Pete's June 2021 update
A snow day; first book revenue; and an unexpected teaching gig goes well.
This is my experimental monthly update on me as a “product” in development. Subscribe here or send it to someone who might be interested.
Recap: I just moved to NZ, and I’m writing a book on how to start a business (based on my 12-week course).
I’m okay at fire now. Which is good because it snowed this week! We got the chimney cleaned at that made all the difference to how much I need to poke the fire to make it stay alight.
Highlights and Insights
9 startups supported this month: a combination of mentoring and advice, pitch coaching, and some customer discovery interviews. This wonderfully specific feedback from a mentoring session: “Pete was amazing! He actively listened, he asked excellent open ended questions and consequently quickly got to the key issues and challenges.”
Book progress: Chapter outline 100% done.
2,300 words written, including one newsletter for my paying subscriber: How to write a great startup survey (and what to do instead)Book experiment! Last month I ran a quick experiment to use as an example in the book, where I say if you think your idea is perfect right now then try to sell it and see what happens. So as a demo I put up a quick Tweet + LinkedIn post saying “I’ve written a book on how to start a business >> click here for sneak preview and special pre-order price!”
* The tweet got 500 impressions, 3 clicks, 1 free subscriber.
* The LinkedIn post got 1300 impressions, 29 clicks, 2 free subscribers.
* I also got 55 direct clicks via StartupBook.xyz — not sure where they came from, but I do know that the free analytics tools I’m using aren’t up to scratch!
* All up I got 12 subscribers, and there are 6 email addresses I don’t recognise.
* I sold ONE PAID SUBSCRIPTION. That was a ridiculously pleasant surprise. Both Substack and Stripe took a cut of the $. Also, no idea which channel they came from. :(
* I put a request on the Guild of Entrepreneurs to help increase the reach of the above tweet/post and Alex Carpenter gently tried to steer me in the right direction, making the same points that the experiment will hopefully prove to my readers: there are too many things you don’t know yet.
All up, this was a useful experiment. And I’m quite chuffed with generic brand “StartupBook.xyz” I hurriedly settled on. It feels appropriate to the lean approach to creating the book.Metal Monkey Infinity Inc: Got my insurance sorted. Sent off my first two invoices. Once the money hits the bank I’ll follow up how to pay myself and set up Xero.
Last-minute teaching: Got a request to teach the one-day entrepreneurship intensive again (which I did, yesterday). I experimented a bit with ways of increasing engagement and it seemed to work out — a few students gave me some spontaneous feedback at the end that I did a great job making it interesting and engaging, and this was the best one of these classes they had done. (Of course they said this right after I stopped recording.)
Monash Accelerator: I get to work with Megan Flamer again, helping out with this year’s accelerator at Monash University. I’m proud of the work I’ve done so far improving the application process.
Attended a great (online) masterclass on startup metrics, run by NDRC in Ireland. It was nice to be on the learning end for a change and get some professional development. And the masterclass itself was super slick.
This list makes it look like I was super productive in June but in reality life here is pretty hectic and disruptive. Tradies have a habit of turning up unannounced, and we only had about 18 hours notice that our house shipment was about to be delivered. So if nothing else, writing this month’s newsletter has been a nice reflection on what I have actually achieved.
Requests
How can I get a discount on a Xero subscription? The ability to have multiple currencies only kicks in at the most expensive plan. Do you know of a virtual incubator or startup deals platform that includes a Xero discount? Do you know someone at Xero? (I’d love to set up a discount for our startup communities.)
Put yourself on the map! I’m running a project for North Sydney Innovation Network trying to create a geographic map of startup, tech and innovation orgs in Australia: companies, innovation teams, accelerators, event and co-working spaces, professional services for startups, etc. I’m doing a push for an initial data set for our next-stage demo. Please add your company’s address and details here: https://tinyurl.com/JoinAUInnovationMap
Coming up
Mentoring at Dunedin Startup Weekend at the end of July.
Send out StartupBook paid newsletter #2 (Customer Discovery Interviews) and #3 (topic TBC). Plus free newsletter #1!
Read / watch / listen
[Read: Twitter thread] Ali Abouelatta on Twitter: "Send me a startup advice, I'll send you a counter-example" This is the problem I experienced while preparing to teach my new (to me) entrepreneurship class earlier this year -- for every example of a startup following the fancy academic “effectuation” principles for entrepreneurship I could think of examples of the opposite approach.
[Listen: 9 minutes and worth it]. An artist wrote love letters to Starbucks for a year as an avant-garde art project, and it gets pretty funny. “Very polite. Very professional. Until recently.” Stories From The Stoop: Christine Ferrera
[Watch: 3.5 minutes] David Mitchell on tax avoidance. I’ve only recently discovered David Mitchell and his rants. He’s brilliantly snarky and snarkily brilliant. “That’s a tax on conscience. The better person you are, the more you pay in tax. We’re taxing being nice.” See also Mitchell & Webb sketches.
[Watch: 2 minutes] David Oyelowo on his Dad’s obsession with leaf blowers. “If you knew Nigerians, you’d know that that was really weird.” https://twitter.com/TheDailyShow/status/1406658352470364162?s=20
[Long read] The 60-Year-Old Scientific Screwup That Helped Covid Kill (Wired). This infuriating forensic article demonstrates how language, jargon, and egos prevent smart people from changing their minds.
[Watch: feelgood movies]
* The Merger is an Aussie comedy that took us by surprise by being enjoyable to watch and avoiding the most obvious cliches. It’s a small-town movie more than an Aussie Rules football movie.
* In Another Round, school teachers experiment with different levels of alcohol intake at work. I don’t remember exactly how I felt during the movie — from memory the characters made some poor decisions — but it was engaging and I loved the ending.Spotted on Twitter. Know your customer’s pain points. :)
“Less is more: you can apply greater pressure through a sharper point.” -- Alex Harvey, game designer for Tangiers