Crafting A Killer Startup Story For Your Fundraising Pitch
Your company narrative is hiding inside the walls of your company’s brain, it’s a matter of drawing it out. Now let’s outline the steps and process, including all of the specific techniques used to arrive at your company’s killer narrative.
Co-Authored with Ryan F. Salerno, Technical Co-Founder at Equity Token.
Earlier this year, in response to the question “What are the most common mistakes founders make when they start a company?”, Justin Kan, the Founder of Twitch & Atrium, responded with the following:
“Mistake 1: Underestimating the importance of narrative when fundraising:
I firmly believe that investors invest in (and employees join, and journalists write about) compelling stories, and your pitch deck is really just a vehicle for telling the story you want to tell. So, start first with the narrative and build the deck after you have it nailed.”
Finding Your Killer Company Narrative:
You need a killer company narrative for your startup pitch. Wether you are telling your family about your company or speaking with investors while fundraising, how you communicate your company’s narrative matters.
From a pure story perspective, how do you do that? Let’s quickly introduce two frameworks we will be using.
Framework 1: Story of Stories
With this question in mind, I was recently reading a series of new posts called The Story of Us from one of my favorite authors, Tim Urban. In it, he breaks down the specific characteristics required for a normal story to become a story virus. Those characteristics are:
Simplicity
Unfalsifiability
Conviction
Contagiousness
Accountability
Comprehensiveness
Framework 2: Startup Focus
Jonathan Greechan, Co-founder of the Founder Institute, has a presentation on Startup Focus. According to Jon, your startup must do the following:
To arrive at your killer company narrative, you need a startup story that is simple and unfalsifiable, while also fitting the “Solve One Problem for One Customer” framework.
Here’s an example company narrative if Stripe were to go through this exercise.
Securely collecting credit and debit card payments is hard for developers. With the Stripe Checkout Product, developers can embed a payment form that costs $0.30 per transaction.
Your narrative is hiding inside the walls of your company’s brain, it’s a matter of drawing it out. Now let’s outline the steps, including all of the specific techniques used to arrive at a killer company narrative.
Step 1 - Prepare:
Over the course of a few days start brain dumping any and all talking points you currently associate with your company into your notepad.
Schedule a “Narrative Day” with your whole team. Find a conference room and book a day on the calendar with no other meetings, so you can focus on this project.
Buy the following supplies before the meeting and be sure to bring them with you:
Post-it Super Sticky Wall Easel Pad, 20 x 23 Inches ($30 on Amazon)
Different Color Sticky Post It Notes ($6 on Amazon)
Color Coding Stickers ($5 on Amazon)
Markers
As I mentioned above this process was inspired by Tim Urban’s “Story of Stories” framework. I highly recommend having your team read this post in advance of your company’s narrative revision meeting.
Step 2 - Brainstorm:
Stick up five sheets of the sticky wall easel pads around the room. Going left to right label each of them as follows:
Original Company Vision
Current Narratives
Goals For New The Narrative
New Potential Narratives
Target Customers
Hand out the sticky post-it notes to your team. If you want, you can give each person their own color so you can later easily see who contributed what ideas.
Start with the first board “Original Vision” by having each person on your team write down a sentence (small enough to fit on a sticky note) that describes your company’s original vision. Originally, when your company was an idea over beers, what was the initial pie in the sky dream for the vision?
Each person should write as many as they can think of in a few minutes. After time is up, everyone puts up their stickies on the wall and someone reads them out loud.
Step 3 - Vote & Sort:
Next, use the dot sorting technique. Give each person on the team a bunch of the green and red dot shaped stickers. It is now time to upvote and downvote the Original Vision board to determine which company narratives are resonating with your audience / customers.
Each person should place a green sticker on the ideas they want to upvote as resonating with your audience / customers.
Each person should place a red sticker on the ideas they want to downvote as resonating with your audience / customers.
Now rearrange the post it notes so the ideas with the most upvotes are on top, and the idea’s with the most downvotes are on the bottom!
You now have a clear and glanceable look at what is working and what is not with regard to your original vision for the company.
Step 4 - Repeat For Each Section:
Repeat this process for the remaining boards. Letting every team member contribute ideas and then helping to vote them up/down.
Current Company Narratives
What does the website say right now? If you asked someone else to describe your company back to you, what would they say? Write down an honest depiction of the current narrative.
Goals For New The Narrative
What do you want to achieve, given this new narrative? Hiring more employees? Signing up more customers? Getting more revenue? Getting more funding? A better brand? Whatever it is, write out all the goals.
New Potential Narratives
Brainstorm as many new potential narratives as you can think of. At this point there are still no wrong answers, so don’t filter yourself. Let the ideas flow and allow the dot voting take care of bringing the strong ideas to the top.
Target Customers
Who are going to be your initial target customers? Get as specific as possible. E.g. Startup founders running companies from Seed to Series A.
With the completion of each board, you will see a pattern start to emerge. Granting you a more focused and evolving clarity into how you need to structure your communications going forward.
Step 5 - Forcing Focus:
Remember those frameworks we introduced above. We are now going to apply them as filters to the narratives we just defined.
Sharing two more slides from Founder Institute Co-founder Jonathan Greechan’s presentation around focus for startups:
Put another sheet of the sticky wall easel pad on the wall and add the following to it, with room to write in answers under each:
One Problem
One Customer
One Product
One Killer Feature
One Revenue Stream
This template may seem obvious at first but as any founder can attest; the large magnitude of possible product features you can build, conflicting feedback, and more can sometimes feel burdensome. No body wants a bloated startup pitch. This structure is going to help you focus in on your specific startup’s niche.
