marketing and sales approaches are they using, how do they frame their offering, and how do they differentiate themselves from their competitors? And then think - how can these things be applied to your topic and your product? Maybe not right off the bat. Maybe a little more cleverly - through the same bridge of abstract thinking. I can argue. If you take an interesting startup from any topic - and set yourself the task of taking something useful from it... you will definitely find something to take! Because that's how the human brain is designed. And then that will become your competitive advantage - which your competitors will not be able to find. They will continue to stare into the market and study only the closest analogues. When everyone is looking one way, the first to look the other way wins!
**If an offer doesn't work, it doesn't work.** Here are some offer conclusions that can save your startup. If a pitch doesn't work, it doesn't work. There is no point in shouting it, writing it in capital letters, or otherwise trying to get more user attention. To effectively reformulate an offer, it is not enough to replace the words in it. Its meaning must be changed. Sometimes - to the complete opposite, as in the example of the miser from the famous tales of Khoja Nasreddin. Once upon a time, Khoja Nasreddin passed by a pond in which a famous local miser had drowned. People were milling around, shouting: "Give me your hand!" - and tried to pull him out of the pond. But the miser could not accept giving anything to anyone. So he bravely continued to drown. Then Nasreddin approached the pond, held out his hand and said, "Here, take it! The moneylender grabbed his hand and climbed out of the pond. So a simple reformulation of the same offer helped save a person. An effective technique for startups, for example, is to replace the message "Start doing something new" with "Stop doing something old. Of course, before you do that, you should make sure that people are actually doing that "something old". Well, it's also worth noting that the offer works best when the person is already drowning. Therefore, you must first convince the person that he is "drowning" - and only then make an offer of help. So: "Take" instead of "give" and "stop" instead of "start"!
"I have three business ideas. Which one should I choose?" None. And here's why. It is unlikely that one person can come up with three brilliant ideas at the same time. Therefore, if none of them seems to you strongly and certainly better than the others, it means that all three are equally bad. Well, what about the "bad" ones? - "Not super" in that sense. Or maybe even "normal". The problem is that a "normal" idea is even worse than a "bad" one! I tried a bad idea, it didn't work, and I moved on. And with a normal idea, you can even start earning something. Then you will not leave it. So you will spin around like a squirrel in a wheel, keeping the resulting small business afloat with your hands, feet and head. You wanted it? In general, if you have to choose, you don't have to choose. Keep looking.
Shegby as a Network State was born out of a clear vision to change the way people experience and connect with local communities.The problem we set out to solve is twofold: the lack of employment opportunities and the underutilization of local expertise. To achieve our vision, we are creating essential and impactful Web3 services: P2P Marketplace: Our decentralized marketplace of services facilitates the purchase of services and the exchange of cryptocurrency also, bridging the gap between digital and fiat currencies and providing seamless transactions for our users. Proof of Personhood (Human Rank): We've developed a user identification system aka "Proof of Personhood" that combines Web of Trust and social graph analysis. We call it "Human Rank", inspired by Google's PageRank algorithm. Shegby Wallet: To empower our users, we offer the Shegby Wallet - a user-controlled wallet. A close analogy is Beam.eco, which is based on account abstraction and the ERC-4337 protocol. Together, we are building a Network State that offers users worldwide unique opportunities for earning, asset management, and governance, integrating both the social and technical aspects of a digital state. Now more than ever, the world is ready for Shegby's transformative approach to travel and community connection. #Help2Earn #TheNetworkState #web3
**Building an Unpromising Business: The Surprising Path to a Sale vs. IPO** *What kind of startup should I build to make it easier to sell?* The business model of a startup is fundamentally different from a regular business. Startup founders earn most of their money not during the process, but at the moment of "exit", when they leave the startup. Completely (at the time of sale) or partially (at the time of IPO). Moreover, 80% of exits are a full sale, not an IPO. So founders are better off building their strategy with an exit in mind. But there is a funny nuance here. Founders typically want to create "future-proof" startups - ones with the potential for unlimited growth and scalability. It's good to take such startups public, because their shares will be bought by people who expect the price to rise indefinitely. But it's hard to sell them because the buyer's first question is, "Why are you selling it if it's so promising?" There are times when a strategist himself comes and wants to buy a promising startup - and overpay for it. But these are isolated cases. Most are willing to pay reasonable money for a startup that is selling for reasonable reasons. Companies that buy vertical SaaS and sellers on marketplaces thrive on it. Because these are profitable companies that have no prospects for further unlimited growth! Their founders burn out sooner or later - even though the companies work and make money. And that is a reasonable reason to sell. And whole categories of companies. That is why such businesses can be bought in batches - centralized, optimized and continue to earn even more. And that is a reasonable rationale for the business model of the buying companies. The conclusion is strange, but logical: if we want to make money from a startup, we need to build profitable, unpromising companies! This increases the possibility of getting out of them by almost 10 times! In general, there is definitely something to think about here.
