17 (semi) controversial things I believe: 1/ Where you went to college and your GPA DO matter

2/ Hard work, especially when you’re young, IS the ONLY controllable differentiator

My phone startles me awake before 7am. It was my older brother who is also my attorney.

Even more strange.

I silence it. Then he texts: “SOMEONE IS SUING YOU.”

I spring up and call him... 1/ A company I'll call "AnnoyingCo" had just filed suit against Ampush.

I had never heard of this company. This must be a mistake!

But as the details roll in, its clear its not a mistake and would kick off one of the most frustrating 2 years of my career.

Here's the story:

I attribute a lot of my success to being really really good at email.

Here's my playbook for how you can handle 50K+ emails/year without breaking a sweat 👇👇👇 1/ First, a reframe: WHY do I do it?

I view my inbox as opportunity: a deal to close, an amazing candidate to hire or a chance to give a team-member guidance or feedback.

I promised myself I'd never be the CEO/Founder who bottlenecks my team.

And so I needed to master email.

Back in 2021, I launched my first DTC brand.

I put my name, $, and reputation on the line.

It was an utter failure.

Here is the story and what I learned 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 1/  After ~10 years of running Ampush as CEO, I stepped into the chairman seat.

Ampush had helped countless brands build and scale customer acquisition including: Dollar Shave Club, Birchbox, Stitch Fix, and many others.

I had the obvious idea: why don’t I start a brand?

A failed DJ and a project manager get fired and use their severance packages to bootstrap a web design agency.

It fails BIG TIME.

The crazy part?

Their side hustle turns into a $12 BILLION startup. 1/ Ben Chestnut was the son of an army codebreaker and an immigrant entrepreneur.

He learned business and entrepreneurship hiding under the kitchen table while his mom ran a home salon.

Half Thai and half American, he never fit into a small southern town...

A JP Morgan banker and ex-lawyer opened a barbershop to escape the ratrace.

But things took a wild turn…

Their “small business” is now a software company worth $750 MILLION.

Buckle up for this one 👇 1.  Songe Laron first met Dave Salvan at one of his famous parties in New York.

Growing tired of the 9-5 rat race they quit their jobs and began searching for a business idea…

Being an entrepreneur for the first time is painful.

You feel lost 98% of the time - the ups and downs are gut-wrenching.

I wish I had a cheat sheet for when I started my first company.

So I wrote one.

In honor of 2023, here are the 23 Lessons I wish I knew sooner 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 1) Bias to action always WINS.

Any analysis ahead of action is purely speculation. You really do not understand something until you've done it. Analysis post-action can be driven by real data.

So when you are stuck, TAKE ACTION vs keep thinking.

In 2021, I started actively using X/Twitter.

Since then, I’ve: launched a bootstrapped venture studio, founded 4 bootstrapped startups, and grew from 2k -> 172k followers.

It’s changed my life.

These are the 14 accounts you should follow if you want to use X/Twitter to grow a bootstrapped giant in 2024. 1/ @SeanEcom | Ridge Wallet
Sean Frank is the CEO of Ridge Wallet, a MASSIVE ecom business doing $200M+ in revenue.

He started his career at an agency. Shortly after, he got the chance to become an owner in Ridge and decided to go all in.

He plans on growing it to $1B+ so he’s a great guy to learn about marketing and ecom.

Two awkward tech bros get into email software to avoid getting regular jobs.

Then, they quietly bootstrap a $4 BILLION company.

By 40, they retire to these beachfront mansions.

This is their wild story 👇👇 1/ In 1984, five-year-old Ben Richardson and his family move across the street from Dave Greiner's.

The two boys spent an idyllic childhood skateboarding and surfing together.

Then, tragedy strikes…

He’s a former Navy SEAL who accidentally turned a $39 jiujitsu belt into $100M+ business.

What’s even crazier?

The idea came to him while on a top-secret mission in Southeast Asia.

Buckle up for this one 👇 1. In the mid-90s, Randy Hetrick (a U.S. Navy SEAL commander) was deployed on an extended mission in Southeast Asia.

With time to kill, Randy & his SEAL teammates faced a unique challenge...

I've landed > $100,000,000 in business because of what I'm about to share.

It's the forgotten, ugly stepchild of sales. The most botched part of the process.

Yet, A+ entrepreneurs have perfected it.

Here's the secret to sealing the deal every time:

Use "sentence stems" to NAIL the DEMO of your product/service.

With the right starter stems, you can train yourself and your team to demo anything and make it informative, interesting yet Brief.

Here are my personal stems + an example of them in use!

1) "The vision for this/The problem we wanted to solve is..."

Start with a story about how/why you built this product/capability. Keep it brief ~1 min but make sure the listener gets the inspiration for why this thing exists.

2) "What you see here is..."

Describe what the person is looking at (the screen/image/feature) - just because you are super familiar with it do NOT assume they will be!

Help them get centered/their bearings before getting into the details.

3) "How this works is..."

BRIEFLY hit on some more details/implementation of the product or feature you just described.

4) "Some backend tech/systems/processes driving this are..."

While doing number 3, share some of the "sexy" tech jargon (is it built in React? does it process tons of data?). Keep it brief but interweave it.