Step 6 - The Story of Stories:
In Step 5 you defined your Focus, and now in Step 6, make sure your focus fits all of the criteria of being a killer company narrative.
This is where we come back to the Story of Stories. In the post Tim defines few necessary characteristics of a viable story virus:
Simplicity. The story has to be easily teachable and easily understandable.
Unfalsifiability. The story can’t be easy to disprove.
Conviction. For a story to take hold, its hosts can’t be wondering or hypothesizing or vaguely believing—the story needs to be specific and to posit itself as the absolute truth.
Contagiousness. Next, the story needs to spread. To be spreadable, a story needs to be contagious—something people feel deeply compelled to share and that applies equally to many people.
The story, once believed, needs to be able to drive the behavior of its host. So it should include:
Incentives. Promises of treats for behaving the right way, promises of electroshocks for behaving the wrong way.
Accountability. The claim that your behavior will be known by the arbiter of the incentives—even, in some cases, where no one is around to see it.
Comprehensiveness. The story can dictate what’s true and false, virtuous and immoral, valuable and worthless, important and irrelevant, covering the full spectrum of human belief.
Some great examples of strong story virus include Santa Claus and Catholicism. It is important you have an understanding around these characteristics as we are going to apply them as filters in the next step.
I recommend writing these characteristics down on another sticky wall easel pad so everyone in the room can clearly see the criteria that needs to be met.
Step 7 - Fill In The Blanks:
So we know have all of the following information at our disposal:
Original Company Vision
A understanding of what our company set out to do in the first place.
Current Narratives
What is currently working and not working.
Goals For New The Narrative
How we want to improve the company’s narrative pitch.
New Potential Narratives
The best candidates for our startups’ new story.
Target Customers
Defined segment of target customers.
Knowledge around what makes a good story in the first place
A solid template to force focus.
The next step is to fill in the blanks on the Problem, Customer , Product, Killer Feature, Revenue Stream template board.
The key here is to keep your answers for each to only a few carefully chosen words and to ONLY fill in the blanks with words that meet all of the requirements of the story virus.
String each of the answers together to form one sentence! Just like that Stripe example above.
Securely collecting credit and debit card payments is hard (PROBLEM) for developers (CUSTOMER). With the Stripe Checkout Product (PRODUCT), developers can embed a payment form (KILLER FEATURE) that costs $0.30 per transaction (REVENUE MODEL).
You now have your company’s new narrative!
Step 8 - Go Spread The Gospel
Start pitching your new startup story and see if it is resonating better than before. This process can help immensely when your company is fundraising. If you are like any of the companies I have seen use this process so far, then you should immediately start to see the benefits from this one day team exercise. Remember:
“Genius is the ability to put into effect what is on your mind.”
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
Other Founder Guides you might find helpful:
More on Tim Urban:
You may know Tim Urban from his famous TED Talk “Inside the mind of a master procrastinator”. On his website, Wait But Why, his articles tend to break down complex topics such as Artificial Intelligence, Elon Musk’s Neuralink, Religion, E-mail, Marriage, and so much more, to very simple explanations. So when Tim didn’t publish anything new for 3 years, many readers wondered what he was possibly working on. The answer was a new series of posts titled “The Story of Us”. If you have read and loved Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari, then I recommend you check out The Story of Us: Full Series!
Matt Britton Is Changing The Face Of Consumer Intelligence For The Millennial Generation With Suzy
As a serial entrepreneur, Matt Britton has successfully acquired and sold many companies at the perfect time. He is most known for his important role in creating MRY (Mr. Youth) and Suzy.
Matt Britton, Found of Suzy
As a serial entrepreneur, Matt Britton has successfully acquired and sold many companies at the perfect time. He is most known for his important role in creating MRY (Mr. Youth) and Suzy. MRY is a digital and social media marketing agency that helps companies market to the youth, which is tomorrow’s future leaders. His latest venture, Suzy, is a consumer intelligence platform which helps bring the voice of real consumers directly to brands.
Now known as America’s leading expert on the Millennial Generation, Britton’s entrepreneurial spirit all started because of parties believe it or not. He ran 5 to 7 parties a week, and local businesses started to take notice. They would ask him to advertise their business during the parties, which led him to create his first business venue, Magma Group. This was just the beginning for Britton, listen to hear more of his great story:
- How Magma Group came about
- The meaning behind “Magma”
- Creating MRY, Mr. Youth
- How MRY got Microsoft as their customer
- How Suzy was developed
- His book, “Youth Nation”
- Being a serial entrepreneur
- Being an investor
Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
“You have started several companies over the years, what is being a serial entrepreneur mean to you?.”
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice:
Members of the "A-list" can listen to exclusive A-list bonus clips here! If you are not a member yet be sure to join the Ambition Today A-list!
Quote Of The Episode:
“Ninety-nine percent of decisions made in business have no data behind it”
Links from this episode:
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The A-List
Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
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Thank you for listening!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Transcript:
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Adam Tishman, Bringing Customization To Your Sleep
Do you have to be an expert on a product in order to become a successful entrepreneur? Let’s ask today's guest, Adam Tishman. He is a New Yorker through and through, growing up in Manhattan helped his independence from a young age before becoming the co-founder of Helix Sleep.
Adam Tishman, Co-Founder of Helix Sleep
Do you have to be an expert on a product in order to become a successful entrepreneur? Let’s ask today's guest, Adam Tishman. Tishman is a New Yorker through and through, growing up in Manhattan helped his independence from a young age. He received his Bachelors Degree at Princeton in History before he decided to pursue an MBA where he met his co-founders of Helix Sleep.
