Olivia
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CryptoKittyBear
@cryptokittybear
jpeg collector of @SappySealsNFT
Joined August 2021
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180 Posts
You spent 18 months getting ready to launch:
- Researching your customer segment
- Designing a product they need
- Lining up suppliers
- Building a perfect website
YOU ARE READY TO GO
All you need is an agency to market your product, right?
WRONG
1/ The biggest mistake I see DTC founders make is immediately trying to outsource growth right after they build the product or *anytime* it's not working
Should you hire an agency? a consultant? a full-time person? A mix? None?
What's the right choice?
2/ It's all of the above.
Depending on your company's stage and the strengths of your team
I believe there are a few major inflection points:
3/ Startup stage is about finding P/M fit, spending from 0 to $1,000,000 a year
Growth stage spends from ~1MM a year to ~10MM a year
The next stage runs from ~10MM to ~50MM a year
The final stage starts at ~50MM and goes into the 100s of millions per year
Here's how to use the stages to think about resourcing your growth efforts
4/ Launch: You are spending nothing and haven't made a profit yet
Your job is to innovate on marketing to connect with customers in a distinct and special way, just like you did with the product
I recc founders stay close to the problem and scale through stage 1…
5/ Agencies are good for pouring kerosene on the fire NOT for rubbing sticks together
Rubbing sticks together is the founder's job, and it takes that level of depth and rigor that only a founder can bring to do it
6/ When you get to 100k+ there are some smaller agencies who can help you grow.
It can also be a great time to hire one or two full-time people to grow and scale the budget.
From 100k to 800k/month it's all about hustle and experimentation.
7/ ~10 million/year is where a company like Ampush or a sophisticated in-house team plugs in
Here, there are four major pieces to get right...
8/ First: media management across multiple channels.
This is the time when if you are 80% on one channel, it's time to diversify (I wouldn’t worry about diversification before this)
9/ Second: conversion optimization
You want to seriously start to think about CRO like the landing page, customer journey, funnel optimization
This can now drive MASSIVE growth
10/ Third: business intelligence and analytics.
For example, we have multi-SKU customers who can tell how any given SKU performs all the way down to the ad impression level
11/ Fourth: creative across the entirety of your media and funnel
This includes video creative, landing pages, and coordinating it all across the team.
12/ When you hit $50MM+, that's when you probably want to bring on a professional CMO.
It's time to seriously invest in a brand team and consider doing channels like television.
You're going to be adding additional fuel to the fire in brand, television, sponsorships, PR, etc.
13/ Having an in-house growth team is a real investment.
Most don't think this through...
14/ If you enjoyed this thread, consider following me!
@jspujji Gateway X
I raised $3.5M in seed funding for Kahani.
After our first investor meeting, my investors said: “That was the best post-investment first meeting we’ve ever had.”
My COO built an awesome Notion template which helped us crush it.
Want it?
RT + Reply “Gateway X” and I’ll DM.
I’m gonna give 10 random people that repost this and follow me $25,000 for fun (the $250,000 my X video made)
I’ll pick the winners in 72 hours
here is the final version of my vehicle speed estimation demo
read the thread below to learn how I built it.
I will cover:
- detection
- tracking
- perspective transformation
- speed calculation
- some bonus ideas
↓
Today is my 33rd birthday.
Every year, I try to spend some time reflecting on what I've learned along the way.
Here are 33 life learnings from my 33 years of life...
1. Life is hard, but fortunately, you get to choose your hard.
It's hard to build deep, meaningful relationships. It's also hard to live on the surface with everyone. It's hard to build the body you want. It's also hard to see your body atrophy from lack of use. It's hard to build a life of purpose. It's also hard to live without one. Choose your hard.
2. You don't owe it to anybody else, you owe it to yourself.
You get one chance at this. One body, one mind, one life. Take advantage of it. Test the limits of your capability. Do the thing that scares the hell out of you. Get after this life.
3. No one has it all figured out.
No one knows what they want to be when they grow up. It’s comforting as a young person to know that you aren’t really supposed to “figure it out” when it comes to your future. Just focus on pointing your compass in the right direction, embracing curiosity, and getting around great people. If you do that, good things will happen.
4. Life is more fragile than you think (even when you account for that statement).
You never know when it will be the last time you get to hug that friend, tuck your kid in for bed, kiss your wife, take a walk with your parents, or see that crazy family member. Hug your people with everything you have. Always make them let go first.
5. Someone is either holding you back or powering you forward, there is no in between.
Your environment creates your entire reality. Surround yourself with people who are constantly talking about the past, you'll be stuck in it. Surround yourself with people thinking big about the future, you'll build a beautiful one. Build a tribe that encourages you to think bigger. Get rid of the boat anchors holding you back and watch your entire life change in a year.
