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$1,000,000 In 3 Months

I thought about writing a how-to guide on achieving product market fit. But those guides already exist with way more detail than I could possibly give. I also thought about telling the story about how we did it, but frankly, unless you’re trying to be a competitor of ours, my advice wouldn’t be useful to you as every industry is different.

So here are 7 tips and lessons at a high level on what we learned and how you can get your startup off the ground:

Stop being a Wantrepreneur
If you’re attending more than one tech event a month, you need to seriously reevaluate what you’re doing. There are too many people who enjoy socializing with other techies and talking about the latest SoLoMo App that nothing really gets done. Get back to work.

If your product isn’t viral and you’re not paying for users, you’re most likely going to fail. 
There are really only two main ways to grow, you either pay for your users through marketing channels, or your startup is so viral (K coefficient above 1) that it grows on its own.* That’s it! Really sit down and think about which way you are attempting to grow your company.
*An exception is if you’re massively well funded and can delay growth short term, Quora being a good example.

Idea => Implement => Test => Optimize => Repeat
We follow the Lean Startup Methodology and you should too. It works, and it works well. Test everything, iterate fast, optimize when possible, and repeat the process over and over again until you succeed.

Know When to Pivot
Very few entrepreneurs get it right the first time. Sometimes, the best thing you can do for your company is realize when something isn’t working and change course swiftly. Startups die when the money runs out, so make sure you’re able to try enough things to maximize your chances of success.

When It’s Working, You’ll Know
The opposite of pivoting is achieving product market fit. Often, people will ask how they know if they’ve achieved it. The answer is that if you have to ask, you’re probably not there yet. Product market fit is a wonderful thing, it’s one of those Ah Ha moments when all of a sudden, everything is validated. You’ll know it when you get it.

Don’t Underestimate the Ability to Raise Money
I suck at raising money. I’m not sure what it is, maybe I’m not tall enough, maybe I’m bad at selling myself and my startup. Whatever it is, I’ve come to respect those who are able to raise effortlessly. For me, it is time consuming and stressful as f*** and I envy those who raise millions without batting an eye. If you have a co-founder who has incredible abilities to get investors on-board, don’t discount that.

Just Don’t Quit
You’re not dead until you’re dead. The will of an entrepreneur is a powerful thing, it’s what separates us from our white collared friends in corporate. When we want something, we will move Heaven and Earth to make it happen. So if there’s any real advice I can give, it would be to just keep going. Don’t give up, sometimes the lucky break is right around the corner.

Dennis Liu is the Co-Founder of Touchofmodern, a private sale startup focused on modern design. For more posts like this one, follow this blog.

This post originally appeared on Quora. More questions on Lean Startups:

• How necessary is a co-founder?
• How do you successfully launch a product?
• As a startup CEO, what is your favorite productivity hack?

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399 Days of Freelancing

Wise words from a wise man

Treat freelancing as your business

Last time I wrote about freelancing, 356 days ago, it was mostly learning about freelancing and transitioning from a full-time gig to self-employment. In that post, I mentioned freelancing is not just a fun side gig, but it’s more of a responsibility. Well guess what? Almost a year later, it still is a big fucking responsibility. Business development, meeting clients, communicating with clients, keeping track of your hours, expenses, purchases, taxes, and on top of this you have to actually do what you’re getting paid for, be creative, and solve problems with your knowledge of paradigms. Make no mistake, these are not easy tasks, especially if you deal with them daily. But the good news is it gets better. And here’s how. I will tell you guys certain things that have made my last 356 days a lot better than the first 43 days.

Pick your clients carefully

You are not representing a company now, you don’t get to wear your fancy branded swag, walk in a giant group of team members to grab lunch, and you’re not part of a team. You are representing yourself now, you are your own team, no pressure. I’ve always seen running your freelance business as playing chess. You make your moves in your head, weigh the possibilities, eliminate risks as much as possible and finally make your move. But there’s always the luck factor. This is not something you can control. Some clients will pass your initial red-flag detector, but end up not being the right fit for you. Nothing is personal, you say? Well it is personal because you’re now representing your name. One bad word about you can change your future clients’ minds. So be careful picking your clients, understand the problems they’re trying to solve, know how you can help them and question yourself how you can help your client to make their lives easier and better.​

