The 7 Day Startup by Dan Norris

• Without question, the biggest mistake people make is obsessing over their idea and not focusing enough on finding people willing to pay for their product.
• It's fine to celebrate success but it is more important to heed the lessons of failure.
• You can never predict what happens after you start a business. Long-term plans and detailed documents are pointless. Most businesses go on to do something very different from what they set out to do. Today, this is called a pivot.
• You don't learn until you launch.
• A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty.
• There is a lot of bullshit in startup land.
• If there's no innovation, then it's not a startup. That's why the majority of startups have a technical focus. That said, innovation can also be present in ways other than with technology.
• Anyone can create a job for themselves. But not everyone can change the world.
• Once you have an idea that has some merit, it needs to be executed well.
• Execution is your ability to present your idea just as well as the best ideas in the world.
• Hustle is relentlessly pursuing what needs to be done at the time.
• Hustle for an early stage startup is generally about spending your time on the things that are most likely to bring you customers.
• Anti-hustle is what wantrepreneurs do. They do everything other than what needs to be done.
• Be honest with yourself. If idea, execution, or hustle are not you, then find a co-founder who excels in those areas. You will need it if you want to have a successful startup.
• Move fast and break things.
• The ability to learn from real data is why the 7-Day Startup works.
• The reality is that most ideas aren't going to go viral. Let's face it: the chances of you coming up with the next Dropbox are low. This is particularly true for bootstrapped companies.
• Email opt-in/beta signup totals do not indicate purchase intent.
• As Steve Jobs said, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them." The opposite is also true: people don't know what they don't want until they are forced to open their wallets.
• Just because you can get a few people to sign up for your "coming soon business," it doesn't validate the business.
• Momentum is a key part of a successful startup.
• To really test whether you can build a business, you have to start building it.
• There's a huge forgotten void between "idea" and "successful business" that validation doesn't account for.
• It's proven in research. You work more efficiently when you are close to a deadline.
• Once you start something with a clear end date, it drives you forward.
• A wantrepreneur is someone who wants to be an entrepreneur, but is so obsessed with watching TED talks and talking about their business ideas that they never launch them.
• If you have a conversation with a friend about your business idea this month, and next month you are having the same conversation, you are a wantrepreneur.
• If you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to launch.
• It's amazing what you can achieve in 7-days.
• Beware that launching fast requires you to compromise a lot.
• Once you commit to launching in 7-days, you'll change your thinking on exactly what to launch.
• Once you aim for a week, you will start to question every assumption and figure out a way to make it happen.
• Let's consider the things that need to happen before you launch.
• Day One: You need to have an idea.
• Day Two: You need to have something to launch at the end of seven days.
• Day Three: You need a business name.
• Day Four: You need a landing page or some sort of online presence.
• Day Five: Getting your business in front of enough people to help you decide whether or not to continue.
• Day Six: You need to measure what success means to you.
• Day Seven: You have to launch.
• There are a lot of thing that matter in making a successful business:
• The idea matters: A bad idea, executed well, will not make a good business.
• Execution matters: A good idea, executed poorly, will not make a good business.
• A founder's ability to get customers (to hustle) matters: A great idea, executed well, will fail without customers.
• Timing matters: Speaking hypothetically about an idea is pointless if the timing is wrong.
• Luck matters: In fact, it matters much more than most entrepreneurs would care to admit.
• Your idea matters. At the same time, you don't want to stress over it for weeks on end. In fact, you should spend just one day on it.
• If you only spend one day on your idea, you'll be more open to changing it if it doesn't work out.
• It makes no sense to start a business that is going to have you doing work you don't enjoy.
• Some people are perfectly matched with their companies and some people aren't. It's worth thinking about what skills you have, what you are known for, and where you can provide the most value.
• Business is not just about making money. It's about creating something that is valuable.
• Focusing on short-term launches or projects won't build assets. Assets are built over time by ignoring short-term distractions in favor of a bigger, long-term vision.
• All that matters is what your customers care about.
• For a business idea to be a good idea for a bootstrapper, it needs to be something you can launch quickly.
