Balance, Launch, Learn đ
đ Welcome!
Found this great article by Bryce Roberts from 2017 in response to Seth Godinâs question âWhat if scale wasnât the goal?â More often than not, founders and VCs spend more time contemplating whether something is scalable before itâs ever built. And VCs often pass on investment opportunities if they donât see them becoming a unicorn. In his conversation with Peldi, founder of Balsamiq, Bryce discovers why some founders deviate from this narrative. Peldi explains that growth has never been their goal. Itâs been âto not mess it upâ and achieve good profit margins. They listen to their customersâ needs and build their vision and product to support them. And there are no regrets on not raising funds or selling the business:
Iâm my own boss. I donât have to answer to anyone. I get to learn from my own mistakes instead of being fired for making them. We have no debts and we have no deadlines. Thereâs no pressure to take shortcuts, or please any outside shareholders. We get to spend our time in customer interviews not in board meetings.
In response to Seth Godinâs question, Peldi replies:
I donât believe in the hustle. The goal for us as a company is finding a balance in our work and in our life. Extreme growth sounds way too stressful! Iâm Italian⊠We measure things in generations, not quarters.
This approach sounds very sensible and healthy to me! Read the full post.
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đ Maker News
Newsletter Lessons
Anne-Laure Le Cunff recently published her 50th newsletter. She shares with the 50 lessons sheâs learnt, of which she believes the first and last are the most important ones. Firstly, âYou donât know what you donât know.â This is an evolving space, with lots of information. Donât get paralysed or try to figure everything out at once. Learn as you go. Secondly, â There is no magic formula.â Anne-Laure believes there is no âstep-by-step playbookâ for you to follow. As with all creative projects you need to experiment. âEmbrace the uncertainty and have fun.â Read all 50 lessons.
Bootstrapping Lessons
Alex Ershov has shared the 38 lessons heâs learned on bootstrapping a company of one on Indie Hackers. Doing so, he has grown his business from $0 to $9k MRR. Insights include: Launch products on existing markets and niche them down, start marketing before coding and optimize conversion. He ends with a quote from Paul Jarvis: "Always ask yourself âwhat can I do to make my business better,â instead of âwhat can I do to grow my business larger.â Read all 38 lessons.
Anti-A/B Testing
Louis Nicholls shares a simple decision framework. It aims to replace any decision you are tempted to A/B test during the first 18 months building a business. View Tweet.
Source: Louis Nicholls
Drive Income
butchersbot shares a great resource by Jack Butcher for anyone considering to build an income online. The resources will help you design and execute a content strategy to drive your efforts. These are all methods that Jack has used over the past 10 years for both large and small businesses. View Google Doc.
Modern Software MBA
Tyler Tringas shared a tweet back in June, describing an alternative MBA curriculum, for anyone considering to become a software founder/maker. This might also be an alternative for some vs âpaying $50k for Harvard ZE (Zoom Edition)â. View tweet.
đ„ïž NoCode & Automate
Launch MBA
Kieran has been thinking about how he can add more value to the NoCode community. Looking at his journey over the past eight months, what heâs launched and whatâs inspired him, he has now decided to launch launchmba.co. The motto is âlaunch, learn and launch again.â In the spirit of @levelsio, members will aim to ship 12 products in 12 months and with the support of the community become experts in NoCode and launching products. Experts on the course include Jens Lennartsson, Michael Gill and Andrew Davison. The course costs $49 per month or $499 per year. Read thread.
Facebook Integrations
Integromat has shared an introduction on the topic of Facebook integrations, and the role they play in helping businesses that use the social media platform. There are over 7m active advertisers on Facebook, and integrations are increasingly important. A Facebook integration is the process of connecting one or more applications to a Facebook product. The purpose is to share data and optimize workflows and campaigns. Learn more.
đ Afterthought
To finish the day a 5-step strategy by Tiago Forte on how to launch a product with zero risk. As we've read before, regularly publishing content (consistency is vital) and growing an audience, preferably by building an email list, is the key to later success. Take care and see you tomorrow!
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