Client is always right

​But no, my client thinks white space is bullshit, they want to stick to 1998 web standards and they go with the print “fold” in web design. Guess what? Your client is right, you know why? Because you did a shitty job explaining them what white space is, you didn’t take the time to define the newer web standards, and you didn’t do a good job understanding your client. Wake up. People are not born with technological knowledge. They learn. Or they hire you. No one is supposed to know what white space is, and if they did, they wouldn’t need to hire you. Also try to put yourself in your client’s shoes. They are paying someone to help them with their website, mobile app, etc. They give the keys to them, they also pay them, but yet they have no idea what they’re going to get in return. That’s a lot of control they are giving to someone they’ve never worked with. So understand that your next client is handing you their baby. So be gentle, be understanding, be patient, and more importantly remind them why they decided to hire you. Do this by not only designing pretty pixels, but explaining why you designed the pretty pixels and also by articulating why you made certain decisions. Don’t forget you’re teaching them a new language, be patient.

Your time = $$, manage it

​Unless you went ahead and hired a PM for yourself, which would be pretty impressive if you did, instead you have to be your own PM. Manage your time efficiently. I’ve been my worst enemy with this especially when I first started freelancing. I simply overbooked the f out of myself, and ended up working 100+ hours a week. It’s very possible that you will go through something like this yourself when you first start freelancing. I solved this problem by creating a work calendar. I sit down every Sunday morning with a cup of coffee and distribute my hours to what I will be working on that week. I try to over-estimate the amount of time a task will take me, so if I get done quicker, it’s always a pleasant surprise and I can then have free time to go out to the beach with my pup. I like to weigh my tasks with two different factors in mind: how long it will take me, and how much influence it will have in the bigger picture. Yes, I’m the biggest advocate of pixel-perfection, but don’t be stuck to pixel-perfection where you still don’t have the bigger chunks designed or thought out.

Deliver what you promised

I often question why I went to school for what I do. Here’s something school taught me well. Delivery. Because you don’t deliver a project, you don’t get graded. Simple. It’s good to be able to articulate what you’re doing, it’s fantastic that you’re also teaching your client what you’re doing. You manage your time good as well? Great job. But guess what, if you can’t deliver what you promised, what you’ve read in this article means nothing. The word delivery reminds me of a binary variable. It’s either true or false. You either deliver, or you don’t. If you delivered, it’s a “1”. [Everything you’ve done up until this point] * 1 = Everything you’ve done up until this point, simple and easy. But if you haven’t delivered what you promised, then [Everything you’ve done up until this point] * 0 = 0, nothing, nada, zilch.​

Repeat

​So far the process I’ve just described has worked well for me. But it absolutely doesn’t mean this is a secret formula to success. Truth be told, almost every month I am continually re-working how I run my business, and learning new tricks. I’m sure you’ve all had different cases and solved them much differently. Well, tell me about it. No, literally, scroll down a little bit and tell me what works for you? One thing I know for sure is that you can’t stop improving. Once you think you’ve reached that point where you can’t improve a method, that’s actually when you’ve reached your first block. Keep pushing and overcome that block, it’s sunny on the other side.

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My Favorite Entrepreneur Story in a Long Time

If you don’t like it hot, use less,” he said. “We don’t make mayonnaise here.” 

This morning I was reading my social media and came across an article that Christine Tsai had posted on Facebook.

It was about the founder of Sriracha sauce, David Tran, displaced from Vietnam when the North’s communists took power.

As the son of an immigrant myself, I am a sucker for an immigrant story. Moving to the US with nothing but hard work and ambition. Having a strong sense of values. And wanting to build for the next generation.

It is of course why immigrants power so many successful businesses in the US and why we need to embrace them. They have nothing to lose. They bring new ideas, new cultures, new business practices. But they mostly want to be – AMERICAN. That’s all my dad ever wanted for us. Even while he clung to his native traditions and culture himself.

If you ever want to read the great American generational immigrant business story readAmerican Pastoral by Philip Roth, which won the Pulitzer Prize and was voted by Time Magazine as one of the best 100 books of all time.

It also chronicles the forces behind the decline of the American city (which has been revived in the past 10-15 years) and the rise of global manufacturing.

My own fascination with hot sauces began a few years ago. I was never into spicy foods growing up but after living in the UK for nearly a decade and having so much great Indian food around me all of the time I developed more of a taste for it.

I moved back to the US and after a stint in Palo Alto moved to LA where I started to notice Cholula sauce at some of the best Mexican restaurants I visited.  I absolutely love the stuff.

So I started noticing hot sauces more and the more I looked the more I noticed this funny rooster bottle with a strange sounding name I couldn’t pronounce and that familiar green cap. Sriracha.