No need to search for the ideal customer! Find a profile of your ideal non-customer. The portraits of ideal non-customers will generate a stream of constructive questions. What do they lack? What turns them off? What do we need to change in our offer/product to get them to buy? #IdealCustomers #NonCustomers #CustomerProfiles
**There is no magic pill for sales** «This startup has an interesting idea, but how do they organize sales?» Oh, this is the biggest secret of every startup. But the reality is that there is no secret to sales. — Either you advertise with the targeting you want; — Either you work through influencers for their audience; — Or you do direct-to-consumer advertising — for offline businesses; — Or you do direct sales — if you have somehow managed to build a database of prospects. There is no magic pill for sales. There is only a bitter medicine that you have to drink every day.
To sell its product, a startup usually has to explain to users "why the product is needed" and "how it works". A sign that we have found a product/market fit - we no longer need to explain why the product is needed! #ProductMarketFit #StartupSuccess #StartupStrategy
**There's no such thing as a bad product - it's just the wrong audience.** You can't sell snow to an Eskimo. But is snow a bad product? Of course not! You can sell it to someone in Africa, or to the builder of a ski slope in Dubai! The concept of a "minimum viable product" is misleading. Because what we need to test is not the product hypothesis, but the correctness of the choice of the target audience. This includes the correctness of the formulation of the offer and the importance of the problem we are solving - specifically tailored to that audience. Not in general, like "Buy our snow! It's the whitest and the coldest!" The idea of putting the audience before the product leads to an unexpected conclusion: "It's better to start a startup not with a product, but with an audience." For example: there are people like this, we know how to find them. What do they do? How do they spend money? What do they care about and why? Only then should you ask yourself - what can you sell to them? This way seems much shorter and easier than scouring the planet for people who for some reason suddenly need what you've come up with. #AudienceFirst #ProductMarketFit #StartupStrategy #ProductDevelopment #MarketValidation
Our focus of attention, like a ship's radar, can be either sharp and directional, scanning objects ahead in detail, or broad but not clearly covering everything around us. As you focus, don't forget to switch modes occasionally! #SwitchModes #Productivity #Awareness #Attention
**The dumbest way to describe the task of finding an idea for a startup is to "find the consumer's pain".** The consumer, an ordinary person like you and me, cannot live with constant pain. They either get used to it or they cover it up with a band-aid. Either way, he stops feeling it. So the consumer does not have "pain"! He has a familiar way of life. Real pain for the consumer can only occur when we create that pain for ourselves. To curly-haired women we say: "You are uncomfortable because your hair is curly!" And to women with straight hair, "You've always been jealous of your friends who have curly hair!" Remember, no one really felt pain using a smartphone with buttons until Steve Jobs showed them a smartphone without buttons. So what all this means is that you can stop making minimum viable products. And start making minimally pathogenic products. To test whether or not we have succeeded in creating pain for the consumer. In general, while other founders are running around the markets looking for non-existent consumer pain, learn to create new pain. Then you will have time to be the first to sell drugs for it. #StartupIdeas #PainPoints #ConsumerPsychology #ProductDevelopment #DisruptiveInnovation
**Free yourself from the stigma of "inventing," you just need to "find"** There are so many smart people doing so many different things that it's time for startup founders to drop the word "invent" from their vocabulary. And replace it with "find". - Find it in the form of a finished product that isn't selling well - repeat the same thing, but sell it well. - Find something that recently started selling - repeat it, but sell it faster. - Find something that didn't fly before, but can fly now because something has changed. Revive it, update it, spruce it up - and start selling it as something new. - Find it in a different geographic or thematic market - adapt it and transfer it to yours. - Find ready-made, scattered cubes - and put them together in a new configuration. - Find an interesting feature in a larger product - pull it out and start selling it as a separate product to solve a separate problem. The possibilities are endless. When you start to remove the inventor from yourself, drop by drop, you start to become a founder. Which are really two completely different things.
