Tweets

If you're building a business, ignore feedback from people who want everything for free (or cheap). They do not make good customers.

Many creators accidentally find success in one area while actively pursuing something completely different.

Often what “pops” is the side thing to the main thing you’re creating.

The key is to stay in motion: be curious, experiment, and watch for the elements that resonate.

It's OK to waste a little money.

In the past, I would stress over every purchase.

But now, I've learned to be OK with wasting a little money:

Kids want money for the arcade? Give them some.
Water costs $5 at that concert? Just buy it.
$100 item you can't return? No worries.

The latest surveys show that "56% of Americans couldn’t cover a $1,000 emergency expense with savings."

Most people are in survival mode.

People don’t want to merely survive, they want to thrive.

The only way to do that is to have an income that creates space for thriving.

Dynamic Duos > Solo Superstar

🏀 Michael Jordan & Scottie Pippen
🏒 Wayne Gretzky & Mark Messier
😄 Jon Buda & Justin Jackson
⚾️ Babe Ruth & Lou Gehrig
🎞 Walt & Roy Disney

I believe most solopreneurs could significantly up their game by finding the right partner.

Even though there is a lot of wisdom in the phrase “do the work, even when you don’t feel it,” sometimes the best thing you can do is take a break.

Almost typed in "yes! you can switch to our anal plan."

Most good opportunities are not obvious (especially to outsiders).

So your best chance at success is to be an "insider."

Get involved in a community, an industry, a specific technology, an interest group.

Find a space that you're passionate about, and keep your eyes open.

The contemporary idea in online business is that you need to build an audience, get to know their needs, and then build something they want.

It's focused a lot on *who* you serve. (Who are these people? Do they have money? Where do they hang out?)

But is this the best way? 👉

Business ideas are observations paired with hunches.

Observation: "This is what people are doing. This is what people want. This is where the market is headed."

Hunch: "Here's a way we could help people to get the result they want. (And do it better than what's available)."

I can’t emphasize this enough: any government aid for business should go to SMALL, local, main street businesses first.

They’ve been hit the hardest

They don’t have shareholders, investment accounts, or cash reserves.

They’re dying right now. They needed help yesterday. https://twitter.com/mijustin/status/1240428164041461760

Thanks David! https://twitter.com/dhh/status/1197960216635039744

The most important entrepreneurial question is:

“What are people regularly searching for, buying, and using right now?”

Current consumption is a good predictor for future behavior.

You can't pull the market towards your solution.

THANK YOU @PairWithTuple for hiding notifications while I'm on a call.

I just screen sharing with @steveschoger and was pleasantly surprised to see my notifications appear only *after* the call was done. 👍

It's calming to know that you're thinking of the small things. ❤️

Maybe a better way to put this is:

"A good product UNCOVERS a desire the customer already has."

Often, the customer can't articulate what they want.

Our job, as product people, is to come up with a solution that meets the needs they feel internally.

As a kid of the 90s, I had to leave my computer on all night in order to download Quake (8 MB) on a 14.4 modem...

So the idea that I can download an 8 GIGABYTE file in ~4 minutes is insane. 🤯

❤️ This past week, 83 amazing customers helped me earn $6,615 USD ($8,676 Canadian) on my @podia store (http://justinjackson.podia.com)

👨‍💻 While I bootstrap Transistor, this income is helping me put food on the table for my family. 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦

🙌 Thanks to everyone who supports my work!

🎙️ Podcasters!

👋 My friend @jonbuda and I are building a small company: @TransistorFM.

❤️ We'd love to be the home for all your shows (get unlimited shows for one price).

📈 We provide advanced analytics + global audio CDN for fast downloads.

👉 https://transistor.fm/?via=twitter

Bring back this design aesthetic.

How many of you have actually replaced the old logo with 𝕏?

🤔

My generation only knew ONE PERSON in their 20s who’d made a million dollars online.

@dvassallo When 30%+ of your team quits in a single day, that’s not a sign of good leadership.

These were key people, some of whom had been with the company for 15 years. Committed, loyal team members.

This isn’t something a company easily comes back from.

I’m not applauding this at all.

I wish our culture gave people space to explore more.

So many people feel squeezed: too much to do, not enough time, barely making ends meet.

