Toby Startygen

Stuck in your 9-5 rat race? Let us find your unique business idea—and build it • Writes about mental models for ideating business ideas

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

I started outlining my book

Idea Incubator: Discovering unique business opportunities

I'd like your opinions:

• What do you (dis)like?
• What should I change?

I'll share my progress every other week.

How can you contribute?

#buildinpublic #buildinginpublic

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

For the PHP devs in #buildinpublic :

What is the best way to use Symfony and Stripe? Which bundle/framework to use?

Looked at payum, but I'm not sure if its up to date

(as payum/stripe requires stripe/stripe-php ^7.0, which is at v14 ATM)

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

@ThePeterMick @ThePeterMick1 Reported 🫡

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Just added two tables to my X analytics dashboard:

They show the top 10 posts that drove conversions (link clicks and new followers).

Would you feel this could be helpful for your X game?

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Before creating the whole thing, you must make sure, that you keep validating.

Ask the people on your waitlist questions. Send them some preliminary work and ask for feedback (I neglected that until now, TBH).

The feedback helps you decide if you should put in the work.

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

I can't validate my idea with a landing page, because I have only X followers…

Wrong!

I do have a small account, too. Yet, I validated the interest in my book.

How? I…

1. created an LP
2. posted about it, and—more importantly
3. talked about it in replies.

The result?

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

10+ people joined the waitlist.

Given my small account and my very limited reach: I'd say the idea is validated.

If I can spark the interest of 10 people, there are a lot more interested people out there.

Just use this approach:

1. Create an LP
2. Talk about it
3. Done

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

@CharlieYalf @arvidkahl They also erased Taiwan. So, no more computer chips 🤷‍♂️

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Funny how they put almost all major conflicts on one continent.

Reading the news about the China/Russia/India/Pakistan/Iran/Israel continent would be extremely crazy. Especially if they were isolated by an ocean.

I also like how they kept Mexico close to the US. Makes me wonder: Why demand the wall?

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

@copywithmuscles @AndrewWriteCopy Think, you misspelled god. 😉

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

It can be a piece of the puzzle. You can "get to the reader" better.

As they say: People buy on emotion and justify with logic.

So, using more powerful words can make your copy perform better.

It's not a magic spell, though.

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

I like that you ramped up plain words >>> vanilla.

😅 Nicely done.

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

I am finalizing another chart of my X post analytics dashboard.

It shows the number of posts + individual engagement metrics on a weekly basis.

What do you think?

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Pretty balanced.

I wonder how many people clicked alright, when they in reality feel it's going not good...

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Why TF are cats so scared of cucumbers? 🫣

[Peter Mick @ThePeterMick]

Cat = first time founder
Cucumber = marketing

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Aiming for high quality work or well-tuned processes will prevent you from starting your own business.

I call these two the classical success factors.

We are taught to strive for that in school and in every 9-5. But when starting your own business you need something else:

You need to find your product. Duh, right? But:

Even if you feel you know what you're selling, you will change that many times over time.

Why?

Because you will adapt to your customers and their needs.

In other words: you will specialize.

And to that you have to

• Change the product/service you deliver.
• Change your workflows to produce that product/service.

What does that mean for you?

You can't hone/optimize your product and workflows. Your work can (and must) be good, but it won't meet your high quality standards.

If you don't realize this, you will either

• never start (procrastination because of perfectionism)

or

• go out of business, because you don't adapt.

Conclusion

Do messy work. Get it done. (“Better done than perfect”).

Once you feel you have found your spot in the market: Optimize.

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

I just finished the chart for comparing impressions and engagements between periods on a daily basis.

What do you think?

#buildinpublic

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

@marclou I don't get why people do this.

This is so low...

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

@dvassallo How do you figure that they left with nothing/didn't get anything useful out of their visit (as you said in another reply)?

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

Do you create a business model canvas for your business ideas?

[Toby Startygen @startygen]

@PassiveSphere @tibo_maker They sure do. It's the nature of summaries 🙂