**People who take responsibility are more likely to be lucky** In the last few days I have observed two opposite types of people: 1. Some say that everyone around them is to blame (circumstances, the state, assholes, etc.). Like this: "I'm late because of traffic" "We lost the competition because a competitor lowered prices" "The teacher failed my exam. 2. Others take responsibility and admit that their life is a consequence of their personal choices and not a random coincidence of external circumstances. For example: "I know that there are traffic jams in the city and I leave early; if I rely on the navigator's estimated time, I risk being late". "A competitor offers better prices, our offer is not competitive and we need to change processes and reduce costs". "It is difficult to fail a student who knows all the answers, I need to set aside time to prepare for the exam". Typically, the second category of people are noticeably more successful in all aspects of life, happier and more confident. The first category is prone to gambling, toxic behavior, and passive aggression. And yes, all this does not negate the factor of luck/bad luck in life, but the lucky one is the one who takes responsibility! #ResponsibilityMatters #OwnYourChoices #SuccessMindset #PersonalResponsibility #PositiveOutlook
**The Illusion of Ownership** In your business, if more than 70% of your customers come from one traffic source, you have the illusion that you own that business. It's the same with the supply of materials and goods: a dominant supplier controls you, only from the other side. **#BusinessStrategy** **#CustomerDiversity** **#SupplyChains** **#BusinessOwnership** **#DiversifyTraffic** **#SupplierControl**
**There are four things that people are most likely to buy:** 1. An easy way to do something without much effort; 2. An easy way to show others that you have accomplished something. Even if you did not accomplish it; 3. An easy way to distract yourself from the fact that you need to accomplish something; 4. An easy way to convince yourself that what you have is what you wanted to achieve. Therefore, the founder's only job is to make sure that people can quickly and easily classify his product as one of these types. Otherwise, what will they buy?
**The more we spend, the more we earn.** Yes, I recommend that startups who want to earn more start spending more. It is all or nothing: you will either start thinking about sales and effective people management - which is great and will finally lead you to growth - or you will die - which is also good for you, for investors and for your target audience. The main thing is not to fool yourself! **#AllOrNothing** **#InvestInGrowth** **#StartupRealityCheck** **#ProfitOrPerish**
**Do what everyone else thinks is "wrong". Because it is right** Successful startups are the result of constant change. Because everything old has been invented before us. But we are a product of the past. Our upbringing and experiences have embedded the old concepts of "right" and "wrong" in us. And so almost everyone usually perceives the new as something "wrong. For modern people, "wrong" becomes "right. And "wrong" for them will be whatever comes to replace it after a while. The indicator of ongoing changes: what was previously considered "wrong" - slowly turns into "right". Successful startups are born on the wave of change. Regardless of whether we consider these changes "right" or not.
"If something isn't working for you, it's not because you're doing wrong. It's because you're doing the wrong thing." This is such a simple and true thought that it makes you want to argue with it right away.