We flourish when we have margin.

I've just written my 2020 year in review.

I mostly write these for myself, as a way of tracking my progress.

But, if you've been following my journey (some of you since 2008!), you might also find it interesting.

You can read it here:
http://justinjackson.ca/2020-review

Why many products struggle, and only a few succeed:
https://buff.ly/2MkZ8Ha

after dark after dark

w @calebporzio @adamwathan @JohnONolan @joetannenbaum ❤️

Northern lights show

When I started my business, my number #1 motivation was to create a better life for myself, my family, and my team.

A good business gives you a better life.

After 2-3 years, it should pay you well, and give you time/energy for sleep, exercise, nutrition, family, friends, fun.

I wish there were real-world places for podcast listeners that felt like a record store.

A place you could go and listen to podcasts, hang out with other podcast enthusiasts, and browse through podcasts the same way you browse through records.

(I think some libraries have…

Launching a fun side-project today: @MyPodStudio

We'll feature podcasters and their home/office studios: the gear they use, how they set it up, workflows, etc.

The first profile is on @stephenrobles and his sweet home studio:

https://mypodstudios.com/stephen-robles

Bootstrappers, founders, devs, indie makers: besides Twitter, where else do you hang out online?

(Where else do you have online community other than here?)

Slack, Discord, Reddit, Hacker News, LinkedIn, specific forums?

What do folks in their 20s and 30s want to know about being 40+?

Just launched this today 🎉

https://twitter.com/TransistorFM/status/1358941139483590656

A business should always respond to an existing, demonstrated demand.

The biggest mistake founders make is doing the opposite. 😉

I keep thinking about @asmartbear's ice cream stand metaphor.

If you set up an ice cream stand on a busy beach, on a hot day, you'll easily attract a crowd.

You don't need to work at pushing your product towards the market.

People just show up.

If you have to do sales, there's no better feeling than knowing you don't *need* the sale.

The more desperate you are, the harder it is to make the sale.

We've set a launch date for http://transistor.fm 😱

https://twitter.com/TransistorFM/status/1019663321992081408

⚡️ I love this tool so much. I use it 3x a day at least.

Perfect for generating great looking screenshots of your app / website:
https://www.screely.com/

We’re way too quick to critique other people (and their work) online.

Give it some time.

Examine the context.

Ask yourself: “am I being kind?”

If you’ve earned the right, critique privately.

Encourage folks to be better; nobody responds well to negativity.

Don't say: "we need to innovate!"

Instead, say: "we need to keep giving users progress in their lives."

#jtbd

👀 now you can add this to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

https://platform.openai.com/docs/gptbot

“The Last of Us” is too scary for me.

Here are the PC games I want to see made into TV shows and movies:

- Day of the Tentacle
- Commander Keen
- Bubble Bobble
- Monkey Island
- Magic Pockets
- Lemmings

Ok, Andor made me like Star Wars again.

One of my biggest mental health wins:

🚶‍♂️ Walk to my office every day (25 mins)

👋 Say “good morning” to the folks I pass along the way (4-5 people a day)

This combination of exercise, fresh air, and small friendly exchanges dramatically improves my sense of well-being.

Pink trees. This world is a fantastic fantasy.

Cultivate good ideas. But don't be in a rush to execute on all of them; let the bad ideas fall away.

Wait until you feel an idea with a strong pull, in a direction you want to explore.

Wow. You can zoom like this with a phone?! 😮

https://twitter.com/b_momani/status/1117493976171290625?s=21

We did it! 100,000 downloads for our little podcast about building a little SaaS business. 🙌

http://saas.transistor.fm

I used to be paranoid about finishing all my tasks each day. I thought stopping would kill my momentum.

Now I'll happily leave a task that's 50% done until the following day.

It doesn't kill your momentum at all! It gives you something specific to work on the next morning. 👍

Rule #1: almost all career and entrepreneurial progress comes from the relationships you've built along the way.

(Skills are important too, but it's relationships that really opens doors)

The only way to make your life better is "consistent effort, over time, in the right direction."

One more shot from the @LaraconUS vs @terminaldotshop game by the talented @ninjaparade 📸

Never going to forget this one. 🫶

🏀 @syntaxfm #laracon

@TheJackForge In 2019 (at @LaraconUS ), I gave a personal talk about growing old in tech, becoming jaded and depressed, and how I overcame it.

