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What is your go-to marketing advice for first-time founders?
by
Dan Kulkov
I would go with:
Research your competitors
.
If they are big, steal their tactics
If they are small, learn from their mistakes
This way, you will make x10 fewer marketing mistakes.
YC's advice: Talk to customers, ship product. That's the job of founders
Spot on @dbaum3 !
Eric Migicovsky (founder of Pebble, ex-YC partner) has a very insightful video on how to talk to users. We've annotated it in EnVsion so that you can watch only the useful parts.
Check it out (works best on laptop/desktop): https://studio.envsion.io/home/a4347b58-f465-4648-a027-71acd2c357e5
great tips, thank you Ed!
You welcome Dan!
For anyone who wants to learn how to ask better questions to your users, I recommend checking my article on writing a discussion guide
Content is king, ed!
👑
COLD EMAILING!
Is cold emailing "legal"?
Ya it is, just need to provide an unsubscribe at the bottom
Personally, I never use the unsub button, because many companies use that action to add your email at least to a list of emails that have are actually active, and they'll use in another way, for a different spam list ( cold emailing is spam )
I just click spam button in gmail.
Eventually your cold emails go into mostly spam folders, so you need a system that changes the "from" email easily , I'd say.
Any cold emailing templates you're open to sharing?
best regards, Dan
Quick Question...
Are you Dan the man?
😂
Learn to sell, sell and sell!!
and selling doesn't always mean calling people
Speaking of which https://geeksandexperts.com/ is my current project. I think indie entrepreneurs and small business owners can't always find the expertise or quick solutions to their problems/projects and therefore I created this micro-consulting gig platform! But, selling has been tough as marketplaces are hard, and building trust and credibility are key at the earlier stages.
This is a pretty vague topic, I give some advice here:
https://www.indiehackers.com/post/marketing-tips-to-get-10-000-mrr-quickly-91125e8517
great post, thanks for sharing
What if they are small in purpose? A well defined niche with a moat?
My advice would be to understand the kind of language that your extremely specific market use to talk about the problem and solution.
if they are successful in their niche, they are not small
having 50% market share of the small market means being big
Depends on the market, depends on the niche.
Growth for the sake of growth is cancer.
A one-person company can be a successful one with an extremely well defined niche in a market. It will be small by definition.
Get Help. Not kidding lol
it's time to drop a link to your mastermind for Founders
one in the million chance
Use low-cost solutions to test the hypothesis
don't spend money before you earn money
The most important thing is to put in the time, effort, and dedication to learn the needed skills. Try to learn as much as you can from successful people.
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ads are getting smarter
I should have taken a softer approach. All people power. No automation at all.
Not smart enough lel