Tishman knew he wanted to be a successful entrepreneur one day, however, he never thought it would be in mattresses. Knowing that mattress buying was confusing, expensive and hard for a lot of consumers, Tishman and his co-founders knew there had to be a better way. Listen for more details on how they have developed an amazing product, and what lead to Tishman's success:
- Born and raised in NY
- Growing up with a metro card
- Obtaining a BA at Princeton
- Tishman’s early on careers
- Meeting his co-founders
- How Helix Sleep came about
- The research behind Helix
- How sleep is innovative and necessary
- The meaning behind the name “Helix”
Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
As an entrepreneur: How important is sleep to you?
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice:
Members of the "A-list" can listen to exclusive A-list bonus clips here! If you are not a member yet be sure to join the Ambition Today A-list!
Quote Of The Episode:
“As you build your business, it is not just product at the end of the day, it is also the vision that you have and the story that you tell.”
Links from this episode:
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Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
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Thank you for listening!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Transcript:
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Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer On Truly Knowing Your Customer
A successful entrepreneur, speaker, and father of 7, Wes Schaeffer is the person you seek when you want to generate more sales. Wes Schaeffer is a marketing strategist and is known as The Sales Whisperer. He grew up in Houston, TX, served in the Air Force, graduated from A&M and became a successful salesman.
Wes Schaeffer, The Sales Whisperer
A successful entrepreneur, TED speaker, and father of seven, Wes Schaeffer is the person you seek when you want to generate more sales. Wes Schaeffer is a marketing strategist and is best known as The Sales Whisperer. He grew up in Houston, TX, served in the Air Force, graduated from A&M and became a successful salesman.
Although he had the income and personal life he wanted, he wasn’t happy with his job, which is when he became decided to become the Sales Whisperer. Wes's analogy of being a sales whisperer came to him after some inspiration from the dog whisperer. Some dogs have behavior issues but the reality is that their trainers don’t have the proper training to enable them to be successful pets. Just like how sales leaders come to him with lack of training and sometimes incorrect sales tactics, it is Wes’ job to help them learn a better and more efficient way. Listen to our podcast to hear more about Wes’ insights!
- Growing up in Houston and life in the U.S. Air Force
- Knowing when to switch gears
- The start of his career and transition to entrepreneurship
- Common sales leadership do's and do not's
- How he started The Sales Whisperer
- Breaking down Wes' Ted Talk
- Maintaining work-life balance with a big family
Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
How do you maintain work-life balance to ensure you get time with your family?
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice:
Members of the "A-list" can listen to exclusive A-list bonus clips here! If you are not a member yet be sure to join the Ambition Today A-list!
Quote Of The Episode:
“If you have seven priorities, you have none.”
Links from this episode:
Listen to this episode now:
The A-List
Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
If you are already a member of the A-list then you can easily access your bonus content from right here!
Thank you for listening!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Transcript:
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Terry Young's Sparks & Honey Is Mapping Culture To Forecast The Future
From a small town in Western Kentucky to becoming an entrepreneur on Madison Ave, Terry Young joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. Terry is a successful advertising entrepreneur and the CEO of Sparks & Honey
Terry Young, CEO of Sparks & Honey
From a small town in Western Kentucky to becoming an entrepreneur on Madison Ave, Terry Young joins us on this episode of Ambition Today. Terry is a successful advertising entrepreneur and the CEO of Sparks & Honey, a company identifying and mapping emerging cultural waves through the use of machine learning systems, algorithms, and human insight.
After earning his Master’s Degree in advertising, Terry started working in the digital advertising industry in 1995, when digital marketing was just getting started. A short two years later, he was running the company. Terry got the opportunity to live in China and help start-up initiatives while working for McKinsey. He also lived in Kazakhstan while in the Peace Corp where he helped small business shops with their financing and starting their businesses. Terry brings a great perspective on culture and new trends. On this episode, we also discuss:
Growing up in a small town in Kentucky
The impact of joining the Peace Corp
Rebuilding the traditional advertising model
The intersection of being gay and an entrepreneur.
How Sparks & Honey maps culture
Why predicting the future matters
Defining micro signals and macro trends
What is happening in the space industry
Ambition Today Question of the Day™ :
“How do you best recommend that people in organizations ride the waves in a trend?”
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Terry Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!
Quote Of The Episode:
“I say to every person who was here … that has left, you are also leaving your shape and your mold on the company, because it is a reflection on them too.”
Links from this episode:
Listen to this episode now:
Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
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How Peter Shankman Thinks "Faster Than Normal" And Built Help A Reporter Out (HARO)
On this episode of Ambition Today we explore Peter Shankman’s journey. Peter is the perfect example of what happens when you combine creativity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Peter shows us how ADHD can be a gift and a strong advantage in business. Many know him for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO).
Peter Shankman
On this episode of Ambition Today we explore Peter Shankman’s journey. Peter is the perfect example of what happens when you combine creativity with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Peter shows us how ADHD can be a gift and a strong advantage in business. He is not only an entrepreneur, but an author and a notable public speaker. Many know him for founding Help A Reporter Out, (HARO). He is also the founder of ShankMinds Business Masterminds and he is the Host of the Faster Than Normal Podcast.
Peter was born and raised in Manhattan, and was a New York City public school kid. After graduating from Boston University and going to Graduate school in Santa Barbara, CA, he started his professional career launching AOL Digital Newsroom. Peter is most well known for founding Help A Reporter Out, also known as HARO, which is the worlds largest public group of journalistic sources. In this episode, we talk about how Peter’s ADHD had a great impact on his many successes:
- Growing up in New York City
- Launching AOL Digital Newsroom
- The importance of having incredible mentors like Steve Case
- What is happening to the media industry today
- How Peter built Help A Reporter Out, (HARO)
- Using ADHD as an advantage
- How to create life rules to optimize your time
- Importance of self-awareness
- Value of asking everyone "How Can I Help"
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"How do you think about attention management and how do you best optimize your life for it?"