5) "An example/story where this (feature/capability) was used is..."

THE MOST IMPORTANT PART OF THE DEMO.

Prep a story/specific example. It doesn't have to be dry/boring, it must be real and authentic. (see example below)

6) "What makes this unique/different/special is..."

Imagine the listener will get off your call/leave the meeting and have to describe your "differentiators" - don't make them wonder/guess, be Explicit!!

7) "Why this is is important is... / why this matters is... (impact/$/results)"

The most often forgotten part of the demo... even if you have revolutionary technology, SO WHAT? Show me the $$. Make sure to connect the dots here.

8) "Something we are working on for future that excites me is…"

Don't forget to mention the roadmap and tease what else is on your mind. People choose partners, not products. They want to know where you are going.

That's it - a few stems to help you nail ANY demo.

Most things can be demo'd really well in <5 mins with these stems and give a listener all the relevant information you want them to know. Want to see it in action? Let's give it a shot. Here's an old demo of Kahani (watch and then read second tweet for description).

So, you want to be a Founder/CEO?

99% change you're lying to yourself. You think its a sexy job about ideas, products and markets.

Before you sign up for the job, ask yourself, are you ready to: 1. Have candidates tell you you’re a terrible person because you used to work on wall street?

2. Have a friend who is also an investor and verbally committed to investing ghost you?

Everyone has ONLY one problem.

And it's the SAME problem.

It's called: The Upper Limit Problem.

Here is everything you need to understand and solve it 👇🏽👇🏽👇🏽 Each person has an "inner thermostat" of success/happiness that was set for us as children.

When we exceed our "setting," we unconsciously sabotage ourselves to get back into the familiar "temperature."

The most FAQ I get from aspiring entrepreneurs:

What skills should I build to be a founder one day?

I actually have an answer. 4 Skills, in order of importance:

1) Persuasive communication
2) Product sensibility
3) Leadership
4) Business Judgement

Let's unpack: 1) Persuasive communication.

Yes entrepreneurship is sales, recruiting, fundraising, etc so this skill is obvious.

But it goes beyond that: Can you structure a narrative? communicate with brevity and clarity? have PPT skills? Say 5 sentences without an uhh/um?

No? Tips:

It's 2011.

I refresh the daily PnL dashboard.

-$25,000. We had lost more money in one day than we normally made in a week.

I was reeling...

Turns out, it was the best April Fools Joke ever played on me, here's the whole story 👇🏽 1/ Let me back up.

Ampush's first biz was generating leads using search marketing.

Barely 10% margins and a grind. Then, we tried FB ads (in 2010!).

80% MARGINS! 🤯. Our performance marketing company grew 10x in 6 months.

Then FB called us...

About 70% of Unbloat’s revenue comes from subscriptions.

We’ve built a subscription program to live at the core of both our business model and our customer experience.

Here’s 5 tips on how you can too: 1/ Use Smartrr.

They have been a game-changer for us. Not only do they make it easy to acquire subscribers but their app has been key in retaining them too thanks to its engaging customer account portal and LTV tools.

I didn’t think I could love a company more.

Disney is one of the most defensible businesses on the planet.

My 6 year old daughter is obsessed with Snow White, which came out in… 1937.

No other company has that IP or their famous flywheels.

BUT, it just. got. better.… twitter.com/i/web/status/1… Here’s an article on this: npr.org/2023/03/30/116…

As I’m staring down 40, I’m noticing small slowdowns/glitches in my memory.

5 years ago I could recall a person/their company off the top of my head. Not anymore. Also names and faces.

What sort of diet, exercise, supplements etc should I do/take to improve this?! I’ve never drank a sip of alcohol, smoked or done any drugs. Am in good health generally.

I've landed > $100,000,000 in business because of what I'm about to share.

It's the forgotten, ugly stepchild of sales. The most botched part of the process.

Yet, A+ entrepreneurs have perfected it.

Here's the secret to sealing the deal every time: 1/ Use "sentence stems" to NAIL the DEMO of your product/service.

With the right starter stems, you can train yourself and your team to demo anything and make it informative, interesting yet Brief.

Here are my personal stems + an example of them in use!

I recently sold Ampush.

>10 years, I oversaw >$2 BILLION in social spend for clients like Uber, Peloton, Stitch Fix and DSC

Now I am sharing my learnings.

I'm hosting a webinar for only 25 agency owners/execs. 100% Free.

Comment "Learn" and RT and I'll dm you the form. Fine print:
- This session topic: How I got mtgs!
- US Only
- 25+ FTEs
- First come, first serve
- 20-25 min deep dive on 1 topic followed by Q&A

If it proves valuable, this maybe something we expand in different ways over time.

Some of the future topics will include:

Starting a business can be painful.

You feel lost 97% of the time - the ups and downs are gut-wrenching.

I wish I had a cheat sheet of principles for my first startup.

So I wrote one.

Here are 20+ learnings about entrepreneurship I wish I knew sooner: 1/ Tenacity is the most essential trait for building a company.

It is not intelligence, creativity or salesmanship but sheer determination.

Wake up every day and push the ball forward.