I've scaled 4 products past $100k MRR everyone asks for the strategy here's what actually worked: 1. week 1: build something, anything, ship it 2. find 5-10 people, get them to try it 3. become annoying - DM, email, call 4. watch them use it (most won't) 5. ask why, fix it, ship again 6. daily check-ins, daily updates 7. solve their actual problem, not what you think it is 8. keep shipping until they beg you not to change anything 9. that's your signal - now go loud 10. content everywhere, SEO grind, paid ads 11. double down on channels that work 12. cut everything else the gap between $0 and $100k? steps 3-8 most people never leave their code editor you can't build a business without talking to humans

TBPN has nearly sold out its 2026 ad inventory

We're launching Lightfield today. It's a CRM designed for founders going zero to one—shaped in the past year by hundreds of founders who took a bet on us and now use it daily, and a waitlist of 20,000 more. When starting out, it takes countless hours of talking to customers to figure out what works. From day zero, Lightfield builds and updates itself from your unstructured conversations with customers. It becomes your customer memory: helping you execute deals, communicate without missing details, and understand patterns across your business. It's free to try. Would love to hear what you think: http:// lightfield.app

Building a startup is really hard. Finding product market is hard. Figuring our sales is hard. Standing out from competition is hard. Staying in the game is hard. All of it is hard but also rewarding. So I hope you go for it regardless.

My new SaaS is live It helps you find proven Ads for SaaS & Mobile Apps, and spy competitors on multiple platforms. Find proven winning ads = Get more sales Here is how it works

New experiment for b2b founders: If you’re selling to other tech companies and have more than 5,000 followers on X, DM me a list of up to 10 companies on your lead list. I might be able to make a warm intro.

nikita bier charges $15000 for a 30 min session.

Knowing how to send great cold emails is a superpower. My learnings over the years: • 2-3 sentences max, reads like a text • have a clear ask • feels personalized • punchy subject line • avoid vague requests like "pick your brain" • keep it casual • no signature

My biggest learnings from Jeanne DeWitt Grosser (ex-Chief Business Officer at @Stripe, now @Vercel COO): 1. What failed seven years ago now works with AI. In 2017, Jeanne tried to build a system at Stripe that would automatically personalize outbound emails based on company data. Despite working with world-class data scientists, it failed due to too many errors. Today, that exact same approach works. This shows how AI has made previously impossible ideas suddenly viable. 2. A single GTM engineer at Vercel reduced a 10-person sales team to 1 (in just 6 weeks). Jeanne’s team at Vercel had an engineer build an AI agent that handles inbound lead qualification, outbound prospecting, and deal loss evaluation. The agent costs $1,000 per year to run versus over $1 million in salaries for the sales team. The nine displaced team members moved to higher-value work rather than being laid off, and the remaining salesperson is 10 times more efficient. 3. Their AI deal-loss bot has become better at understanding what went wrong than humans. When Jeanne analyzed her biggest loss of the quarter, the salesperson blamed pricing. But an AI agent reviewed every email, call transcript, and Slack message and discovered the real reason: they never spoke to the person who controls the budget, and when ROI came up, the customer clearly didn’t believe the value claims. They are now using AI to analyze sales calls in real time and send alerts like “You’re halfway through the sales process and haven’t talked to a budget decision-maker yet.” 4. Wait until $1 million in revenue before hiring your first salesperson. Founders should continue selling themselves until they reach around $1 million in annual revenue with a repeatable process. The key is having a defined ideal customer profile—customers who look alike. 5. Segment customers on what drives their buying decisions, not just company size. OpenAI has roughly 3,000 employees, which would typically put them in the “mid-market” category. But they’re a top-25 website globally by traffic, so Vercel treats them as enterprise customers requiring complex sales. Effective segmentation combines company size with growth rate, web traffic, workload type, and industry—because selling to e-commerce companies requires completely different language than selling to crypto companies. 6. Most customers buy to avoid risk, not to gain opportunity. About 80% of customers purchase to reduce pain or avoid problems, while only 20% buy to increase upside. This means you should focus your sales messaging on what could go wrong without your product—like falling behind competitors or damaging their reputation—rather than just talking about exciting features. This is especially true when selling to larger companies, where individual careers are on the line. 7. Sales teams should be indistinguishable from product managers—for a bit. Jeanne hires salespeople who have such deep product knowledge that if you put one in front of a group of engineers, it should take 10 minutes to realize they’re not a product manager. This credibility allows sales teams to serve as an extension of research and development—a 20-person sales team talks to hundreds of customers weekly and can translate those conversations into product insights at scale. 8. Building your own AI sales tools may beat buying off-the-shelf software. Because AI is so new and every company’s sales process is unique, Jeanne finds that building custom internal agents often delivers more value than buying vendor solutions. A single go-to-market engineer built their deal analysis bot in just two days, perfectly tailored to their specific workflow. These engineers shadow top salespeople to understand their workflows, then build automation that would have taken months or been impossible just a few years ago. 9. Make every sales interaction great, whether customers buy or not. Jeanne replaced boring discovery calls at Stripe with collaborative whiteboarding sessions where customers drew their payment architecture. Many customers had never visualized their own systems before. They left with a useful asset and a feeling of collaboration, regardless of whether they bought. Many returned years later to purchase. Think about your go-to-market process like a product, not just a sales function. 10. Product-led growth has a ceiling—no $100 billion company runs on it alone. While product-led growth (where users can sign up and start using a product without talking to sales) works well for early growth, customers generally won’t spend a million dollars through a self-service flow. Every major technology company eventually builds a sales team for larger deals. The mistake is waiting too long, since building a predictable sales process takes time.

