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How I’ve Attracted the First 500 Paid Users for My SaaS
You Don’t Have To Get Covered on Large Blogs, Why Churn Rate is Surprisingly Low, Spend a Lot of Time At User Forum, etc..
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Questions to Ask Before Joining a Startup
When I first joined a startup in 2012 I did my best to ask the right questions when interviewing. My engineering background prepared me for engineering tasks and helped me write a resume, but it didn’t prepare me well for how to evaluate a startup offer. While this might be obvious to some, this is what I wish I knew…
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What I Learned Burning $14k on YouTube Ads for Candy Japan
Explains how expensive it is to advertise on YouTube, what is involved in launching a campaign and finally tweaking it towards profitability.
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Browserling goes viral with cheap phone users trying to use WhatsApp
The most random and amazing things happened at my company Browserling in the last few weeks. Someone in India discovered that they can use WhatsApp on very cheap $20 phones (Jio Phones) via Browserling. These cheap phones can't run WhatsApp but if you go to Browserling, you can use it via web.whatsapp.com. He made a...
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Startups I Want to Fund
I hear a lot of startup pitches. I’ve been angel investing now for ~4 years, and I’m an LP and advisor to a number of VC funds. I also heard a lot of pitches through my work at Firebase (the company I co-founded), as many of its customers are startups. I like being pitched – partly because I enjoy meeting smart…
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Is the Lean Startup Dead?
A version of this article first appeared in the Harvard Business Review Reading the NY Times article “Jeffrey Katzenberg Raises $1 Billion for Short-Form Video Venture,” I realized it was time for …
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Why Entrepreneurs Start Companies Rather Than Join Them
If you asked me why I gravitated to startups rather than work in a large company I would have answered at various times: “I want to be my own boss.” “I love risk.” “I want flexible work hours.” “I …
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The red flags and magic numbers that investors look for in startup's metrics
Growing startups and evaluating startups share common skills Earlier this year, I joined Andreessen Horowitz as a General Partner, where I focus on a broad spectrum of consumer startups: marketplaces, entertainment/media, and social platforms. This was a big moment for me, and the result of a long relationship that…
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TinySeed – A Startup Accelerator Designed for Bootstrappers
When you hear the term startup accelerator you likely think of YCombinator, TechStars or 500 Startups. Accelerators traditionally cater to "unicorns" – companies that have the potential to be worth at least a billion dollars. This focus has made them successful in launching startups l
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Pulumi – A new open-source cloud development platform
Joe Duffy's Blog | Adventures in the high-tech underbelly
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You don't need ML/AI, you need SQL
On Software, life and everything in-between
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How I've built a profitable Slack bot as a side project in Rails
I've built a Slack anonymous messaging bot in Ruby on Rails and it is profitable. In this blog post I will describe what I did and tools I used to create, promote and monetize a simple SAAS product.
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Starting a Business in Silicon Valley
A Personal Story (This is the text of an essay I read in a presentation at African Leadership University in Mauritius. Please see the video of that presentation here. For the other lectures from that trip, please see this playlist.) When it comes to starting a business, Silicon Valley is...
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Ten Years' Worth of Learning About Pricing
Discover proven SaaS pricing frameworks from 10 years of startup investing. Learn 3 key strategies and 4 components to optimize your revenue model.
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How Atlassian Built a $10B Growth Engine
Atlassian didn't jump through the standard hoops. Instead, they chose an unconventional path that would ultimately help them build a $10 billion business.
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YouTube marketing horror story
Results from asking 180 YouTubers to make an unboxing video for a subscription box. Includes detailed breakdown of response rate, number of videos made, views and the sales results from them.
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Founding Stories Are Myths
Founding Stories Ignore The Most Important Parts of Starting a Business
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Sounding the Alarm: Now Is the Time to Be a Cockroach
I build businesses that high-flying tech startup investors generally don’t like. The businesses I build are profitable, focus on cash flow, and sell commoditized services. They’re considered unexciting to tech startup investors, who want to invest in the new hotness. I’ve tried to contort myself into building that…
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Do VCs really add value? Founders say sometimes
NOTE: If Hacker Noon & Medium allowed multiple authors, this post would carry 2 other important names. The study referenced below, its…
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From idea to revenue in 5 working days, thanks to HN
I needed to ship something. I was stuck in the midst of several larger projects, both for clients and myself, with no end in sight, and to keep going I needed the confidence boost that only shipping code can provide. So I spent part of my weekend, shifted some priorities around, and got to work on Kismet .
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Lessons on product and marketing from the growth of Domino’s Pizza
Startups can learn some of the most valuable lessons on product and marketing from the growth of the world’s biggest pizza chain. The story of Domino’s Pizza is a hero’s… Keep reading