Enter Network

Here's my weekly update, as founder of Enter Network - the place where European entrepreneurs connect, learn & grow.

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Finished most of the preparation for ProductHunt launch
✅ Found someone who will be facilitating some events while I’m away
✅ Reached out to a number of people and had a couple start a trial with us, which is great!
✅ Participated in the kick-off for the Lisk Blockchain Accelerator, for which we’re facilitating a mastermind group
✅ Had a good first Strategy Session to discuss our over-arching goals for Enter Network.

2) What did I learn?
I learned that there are too many things we’re still doing manually. From Slack invites to inviting our members for events, there are a number of things that we could automate I think. I hope that once I’m back from my holiday I’ll be able to work on this some more, freeing up time for both me and the Enter Network team.

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Talk to new trial members and engage with them
• Prepare our email inbox, Asana (project management), and other tasks/to do’s so that I can go on holiday
• Do tax return for last year (income tax) and for Q1 2021 (VAT)
• Create list of books to read or listen to during my holiday (so if you have any suggestions…. let me know!)

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Found a freelancer who created the video for us for ProductHunt
✅ Created the first set-up for ProductHunt (including comment, description, etc.)
✅ Started running Google Ads again for Enter Network which led to 2 trial members. This really seems to work in terms of getting new trial member, though I'm not sure yet at what percentage the traffic from ads converts to paying members. The estimate is that this traffic is of relatively low quality, so the conversion rate will also be relatively low.
✅ Negotiated a really big discount on a specific platform we use, saving us $80 per month (which is a lot for our small business).
❌ Didn't feel so motivated, so I hope to pick that up again this week.

2) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Put final touches to ProductHunt video and rest of the launch
• Improve mastermind landing page and possibly start ads
• Learn more from people who do really well on Twitter/blogs, and find new ways to promote Enter Network
• Prepare first Enter Network Strategy session

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Found a freelancer who can run some events for us
✅ Finally started creating the final video for ProductHunt
❌ Wasn't able to do as much work as I wanted on creating guidelines/documentation.

2) What did I learn last week?

Sometimes you just have to outsource something. As an entrepreneur, you often want to do things yourself. However, sometimes I put way too much time into something (e.g. while working with an Adobe program) whereas it would have been much easier and (relatively) cheaper if I ask someone else to do it. For example, I was struggling with creating a video in Premiere Pro for some time, whereas a professional video editor could do the things I wanted to do in probably an hour or so.

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Finish (most) preparation for ProductHunt launch
• Start running Enter Network ads again
• Create guidelines to delegate some recurring tasks and free up time for other higher-priority work.
• Prepare first Enter Network Strategy session
• Look at the use of Meetup Pro - and if we want to continue paying for this.

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Had a nice Q&A on Finding Your Target Audience with the founder of a Marketing Collective
✅ Did quite a bit of work on on-boarding. Updated our pricing pages, and improved the way people are onboarded after they join a trial.
✅ Worked with a few freelancers to outsource some of our regular tasks.

2) What did I learn last week?

• I learned that I have to be less of a perfectionist, especially when outsourcing or delegating tasks. This often leads to more work instead of less, and it makes it more difficult for others to work with me. I suppose it's a work-in-progress :)

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Prepare today's brainstorming session with Enter Network members to improve our community.
• Find a freelancer to do a bit of video-editing work.
• Prepare the Startup Speed-Dating Session on Thursday, and invite more people.
• Create guidelines to delegate some recurring tasks and free up time for other higher-priority work.

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network.

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Had a very interesting meeting that we hosted with a ultra-endurance athlete, entrepreneur, and founder of an extreme skiing-school. Was very happy with how it turned out.
✅ Did some work on a video for ProductHunt, so we're one step closer to launching.
✅ Had a large number of new trial members (5 or so) instead our regular 2/week. I think that's due to a change we made in our advertising campaign, because it allowed people to sign up immediately (rather than first register interest). However, maybe because it's so easy to sign up, not everyone is fully onboarded yet — so I hope to do that this week.

2) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Create an improved video for our launch on ProductHunt
• Update the Enter Network onboarding process
• Talk to a few new trial users and plan talks with them.
• Prepare the brainstorming session with Enter Network members to improve our community.

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network.

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Started first mastermind run by a colleague. This was exciting, because up until now I ran all the mastermind groups myself. Very happy with the results!
✅ Organized our first Lightning Talks - in which anyone in the community had 5 minutes to give a presentation about any topic of interest. We had talks about AirTable, Reply.io, Getting Things Done, and more.
✅ Been getting around 2 new trial members per week, which is pretty good. However, we need to grow to 4 or so to really make our growth stick and make up for churning customers.

2) What did I learn last week?

That there's SO MUCH to learn from your customers. Sometimes I tend to forget to talk to our 'customers' one-on-one, because other daily tasks take over.

However, it's so incredibly valuable to have one-on-one talks with your customers (in our case - community members) — because you get immense amounts of good feedback and new ideas.