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Peter Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!
Quote Of The Episode:
"You have to put out 10 times the amount of help into the universe that you ask for."
Links from this episode:
- Faster Than Normal Book - Out Now!
- Faster Than Normal Podcast
- FasterThanNormal.com
- Help A Reporter Out, (HARO)
- Shankman.com
- Peter Shankman on Twitter
- Peter Shankman on Facebook
- WeWork
- Founder Institute
Listen to this episode now:
Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.
Why Sean Ellis, Co-Author of Hacking Growth, Optimizes For Reputation And Learning
In 2010 Sean Ellis coined the term Growth Hacking and now he joins us on Ambition Today. Sean is the Co-author of Hacking Growth with Morgan Brown and currently the CEO of Growth Hackers.
Sean Ellis
In 2010 Sean Ellis coined the term Growth Hacking and now he joins us on Ambition Today. Sean is the Co-author of Hacking Growth with Morgan Brown and currently the CEO of Growth Hackers.
Sean has had quite an impressive career both as a marketer and as an entrepreneur. He was the first marketer at Dropbox, Lookout and Xobni and he has taken companies LogMeIn and Uproar from launch to IPO. Sean is also known for popularizing the term product/market fit. We cover some of Sean's best practices for growing your company, as well as how he thinks of Growth Hacking as it continues to grow into the future. The story of Sean's entrepreneurial journey unlocks numerous insights along the way, including:
- What is "Growth Hacking"
- The role of family entrepreneurship on Sean
- The value of spending time abroad
- Being the first marketer at Dropbox, Lookout, & Eventbrite
- How pushing through the fear of failure has lead to success
- Making the leap from employee to entrepreneur
- Optimizing for reputation and learning over money
- How business teams need to be thinking about Growth
- The value of having a chip on your shoulder
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"What excites you? What motivates you to keep going?"
The Single Greatest Piece of Advice Sean Has Ever Learned:
Join the Ambition Today A-list to listen now!
Quote Of The Episode:
"For me, the two big motivating factors were reputation and learning. I wanted to build a reputation because that would open the door to the best learning opportunities."
Links from this episode:
Listen to this episode now:
Join the shows A-list backchannel for exclusive access to additional Ambition Today content, deeper guest insights, a community of fellow fans, and much more. Plus, Learn the single greatest piece of advice this guest has ever learned!
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
You can find the full transcript of this episode here.
Be sure to listen and subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform.
From Israel to Silicon Valley, Niv Dror's Journey To Conquer Social Media
Season Two of Ambition Today is happy to welcome Niv Dror, head of social media for Product Hunt. Niv boasts in impressive resume in both startups and finance, stemming from his education at UC Santa Barbara.
Niv Dror, Shrug Capital
Season Two of Ambition Today is happy to welcome Niv Dror, head of social media for Product Hunt. Niv boasts an impressive resume in both startups and finance, stemming from his education at UC Santa Barbara. After moving to Silicon Valley at a very young age, Niv had surprisingly little involvement in the tech world. It surrounded him entirely and thus he never noticed it, as water to a fish. However, after auditing a few hedge funds and VC funds as a CPA, he knew where his skills truly belonged.
Niv Dror’s taste of the tech community flourished very quickly, landing non-engineering jobs at DataFox, Meerkat, and Product Hunt. He aspired to add value without asking anything in return, and was rewarded with the experience and skills to climb the ranks at multiple organizations, currently aiding the curation of the world's most cutting-edge technology on Product Hunt. Kevin and Niv explore what's behind this drive, the man he gives credit to involuntarily kickstarting his success, and much more:
Growing up in Israel and moving to the U.S. at a young age.
Pursuing a finance degree and applying it to the startup world.
Getting exposure to the tech industry by auditing a successful VC.
Building an engaging community around a product.
What changes we can see in social in 2017.
The war of pronunciation for “gif”.
We why all love gifs and how Twitter is the perfect platform.
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"Should people optimize for learning or for earning?"
Quote Of The Episode:
"Community is everything. Without the community, Product Hunt wouldn't work."
Links from this episode:
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android.
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Joe Fairless' Journey From Madison Avenue To An $85 Million Real Estate Portfolio
In keeping with last weeks' real estate theme, Episode 25 of Ambition Today finds us across the table from Joe Fairless, Real Estate Investor and Host of the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show.
In keeping with last weeks' real estate theme, Episode 25 of Ambition Today finds us across the table from Joe Fairless, Real Estate Investor and Host of the Best Real Estate Investing Advice Ever Show. Joe set his roots in advertising after a bit of soul-searching during his undergrad years at Texas Tech. Fighting complacency, he left Madison Ave. for the allure of real estate investing and entrepreneurship, and was met with incredible success, with due credit to his persistence and work ethic.
Owing his early sense of drive to his start in landscaping, Joe Fairless has always had an entrepreneurial mindset. After leaving his teenage lawn-mowing business, J&J Landscaping, Joe tried to cling to his high school football career by attending a junior college near his home town of Dallas. After transferring, he went on to graduate with a degree in advertising and quickly rose through the ranks of executive marketing, while investing in real estate as a side project and finding passion in that venture. Joe applied his trademark tenacity to his newfound love of investing and now controls approximately $85 million worth of rental property. Kevin digs into the factors behind Joe's success, and much more:
The seemingly hidden on-ramp of landscaping as a teenage job to eventually invest in real estate.
Exploring passions during college to find what interests you.
Applying lessons from the corporate world to an entrepreneurial startup.
Leaving a comfortable job to pursue your real dreams.
How to break into the shark-infested waters of commercial real estate.