6. The word "yet" will completely change your life.
"I'm not good enough" becomes "I'm not good enough...yet." "I don't know how to do it" becomes "I don't know how to do it...yet." "I'm not capable of that" becomes "I'm not capable of that...yet." "Yet" is your one word reminder that you can achieve anything that you set your mind to. You are dynamic and capable of so much more than you realize. Embrace the "yet" and change your life.
7. Life has seasons (and each must be embraced for the good and bad).
Most of the pain and struggle we encounter comes from wasting energy complaining about the prior season or worrying about some future season. When we embrace the current season for its imperfections and opportunities, we find a way to thrive.
8. Identity is the real thing we're all searching for.
Everyone thinks they're looking for money, fame, or success, but what they're really looking for is identity. Embrace it in the present, diversify to lower your risk, and seek out new perspectives to challenge yourself along the way.
9. No plan has ever survived first contact with the enemy.
Mike Tyson famously said, "Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth." He was right. Plans are fine, but just know they're going to get thrown out the window. Learn to embrace chaos. Man Plans, and God Laughs.
10. Success always follows interest.
Most people focus too much on being interesting and not enough on being interested. Being interested is how you become interesting. When you pursue your genuine interests, you are prone to deep focus, which cultivates a depth that is impossible to fake. That depth is a necessary ingredient of success.
11. Insecurity is a natural human condition.
When I was younger, I used to think that achieving some external rewards would rid me of my insecurity—that getting promoted, making more money, or winning some awards would suddenly make me feel perfectly comfortable. But I've come to realize that the feeling is natural. Opening up about these insecurities, rather than trying to mask them with bravado, is the key to managing their influence on our lives.
12. You really have no idea what you're capable of.
The only way to find out is to push yourself out of your comfort zone. To take that risk. To embrace that pain. Sometimes you'll crash and burn. But sometimes you'll find that you were capable of much more than you ever thought possible.
13. Fall in love with the ordinary.
An amazing life is built through tiny, ordinary, boring things. Get comfortable growing slowly and you'll build the life of your dreams.
14. Most people overestimate what they can do in a day and underestimate what they can do in a year.
Your entire life can change in one year. Not ten, not five, not three. One. One year of focused daily effort. Start today.
15. Avoid compound mistakes and you'll always find a way to win.
A compound mistake is when you follow one mistake with another one. We can't always control the first mistake, but we are in control of how we let it impact us going forward. If we avoid compound mistakes, we win.
16. Freedom is the real goal.
The ability to do what you want, with who you want, when you want is what everyone prizes above all else. Conflating money and freedom is the mistake that people seem to make. Money is a tool that can be used to gain freedom, but more often, it becomes a tool that keeps us running for more.
17. People will call you weird—and that's a good thing.
When you start living differently and transforming your life, some people won't like it. They'll call you crazy, lame, and different. Well, being normal is vastly overrated. The world doesn't need more normal people. Be abnormal.
18. You should always cringe at your former self.
If you look back at yourself from a year ago and you don't cringe at your output, habits, behaviors, or actions, you should be worried. That "cringe" sensation is a sign of your growth. It should always exist.
19. Optimism is not about ignoring obstacles, it's about viewing every obstacle as an opportunity rather than a permanent roadblock.
In life, you get rewarded for the number of obstacles that you successfully navigate around. You get rewarded even more if the solution is creative and scalable. Remember: Pessimists sound smart, optimists get rich.
20. Unproductive walks are the most productive activity.
Hot take: No one has ever changed their life listening to a podcast on 2x speed. I've generated more life-changing ideas on silent walks without my phone than I have in all of my desk time, podcast listening time, and "productive time" combined.
21. There is no such thing as the "right moment" for a big decision.
Having a kid, taking that professional risk, moving to a new place—these are all big, scary decisions. The best you can hope for is to do the work to make the leap of faith as comfortable as possible. But after that, you just need to open the door, jump out of the plane, and trust that you packed the parachute tight.
22. Find someone who you love doing nothing with.
Life isn't the glamorous Instagram-worthy moments. Life is mostly just sitting around doing nothing. When you find the person you love doing nothing with, you've found your life person.
23. When something isn't working, fight the urge to add and ask what you can subtract instead.
Whenever we're in a tough spot, our tendency is to add something new to the system (a new workout, a new supplement, a new project, a new person, etc.). Usually, the solution is found in removing something that is holding us back, not adding something new.
24. "Less, but better" is a mantra that applies to everything.
From work to health to relationships: We don't need to do more, we don't need to have more. We need less, but better.
25. Stop trying to change people who don't want to change.
People don't change because we want them to—they change because they want to. If someone has consistently shown an unwillingness to change, stop trying to change them. Save your energy and move on.
