Courtney BlakeOur Waitlist Had 11,000 Names. Two Percent of Them Paid.
A big pre-launch waitlist felt like proof of demand. It turned out to be mostly proof of curiosity.
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Courtney Blake
Daniel BrooksOur First 10 Customers Were the Wrong 10 Customers
Early revenue felt like validation. In reality, it pulled our roadmap in ten directions and nearly wrecked the company.
Sander KuipersThe €180,000 Lesson Hidden in Our First Senior Hire
I hired a brilliant enterprise sales leader for a company that did not exist yet.
Jake MorrisonHow to Read a CAC Number Without Lying to Yourself
Customer acquisition cost is the metric founders quote most and calculate worst. Four common mistakes, and a cleaner way to do it.
Jake MorrisonWhy I Deploy on Fridays, and the Tiny Script That Lets Me Sleep
The internet says never ship on Friday. As a solo builder with a day job, Friday evening is often my only chance, so I made it safe.
Jake MorrisonFounders, Your First 100 Customers Won't Come From Ads
Paid acquisition feels scalable, but early on it mostly buys you expensive confusion. What actually works for the first hundred.
Courtney BlakeWhat I Learned Running Marketing at a Startup That Shut Down
My first startup job ended with a two-paragraph email and a lot of lessons I only understood later.
Courtney BlakeSix Months as Employee Number Four: What Nobody Warns You About
Joining a tiny startup is exciting, exhausting, and stranger than any job description suggests.
Courtney BlakePricing Our Software at $49 a Month Was Our Most Expensive Mistake
Cheap pricing brought us the wrong customers, the wrong feedback, and nearly the wrong product.
Daniel BrooksWe Raised $1.2M and Died of Politeness: A Post-Mortem
Our product worked, our team was talented, and we never once had the hard conversation that would have saved the company.
