Some of you may have seen my original post from almost 2 years ago. It became extremely popular and used by thousands of people.
Since then, I've had the opportunity to work with over 200+ Founders and helped them grow using the guide I've developed. I've used what I've learned and turned it into a much more comprehensive guide.
I want to share some of the most popular parts of the new guide, which you won't find in my original post. And also bring attention to the original post and I am quite proud of the work I did.
You need to avoid the #1 reason startups fail. No one wants what you’re selling. This chapter is all about making sure this doesn’t happen. So how do we do it?
Hypothesis generation for startups is creating testable claims about the world that we can then validate. All to help inform a startup's product, service, or concept. You need to turn your idea into a testable claim about the world so that you don’t waste working on an idea no one wants or cares about.
Hypothesis = Problem + Solution
Let’s Take my startup, Cicero.ly as an example.
Hypothesis: Our information landscape is broken and it’s hard to find the signal in the noise (problem). We can resolve this by finding and curating content from the world’s leading thinkers (solution).
Getting Started with Google Ads
Since then, I've had the opportunity to work with over 200+ Founders and helped them grow using the guide I've developed. I've used what I've learned and turned it into a much more comprehensive guide.
I want to share some of the most popular parts of the new guide, which you won't find in my original post. And also bring attention to the original post and I am quite proud of the work I did.
Ideation:
- Ideas for Startup by Paul Graham: Probably the most important and concise piece ever written on this subject. A must-read for anyone interested in entrepreneurship or starting a business. In the essay, Graham shares his thoughts on what makes a good startup idea and how to come up with innovative ideas for a startup. He also provides practical advice on how to evaluate and pursue startup ideas and how to build a successful business. Overall, the essay is a valuable resource for anyone looking to start their own company or seeking inspiration for their next big business idea.
- How To Get Startup Ideas by Paul Graham: I’m a little obsessed with Paul Graham's blogs. This blog offers more detailed advice on how to evaluate the potential of startup ideas and how to go about turning them into successful businesses.
- Prefer videos over essays? Check out How to Get Startup Ideas by YC Partner Jared Friedman (Paul Graham’s colleague) based on the same essay.
- The First Principles Method Explained by Elon Musk: The "First Principles Method" is a way of thinking and problem-solving that involves breaking down a problem or challenge into its most basic components and building up a solution from there, rather than relying on preconceived notions or conventional wisdom. And Elon does a great job explaining how to do this.
- A Trick to Using First Principles Thinking by Ozan Varol: Law professor and best-selling author, Ozan Varol considers the difficulty of using the mental model of First Principles thinking and suggests a different approach to apply it in your life*.*
- Start with Why by Simon Sinek: This TED talk discusses the importance of starting with the "why" behind your business idea, rather than the "what" or the "how." Sinek argues that this is key to creating a compelling vision for your startup.
- How to Get and Evaluate Startup Ideas by Y Combinator: “YC Group Partner Jared Friedman shares a framework for how to get and evaluate startup ideas. He shares many examples of YC companies and the inside stories of how they came up with the ideas that turned into billion dollar companies. Even if you have an existing idea, this talk helps founders confirm that their idea is good and/or provide framework for a future pivot.”
Validation and Hypothesis
You need to avoid the #1 reason startups fail. No one wants what you’re selling. This chapter is all about making sure this doesn’t happen. So how do we do it?
Hypothesis generation for startups is creating testable claims about the world that we can then validate. All to help inform a startup's product, service, or concept. You need to turn your idea into a testable claim about the world so that you don’t waste working on an idea no one wants or cares about.
Hypothesis = Problem + Solution
Let’s Take my startup, Cicero.ly as an example.
Hypothesis: Our information landscape is broken and it’s hard to find the signal in the noise (problem). We can resolve this by finding and curating content from the world’s leading thinkers (solution).
- [ ] Read and Follow Alex Cowan’s Intro To Personas. This is highly recommended and the best content on this subject.