The 75/25 rule of listening/asking when approaching mentors.
Acknowledging your strengths.
Acknowledging your weaknesses and surrounding yourself with people who help make up for them.
The grit of making your ambition come to life.
Ambition Today Question of the Day™:
"As a thought leader, how does ambition play a role in your life?"
Quote Of The Episode:
"Don't get caught up trying to be everywhere at once, find the platform that makes sense for your skill sets and what you enjoy doing. Then own it." - Joe Fairless
“Be different before being incrementally better.” - Joe Fairless
Links from this episode:
Thank you so much for listening and applying these useful tips and strategies to your life! If you have a chance, please drop by and leave a review for the show on iTunes by clicking here. Also, who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS, on Google Play Music or Stitcher for Android.
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Founder Institute New York
10 Thousand Users In The First Month
Learn how to get 10,000 users with no budget your products first 4 weeks with this guide full of first hand experience from Manoj Khani, a Graduate of the Los Angeles Founder Institute and the founder of the photo management app PhotoPanda.
This post has been co-authored with the Founder Institute. I wanted to share it with you here, as there are some great insights and powerful tools you can start using right away.
Launching your first product is an exciting and stressful time for every startup, as the initial success of a company’s offering often determines how well the product will do in the long run. And with the large number of overnight success stories out there, the pressure to release a hot product right out of the gate is higher than ever.
Luckily, if you’re getting ready to launch your product and want to learn how to get the most from your release, this guide can help you get started as it is filled with insights from someone who managed to attract over ten thousand users in just four weeks of launching their product - WITHOUT a marketing plan or budget. That someone is Manoj Khani, a Graduate of the Los Angeles Founder Institute and the founder of the photo management app PhotoPanda.
Like most first time entrepreneurs, when we first started building PhotoPanda, I only had a rough idea of how we were going to get in front of users, but not a tested Go To Market plan. We were busy building the product with a small team that consisted of a Designer, Developer, and a Product Manager, but not a marketer. Also, our assumptions about who our best users were, haven’t been validated in any statically significant environments. Yet, despite a lack of early planning and our decision to not invest in paid acquisition until we found out user lifetime value data; we were able to acquire over 10,000 passionate users within the first 4 weeks of launch.
So how did we grow 100x from our first one hundred beta testers while only spending <$100 and what did we learn?
1. Promote Your Company on Product Hunt
We asked one of our mentors to submit us to Product Hunt. Product Hunt is great for spreading the word among early adopters, especially if you have a consumer product. Its users will not only try your product, but also give you valuable feedback. Various tech journalists also frequent the site daily looking for new products to write about.
Here are a few points to keep in mind when promoting your product on Product Hunt:
- Apart from finding someone who has submission rights, you will need to make sure your product looks ready and delivers value. A rickety beta will cost you the opportunity inherent in the launch of a brand new product, as the site showcases new releases only.
- Also, you will need to make sure that when your product does go live on the site, you are 100% available to respond to all comments and feedback from its users.
- Being on time zone 12 hours ahead when PhotoPanda went live, my ability to not rapidly get back to the commenters limited the amount of upvotes we received.
2. Reach Out to Bloggers and Journalists
Product reviews by bloggers/journalists are a win-win, as it means they do the work for getting you in front of interested eyeballs and in return their users benefit from it. Getting a positive product review from a trusted author is far more effective than any sort of paid advertising to that user base. Bloggers know their readers and will write only when the product is relevant and useful to their readers.
Below are some tips to keep in mind to utilize bloggers and journalists to expand your user base:
- Reach out to as many writers as possible. We submitted PhotoPanda to the App Store, and immediately started reaching out to tech journalists and mommy bloggers. We had put together a contact list of 100+ journalists and reached out individually to all of them. I followed them on Twitter and started engaging with their posts.
- Don’t give up. Unless you have an existing relationship or the blogger wants to write about that space, the conversion is low here. So don’t get demoralized; it is still better than nothing! In the second week of doing this and leveraging the Product Hunt announcement, we got our first review published in AppAdvice. The online tech magazine has a significant audience and soon after, CultOfMac included us in their “Apps of the Week” section. These positive articles propelled us towards our first thousand users.
Go international. Seeing this traction domestically, we started reaching out to bloggers internationally in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Southeast Asia – places where we expected our core demography to be. After many translated emails (we used Gengo for professional translations), we received reviews in two major Japanese outlets techjo.jp, appps.jp, followed by stories in Indonesia and Hong Kong. This brought us our next several thousand users in a matter of days.
3. Submit to Product Review Sites
There are quite a few sites that will help you submit your new product to many technology websites at once. After trying a few, I ended up using StartupLister, which helped us submit to over 40 other websites like Mashable, The Verge etc., for $89 only. Not only did this save us valuable time in the race to get the word out, we also got accepted by many upcoming sites like BetaBound, Startup blink and Killer Startups, that we would not have otherwise known of.
A word of caution: Some sites will ask you to pay to publish your review faster. I would advise against this. The best reviews are ones in which the blogger/journalists loved your product or found it relevant and wanted to write about it to their users can benefit from it.
4. Boost Your Social Media Presence
Since PhotoPanda is in the photos space, Instagram was the obvious choice for social media. We were frustrated with the amount of effort it took to grow the audience, so we used an automation tool (Boostagram) to help us get up to a 1,000 new followers per month. This helped us gain a presence on social media and an early communication outlet for our users. However, converting social media to paying users is a separate challenge and the topic of another post.
In addition to Boostagram, check out the following tools to help you get the most out of your social media accounts:
- EveryPost enables you to curate your company’s visual content, schedule customized posts, and share content to all major social media platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Tumblr.
- Bit.ly lets you shorten your url and tracks clicks to help you monitor how well your content is converting traffic to your website.