• Choose an idea that you can launch and modify quickly. Then when you start getting real data from paying customers, you can innovate and get the product just right.
• Creating a startups means creating something valuable for your customers that is a long-term asset.
• Consistently producing original concepts will boost your motivation and confidence, set you up as an authority, and put you in a place where you can develop real, long-term assets.
• It is possible to start a business without constructing anything, but in the long term the businesses that stand out are the most creative ones.
• Fundamentally entrepreneurship is about creating a product that people want and selling it to them.
• Jobs' statement, "People don't know what they want until you show it to them," is correct. It's also extremely dangerous advice for a new entrepreneur.
• Playing the visionary is a privilege reserved for second- and third-time entrepreneurs. It's fun, but it's fraught with danger.
• As an entrepreneur you need something that people want to pay for, with their money or attention. Asking them will not work, because people are bad at predicting their own behavior.
• Solve problems where people are already paying for solutions.
• Everyone might be saying that your idea is great, but look at whether or not they are currently paying for a solution to the same problem.
• Start by solving existing problems that people are already paying for solutions to.
• Idea Evaluation Checklist:
• Enjoyable daily tasks
• Product/founder fit
• Scalable business model
• Operates profitably without the founder
• An asset you can sell
• Large market potential
• Taps into pain or pleasure differentiators
• Unique lead generation advantage
• Ability to launch quickly
• Day 1 Task: Brainstorm a bunch of ideas and evaluate them against the checklist. Choose the idea that stands out as being the best option to you.
• Rather than spending six moths creating a product or service, do only the smallest amount of work required to truly test it.
• A common MVP mistake is over-emphasizing the "minimum" and under-emphasizing the "viable".
• Once you have your product or service idea, it's time to think about what you can launch within one week that represents your final vision for your product or service as closely as possible.
• The key is to forget about automation and figure out what you can do manually.
• An MVP in a service business isn't too hard, but with software or physical products it becomes a bit trickier.
• Five lessons:
• Build what you need, not what you think others need (i.e. don't act on assumptions)
• Charge from day one
• Stop trying to build the perfect product
• Ship fast, ship frequently
• Price for the customers you want
• Day 2 Task: Write down exactly what you will launch on Day 7. What will your customers get, what is included, and what is excluded? If necessary, write down what is automated and what will be done manually in the short term.
• Your business will probably change significantly b the time you get established.
• You will grow into whatever name you come up with. Most names mean very little when they are first conceived.
• You can change your business name down the track--often quite easily.
• Having the perfect worldwide brand can come later, but we want to avoid having a terrible name.
• The irony is that a terrible name is often the result of overthinking it.
• The more time you spend looking at names, the weirder it gets.
• It's best not to choose a name that's already taken.
• Always favor a name that's simple. Even if it doesn't mean anything, being simple makes it memorable. Eventually it will mean something.
• Here are some quick guidelines: Try to avoid making up words. Don't use misspellings or words that people commonly misspell. This only increases the chance people won't find you.
• Every single one of the top 25 brands in the world are 12 characters or less.
• Your business name has to be easy to say in order for people to talk about you.
• As a bonus, if the name clearly makes sense for your idea, then it's a real winner.
• You are an early stage company, so it's hard to know exactly what you will be doing down the track. Don't use specific keywords in your domain name or specific mentions of your service or your location. This could easily change and create a bit of unnecessary work for you.
• As a general rule, something broader will serve you better.
• Company name checklist:
• Is it taken?
• Is it simple?
• Sound good?
• Do you like it?
• Is it sensible?
• Is it broad?
• Day 3 Task: Come up with a bunch or potential business names and evaluate them against the criteria above. Choose whichever one makes the most sense to you and run with it. Grab the best domain you can for that name.
• A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.
• The purpose of the landing page is twofold:
• To start communicating with customers and learning how they respond.
• To being to build what will ultimately sell your product.
• You don't want to spend weeks or months on the landing page. One day is a reasonable amount of time to get a page ready.
