CoFounder Weekly is a newsletter about startup life. This week’s newsletter has 5 sections: Weekly Cartoons, Tweeter’s Digest, Crossword, Articles, and a Weekend Thought. This is not your average newsletter (could be better or worse).
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Source: J.B. Handelsman
Source: Ueli Johner
CONTEST ALERT!
We’re hosting a contest for this week’s crossword! The person with the fastest completion time wins a USELESS MACHINE!
To enter:
1) Complete the puzzle
2) Click the “Check Score” button
3) Screenshot your time
4) Tweet this text along with a screenshot of just your time:
“I finished this week’s Startup Crossword in only [insert time] Can you beat my time? Try here: http://cofounder.life #startups”
Tweeter’s Digest
A Twitter recap for those who don’t check Twitter.
Articles / Links:
Glimpse tracks topics across the internet to “identify exponentially growing trends”. The platform pulls in data from Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Amazon, etc. — and sends a monthly newsletter with their findings. Seems like a neat way to keep your finger on the pulse of what’s h🔥t. LINK
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CB Insights founder Anand Sanwal was interviewed this week by Harry Stebbings on 20-Minute VC. Some great soundbites:
CB Insights, which is a market research platform, was initially focused on serving the investor community (VC, PE). By following revenue instead of raising capital early, they identified their actual market was enterprise corporations looking to fuel their growth. Anand claims that if they took VC too early, they likely wouldn’t have made that discovery — and there is no evidence that “stuffing startups with capital” is correlated with success
Revenue funding is the best kind of funding for 3 reasons: (1) It’s the cheapest form a capital (2) it provides clarity where your organization should focus (3) it helps you get to product / market fit the fastest
Most B2B content is crap because B2B companies have a perception their clients are robots and want to read buzzwords and product announcements. Write it as if you want it to be read.
His favorite interview question is asking “How did you prepare for this conversation?” The great answers have done homework on his business (i.e. articulate their business model, how they make money), as well as do functional role preparation (i.e. someone interviewing for a product role signed up for a free trial)
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Send lots of sales emails? I attended Bowery Capital’s Sales Summit this week and heard a talk about “Data Driven ways to Increase Pipeline” by Jeremy Donovan of Salesloft. He analyzed 2 million emails and shared the following insights:
For outbound email campaigns, personalize up to 20% of emails to get 2x reply rate
1-3 word subject lines work best. 6+ words performs the worst.
2nd email should be short. Like 1-2 sentences.
Allow breathing room between touches. Add 1 extra day between each touch.
Bullets suck, links suck.
Videos increase reply rate by 25%. Just don’t include the video in the first email, nor at the very top of the email.
Tell, don’t ask questions. The best performing emails ask 0 questions. Instead of asking “Does 2pm work for you?”, you can say “Let me know if 2pm works”.
Reply to inbound leads within 1 hour, so you can craft a personalized response. Call, then email. Popular narrative to reply within 5 minutes is too quick — since 5 minutes gives you no time to do any research and prep for the conversation.
Weekend Thought:
It’s interesting when a company decision impacts the way we live our lives.
Examples:
There are a limited number of Citibike stations near my apartment, and the bikes all gone by 8:00am during the summer. The result? I need to leave my apartment earlier, resulting in getting into my office earlier over the summer.
Airline carry-on size rules and checked bag fees. The result? I only travel wth carry-on luggage and therefore am forced to pack light (and never bring more than 2 pairs of pants).
Twitter’s character limit. The result? Short jokes and pithy observations.
What are company rules affect your life? Reply here.
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