26. Every single person you see is fighting a battle you'll never know anything about.
Think about that before you judge anyone on the basis of some tiny sliver of information. It will help you live a more positive, empathetic life.
27. Everyone needs a few Foreign Prison Friends.
One of the main goals of life is to have a few friends who you could reliably count on to break you out of a foreign prison if it came down to it. At a minimum, you need a friend who would figure out how to call the relevant high-ranking authorities to make it happen.
28. Someone believing in you may promote consistency, but someone betting against you will always spark intensity.
There's nothing like the push to prove someone wrong. It will always light an intense fire under your life. If you've been betting against me, you should see about getting a refund.
29. Authenticity always stands out.
When someone is authentic, they become a magnet for the highest quality people. It's hard to explain, but in a world of fake, we're all attracted to what is real.
30. Focus on actions, not words.
What you say doesn't matter. You may impress people with your words in the short run, but all that matters are your actions in the long run. Be a man or woman of action.
31. Never bet against the person who just keeps getting back up.
The world belongs to the people who get punched in the face and have the courage and grit to get back up.
32. We all get more embarrassing with age (or we're just mature enough to embrace it).
When I was growing up, I used to wonder why parents were so embarrassing. I assumed that our parents just had more embarrassing personalities. I was wrong. We get more embarrassing with age—or, more likely, we just grow up enough to get comfortable with being ourselves.
33. Cherish your Front Row People.
Close your eyes, you're dead (sorry!). Imagine you're at your own funeral. People are walking in, crying, hugging each other. Everyone sits down. Who's in the front row? Those are the people that really matter. What are you doing today to cherish them?
Cheers to the Year Ahead!
“Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.” - Soren Kierkegaard
There you have it—33 short life learnings from my 33 years of life.
I hope one of these learnings connected with you in an unexpected way and sparked you into action.
Cheers to a beautiful, hard, growth-filled year ahead!
The best founders do one thing brilliantly...
Hire.
It sounds easy. It’s not.
Here's the hiring matrix I'm building from lessons learned hiring 100s of people:
In three years this brand turned $3k into $150M in revenue.
The brand? True Classic.
They bootstrapped.
They’re profitable.
And every entrepreneur should learn from their marketing playbook:
Advisory boards are bullsh*t.
Nothing gets more time and attention with so little results than “advisors” for startups.
And I think it all comes down to two things:
1. The entrepreneur is too busy to integrate the advisor into their workflow
2. The advisor doesn’t have enough skin in the game to make helping a founder a priority
Which is why I don’t advise any co’s that I don’t put any money into.
I usually just tell founders who ask me to be an advisor “let’s just decide this is 6 months”. Ping me. See if I can actually be helpful. And let me see if I actually care about you and your idea.
Bc like I’m a busy guy…
If I don’t make time. I will never get to it. And I want to also see if the founder is able to make use of me and that I can actually make an impact on the biz. And that we have chemistry!
...So what SHOULD you do instead of building an advisory board?
As you pitch customers (esp. b2b)…There will be some customers who love you or your startup idea…
THIS IS YOUR CHANCE!!!
Build DEEP relationship with these ppl!!!! And then at some point in the 1st yr create a client advisory board (maybe 3 of your top clients) and talk to them once a month. Just say here’s what I’m seeing, what do you think about this trend, what do you love/hate about the biz, etc. etc. Clients at big companies love helping startups: it gives them the thrill of something new without the risk.
So in short:
1. No advisors without cash money
2. Clients are the best advisors
3. Stop wasting time trying to convince “industry experts” to join your advisory board
The way that Jensen Huang runs Nvidia is wild:
40 direct reports, no 1:1s
- Believes that the flattest org is the most empowering one, and that starts with the top layer
- Does not conduct 1:1s - everything happens in a group setting
- Does not give career advice - "None of my management team is coming to me for career advice - they already made it, they're doing great"
No status reports, instead he "stochastically samples the system"
- Doesn't use status updates because he believes they are too refined by the time they get to him. They are not ground truth anymore.
- Instead, anyone in the company can email him their "top five things" with whatever is top of mind, and he will read it
- Estimates he reads 100 of these everyone morning
Everyone has all the context, all the time
- No meetings with just VPs or just Directors - anyone can join and contribute
- "If you have a strategic direction, why tell just one person?"
- "If there is something I don't like, I just say it publicly"
- "I do a lot of reasoning out loud"
No formal planning cycles
- No 5 year plan, no 1 year plan
- Always re-evaluating based on changing business and market conditions (helpful when AI is developing at the pace that it is)
This org is optimized for (1) attracting amazing people, (2) keeping the team as small as it can be, and (3) allowing information to travel as quickly as possible
Bootstrapping is fu*king hard.
You feel lost and stretched constantly.
Cash flow. Working capital. Inventory. Where do you focus?
I wish I had a top metrics cheat sheet when I started my first co.