Code:
1. Alternatively, if you have no patience for this, you can simply read [this summary of The Mom Test](https://feelinspired.medium.com/things-i-learnt-the-mom-test-by-rob-fitzpatrick-9d9d58ce8098).- Now, you can go down two paths. You can either create a persona or personas based on what you know. Or, start talking to users to build your persona based on your conversations
- Remember, you can always filter for anything with Company Operations: Sales to find ways of finding and reaching out to potential customers.
- Additionally, both Alex Cowan's article and The Mom Test discuss who you should talk to.
- [ ] I recommend recording your calls. Record your interviews for free using software like Otter, Fireflies, or Grain
- [ ] Then, store the recordings and note you take somewhere. I prefer Notion, but you can also use Coda, Airtable, Evernote, or just Google Docs.
- [ ] Signup for Miro and use one of their Persona Templates to create personas. Alex Cowen also has his own template and you can use his if you prefer.
- How to use Miro for this purpose (
Video)
- How to use Miro for this purpose (
- [ ] Listen to this Y Combinator talk on how to talk to users.
- ( Video)
- (
Launch
5 Ways of Building Your MVP
- Doing it yourself with cofounders (Recommended): Nothing beats doing this yourself. Especially if you have cofounders. The best part is that you don’t even need to know how to code to build a product. Some Popular tools
Code:
* \[ \] [Bubble](https://bubble.io/): “Building tech is slow and expensive. Bubble is the most powerful no-code platform for creating digital products. Build better and faster"
* \[ \] [Dittofi](https://dittofi.com/website/): “The fastest way to build custom apps. Dittofi is the fastest, most flexible no-code tool – build apps without limits”
* \[ \] [Webflow](https://webflow.com/): “The site you want — without the dev time”. Though keep in mind it has more limited functionality versus the other two.
* \[ \] [Appypie](https://www.appypie.com/): “Discover the power of No-code with Appy Pie. Create powerful web and mobile applications and automate workflows easily and quickly without any coding.”
* \[ \] [Outsystem](https://www.outsystems.com/): Turn your big ideas into apps. Uniting design, code and deployment, the OutSystems platform radically simplifies development so innovation can flourish.- Hire An Agency: This is expensive. Very expensive. But if you have the money, it’s a great thing to do.
Code:
* \[ \] Find agencies using [Clutch,](clutch.co) [Upcity](upcity.com) and [Breefwork](https://www.breef.com/)- Hire Your Own Developers and Design people: If you got what it takes to manager your own development team, then do it! Hire pre-vetted developers using the platforms below, or just use Upwork and TopTal
Code:
* \[ \] [https://www.howdy.com/](https://www.howdy.com/) - “The platform to build and manage your dev team in LATAM”
* \[ \] [https://www.skipp.dev/](https://www.skipp.dev/) - “Interview your next tech candidates in 24 hours”
* \[ \] [https://www.growmodo.com/](https://www.growmodo.com/) - “Hire Your Whole Design & Dev Team With a Few Clicks”
* \[ \] [https://youteam.io/](https://youteam.io/) - “The new, smarter way to contract engineers”
* \[ \] [https://www.turing.com/](https://www.turing.com/) - “The most deeply vetted developers and teams, matched by AI”
* \[ \] [https://www.soyhenry.com/hiring-en](https://www.soyhenry.com/hiring-en) - “Hire top Latam developers with no fee”
* \[ \] [https://proxify.io/](https://proxify.io/) - “Hire hand-picked developers. Just for you”
* \[ \] [https://lemon.io/](https://lemon.io/) - “Let Lemon match you with engineers that can transform your vision into reality — diabolically fast”
* \[ \] [https://remotebase.com/](https://remotebase.com/) - “Hire Top 1% Remote Developers Within 24 Hours"
* \[ \] [https://www.toptal.com/](https://www.toptal.com/) - “Hire the Top 3% of Freelance Talent”- Apply to Venture Studios: These places can help you create your startup for free, in exchange for a lot of equity. Here are the top ones to apply for.