- Hootsuite, a social media management tool that lets you schedule and analyze your social media marketing campaigns.
- Crowd Booster optimizes your social media marketing decisions by automatically sending you analytics on a regular basis.
5. Promote Your Product on TV
The year prior to going completely digital, we had been on a Fox morning show on Cyber Monday. The audience of the morning show, airing in Santa Barbara, was not quite what we were targeting, so while it helped from a press perspective, it did not have any real impact on sales.
If you plan on promoting your product on a TV show, keep the following points in mind:
- Remember that appearing on television won’t guarantee a sudden surge in users, so make sure you’re targeting the right audience.
- The smaller and more localized the TV program, the smaller and more localized your audience will be.
- If you are able to promote your product on television, plan a major social media campaign before, during, and after your appearance.
- In the event that your TV show appearance does reach a wide audience, block off the next few days after the program airs to ensure you’re prepared for increased volume.
6. Hire a Growth Hacker
With the number of early stage startups ballooning, there is a surge of “growth” companies and growth hackers or social engineers. Most of these cost money and need several weeks or months before building any real traction. Prior to hiring such help, you will need to understand whether they specialize in the audience you are targeting and how exactly they will help.
In the Entrepreneur article, “The Entrepreneur's Guide to Hiring a Kickass Growth Hacker”, Neil Patel outlines several important tips to consider before bringing on a growth hacker. Here are a few of the highlights below:
- Remember that growth hacking is more of a mindset than a set of methods or skills, as it requires more creative thinking than technical methods.
- Look for a strategist rather than a technician. Growth hackers are less concerned with technical details than they are with the way in which the details work together.
- Don’t hire a growth hacker; instead look for a content marketer with a growth hacker mindset. “Growth Hacker” isn’t an official title, so hire someone with a mix of old and new strategies.
- Look for someone with experience, someone who has successfully hacked their way to growth at previous companies, as they will be better equipped to identify your needs.
Quick Takeaways
- Plan your “go-to market” before starting to build the product. Test it during development, and have an audience that can benefit from your product, ready to try your beta/MVP.
- Leverage third party tools to submit to as many early adopters sites as possible. Follow up at least a few times with the ones that are relevant to your product/vertical.
- Figure out the best social media channel and use automation tools to build your following faster and more effectively.
- Be hyperactive when interacting with early adopters and responding to their feedback, reviews, and comments to establish your credibility.
- Try free channels to validate your core users and product assumptions first before investing significantly in paid channels or hiring outside companies.
A lot of effort goes into building a good product. Almost similar effort, if not more is needed to get it out in front of the audience that will benefit from it the most. Trying multiple routes to understand and acquire these users before investing in paid channels is a scrappy way for refining your product quickly. It will also grease the wheels of any inherent viral components, setting you up for more organic growth and accelerated learnings.
How Ideas And Things Spread
Last week someone told me to listen to a new episode from the Ted Radio Hour podcast called "How Things Spread". Cognitive Neuroscientist Sophie Scott, marketing genius Seth Godin, President Bill Clinton, and more weigh in on the various ways ideas and things spread throughout the world.
Last week someone told me to listen to a new episode from the Ted Radio Hour podcast called "How Things Spread". After listening to Cognitive Neuroscientist Sophie Scott, marketing genius Seth Godin, President Bill Clinton, and more weigh in on the various ways ideas and things spread throughout the world I felt it was worth sharing it was so interesting. By looking at how laughter, viruses, products, death, and the human species itself has spread throughout the world you can start to see the profound and hidden ways all humans are connected. At the basis of all economic, religion, or political systems you will find a powerful and convincing story that enables flexible cooperation of humans beings in large numbers. Tapping into that understanding with your own life and business can be a powerful tool to have. Here is the link to check out "How Things Spread":
The Coronation of King Siskar
By the time you are reading this the 1:39pm EST Coronation has most likely come and gone. I Kevin Siskar, am now a King. Of an actual kingdom and an actual Castle in Ireland. You might be thinking to yourself: "I had no idea you were descended from Royalty Kevin?".
Just need to fix the URL of this post before we get going here. Click here to fix this now and then you can keep reading! - Much better now!
By the time you are reading this the 1:39pm EST Coronation has most likely come and gone. I Kevin Siskar, am now a King. Of an actual kingdom and an actual Castle in Ireland. You might be thinking to yourself: "I had no idea you were descended from Royalty Kevin?".
Well the truth is me either. And to the best of my knowledge I am still not descended from Royalty. I am however now and forever a King. And I have some decrees to make before I explain to you how I found myself having the crown thrust upon my head.
King Siskar's Royal Decrees.
- You must listen to the "Ambition Today" Podcast. You can find it here: http://www.siskar.co/ambitiontoday
- All people need to hence forth refer to me as King Siskar, Kevin Rex, or Your Royal Highness.
- One day I will own another castle. Once a King, Always a King. See you then.
As you can see I am having a lot of fun with this. This all started last year when I paid $15 to Cards Against Humanity for their Holiday Bullshit giveaway. The final gift of the promotion in 2014 was 1 square foot land on a Private Island named Hawaii 2 located up in Maine. Along with rights of that 1 square foot also came rights to use of the entire island. Thanks to that campaign I now own part of a private island! (See isn't this fun!)
Naturally happy with the amount of fun that Cards Against Humanity generated with the $15 I gave them the year before, when I saw the 2015 holiday promotion I jumped on it right away. The first two gifts I got were socks. The third gift was also socks. Soon after followed a social experiment with laser cutting an original Picasso. For the final gift of the 2015 Holiday promotion Cards Against Humanity used a portion of the $15 from the 250,000 people that signed up to buy a Castle in Ireland. Yes, an actual Castle!
