I often get introduced to people looking to make the jump into startups and Silicon Valley. This is the reading list I send them. It’s meant to be a primer for many of the popular concepts and jargon you will hear working at a startup. danromero.org/canon.html↗

1/ One of the biggest misconceptions I see from first-time founders is what multiples they could sell their company for. So, let's talk about that a bit, in an effort to downplay the notion that you'll get filthy rich from your company.↗

Retweeted for endorsement. It's so effective it feels like cheating.↗

Going fully remote was nice, but the real benefit was in going fully asynchronous. Here are a list of the benefits we've seen at @Gumroad: A thread 👇🏽↗

The credential is the last element to be unbundled from college: - education (MOOCs) - networks (accelerators) - credentials (stay tuned) My bet: P2P credentials If I trust you & you say X is the best young person you've worked with, that means more to me than a Harvard degree↗

If there's any software that's worth the money, it's placid.app. At Starter Story we use the API to generate hundreds of automated designs a day and share them across IG, Twitter, FB, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and for social sharing images. Incredibly powerful.↗

How to write a landing page title:↗

A bunch of you have asked how we do bonuses. Right now it's extremely basic. employee_bonus = total_bonus_pool_dollar_amount / total_team_days_worked * total_employee_days_worked So, the longer you've worked here, the larger % of the pool you get.↗

How To Be Successful (At Your Career, Twitter Edition)↗

Workday’s revenue per customer: 2012: $476k subscription/ $208k services 400 customers 2017: $851k subscription/ $169k services 2,100 customers Per customer subscription revenue grew 80% & services declined 20% as customer count grew 5x. Services early to drive subscription.↗

A few 2020 remote work predictions combined with free startup ideas: 📺 Multiple teams will innovate on videocalls Startup Idea: Rethink video clients without "BIG FACES IN A BOX" Different calls need different optimized experiences (eg Townhall vs 1on1 vs small team call)↗

2000 customers @ $39/month is almost $1M/year. - You don't need to dominate the market. - You don't need to disrupt anything. - You don't need to conquer the competition. You can add 1 new customer/day & before you know it, you'll have a $1M/yr machine. Wouldn't that be enough?↗

Marketing lessons learned over more than a decade growing startups (thread): Great marketing emanates from a great product. If the product sucks no amount of world class marketing can redeem it. Marketing can help make a good product great––it will never make a bad product good.↗

How Airbnb, DoorDash, Uber, Instacart and Caviar onboarded new supply (Thread) Airbnb: “For every new listing we brought onboard, we went through a 12-point checklist (e.g. number of pictures, length of title, etc), so that every listing that went live had a minimum standard..."↗

Sharing Lambda School's full-time & part-time schedule (schedule alternates between A weeks and B weeks).↗

When i think of best in class B2B thought leadership, two brands that come to mind are @a16z and @Drift. Both companies have strong positions. For Andreessen it's software eating the world, for Drift, it's conversational marketing. Bot have firmly planted a stake in the ground.↗

Just added schema to my personal site thanks to this awesome tutorial from @jaocando 🤓 Nice and easy to follow! Thanks Jose 🥳👌 youtube.com/watch?v=LTqi1l…↗

The first thing founders should do when they think they're ready to fundraise is lock down the narrative of their startup.↗

1/ This series by @wistia is one of the most interesting and effective pieces of media I’ve seen in some time. They hired video agency @sandwich to make 3 versions of the same video introducing their new product Soapbox: with budgets of $1k, $10k, & $100k …↗

A friend is selling their niche, profitable SW business - $1.5M rev / $500K net income. Are there any PE buyers at this nano-scale?↗

@toddgoldberg I think Chinese platforms are ahead in this regard, e.g. Dedao and Knowledge Planet. US examples: Twitch, Mighty Networks↗

Is 300% YoY growth 3x or 4x? I GET SO CONFUSED b/c 100% YoY growth is definitely 2x↗

"I have stolen ideas from every book I have ever read. My principle in researching is "Read like a butterfly, write like a bee", and if this story contains any honey, it is entirely because of the quality of the nectar I found in the work of better writers." — Philip Pullman ✨↗

Online education is taking off. But the courses on the future will look nothing like the courses of today. The best ones will be: • Active, not passive. • Communal, not solo. • Responsive, not static. • Live, not recorded. It’s happening. Education is finally improving.↗

What are some of your favorite personal productivity hacks? ie: color-coded calendars, no meeting days, etc.↗

Don Valentine, the greatest of all time. I spent the morning watching his GSB talk. Rest in peace: 1. If you don't attack a big market, it's highly unlikely you're ever going to build a big company. (thread) youtu.be/nKN-abRJMEw?t=…↗

Using @Superhuman is like using a fitness tracker. You invest into something, so you put in effort to do it right. I have better email health (towards inbox zero) in my first 24 hours of Superhuman than I’ve had in the last 5 years. Will see if it lasts, but props @rahulvohra↗

1/ "We create software like it's a game" - @rahulvohra discusses how his team @superhuman thinks about designing products with the same video game principles that create joyful experiences - 1/2 clips below...↗

I'm starting a new agency focused on NoCode design + build. Who wants to run it? :-)↗

Disney + just made the most epic Twitter thread we've ever seen. 400+ tweets announcing every single title that'll be available at launch. Quick thoughts + analysis (thread):↗