Code:
* \[ \] [Atomic](https://atomic.vc/): “We found and fund companies. Atomic brings ideas, capital, resources, and talent together—partnering with co-founders to build the best ideas into great companies.”
* \[ \] [Betaworks](https://www.betaworks.com/): “Betaworks invests, accelerates, and builds companies and projects from scratch — our focus right now is on web3, crypto media, NLP/CV, applied machine learning and tools for thinking.”
* \[ \] [Colab](https://www.colab.la/): “ We build businesses. We bring ideas, resources, and expertise together to create companies that solve big problems.”
* \[ \] [Pioneer Square Labs](https://www.psl.com/studio): “We work with world-class entrepreneurs in the Pacific Northwest to turn the best ideas into market-defining, venture-funded companies with rapid customer adoption.”
* \[ \] [Science](https://www.science-inc.com/studio.html): “Our studio focuses on mobile, marketplaces and select e-commerce”- Use “Cofounder agencies”: I don’t know what else to call these things, but basically they are like agencies but focus on startup.
Code:
* \[ \] [https://spiritt.io/](https://spiritt.io/)
* \[ \] [https://start-up.house/en](https://start-up.house/en)
* \[ \] [https://www.crowdbotics.com/](https://www.crowdbotics.com/) - “Launch 3X faster and cheaper with our data-driven app development platform.”Grow
How to launch Google Ads
Getting Started with Google Ads
- [ ] Signup for [Google Ads](ads.google.com)
- During Signup, scroll down and Click on “Switch To Expert Mode” and ignore the normal onboarding flow. If you go with the process they have then you will end up in an “express account”, which has super limited functionality.
- Then select “Create an account without a campaign
- [ ] Install Google Ad Tags: Google will give you instructions in app but reference this page if you can’t find them.
- [ ] Link Appropriate accounts: On the top Click on Tools and Settings > Setup > Linked Accounts and Link any accounts you’re using such as Google Analytics, Hubspot, or Mailchimp.
- [ ] Set up Conversions: ****On the top Click on Tools and Settings > Measurement > Conversions. Now **Click on New Conversion Action.
- This can get complicated depending on what you’re tracking, such as specific form submissions. To make it easier, track “Thank You” pages or “Purchased” pages instead of specific buttons
- [ ] Set up Google Tag Manager (HIGHLY Recommended but not required): This allows you to be very granular with what you track. This is the hub. They set up all their tracker here. It can be quite complicated. Here is 1.5 hour tutorial. Now do you see why I recommend you hire someone to help with this?
- [ ] Set up an audience (optional): You can tell people specifically what types of people to go after based on what they search, what websites they visit, and/or types of apps they use. Go here and create a custom audience.
- [ ] Create a list of negative keywords (optional): These are keywords that you don't want your ads to show up for. Go here
- [ ] Do Keyword Planning: Check out the Keyword Planner and use it to determine costs, competition, and more.
- Note: You will see a Bid range, from high to low. You want to be lower. How low you pay depends on how relevant your ads are. Make sure your keyword is in the ad, on the landing page, and the speed of the landing page is high.
- Create your Campaign: Simply go here. Google will optimize based on your objective. Ideally, your objective should be the Sales or the Leads. But it depends on your product and needs.
- Pick campaign type: Again, personal preference based on what you think will do best
- Budget: Start low and go up from there. You want to make sure it’s working before spending a bunch.
- Maybe turn off Networks: Most likely, you want your ads in front of people when they search for it. So turn off “Search Network” and “Display Network” if you get asked.
- Audience Segment: You can target an audience, but it’s highly recommended you stay on “Observation”.
- Never put all your keywords in one ad group. This will reduce your quality report and increase your bid amount.
- Make sure your Headlines match your keywords.
- Add Sitelink extensions: It’s recommended you never skip this as it enables you to have a longer, more relevant ad.
- Add Callout Texts: Again, recommended you never skip these.
- Launch your campaign!