Where was it from? What did it mean? What nationality was it? It seemed to be in every kind of ethnic restaurant.

The company name sounded Chinese – Huy Fong Foods. Was this the latest Chinese product to take off in the US?

Turns out it is a family-owned business started by a refugee from Vietnam and named after a small village in Thailand Si Racha. So grateful was David Tran for the people who provided safe passage from Vietnam for him that he named his company after the Taiwanese ship that carried him away.

Tran moved to Los Angeles and started his business in Chinatown with a need he personally had. He noticed that Americans didn’t have good hot sauce. So he made hand-made batches in a bucket and drove it to customers in his van.

But his goal wasn’t to make a billion dollars. He wasn’t driven by quick riches. He was driven by wanting to provide a great product. How much could the new generation of entrepreneurs learn from that?

I know it’s what I look for when I want to back companies.

“My American dream was never to become a billionaire,” Tran said. “We started this because we like fresh, spicy chili sauce.”

And build a great business he did. While still owning the business he now does $60 million in annual sales built from nothing.

Could he have grown faster with outside money? Or by selling to a big company and taking in International? Sure.

But it wasn’t his ambition.

You’ll absolutely love this quote

“This company, she is like a loved one to me, like family. Why would I share my loved one with someone else?”

How many of you could say that?

He didn’t want to compromise on product as he knew he would be forced to if he had to expand too quickly. He wanted to keep his prices low (apparently he has never raised his wholesale price in 30 years).

What I learned from the article? What touched me? What lessons could you learn from a Vietnam refugee who makes chili sauce? Quite a bit it turns out …

1. Extreme product passion. When his packaging suppliers tried to get him to change his product to make it less hot or more sweet for American customers he refused, ““Hot sauce must be hot. If you don’t like it hot, use less,” he said. “We don’t make mayonnaise here.”

2. Uncompromising product quality (he processes his chillies the same day they are harvested)

3. He had a guiding principle for the company

4. Focus on the customer and provide value - ”We just do our own thing and try to keep the price low. If our product is still welcomed by the customer, then we will keep growing.” He said this in response to the fact that several other companies are now stealing the Sriracha brand name. He can’t trademark it since it’s the name of a city. By the way, he has never spent a dollar on advertising

5. Provide something distinctive. What will you be known for? Given the brand dilution going on with the name Sriracha how can he still grow his business? The distinctive design of his packaging. That crazy rooster. All those freaking languages on the bottle – the mystery of it all! And the green caps.

But I have to say, despite it all, and it’s impossible to take away from the success of David Tran, I kept wondering if modern business practices couldn’t solidify this into a global product. Branding matters. Organic word-of-mouth worked until this point but I wonder as this becomes an international product line. I wonder how agressive they are with digital distribution. I wonder if they could trademark a broader name that Sriracha so that they can get some defensibility.

I hope the next generation Tran’s have some thoughts on these topics and more. I would love to see this company continue to succeed.

Here is the article from the LA Times.

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This project explored the possibilities offered by the combination of mapping, interactive projections and laser for visual away from the traditional imaging EZ3kiel. Source.

Light Pollution with Light Painting. Source. 

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15 Stats Brands Should Know About Tumblr

There are currently 102 million Tumblr blogs. (Tumblr)

The total number of Tumblr posts to date is 44.6 billion. (Tumblr)

Tumblr had 29.2 million unique visitors in March 2013. (ComScore)

Tumblr had 6.6 billion pageviews per month in March 2013. (Quantcast)

The average usage days per visitor in March 2013 was 4.8. (ComScore)

Users spent 154.1 minutes on average on Tumblr (per user) in March 2013. (ComScore)

Users viewed 30.6 pages per visit on average in March 2013. (ComScore)

17 percent of Tumblr’s U.S.-based visitors come to Tumblr via mobile devices. (Quantcast)

52 percent of Tumblr visitors are male. (ComScore)

46.5 percent of Tumblr visitors are 18-34-years-old. (ComScore)

67 percent of Tumblr users have no children. (Quantcast)

35.2 percent of Tumblr visitors have a household income greater than $100,000 (ComScore).

19 percent of Tumblr visitors are Hispanic, which is is almost two times the Internet average. (Quantcast)

18.1 percent of Tumblr visitors live in the Pacific time zone. (ComScore)

The minimum cost for a brand to buy advertising on the site’s “Radar,” where Tumblr highlights blog posts from its users and seen by everyone using the Tumblr dashboard, is $25,000. (Digiday)

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