Then they built a program around that Castle. Coronating it's customers one by one as actual Kings and Queens of this actual castle. They built a website to see at all time who sits a top the rocky throne of Sensible Castle. They enabled the ability for each King or Queen to make 3 decrees during their time as rightful ruler that would be entered in to the Kingdom's laws. And lastly each King and Queen will have their name etched within the castle walls so that generations to come can remember the great rulers who righteously spent their 3 minutes as King.
So there you have it. You can now call me King Siskar whenever you want. I am having A LOT of fun with this with my friends and family. I love the history around Royalty ever since I lived in London. My younger brothers have jokingly threatened to steal the crown once or twice already.
I actually think there is a startup lesson in here too though. I am spending a lot of time and energy talking about Cards Against Humanity. It is all because of this awesome experience I have had with them over and over again. It could possible be the best $15 I have ever spent. The amount of creativity in this company is unreal. The result of that creative culture is extremely satisfied customers and organic virality.
The island last year only cost them $200k which is much smaller than most corporate marketing budgets. Next time you plan to go dump your marketing budget in Facebook or Google ads in hopes of "going viral" stop and think to your self, is there a better, scrappier, cooler way to get the return on that money you are truly looking for. A concept that is actually worthy of "going viral". I should note that since the 2014 promotion I have spent money to also become a customer of Cards Against Humanities normal product, it's card game. I have bought it for both friends and family as gifts. I have transcended from a customer to a brand evangelist. That is the lesson here.
Most importantly getting back to fun of today, just remember:
Once a King, Always a King!!!
Get The Ambition Today Stickers
Get The Ambition Today Stickers! The stickers are just $1 so get them while there hot. If one dollar is still too rich for your ambitious blood then be sure to listen to upcoming episodes of Ambition Today and get the free promocode.
What's better than having Ambition Today with you on your iPhone or Android phone? Well plastering our incredible new logo where ever else you want, of course! Hopefully you have been following along during the last few episodes and noticed our great new logo. If not you can see what you missed out on and get caught up on each episode here.
You can grab the stickers in either "Black Gold" or "Transparent Gold". Check them out below. The stickers are just $1 so get them while there hot! If one dollar is still too rich for your ambitious blood then be sure to listen to upcoming episodes of Ambition Today and get the free promocode!
It's your kingdom and now you can fly the Ambition Today flag over it. For your royal reign choose from either Black Gold or Transparent Gold. Either way it's gold, so you really can't go wrong.
Spireworks & The Value Of Exclusivity: How An Invite Only App Controls New York’s Skyline
From almost anywhere in New York City you can see the colored antenna's on top of One Bryant Park and Four Times Square. They are a definite part of the New York City skyline and every few moments they change color.
From almost anywhere in New York City you can see the colored antenna's on top of One Bryant Park and Four Times Square. They are a definite part of the New York City skyline and every few moments they change color.
I recently heard a story from a friend of mine who was at a party in New York City. The host of the event he was at pulled his phone out of his pocket and instructed my friend to pick a color on the screen. He pressed purple. The host then instructed him to look up toward the top of an actual skyscraper in Midtown Manhattan. The antenna at the top of One Bryant Park had changed to the color purple. There was a moment of disbelief.
The idea that the hosts phone was actually controlling the colors at the top of real world skyscrapers seemed unreal. Could you imagine the ability to carry with you a button in your pocket that could at any moment you see fit, alter the colors of the New York skyline for all to see from New Jersey to the Bronx, to Long Island.
Believe it or not, that app exists and it is called Spireworks. It was made by The Durst Organization who developed and owns several office towers in New York City. The Spireworks app has been in beta and invite only since it's live launch in 2010. All in all only a few hundred people are rumored to have access to the Spireworks app. Now I am going to go out on a limb here and guess that after hearing that story you want a Spireworks invite. I know I did.
While I patiently waited for the day I could bet strangers that the top of a sky scraper is going to change to a specific color and then be right, the real lesson here lies in the value of exclusivity. The Spireworks app is a real world example of that. So is the English Royal family abroad, the Navy Seals here in the United States, and all the Country Clubs I bartended at in order to put myself through college. A lesson that startups should use to their advantage.
The best part is that when you release a new product you can actually create and then apply this value in order to use it to your advantage. You will turn what should be an inherent weakness in your offering, the fact that no one has access to your product yet because they simply do not know about it, into an advantage whereas the new reason no one has access to your product is because they simply haven't been invited yet. This changes the dynamic of the normal relationship people have with products. In the exclusive scenario the responsibility to "get" the product falls on the end customers ability to chase after it via tracking down an invite code.
A few companies have done a great job at this recently. Regardless of the end story, the Google Glass Explorers Program did a tremendously successful job at fostering early adoption even though the price was over $1,500. Beme launched it's new app with user referral unlock codes that created a frenzy to the point where people were selling the unlock codes for cash online. Most recently the new game @getstolen, where can own your friends Twitter profiles, tweets out one unlock code for only 500-1,000 people each day.
🔑🔑🔑they don't WANT u 2 have a #StolenCode, so we gonna GIVE you a code -> "MADLUV" FAN LUV BLESS UP 🔑🔑🔑
— Stolen! (@getstolen) January 10, 2016Creating and leveraging the power of exclusivity can be a powerful tool. Spireworks invite only system is one of the best examples of that. Creating exclusivity gives you the ability to throttle the number of early users while still ironing out your core product. It turns a weakness around awareness into a strength. Also, it can result in increased promotion via word of mouth virality of your product. Lastly it attracts higher quality and more engaged users of your product which will be exponentially more useful to your initial product iterations and refinement.