Certainly, not all of these ideas should be implemented right away, but having these conversations result in a LOT of new ideas and over time improvements to your product (or in our case: our community).

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Create a video for our launch on ProductHunt
• Organize brainstorming session to improve Enter Network
• Create timeline with milestones for membership growth over the next few months
• Schedule a few more Q&As with expert speakers
• Plan talks with trial members and get feedback from them

Here's my weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Looked at CAC for different acquisition channels. We seem to have very good metrics for our advertisements (eg landing page conversion rate of 5+%). But we have to gather some more data and see if the people that leave their information will actually join as trial members.
✅ Organized an interesting masterclass on Brandbuilding with keynote speaker Sonja Piontek. For anyone who wants to watch the video, it will be available later this week on our resources page (members only)
❌ I was ill for 2 days, so didn't get to do as much as I wanted.

2) What did I learn last week?

Making decisions as a startup requires a combination of data and 'guesstimates'.

For example, we just finished our trial for Meetup Pro, and don't really know for sure which meetup groups we should keep (and pay for) and which ones we shouldn't. In the end, I used some data and made some estimates about each group — and then decided on which groups to keep.

This process is slightly flawed, because the data isn't good enough and it still includes my personal judgment. But I guess that as a startup, that's the only way to do it.

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Kick off a new mastermind group (for Indie Founders)
• Reach out to at least 5 new speakers to set up new Q&As
• Create a video for our launch on ProductHunt
• Talk to a few community members about ambassadorships.

Here's my weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network

1) What did I work on last week?
✅ Had a first call with a lead that came through our Google Ads. She will probably join our event tomorrow, so hopefully that will turn into a trial membership
✅ Had a few calls with trial members – some have become a member which I’m very grateful for, and others unfortunately didn’t.
✅ Organized a really great Q&A on LinkedIn sales. For anyone who wants to watch the video, it will be available later this week on our resources page (members only)
✅ Made progress in making an overview of all the work I’m doing on a daily/weekly basis. I’m seeing if I can outsource/delegate/automate more of this wherever possible.
✅ Kicked off our new Mastermind Group for Indie Founders which I’m very happy about!

2) What did I learn last week?

• Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the different tasks that I have. But it really helped a lot for me to create an overview of all these tasks — it allowed me to consider what is important and what is less important, and also what could be outsourced/delegated/automated.

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• Talk to several trial members and see what they think of our community so far
• Reach out to at least 5 new speakers to set up new Q&As
• Create a video for our launch on ProductHunt
• Figure out what to do with our Meetup Pro subscription
• Create overview of metrics to track (MRR, LTV, CAC, etc.) — so that we can do a bit more analysis into how we get our members, how long it takes, conversion rates, etc.

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network.

1) What did I work on last week?

✅ Implemented a new 'most active person' competition on our private Slack server. If you're the most active person in one week, you (and your company) get mentioned on our social media. I'm curious to see whether this will lead to more activity!

✅ Created 2 new website pages: Startups (overview of some startups who are part of our community) and Resources (only for members — which includes all our recorded events)

✅ Had a few new people signing up for a trial membership or our mastermind groups! So things are headed in the right direction.

2) What did I learn last week?

I learned that there's definitely demand for what we do.

Sometimes, I doubt whether we're going in the right direction. There are people who cancel their membership, or who simply aren't interested when I pitch them our community or mastermind groups.

However, sometimes (like last week), I learn that many of our members find it very valuable; and that there right people are inherently interested in joining a mastermind group or our community in general. So this is a learning that I have to remind myself of anytime I'm feeling down. We're doing something right!

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

• As an experiment, create an 'open startup' page where you can easily see the revenue of Enter Network.
• Improve acquisition channel experiments, and create a launch plan for ProductHunt, so that we can launch next week.
• Add 'deals' page to our website, so that people can access our deals there instead of on our Slack
• Find new mastermind facilitator for our Dutch mastermind groups.

Here's our weekly update at our community for European startup founders, Enter Network.

1) What did I work on last week?

✅ Removed the Stripe / creditcard popup from our registration flow, so that people can register an account for free to join a 14-day trial (instead of needing to put in their card details first). This seems to be a good solution — we just got in 4 new trial members!

✅ Started writing down an overview of all different tasks that I do on a daily basis, to see what I can/could outsource to others.

✅ Did a LOT of sales, which I really don't like doing, but I'm happy that I did. This will likely lead to some more members of our mastermind groups.

❌ Felt a bit down last Monday/Tuesday because everything is not going as fast as I want. I guess that happens!

2) What did I learn last week?

I learned that sales works, and that even if I don't like it, it's good to keep doing. I guess this is not really a new learning, but rather a confirmation of something I already knew.

3) What am I working on this week, and what are my goals?

For this week, my goal is to find 2 more members for our mastermind groups, 2 more trial members of our community, and hold a great Q&A event with Gernot Schwendtner of weGrow.