**A more reliable way to improve your product** Once, my acquaintance, an author, collected feedback on the draft of his book. He asked readers to rate the book on a five-point scale and leave their reviews. He ignored the five-star reviews—because you can't rely on the opinions of enthusiastic enthusiasts. He carefully analyzed the 1-2 star reviews to understand which audience to avoid in future advertising. Simply because this book wasn't for them. Convincing them would take too long and be costly. But those who rated the book with 3-4 stars were the ones who liked it. Those who were able to see and point out its individual shortcomings. And their feedback became the real basis for its improvement. When collecting feedback to improve your product: Praise the enthusiasts, but ignore them. Study the haters to avoid them. Actively work with those who currently value you at a three or four-star level.
**User Retention? There's No Such Task!** The task is to distinguish clients between "ours" and "outsiders." Think about it — there's no such thing as zero churn from subscribers. With about 8% churn per month, the entire client base would be wiped out within a year. Who would be interested in such a business? No one! Because in reality, the subscription model operates under different rules. There are "our" clients — those who need our service and stay with it for a long and happy time. And they don't need to be actively retained — we just shouldn't disrupt them. Nothing should break or improve to the point of deterioration. Then there are the "outsiders" — those who stumbled here by accident. And regardless of how much you try to retain them, they will leave soon enough. The main task of subscription services is to identify "ours" as early as possible and teach them to use it correctly. It's not about dancing around the "outsiders." This effort won't pay off anyway. Who is our ideal user? Why, how, and for what purpose should they use the service? How can we quickly recognize that they are "ours"? Those are the right questions. Everything else is just busyness.
What should a startup test? The classic answer is that a startup should find its place in the market, in other words, the elusive product/market fit. However, this approach has two drawbacks: firstly, it requires expending effort, time, and money on creating a product that might need to be scrapped entirely if no market space is found for it. Secondly, founders often become so enamored with the product during its creation that it becomes difficult for them to let it go. And here, I remembered an old saying — "startups die when they answer a question that nobody asked." In other words, the essence of demand lies not in the answer — that is, not in the product — but in the question that the startup's product addresses! From this arises an unexpected idea. A startup should primarily test the popularity and significance of the question. Even if it doesn't yet know how it's going to answer it. Why waste time pondering a solution that might turn out to be unnecessary? In the simplest form, the search for an idea can start with advertising different questions. And observe which questions people click on more frequently. And when we find a wildly popular question, we can start creating classic landing pages with various answers to that question, in other words, different products. Analyzing their demand based on the number of "Buy" button clicks. In short, don't start a startup by testing ready-made answers — that is, products. Start by testing the questions. Until one of them becomes so compelling that you'll want to devise a product in the form of an answer to it.
**Don't create new features, change the product!** No additional features will help the startup attract a new audience or earn more money. Down to single percentage points, which should be insignificant for a startup, as it should focus only on what can help it take off like a rocket. Imagine that you're selling accounting software. And then you created a community where you started sharing useful tips for accountants. If the community is free for everyone, its audience will grow, as useful freebies never hurt anyone. However, software sales will remain almost the same because the accountants brought into the community are already using some software that suits them. If you try to make the community paid, people won't pay extra for it. You see, software can be paid for, but advice isn't valued as much. If you make the software free for users, you'll end up putting in more effort, as creating valuable advice is a separate task. Yet, you'll earn the same. But if you manage to create advice for which people are willing to pay, why bother with the hassle of software development and support? The hypothetical accounting software is your product's main offer. Free advice is the additional feature. The sales volume of a startup is determined by the main offer, not the number of additional features. If something is off with your sales, don't create new features, pivot instead!