Ambition Today: John Federico, Co-Founder Of Event Hero On The Future Of Podcasting, Marketing, and Superman
What an event episode ten of Ambition Today is as Jon Federico, co-founder of Event Hero and @GadgetBoy himself comes on the show all the way from warm and sunny Austin, Texas.
What an event episode ten of Ambition Today is as Jon Federico, co-founder of Event Hero and @GadgetBoy himself comes on the show all the way from warm and sunny Austin, Texas.
Ever wonder why most podcasts are sponsored by Audible.com? Today we a speaking with John Federico who years ago worked at Audible and invented the podcast affiliate program. Through the years he also worked at Advance Internet, Blog Talk Radio, and more. He is now the co-founder of Event Hero which is the first integration Platform-as-a-Service for event technologies. He also hosts the EventTech Podcast is all about event technologies where John interviews EventTech company CEO’s and product managers, industry thought leaders and event organizers. If you are a new startup founder and want to better understand the world of podcasting, audio, and marketing this episode is for you.
How an economic crash can influence you years later.
Why the medium of audio matters.
Recognizing when life deals you an opportunity and capitalizing on it.
Understand the world of podcasts.
How John created the Audible Podcast Affiliate program at Audible.com.
Making the leap from employee to entrepreneur.
How to re-brand your company.
Who would win in a fight: Batman or Superman?
The future of podcasting.
Using content marketing such as blogging or writing a book to grow your brand.
Winning the battle for people's time and attention.
Ambition Today Question of the Day:
What is the optimal work life balance that let's you enjoy success and make all the time and energy worthwhile?
Be sure to listen and subscribe to Ambition Today in the iTunes Store for iOS and on Stitcher for Android.
Links from this episode:
Who should I interview next? Please let me know on Twitter or in the comments. Do you enjoy this podcast? If so, please leave a short review in the comments below. It keeps me going…
Listen to this episode now:
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The Best CEO Speech Ever: Charlie Kim, Next Jump
Charlie Kim, founder and CEO of Next Jump, gives one of the best motivational speech's ever at the Founder Institute New York.
At the Founder Institute in New York we have incredible Mentors come every week to mentor the founders of our startup companies. Sometimes we share some of those excellent Mentor presentations. This is one of the best CEO speeches of all time.
This motivational speech was given to the Founder Institute New York by Next Jump CEO Charlie Kim on Branding & Marketing. It includes over $200,000 of free branding knowledge, takes you to the future of the information economy, and also includes lessons from the entrepreneurial ups and downs of growing a billion dollar company. Through the Next Jump Leadership Academy, an invite-only full immersion workshop designed to share and teach programs around our learnings becoming a deliberately developmental organization, Charlie Kim works with some of the best leaders in the world.
How To Be As Famous As Taylor Swift, Casey Neistat, and Tim Ferriss
Want to know how to be famous? How famous is Taylor Swift? How famous is Casey Neistat? How famous is Tim Ferris? How many online mentions do you need everyday to achieve fame? We'll lets find out how to be famous.
I would like to thank Michal Sadowski, a mentor for the Founder Institute New York and the founder of Brand 24. Michal was kind enough to show me how to use his Brand 24's platform for monitoring your online presence.
How many online mentions do you need everyday to achieve fame? How can you be as famous as Taylor Swift. Lets find out how to be famous.
To start analyzing this I used Brand 24's platform to start monitoring the online presence of a few celebrities which were at different stages of fame. I first looked at Tim Ferriss, a 3x New York Times best selling author, famous blogger, and podcaster. Second I analyzed Casey Neistat, a HBO and mainstream film maker who is recently working on a daily vlogging project he publishes to YouTube. Last but not least I looked at the data for Taylor Swift, one of the most famous musicians and people on the planet.
The key metric in determining popularity and fame we will be using is "daily mentions" when looking at the Brand 24 data. This data includes mentions on the open internet across blogs, forums, news, video, photo, Twitter, YouTube, Facebook and more. So lets look at each of these celebrities to see their number of daily mentions in the last 30 days and estimated social reach.
Tim Ferriss - 1,311 mentions across 30 days
How famous is Tim Ferriss? The case of Tim Ferriss is interesting because he has such a unique and loyal fan following as a New York Times bestseller, blogger, and podcaster. Tim Averaged between 25-75 mentions on the open web per day which creates in the tens of thousands for estimated audience size. Comparing the blue scale bar of mentions on the left, 0 - 100, to the green scale bar on the right of estimated social reach, 0 - 600k, it is very interesting to see how a small number of mentions can quickly multiply to a large audience.
Casey Neistat - 3,237 mentions across 30 days
How famous is Casey Neistat? Casey's main platform is YouTube. He is also an avid SnapChatter, which unfortunately this analysis does not account for as it is privately scene in app on mobile devices. Across the open internet though Casey averaged about 50-100 mentions per day. These mentions generate an average estimated audience of 30 to 40 thousand people. This is on top of the almost 400,000 people who watch his new vlog everyday on YouTube.
Taylor Swift - 122,647 mentions across 30 days
How famous is Taylor Swift? In order to be as famous as Taylor Swift you would need 122,647 mentions in 30 days. See that spike in the number of mentions for Taylor around August 30th. That was the day after the MTV Video Music Awards. Between the awards she won, her crew that she brought along with her, and Kanye West eccentric acceptance speech the amount of people talking about Taylor Swift on a daily basis shot up to 6,000 mentions per day with an estimated social reach of 155,837,304 people.
So in conclusion you can see that in order to be a famous as Taylor Swift you need to have on average about 4,000 online mentions every single day, which will generate you on average around 40 million person audience. Pretty incredible when you think about it. When is the last time that many people mentioned you on the internet in one day?