Lots of folks identified with this theme: "It feels like everyone is moving ahead, whereas I'm being left behind."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AfEBby1KRyU

Better onboarding, UX, and activation can't fix a customer's underlying motivation problem.

People will even use confusing software if they "want it" bad enough. (Remember learning Photoshop?)

Good UX is necessary, but not sufficient, for a software business to succeed.

📆 How are you doing 2022 planning for your startup?

Here's how I'm visualizing next year's product calendar for @TransistorFM; organized around "big feature milestones."

(inspired by @adamwathan's episode on @artofproductpod).

https://youtu.be/cVW0vJGVqEI

My kids ask me all the time:

“Umm dad, do you have a job?” https://twitter.com/petecodes/status/1326971246014238722

Me: the value of this stock I own increased by $15! I’m a good investor.

Also me: I spent $300 on coffee this month.

“You always told me that ‘it's going to take time.’

It's taken my father's time, my mother's time, my uncle's time, my brothers' and my sisters' time, my nieces and my nephew's time.

How much time do you want for your progress?"

–James Baldwin

A jarring dynamically-inserted ad.

Obnoxious, loud, and ill-timed; completely ruins this podcast’s narrative flow.

I’ll take host-read ads over this any day. 🙉

Podcasts already have distribution (RSS to Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts).

What they don’t have:
- easy discoverability
- easy amplification
- quick consumption

Podcasts grow differently than blog and video audiences. https://twitter.com/Patticus/status/1185561722465243136

How many of you have a monitor sitting on top of a box right now?

I've learned more from doing a single product launch than I did in 4 years of university.

This year, the most significant action you can take is to make micro-investments in yourself:

- Build that relationship
- Attend that meetup
- Create that project
- Start that podcast
- Go on that retreat
- Apply for that job
- Read that book
- Ask for help

The oft-quoted "happiness peaks at $75k" trope is

a) "based on a cursory, wrongheaded reading of the 2010 study" https://www.vox.com/2015/6/20/8815813/orange-is-the-new-black-piper-chapman-happiness-study

b) not supported by more recent @penn research that shows "well-being rises with income, even above $75,000 per year" https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2016976118

An important correction to today's newsletter.

💻 Build in public experiment:

📊 I'm making our @TransistorFM analytics (on @usefathom) public for 24 hours.

🙋‍♀️ If you were in charge of our marketing, what would you be focusing on?

🔧 Show we configure Fathom differently?

https://app.usefathom.com/share/djzhrvbx/transistor.fm

I got my first dose of AstraZeneca yesterday. 💪

"In trials, all of the different vaccines were 100% effective in protecting people from hospitalization and death."

Take the first vaccine you're offered! https://twitter.com/SharkawyMD/status/1390042577534164999

Buying the kids 500 Nerf darts for Christmas is a guaranteed way to pick up Nerf darts every day, for the rest of your life.

It’s fantastic.

I recommend both: have savings + consistent cashflow from your side project BEFORE you quit your job.

(Especially if you have kids)

Getting to a spot where you’re desperate for cash (when you’ve hit a dry spell) is the worst. https://twitter.com/levelsio/status/1328133976175882240

When people are looking for a solution, do they search:

"Easily manage your company's financial future on all your devices."

or do they type in:

"Accounting software?"

They're looking for ACCOUNTING SOFTWARE. Tell them what you do right away.

First, my audience isn't one-dimensional.

We all live in a social, economic, and political context. We have feelings, families, histories.

"Business" exists within these contexts. If my ideas about business are divorced from their human context, how helpful are they really?

If you’re employed by a “low-margin” business, do everything you can to get out.

Your boss will download their anxiety, lack of health, and mania on to you.

They’ll make YOU feel the pressure THEY feel.

Things won’t get better. Get out as soon as you can.

In some cases, "CHARGE MORE!" is bad advice.

Let me explain.

I've been mining 8 bit coin since 1985.

Saying “it’s not perfect” and not shipping = no forward movement.

Saying “I’ll ship what I have + improve it tomorrow” = constant progress.

Don't call it a comeback: by building @laravelphp, @taylorotwell made PHP relevant again.

