So, we released it to the public, built a landing page, and waited. Nothing happened. One or two people signed up for the free trial, but there wasn’t much else. We hadn’t done any marketing, and we hadn’t made any sales. The service just sat there, idling.
We found out that many other teachers did the same when they started talking about their self-built solutions in their online communities. Teachers began to share their templates through Google sheets. It was clear that this was a shared problem in a very tight-knit community. There was a sizeable market with an apparent, shared, and critical problem. The problem was solvable, but no one had yet built anything to make it noticeably easier. ...
And then, one day, everything changed. In a comment to a Facebook post about how teachers dealt with feedback, Danielle dropped the link to our product with an explanation of how she used it. Teachers started to respond, asking for more details; they checked out the program and came back to share their newly found discovery on social media.
that fueled the growth of our business from its first few users to thousands of customers a couple of months later. It was surreal, but we had tapped into a highly active tribe. Once we understood that, we didn’t need to do much when it came to marketing our product: our users would do most of that for us.
For many of our customers, teaching from home was a side hustle. Using our product enabled many of them to turn this into a full-time source of income. We priced our service to be affordable and easily justified. We even increased our prices by 50% a year into running the business, and it continued growing nevertheless.
Tech founders—and I count myself as one—focus on products because that is what we use to solve our problems. After all, when you run into a challenging task, what do you look for first? An in-depth scientific explanation for the epistemological essence of the task? Or a tool that will do the job for you seconds after you install it?
In the Preparation Stage, the focus will be on finding an audience, their biggest problem, and a solution that solves that problem in a way to make people pay for it. You will find out how to price your product initially and start selling.
Tech founders—and I count myself as one—focus on products because that is what we use to solve our problems. After all, when you run into a challenging task, what do you look for first? An in-depth scientific explanation for the epistemological essence of the task? Or a tool that will do the job for you seconds after you install it? ...
Many successful bootstrapped businesses start with an audience, a specific niche. They find their customers’ critical problems and provide valuable solutions that people gladly pay for. Their product is centered around continuously providing value to new and existing customers. Audience, problem, solution, and product can be looked at individually.
Successful businesses are built by addressing critical problems for an audience willing to pay for solutions to their issues. The Preparation Stage is when you make these foundational choices. Once in motion, a business has certain inertia that makes these decisions difficult to alter. While pivoting your business into new markets can be the right move at times, it requires additional effort. This is why it’s wise to invest significant time upfront to get things right initially. ...
A business would be nothing without customers. You can have the best product in the world, but you won’t be able to build any meaningful business if there is no one to pay for what you offer. Who am I helping? You will discover how to find the perfect niche and make sure it can support your business in Step One: Your Audience. Why do they need help? Learn how to find and validate their critical problem in Step Two: Their Problem. How can I help them with that? Find a good solution and make sure it fits into your prospective customers’ workflow in Step Three: Your Solution. What can I create to help them that way? You’ll learn how to create an easy-to-maintain and reliable product in Step Four: Your Product. ...
where do you find those paying customers? The first step to building a business is answering that question, and for bootstrapped founders, there is one critical component: finding the perfect niche.
His mind was more or less pure, with no knowledge of those “unspoken words” and never “contaminated” by real social life. The world as seen through a child’s eyes is unreal; it is an imaginary world that has been instilled into their minds. When they grow up and encounter society in the future, they will discover that what they thought was true when they were children is absurd and ridiculous in reality. +++ ...
智力越高的人，越愿意去思考那些惊世骇俗的思想观点。这不仅仅因为聪明人本身很积极地寻找传统观念的漏洞，还因为传统观念对他们的束缚力很小，很容易摆脱。从他们的衣着上你就可以看出这一点：不受传统观念束缚的人，往往也不会穿流行的衣服。 ...
在思想和言论之间划一条明确的界线。在心里无所不想，但是不一定要说出来。我就鼓励自己在心里默默思考那些最无法无天的想法。你的思想是一个地下组织，绝不要把那里发生的事情一股脑说给外人听。“格斗俱乐部”的第一条规则，就是不要提到格斗俱乐部 ...
你不要让自己成为人群的一分子，而要尽可能地远离人群，观察正在发生的事情，特别注意那些被压制的思想和观点 如果一个命题不是错的，却被加上各种标签，进行压制和批判，那就有问题。因为只要不是错的观点，就不应该被压制讨论。所以每当你看到有些话被攻击为出自 XX 分子或 XX 主义，这就是一个明确的信号，表明背后有问题。不管在 1630 年还是在 2030 年，都是如此。当你听到有人在用这样的标签，就要问为什么。 ...
Hearing that the richest 5% of people own more than half of society’s wealth often leads to the conclusion that this is unfair. An experienced programmer might also find this unfair because the top 5% of programmers write 99% of the world’s excellent software. +++
You do what people need or want, and then you get paid for it. Some people earn more because they do it better. Superstars make much more money than regular actors, even though the latter may have the same talent as the former. When people choose which movies to watch in the cinema, they tend to be attracted by superstars. Of course, making things that people need is not the only way to make money. Robbing banks, extorting bribes, and monopolizing markets can also bring in money, and these methods are often used by some wealthy individuals. However, these means do not represent all wealth, nor are they the main cause of income inequality. The difference in skills among individuals leads to differences in income, which is the primary reason for income inequality, just like Occam’s Razor principle in logic states: the simplest explanation is the best one. +++ ...
李自成到底是流贼头目呢，还是仁义之师的领袖呢？这个问题不好答。事实上，李自成一直是暴力集团的好领导。作为暴力集团头子，李自成始终在追求血酬的最大化。流贼烧杀抢掠，追求一次性血酬的最大化；进城后秋毫无犯，追求打天下坐江山的长期法酬的最大化。 ...
抢劫行为存在的前提，是有可抢的东西；绑架人质勒索赎金的前提，是人质有支付赎金的财力。如血酬定律所说，人质的命价，是由当事人支付赎金的意愿和能力决定的。在风险和成本相同的条件下，人质越有钱，抢劫对象越富裕，绑票和抢劫的收益越高。反过来说，抢劫绑票的对象越穷，抢劫的收益越低。低到得不偿失的程度，土匪就没法干了。 ...