How to make friends as an adult
A short handbook from someone who is awful at making friends When I originally wrote this, I had no intention of publishing it. Instead, my goal was to structure some of these important ideas as a guide for myself to get better at making friends. But, thanks to the pandemic, many of us feel our […]
Why people fail at making big life changes
Personal change has two parts, but we only pay attention to one Behavior vs Evaluation Let’s say you want to change something about yourself. You want to lose some weight, get better at chess, or be less anxious in social situations. All personal changes break down to one of two types: changing what you do […]
What Are The Most Important Metrics for a SAAS Company?
From my notes on the Y-Combinator talk by Anu Hariharan #LearnInPublic #LearnByWriting 🚨 tl;dr: SAAS company growth is best measured through MRR (monthly recurring revenue), ARR (annual recurring revenue), MRR churn (loss of MRR), and Paid CAC (customer acquisition cost). ☁️ What is SAAS? As everyone Knows, SAAS is software-as-a-service. It’s essentially a software subscription for […]
What Enterprise-Sales Metrics Do Investors Care About Most?
From my notes on the Y-Combinator talk by Anu Hariharan #LearnInPublic #LearnByWriting 🚨 tl;dr: An enterprise model for a startup means that your startup is primarily selling to big shinny enterprise customers. The most important metrics are Bookings, Total Customers, and Revenue. When distinguishing between bookings and revenue, the details matter. One is a leading […]
How to Talk to Users
I recently watched this talk by Eric Migicovsky at Y-Combinator on how to talk to users. Here are my notes. 👾 Initial thoughts from Sean Talking to users is an interesting topic because it seems like something that should happen at a later stage. I worked at a startup where we had regular discussions with […]
If You Want to Persuade, Frame Things as Experience
Think about a purchase that has improved your life in a significant way. For me, it’s my Boston Terrier pup Octavian. The experiences I’ve had with him have been truly life-changing. Most things that you will spend money on in your life will have both sides: a material side (you own a Tesla) and an […]
Four Questions to Ask When Evaluating a Startup Idea
What problem am I trying to solve? This is the place all startups um…start. If you are building a startup you are solving a problem–it’s that simple. A lot of failed startups failed specifically because they were a solution looking for a problem. Someone got excited about some piece of technology or some capability and […]
Boiled Potato Diet
In a study dating all the way back to 1995, called “A Satiety Index of Common Foods,” dozens of different foods were compared to see what foods were the most satiating–that is, what caused people to feel the most full and not feel hungry the longest. As you might have guessed from the title of […]
Gamify Your Startup to Motivate Your Team
A secret weapon to get your team passionate about their jobs The promise of metrics has failed We all want our companies to be data-driven. So why aren’t they?Here’s a hint: it’s not just about software, it’s about habits. We’ve all heard big promises about self-serve business analytics that claim to turn anyone into a data […]
Horns of Dilemma: Using a False Dichotomy to Create the Illusion of Choice
Whichever way you turn, you get gored “A man is an angel that has become deranged, Joe Fernwright thought. Once they — all of them — had been genuine angels, and at that time they had had a choice between good and evil, so it was easy, easy being an angel. And then something happened. […]