I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Are you playing offense or defense?
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Hey Reader, Tell me if this resonates: You're working harder than ever, and your team is busy, but growth has slowed. The reason for this tends to come down to focus. As companies grow, they tend to start focusing too much internally instead of externally. Jason Lemkin, one of the top SaaS growth experts, noticed this pattern with founders. Whenever they don't know what to do next, he tells them to start with the basics: First: talk to your customers. Not surveys or data dashboards. Actual conversations. Customers love talking to the founder, so take advantage of that. Those conversations will tell you things no metric ever could. Second: use your own product. This sounds obvious, but it's easy to lose touch with what your customers actually experience. It's one of the fastest ways to recognize problems you'd never see in a meeting. Notice what these two pieces of advice have in common. They're both external. Not “How do we fix our meeting process?” They're about getting out and engaging with what you've built and who you've built it for. This is offense versus defense. Internal work is defense—and it's necessary, but it doesn't drive growth. External work is offense. At Kit, we've seen what happens when you lose external focus. We built our company around showing up in person. That meant things like events, customer meetings, and getting in person with creators face-to-face. So when the pandemic hit, we had to pivot to digital versions of everything. We kept building and shipping, but we lost that direct connection with customers. We didn't realize how much it cost us until 2022 when we saw the impact on growth. It goes back to what you see with people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs. They had an obsession with the product and how users reacted to it. They weren't in meetings about the meeting process. They were using the product, talking to customers and staying connected to what they were building. Creators fall into this trap too. You do things at scale and miss important feedback. Your only input becomes the metrics: What are the views on this post? How many downloads? Or maybe someone replies to an email and tells you your work changed their life. That's great, but it's not enough to understand what your audience actually wants. Stay close to the people who follow you. What do they want? What are they struggling with? Are you invested in understanding them or are you just watching numbers? Get out and talk to your customers. That’s the biggest thing. I’d encourage you to book 10 calls over the next two weeks. Ask what's working and what's frustrating. Listen to what people say they wish was different. I guarantee they'll surprise you. And then the other thing is to use your own product. Go through your onboarding like a new customer would. Try to accomplish something you know your customers need to do. See where it breaks or feels clunky. Start with the external work. The internal stuff will always be there. But if you let it take over, don’t be surprised when growth slows down. PODCASTThe Secret To Scaling a $10M+ Business Broken Into 3 StagesChandler Bolt is one of the most operational founders I know. When I was in Austin, we sat down to unpack how he thinks about scaling and systems. He has so many insights on building an effective sales team, attracting talent, and building team culture. In this episode we break down:
Watch or listen to episode » ARTICLEThe production functions of smart and successful peopleI came across this analysis of Tyler Cowen's podcast where someone pulled advice on what drives success from dozens of his interviews. He distilled it down to 16 groups of quotes and takeaways. Here's a brief summary of 3 of the groups, but check out the article for the full thing.
Have a great week! —Nathan |
Nathan Barry
I'm a designer who turned into a writer who turned into a startup CEO. My mission is to help creators earn a living. Subscribe for essays on building an audience and earning a living as a creator.
Hey Reader, If you want to understand how someone thinks about money, ask them these three questions. I've used these in presentations, in one-on-one conversations, and on myself. The questions are simple but the answers usually aren’t. Here they are: Question 1: What's your earliest memory related to money? A while back I asked this of my in-laws. We were all hanging out, and my mother-in-law and her older brother started sharing memories from childhood of selling produce door to door. It...
Hey Reader, People who say money doesn't buy happiness… …have never seen the giant smile on the face of someone riding a jet ski. Of course, what they mean is that more money doesn't automatically mean more happiness—which is true. But the lack of money does real damage to people. Not just materially but emotionally. I know this firsthand. I spent a lot of my childhood experiencing what financial stress does to a family. My favorite place in our house growing up was the 4th step from the top...
Hey Reader, When I was in Mexico last month with the Kit team for one of our retreats, I led a session on how to make decisions. Specifically, how to make better decisions faster so you can have a bias for action. I walked the team through some of the tools I use all of the time, and I figured you might find them useful too. Here are 5 of my favorite decision making frameworks: 1. Does this get better or worse with time? When you're stressed about a problem, ask yourself two questions: Does...