👋 Welcome!
Do you want to be cash-poor or cash-flush? If you're a bootstrapped eCommerce business, you can do this by implementing a negative cash flow cycle. In an insightful post by Jay Vasantharajah explains what this is and how it’s done. In summary, a cash conversion cycle (CCC) is the number of days it takes for a business to turn invested cash (such as purchased inventory) back into cash in the bank. Jay explains that “a negative CCC means that your vendors finance your operations & no extra cash needs to be invested as you grow.” This optimization has the effect that you can grow your eCommerce business cash-rich. You can achieve this by increasing accounts payable, reducing accounts receivable or reducing inventory. Jay concludes that great companies don’t only have amazing marketing and leadership but also incredible financial management. Read the full post.
😺 Products of the Day
July 16, 2020
🥇 Vox: Voice messaging for business 🐝 💬.
🥈 UVMask: Real-time UV-C filtration & sterilization face mask.
🥉 Apiway.ai: Connect apps with each other.
🚀 Maker News
Business Growth
An interesting thought experiment by Marc Kohlbrügge on how a Maker mindest influences business growth. If the perceived opportunity is $1000, $5,000 or $10,000 MRR, you’ll continue to experiment and make bets until you get to that target. But once achieved, you will usually stop and start optimising. So, if you want to reach 10x your revenue, you will need to accept that you are still in the early stages of your product and will need to keep iterating. He concludes, that “it's not JUST about mindset,” building experience, skills and a network equally help. Read the full thread.
Digital Products
In his latest Trends report, Dru Riley points out that “selling time doesn’t scale.” As a result, well know Makers such as Daniel Vassallo, Michael Gill or Arvid Kahl build digital products like eBooks and online courses. They then sell them on marketplaces such as Gumroad at scale. As Jack Butcher says “build once, sell twice.” To take advantage of these opportunities Makers need to build an engaged audience. You can achieve this by starting a newsletter or podcast and leveraging social media. Dru lists some strategies on how to build, test and sell as well as a number of links for further reading. Read the report or buy the Pro report for more in-depth analysis.
eBook Launch
Continuing on from Dru’s report, Zeno Rocha shares some insights on the recent launch of his eBook “14 Habits of Highly Productive Developers.” In the first 48 hours, the book achieved $3,954 in sales on Amazon and Gumroad. The launch tweet achieved 1,583 organic engagements. Two emails sent to the pre-sales list got a 58.8% open rate and 29.4% click rate. On Product Hunt, it only received 17 upvotes whereas on Hacker News it reached #5 on the 1st page, making it the top traffic acquisition channel. He concludes, that writing a book is tough and launching is even harder, “but if he can impact the life of just 1 person - not thousands, just 1 - it will all be worth it.” I would add, that if you’ve built an engaged audience and email list before you launch, success will follow. Read the full story on Indie Hackers.
💭 Afterthought
To finish the week, some Maker wisdom from Sharath Kuruganty. “Have extreme fun” and “provide value to others” when following the rule of consistency when you start or want to better at something. I completely agree with this advice as it makes everything so much more worthwhile! Take care and have a great weekend.
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