He also cultivated a vibrant dev community that spawned many other innovations (@tailwindcss, @LaravelLivewire, @Alpine_JS).

I admire everything he's achieved. 🙌 https://twitter.com/taylorotwell/status/1831668872732180697

Productivity tip: get outside.

Many successful bootstrapped startups saw the gaps in existing categories and made something better:

- @usefathom (Google Analytics)
- @Geocodio (Google Maps)
- @tailwindcss (Bootstrap)
- @convertkit (MailChimp)
- @laravelphp (CakePHP)
- Basecamp (MS Project)
- @tuple (Slack)

For most businesses, 2x year-over-year growth is incredible.

If @transistorfm makes $200k this year, and $400k next year, @jonbuda and I will be ecstatic.

Imagine having to be disappointed by those numbers? 🤦‍♂️

Nope, VC is not for me.

A software company shouldn’t ask: “what features do you want next?”

But rather: “show me your whole workflow for accomplishing X.”

When you need to build (and host) a standalone landing page, what do you use?

New gif to use when you deploy to production.

"Losing my religion"

If any of you have left your childhood faith, you might find the chat I had with @stauffermatt interesting.

We cover what it's been like for me as an ex-evangelical, atheism, and what I miss most from church.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IkKwsgp_w2U

Doing my business' year-end with my accountant.

Big realization:

"To simplify your accounting, minimize the number of transactions!"

✅ If you can pay for it annually, do it.
✅ Get your Stripe payments once a month/quarterly.
✅ Minimize # of payments.
✅ Use fewer accounts.

Defining boundaries on Twitter is challenging.

For some, being on Twitter feels like being in a small room with their favorite people.

For others, it's a megaphone to express their opinions and critiques.

Others use it to find content.

(There are a myriad of use-cases)

If you think the purpose of life is to "Start business. Make most money. Die." please unsubscribe.

That's not what I'm here for.

I want to engage with an audience that wants more out of life.

@petershankman That’s @dannymatz90. Here it is on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ykieEE1j9eA

This is the most incredible book on architecture (by Christopher Alexander).

I don’t know if a book has ever resounded with me this deeply before.

It’s truly wonderful.

This chat between @ajlkn and @csallen hits on so many good points:

"If you're self-funded, and have money saved, you can afford to move at slower pace. You don't have to be worried about making a bunch of cash right away."

https://overcast.fm/+JmiPBmwp8

I'm not sure how I feel about this, but increasingly I think it's true:

In today's economy, you can't be mediocre. Actually, it's harder than that: you can't even be "pretty good."

You've got to differentiate yourself by being truly exceptional and unique.

WHOA! @ConvertKit is becoming http://Kit.com

Congrats to @nathanbarry and the team! 👏

This interview with @shl about @gumroad’s pricing increase is excellent.

@arvidkahl isn’t afraid to clearly ask the hard questions, while remaining empathetic.

This conversation spurred lots of thoughts for me. 😄

https://overcast.fm/+XcqwSlqyI

Relaxing and unplugging.

It's been 15 months since @pmarca & @a16z published "it's time to build."

Question: WTF have they done in support of this thesis?

Marc said we should be "solving the climate crisis by building."

From what I can see, @a16z has only made a few meager investments in climate tech.

Crazy to think about my life in decades:

1980-1990: birth, childhood, first PC

1990-2000: BBSes, early internet, middle school, high school, first business, college, second business

2000-2010: university, third business, marriage, children, full-time job (needed stability)

BTW – I like podcasting's growth curve!

It's sustainable. It's proving that it's not a flash-in-the-pan.

Slow and steady ecosystems are better for creators. You can build a long-lasting, sustainable revenue stream.

(As long as Big Money™ doesn't mess it up)

🏆 @adamwathan is consistently one of the most helpful people on the internet.

(5-minute @tuple call = fixed my purgecss problem)

I'm not religious, but I'm sending lots of 🙏 vibes to y'all today. 🕊️

I think "customer demand" is way less sophisticated than we think it is.

The base impulse seems quite simplistic. Almost as if a prehistoric human was speaking:

"Want iPhone because friends have one."
"Want PDF report to make boss happy."
"Want chocolate because sad."