**The Secret of Creating Product Communities** There's a powerful trend: building communities around your product. Usually, it's about creating a product and then assembling a community around it. But what's even cooler is to first gather a community and then figure out what you can sell to these people. Unfortunately, the strength of this trend is subject to the quote from William Shakespeare's monologue in "Hamlet": "And enterprises of great pitch and moment, With this regard their currents turn awry, And lose the name of action," which reflects his musings on human action, lack of focus, and indecisiveness. Just like the founders often lack the strength to gather enough people in the community or retain them. This is because founders act too straightforwardly. In these communities, all they do is answer questions about the product, talk about the product, or sell the product. Who needs a community about shovels in the first place? But a lot of people will rush to where they're told about places where gold is located, and you can dig that gold with these shovels. And once, they asked people carrying bricks on the construction site, "What are you doing?" One answered, "Carrying bricks, can't you see?", while another said, "Building a temple." A community about bricks is uninteresting. But a community about the god to whom the temple is dedicated – that's a different story. The product is the shovel used to dig for gold. Or the brick they're building the temple with, to worship such a god. That's why a community should be about gold or about a god, not about shovels and bricks.
**ChatGPT is an assistant for fools, and a sparring partner for the wise.** Someone on Twitter said that we need fewer friends but more 'intellectual sparring partners.' Because a friend, by definition, will support you in everything you do, no matter what. But a sparring partner, on the contrary, should point out the nonsense you're spouting, doubt the assumptions on which you base your conclusions—thereby 'pushing you to think more broadly.' Furthermore, a sparring partner's task is to make you think not 'broader,' but 'closer to reality'! After all, two overly intelligent people (two startup founders, for example) can pump each other up with ideas and fantasies to the point where their consciousness expands to a complete loss of connection with reality. A strange conclusion suggests itself: A sparring partner shouldn't be too intellectual. They should attack you from the standpoint of an ordinary person—meaning common sense. Forcing you to ask yourself the sacramental question: 'Am I doing something absurd?' Rather than suggesting attaching wings to that absurdity so that it can fly. There's an opinion that smart people can't be helped by ChatGPT. Because, by its very nature, it only knows how to connect well-known facts and banalities into coherent text. Like the only option is to look at what ChatGPT writes on a given topic… and then write something completely different. But then another option comes to mind! Since ChatGPT is programmed banality... it can become the perfect sparring partner. Attacking your smart thoughts from the perspective of an average consumer. Forcing you to find arguments and answers to the simplest objections you'll encounter sooner or later in real life. In short, if you can convince ChatGPT of your idea, then you've finally come up with an idea for a truly mass-market product!
**"Don't litter where you live."** Startup founders should actively apply the old principle of "don't litter where you live." You shouldn't create products for the market where you live — that will hinder you from building a global startup. It's understandable that working in your home market is easier. But is our goal to make things easier? Or is it still about achieving more, soaring higher? In the past, startups entered foreign markets sequentially. Therefore, founders theoretically could move from one country to another, following the startup's development path. The rise of remote work has led to many startup teams being spread across different countries. Moreover, platforms have emerged for establishing companies in any country, facilitating international payments, creating remote infrastructures, and providing other remote work support. Everything is already in place for startups to become "globally default" — meaning they are capable of quickly expanding to numerous countries. However, to achieve this, it is first and foremost necessary to fine-tune the mechanism for swift entry into a new country: testing hypotheses in a foreign market, finding marketing and sales channels, partners, hiring employees, and so on. To later scale this mechanism — quickly and simultaneously expanding into multiple countries. Where you do not reside! Because it's impossible to simultaneously live in multiple countries to personally address the challenges that arise when entering each new market. Therefore, you need to learn to do all of this remotely right from the start! Otherwise, someone else who has learned to quickly enter foreign markets will take your good idea, which you are slowly and sadly testing in the local market, and move it to more interesting foreign markets. If you want to become a global startup, you need to test the main hypothesis, "Can I become a global startup?" And that is — learning how to remotely enter unfamiliar and daunting markets.