• It's imperative that on Day 7 you have a page with a payment button on it, because that is the only way you'll learn if people want what you are offering.
• Once you are happy with your name, it's time to register a domain. Ideally the .com is available, but if it's not you can use another extension.
• If your host supports cPanel, it will make your life a lot easier.
• WordPress gives you the ability to get world class themes very cheaply and install them in seconds.
• A marketing funnel is the process by which someone will become a customer.
• PayPal is still by far the easiest way to get online payments happening quickly.
• The [ad] copy is extremely important and it can make or break your business. If you are just getting started with copy-writing, you should use Dane Maxwell's Copy-writing Checklist as a starting point.
• When you are selling online, images make a huge difference.
• Set up Google Analytics so you can understand how people are using the site.
• The power of WordPress is that you have the ability to customize and expand your site.
• The site you build on Day 4 is a good place to start, but the important thing is that you've built it on a platform with virtually no limits.
• Day 4 Task: Build yourself a website.
• The main purpose of marketing is to get your product in front of qualified buyers. This means getting people to your landing page or your sales page.
• Create in-depth content based around the customer problems that your business solves.
• Make content as actionable and useful to your target audience as possible.
• Optimize your site for email opt-ins so you can get people back to your site by sending emails.
• Your email list will become one of the most valuable assets in your business. A list of people who trust you, that you can contact exclusively whenever you like, is a gold mine.
• I suggest building an email list before you launch and continually looking at ways of growing your list.
• Set up landing pages that you can point people to. One of the highest-converting landing pages will be the page you have before you launch. This can become your emails list after you launch.
• Hearing your voice builds people's trust significantly.
• Most podcasts I know, even the ones with seven-figure businesses, are doing their podcast from home.
• Effective guest blogging is like every other form of marketing: it's all about targeting. If you can get your message in front of the right people, it will work well. If you get the message in front of irrelevant people, it won't work at all.
• Doing life, local events is a powerful form of content marketing.
• Free users are not the same as paying customers.
• Getting press attention for your company can be a huge bonus.
• Look for stories in everything you are doing and maintain good relationships with journalists and influencers.
• Test out a bunch or options and double down on what is working well. Look for sources of momentum and do more of what is working.
• Day 5 Task: Build a list of what marketing methods you are going to choose. Put together a rough plan for the first week or two of your launch.
• The point of launching a business quickly is that you can get real data from real customers. This will help you determine if the business is having an impact.
• Pay particular attention to who is signing up. If it's just your friends, then that's very different from the general public.
• Save your excitement until you land people you don't know as customers.
• Don't measure something that no longer represents an important metric for your business.
• The truth is that running a business is never black and white.
• You need to use your own judgement to determine if you feel like you are onto something that will meet your expectations.
• Focus on what your paying customers are saying and how many people continue to pay you, and you can't go too far wrong.
• Day 6 Task: Create a spreadsheet that covers the first few months in business, the number of signups, revenue, estimated costs, and monthly growth.
• If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you've launched too late.
• The most important thing is...don't stress! A launch will very rarely make or break a successful sustainable business, which is what you are trying to build.
• Dan Andrews of Tropical MBA has said that it takes 1,000 days to build a business.
• Launch day is just 1 our of 1,000.
• Day 7 Task: Launch and start executing your marketing plan.
• Creating a product and getting customers is great, but businesses will not survive and thrive without growing profits over time.
• For you to achieve ongoing growth, you need a self-sufficient business model.
• Every decision you make about hot you design your business and what work to take on will impact its ability to grow.
• If you want something that grows, it has to have something to grow into, and the last thing you want is to kill your momentum by hitting a ceiling.
• Make sure there is enough potential in what you are doing to have a continually growing business.
• Assets help your business grow and make it worth something when you sell.
• What are you working on today that will make you indestructible tomorrow?
• Having a simple product and a simple value proposition makes everything else easier.
• If you can't measure it, you can't manage it.
• Follow the momentum.
• Not every service suits a recurring model, so you could think about other ways to build predictable revenue. Seriously consider offering a recurring aspect to your business if you think there's a chance you can make it work.
