đ MakerList #3: What's in a great business idea?
đ Here are the top five articles for this week:
1. Getting my First Subscription Revenue - in Five Days
Cory Zue talks about how going to an Indie Hackers meetup inspired him to introduce a subscription in his wedding place card maker, whichâthrough a combination of luck and hacking something togetherâenabled him to capture his first $200 in subscription revenue.
2. How Superhuman Built an Engine to Find Product/Market Fit
Rahul Vohra, founder of the email app Superhuman, talks about the metric that he uses to measure product/market fit: how many of your users would be âvery disappointedâ if they couldnât use your product anymore. He then describes a framework for increasing this metric to over the magic 40% threshold.
3. Cold Email Teardown #1
Donât let the uninspiring title fool youâLouis Nicholls does a fantastic job of laying out what the goals of a cold email should be, and then analyzes how a real cold email that was sent out (pictured below) meets those goals. He then shows an improved version of the email at the end, which lets you really see the difference between an okay cold email and a great one.
4. The hidden risks of growth models relying on paid marketing
The four hidden risks of paid marketing that Oleg Yakubenkov highlights shows that it should not be viewed as a silver bullet to acquire traffic and users. However, if these risks are kept in mind and paid marketing is used in addition to organic growth, it can sometimes be a helpful tool to gain users early on.
5. How to brainstorm great business ideas
Start with a valuable problem, pick a specific audience, craft a distribution strategy to target that audience, create a small, innovative solution, and then go from there. Courtland Allenâs guide to coming up with a great business idea is a fantastic starting point for indie makers. His section on avoiding fatal mistakes is especially gold.
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