So I wrote one.
Pay attention to these 5 metrics to make bootstrapping easier👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽
---
#1 - Debt capacity against assets/sales
One of the most important things we did early @ampush was borrow (factored) against our receivables.
Back then, it was still pretty old school/sharky but today there are myriad of options.
The important metric is: how big is your AR, Inventory or subscription revenue (whatever “denominator”) you are receiving debt against?
How much can you borrow against that?
And what are your ongoing cash costs to fund operations?
e.g., If you have $100k in ARR with 70% capacity, you have access to $70k to fund cash costs.
I recommend knowing this number offhand and only borrowing to fund profitable/breakeven operations (see #5 below).
Don't use this debt for funding “risky initiatives”.
___
#2 - “True Cash” - another balance sheet metric
If you’ve never raised outside capital to have a slug of cash padding, your cash balance will be volatile.
Collections matter. Payroll timing matters.
When you send the check matters.
Even after you have working capital financing (see #1 above), you’ll still see a cash balance that moves around a lot and IS NOT directly tied out to the profits of the business.
So always know your “True Cash” number
(this is not an exact metric).
It’s not retained earnings, it’s not cash.
It’s most similar to the Quick Ratio: Cash + Accounts Receivable- Accounts Payable - Short Term Debt.
How much cash is “sitting” in the business?
Note: we operated Ampush for several quarters or even years at a time while this number was NEGATIVE despite a large cash balance.
Knowing that is the case and planning against it was important to decision making.
___
#3 - CCC. Cash conversion cycle - Know it in days
If I spend $ today on inventory, ads, etc, how many days does it take for me to get my $ back?
You pay $25 day 1 for inventory and $25 day 2 for marketing, you get paid $100 in 30 days...
Even though the sale is profitable, if you only have $50k to spend, you can only sell 1000 units before you run out of money and have to wait.
The detailed equation: CCC = Days of Sales Outstanding + Days of Inventory
Outstanding - Days of Payables Outstanding.
The holy grail is a negative cash conversion cycle and it explains how Bezos took Amazon public with less than <$10M in VC raised!
In short, a negative CCC means that your suppliers "finance" your business.
___
#4 - Number of Initiatives per 10% of profit margin - this is a weird one but the 2nd most important
Consider for a second that your bottom line profit margin is “arbitrary” - you can target -20% all the way to +20%.
At $1M in sales, do you spend $1.2M or $800k?
I believe that choice is tied directly to how many initiatives you are pursuing at once. It’s easy to convince yourself that you have to DO EVERYTHING and DO IT NOW.
But...
In my experience, you can cut the bottom 20%+ of initiatives which aren’t getting much attention anyway because they are number 500 on everyone's' priority list and still maintain (or even grow) your revenue.
In the $1M sales example, the diff between 20% and -20% is $400k annually or 3-5 people.
Each incremental initiative is costing you.
Cut down your initiatives until you are showing a solid profit and stay disciplined in only growing expenses when you grow revenue.
The easiest hack to identify the "cut list" is look at your calendar and the initiative(s) you are making the least time for, skipping the meetings, that have emails piling up in your inbox you don't want to respond to.
THEY ARE NOT A PRIORITY. Cut them.
Build a system for investing ahead a bit (but within your chosen margin threshold).
Get rid of the notion that profit and growth are at odds with each other.
In fact, use the framework that initiatives must yield profit AND growth to make the cut in your priorities.
___
#5: UNITS SOLD TO BREAK EVEN!
With even $1 in profit per month, your runway is infinite.
Know how many units of your product must be sold per month to cover your overhead.
The calculation: (Rev per unit - cost per unit)*Volume of units = Overhead + $1.
Know that # and do all you can to hit that volume of sales/units before increasing overhead.
At each level of overhead, know the units to breakeven.
For example, if you’re a SaaS business with $120 per month subscriptions at a cost per sale of $20 and you have 5 employees at ~$100k each + $100k in office/ads/other overhead.
That’s $50k in monthly expenses. You need to sell 50k/100 = 500 subscriptions.
That's it, my top 5 metrics for bootstrappers! Add yours to the comments so we can create an amazing repository for bootstrappers. Or share edits/feedback!
___
TL;DR:
1. Debt capacity against assets/sales
2. True Cash
3. Cash conversion cycle
4. Number of Initiatives per 10% of profit margin
5. UNITS SOLD TO BREAK EVEN!
___
If you enjoyed this thread, follow me @jspujji
I've bootstrapped multiple 8 figure businesses, grew Ampush to $400,000,000+ in FB spend, and now run a venture studio launching a profitable company every quarter.
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Practical guide on to conduct UX research with tips for choosing the proper research methods
https://t.co/OsSg3MdcLM
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sandbox https://t.co/VShhgTQExu
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