Alex West πŸš€ Profile picture
Jul 7, 2021 β€’ 11 tweets β€’ 4 min read β€’ Read on X
Last month I crossed $50k ARR with cyberleads.co πŸŽ‰

Building an online business is the most counter intuitive thing I've done in my life.

Here are my top 10 counter intuitive learnings πŸ§΅πŸ‘‡
1. When ideating, don't keep your idea secret.

Not only won't people steal it, but real feedback will help you improve it and clarify it.
2. When building, don't be a perfectionist.

Not only it won't matter to your user, but you are probably diluting and making your idea worse.
3. When growing, share your numbers and secrets.

You may become vulnerable and attract competition, but the internet is big enough for another player. Plus, you will grow faster and inspire others.
4. When talking to customers, don't pretend to be a company.

Being a one man team is a super power. You can connect with others easily, especially with fellow founders.
5. When scaling, stick to one distribution channel.

You may be missing out on other channels, but it's better to be great at one than average everywhere.
6. When analyzing, stick to one or two metrics.

It's better to turn a lot the screw that will make your business explode than turn all the screws a tiny bit.
7. When growing, niche down to a specific segment of the market.

Yes, it might be a smaller piece of the pie, but you will be the best and escape the bad parts of competition.
8. When competing, ignore everyone and focus only on yourself.

Focusing on the things you cannot control is the definition of insanity. You are your competition.
9. When building a business, less time working is often a good thing.

My best work happened when I was working a full time job and had only ~2h per day to work on my business. It forced me to stop procrastinating and do the shit that had to be done.
10. When executing, don't be afraid to fail in public and look stupid.

Remember that no one cares about you, anyway.

β€’ β€’ β€’

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More from @alexwestco

Nov 17, 2022
Here are my 5 favorite talks on business.

No joke, without these talks I wouldn't be here writing this. For real.

These talks changed my life πŸ‘‡
1. On bootstrapping

Legendary talk at YC by @dhh:
2. On indie hacking

By the 🐐 of indie hacking @levelsio:
Read 7 tweets
Jun 15, 2019
(1/18) Small update: MRR doubled from $100 to $200 in two months, with all @gitgardener @telemonetize and @epilepsyblocker bringing in revenue

I will break down each product's current state and how I will grow them simultaneouslyπŸ‘‡

Sorry for the tweet stormβ›ˆοΈ

#indiehackers
(2/18) Since I have multiple products and intend to have even more, I won’t focus on everything

I will focus on one north star/metric for each one, following @asmartbear's advice

Below is my north star metric for each product 🌟
(3/18) For @gitgardener, my north star metric is website visitors, I get only about 300 visitors per month but they still convert great

I also doubled prices last month, not only did I stopped getting new customers, I actually got more than before at twice the price! πŸ€‘
Read 18 tweets
May 7, 2018
Ok, I want to build a simple product this week and launch it. I am thinking of a bot that pushes a commit to a stupid repository on GitHub everyday in order to make it green in the span of a year.
I have to find out first if it is possible to create through official APIs and whatnot. Let's see...
Ok so I had a look, it can be done. You can create a repo and create a commit programmatically through the official API. So far so good.
Read 42 tweets

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