**What lesson have you learned?** Almost all founders face tough challenges during the first year after launching a startup. However, few of them perceive these challenges as lessons from which to draw conclusions. Those who managed to do so become successful. Therefore, about six months after the launch, you can start asking yourself, "What was the lesson that I was supposed to learn from?" If nothing comes to mind, perhaps you are a fortunate exception, and everything is going right for you from the start. But most likely, you are one of those unfortunate ones who still cannot admit that they were wrong about something. There is a feeling that something similar happens not only after the start but also after every attempt to reach a new qualitative level—during scaling, launching a new feature, entering another market, and so on. Have you recently decided to aim higher and already taken steps toward it? What lesson did life teach you in this regard? What conclusion have you drawn from it?
**It's more advantageous to have an enemy than a competitor.** A competitor is someone whose place you want to take. An enemy is a collective concept. It encompasses everything you are fighting against. Enemies aren't just individual companies, but an entire category of products. Or an ecosystem in which there are independent developers, resellers, and other types of partners. Some of whom you might even want to lure to your side. Choosing a competitor means you want to fit into the same market, accepting its rules of the game. To carve out your place in the existing hierarchy of players, potentially displacing or pushing someone else out in the process. Choosing an enemy means you want to disrupt an entire market, building something new in its place. With new rules of the game, and usually broader boundaries. And a new hierarchy of players, among whom you aim to occupy and maintain a distinguished first place. Fighting an enemy involves direct opposition to the existing market, not just "the same thing, only better." The iPhone competed against all smartphones, Uber challenged all traditional taxi services, Airbnb took on all hotels. Moreover, there must be a new business model that enemies can't use at all or without significant financial losses. ChatGPT undermines the business of search engines that make more money when searches are less effective. This is because people see more ads on each search results page and eventually click on one of them. Fighting competitors is like a palace coup. Fighting enemies is like a revolution. It seems that in presentations of ambitious startups, instead of a slide describing competitors and analogs, there should be a slide describing the enemy they want to conquer. Do you have an enemy? Or only competitors?
**Create a new problem for yourself.** I borrowed a great idea from one of the Y Combinator partners: "Constantly encountering new problems is a clear sign that you are moving forward." And the reverse is true as well. If we periodically face the same problems, it means we are standing still. And if, at the same time, we are constantly running somewhere, it means we are spinning in a closed loop. Which is essentially the same as standing still! Consequently, an interesting method arises to constantly push yourself in the right direction. When encountering a problem, you should think about what you can do to turn it into a new problem. For example, let's say we are growing at 5%, solving the same problems every month. We decided to grow by 50%. And here it started: It turned out that we need to hire many more salespeople -> it's not working out to hire successfully -> we find recruiters -> the number of salespeople increases, but they are doing something useless -> we start describing the sales process and writing scripts -> everything is in place, but the nonsense continues -> we start hiring sales department managers -> we start growing -> something breaks -> we start fixing it -> fixed -> we continue to grow -> there's not enough money to finance the growth -> we go to investors -> they frown upon our strategy -> we come up with a new strategy -> as a result, we get new problems... and so on indefinitely. But that was a simple general example. How will you turn your old problems into new ones?
Talk to the imaginary strategist. Founders who haven't encountered this think that conversations with a strategist interested in investing in their startup boil down to price negotiation. However, the price only comes up at the last moment, if it even gets there. First, there are lengthy discussions about "where are you planning to grow?", "how can you quickly increase your revenue tenfold?", "what resources, besides money, can we provide for this?", "what will break first during a rapid growth phase?", and so on. And as you prepare answers, at some point, the thought creeps into your mind: "Wait, I could do all of this myself!" The funny thing is that if you do reach an agreement, you'll have to do it all yourself. Because even if it's about a sale, you'll still be obligated to work in the startup for another three years. Conversations like these with strategists make you look at your business not from the perspective of your daily laptop routine but from the strategic heights. And it's just an awesome shake-up! But you don't have to wait for a strategist's visit. Imagine that, for example, Facebook came to you and started bombarding you with all these questions. And following them, maybe another giant. And then someone else. And at some point, something will click in your mind, and you'll realize how you can grow exponentially without them. As for "non-monetary" resources — if everyone can make money from this, there will always be someone with whom you can work out partnership programs on regular commercial terms. In short, step out of the wheel where you're spinning day after day and start talking to imaginary strategists.
