Thread by @bbourque

15 forms of leverage to supercharge your startup:

1) Strategic board members / advisors

Strategics are well connected in your industry.

They’re often entrepreneurs or CEOs who’ve successfully built companies before.

They can offer crucial intros to potential customers and should have a lot of ideas on how to grow.

2) Tribal signaling

Many companies use virtue signaling to appeal to specific tribes.

Patagonia's sustainability programs target net-zero carbon emissions.

Their goal of producing all clothing from renewable resources attracts green consumers.

What tribe can you tap into?

3) Trends

Attaching your startup to a relevant trend can create momentum.

Examples:

".ai" domains inherit a strong set of expectations in the minds of others.

Similarly, positioning your product as “X for web3” will instantly attract a degree of interest.

4) Industry influencers

Relevant influencers in your niche have sway over the people you want to use your product.

Partner with them to encourage adoption and publicize your novel solution to their problems.

They can also have powerful networks and product insights.

5) Marquee customers

Having a name-brand customer lends your startup instant gravitas and legitimacy.

Your sales team will have a much easier time opening doors and getting meetings when they can lean on the existing credibility of a known brand.

Use your advisors for intros

6) Build in public

Use Twitter or other social media platforms to document your startup journey.

You’re likely to find new customers and advisors fascinated by your story and eager to cheer you on.

https://twitter.com/bbourque/status/1475447637243428865

7) Advance payments

If your company generates recurring revenue, you can get paid upfront for long-term contract revenue by companies like Pipe.

The revenue is immediately available to pump into your marketing and growth efforts.

You avoid debt and dilution.

8) Remote work

Removing geo dependencies from hiring has several advantages:

- Access to a bigger talent pool
- wage arbitrage
- have people working around the clock

9) Automation

Software is permissionless leverage and infinitely scalable.

Automate routine processes with code.

Free up human bandwidth and get the work done more cheaply, with fewer errors.

10) Outsourcing

If something isn’t your core competency, it might not make sense to build it in-house.

For startups this could be as simple as using Shopify instead of a custom build, or hiring a Salesforce integration consultant instead of figuring it out yourself.

11) Copying

Don’t hesitate to tap into what other companies have already figured out.

If there are sophisticated incumbents, test their UI layouts and conversion flows, etc.

They’ve invested a lot in their companies. Some of what they’ve learned might work for you too.

12) Data science

Computers are a lot better than people at finding patterns in big data sets.

A great data scientist can unlock tremendous value for your company by analyzing customer behavior and building models to predict where your investments will pay off the most.

13) Referral programs

Many successful startups have relied heavily on referral programs to grow, including Coinbase, Dropbox and Morning Brew. Tap into the networks and good will of your current users by incentivizing word of mouth referrals.

14) Affiliate programs

Affiliate programs give you access to the marketing skill, distribution and budgets of third party marketers.

They'll test every tactic under the sun to convert users for you and make a profit.

Beware of fraud and low quality.

15) Conversion rate optimization

Every consumer touchpoint has leakage.

Find the biggest dropoffs in your conversion funnel and test your way out of them.

Reducing dropoff is a sure way to increase revenue.

https://twitter.com/bbourque/status/1476183735913439233

Thanks for reading.

If you enjoyed this, please retweet the first tweet because others might benefit too.

Follow me at @bbourque for more on startups and marketing.

Be well.