• Information products might give you big bursts of revenue, but a few years down the track your business may not have progressed.
• Build growth elements into the DNA of your business and optimize for ongoing profit and growth and asset value. In a few years you will have something valuable instead of a job that just pays reasonably well.
• The only way to win is to learn faster than anyone else.
• You are better off launching quickly and paying attention to real data rather than making assumptions. This doesn't just apply to launching; it's a general business principle that you can apply to almost every decision.
• Most of the assumptions you have prior to and after launching your business will be wrong.
• A lot of business owners spend time solving problems they don't have.
• These days you can solve most business problems quickly. There's no reason to spend any time on problems you don't have. Doing so will only cost you valuable time and money. It will talk attention away from the work you should be doing.
• There's a good chance that if you are a new business, you only have one problem: not enough customers. That's where you should be spending your time.
• Being true to your word is a very important part of building trust in business. Whether you are offering services or selling a product, make sure you always deliver on what you promise.
• Your reputation is everything and it will impact every business you start, not just this one.
• Launching quickly is important early on when the conditions are uncertain. Once you have a clear path, however, quality is more important.
• Any time you feel yourself wondering if what you are doing is good enough, compare it to the best.
• By comparing yourself to the best, you set higher expectations for yourself, and you will be better for it.
• The minutiae that you are debating could be distracting you from a fundamental problem that you aren't seeing.
• Always take a step back and ask yourself if it's feasible that someone else may have solved this problem before.
• The companies that learn the quickest, win. This is partly because they do not make decisions based on assumptions and partly because they learn from their predecessors.
• Eric Ries calls it "Build, Measure, Learn". Michael Masterson calls it "Ready Fire Aim". I call it "Getting shit done".
• Don't believe that people should only work on their business and not in their business. It's crucially important that you do both.
• You'll naturally gravitate to things that you do well, but if your skills are hard to replace, you have to be careful.
• Do more of what is working.
• Momentum is a powerful force, so keep an eye out for what is working and do more of it.
• Your own personal happiness and motivation are the most important keys to the success of your business.
• You should be more excited about Monday than you are about Friday. If that's not the case, there's a good chance things aren't going to work out.
• Difficult customers will waster your time, kill your confidence, and destroy your motivation (and soul). No amount of money is worth working with a difficult customer.
• Every difficult customer can be replaced by a better one, generally much quicker than you think. The work required to replace them is a far better use of your time than any work spent trying to help them.
• The only thing that will kill a recurring business is that more customers leave than sign up. It's hard to get new customers, but it's easy for them to leave.
• You need to do everything to keep your customers and the data you get from churning customers is priceless.
• Make sure you are delivering constant value for your existing customers.
• Launching a whole bunch of related services will boost short-term revenue, but it will add complexity to your business that will hurt you in the long term.
• Think in the long term about what asset you are building as a result of actions you complete today. Getting carried away on short-term projects will kill any chance of momentum.
• If you are in doubt, come back to the product. Anything you can do that improves the product or improves the customer experience will be a sound investment.
• If you are feeling overwhelmed with all of the things you need to do, just focus on how to make your product slightly better.
• Treat business advice with suspicion and test every assumption including your own. It's far more important to learn from your customers.
• Understand growth and understand how your business looks without you, but don't be afraid to get your hands dirty.
• Make difficult decisions early that lead to more growth and higher value latter on. Look out for sources of momentum and keep doing what's working.
• Listen to your customers and watch what they do.
• It's a big world, and if you are smart about the way you structure your offering, there is unlimited room for growth.
• Make a great product, do one thing well, and learn to say "no". It's your business. Constantly improve your product above all else.
• Move quicker and learn faster than your competition.
• Business rules to live by:
• Test every assumption
• Solve problems as they arise
• Do what you say you will do
• Benchmark against the best
• Learn from others and yourself
• Out learn your competition
• Always consider how your business looks without you
• Look for sources of momentum
• Manage motivation
• Cull difficult customers
• Focus on retention
• Avoid short-term thinking
• Focus on product
• Love your work