**"See the world through different eyes"** It seems that most startups come up with products for the active and curious. However, most people are lazy and uncurious. Try searching for ideas that are initially targeted towards the lazy and uncurious. And suddenly, you'll start to see the world through completely different eyes. **#InnovativeThinking** **#PerspectiveShift** **#StartupIdeas**
On April 17, 2023, a rocket launched by Elon Musk exploded. Elon became Elon Musk precisely because he is not afraid that his MVPs might explode in front of millions of people. So, what are you afraid of then, still delaying the moment of launching your inconspicuous startup?
**"Finding a professional is a challenge,"** founders often complain after unsuccessful attempts to find individuals with significant experience and expertise in their field, who would be willing to work in their young startup. But this is almost impossible. The answer lies in the fact that professionals who are seriously building their careers are not willing to risk them by getting involved in startup stories that have a 99% chance of failing. Afterward, they remain an indelible black mark on their meticulously polished resumes. For startups to seek professionals with impressive track records is like copying the marketing techniques of big, established competitors. In the end, there won't be enough funds.The only type of professionals that can be hired in a startup are those who can learn much faster than others. They need to quickly develop the required level of competence after starting work in the startup. From this comes the conclusion about the necessity of a mechanism for practically assessing the presence of such a skill during the probationary period. First, you find out from the candidate a list of skills they already possess. Then you present them with a relatively simple task—one that requires them to do something they DON'T yet know how to do.If the candidate a) manages to understand what they need to learn, b) learns it to the necessary level in parallel with solving the task, and c) achieves the desired result—then this is a professional in the context of the specific startup. Even more than that! The founder never knows in which direction the startup might pivot during a change of idea or a significant shift—along with the new competencies that might be required afterward. And here are individuals at hand—those who have proven their ability to quickly learn anything. This means they can also rapidly acquire these new skills. So, a startup can find a professional. If it knows what it's looking for! #startup #professionals #skills #learningability #career #entrepreneurship
**Another way to find ideas** Elvis Presley had a fantastic producer. Not only did he sell "I Love Elvis" badges to his fans, but he also managed to sell "I Hate Elvis" badges to his haters. Elvis's popularity during those years was overwhelming. Nevertheless, the badges of hate sold almost as well as the badges of love. Many people struggle when they realize that someone doesn't like them. Although you should take this calmly. Just like Elvis, there will always be someone who dislikes you too. It's normal. Therefore, don't even try to please those who don't like you (your creativity or products). Because in doing so, you might lose your unique qualities — the very things that people who like you, appreciate. On the contrary, it's better to feed the haters — reinforcing the aspects they don't like about you. For doing so, those who like you will love you even more. After all, some people love you for the very things others dislike. The key is to evoke strong emotions in someone. Whether it's love or hate. If one emerges, inevitably the other will too. Founders usually seek product ideas that people will love them for. But what if you approached it from a different angle? What if you tried to come up with an idea that someone would strongly dislike about you? In essence, if you're unable to find an idea that people will love you for, try to find an idea that someone will strongly dislike. #IdeaGeneration #UniqueIdeas #LoveAndHate #Creativity #Emotions
**The Secret of Creating Mass Products** If you want to create a product that only a small number of people will use, persuade them to engage in something new for them. Mass products work differently. They make more efficient what people are already doing. Or they inform them that everyone else is already doing it — and they are the only ones lagging behind. However, if you are determined to bring happiness to people with something new, you face an interesting challenge. You need to either find a way to somehow show them that they are already doing it, without noticing it themselves or without using the right words. But this is more difficult or the result turns out worse than it could be with your product. Alternatively, you somehow make them believe that everyone else is already doing it. Or at least those whom they consider their role models. Not "just like them" — but those whom they want to resemble. These are two big differences! Interestingly, this challenge is often quite solvable! Many products can be made into mass products.