The best cold emails feel like thoughtful texts from an old friend.

the best founders don’t sell ideas, they show fake MRR

re: product vs distribution argument “If your product requires advertising or salespeople to sell it, it’s not good enough: technology is primarily about product development, not distribution.” - @peterthiel in addition, if @naval @elonmusk are also on the same page, wtf are people still arguing for?

Distribution >> Tech

My Long list of scaffolding words for Weak Positioning THE “PLEASE TRUST ME” WORDS (Used when they have next to no credibility) • Proven system • Time-tested method • Industry-leading • Best-in-class • Cutting-edge • State-of-the-art • Game-changing • Revolutionary • Breakthrough • Next-level • World-class • Award-winning Translation: I don’t know what I’m doing, so I’ll pretend someone stamped me with authority THE “I DON’T KNOW THE PROBLEM” WORDS (Used when they don’t understand pain) • Unlock your full potential • Become unstoppable • Get to the next level • Achieve limitless growth • Step into your greatness • Transform your life • Scale with ease • Elevate your success • Step into alignment • Expand your capacity Translation: I’m scared to get specific because I don’t know where the pain lives THE “I’M HIDING A SALES PITCH” WORDS (Used when they want to pitch but won't admit it) • Breakthrough session • Value call • Clarity call • Discovery session • Strategy session • Expansion session • Synergy call Translation: Please get on a call so I can pitch you, I swear it’ll be painless. THE “CORPORATE BROCHURE” WORDS (Used when someone has zero tone or personality) • Innovative • Dynamic • Robust • Seamless • Holistic • Comprehensive • Integrated • Multifaceted • Full-service • Cutting-edge • Multi-disciplinary • Tailored solutions Translation: I talk like an annual report because I don’t know how humans speak. THE “LOOK I CAN WRITE BUZZWORDS” WORDS (The AI-output sounding stuff) • Optimize • Maximize • Strategize • Amplify • Synergize Translation: I’m hoping verbs will make you forget I haven’t said anything meaningful. Weak positioning = weak language. Weak language = fear of addressing real pain. Fear of addressing real pain = zero sales ability. Do better.

if you're a founder read this most companies can get to $1M ARR with only two channels the channels you should pick from are - paid ads - cold email - cold DMs - yt influencer marketing + affiliate the channels you should not pick from are - SEO - email newsletter - organic social - video podcast why you need revenue tomorrow, list one makes that happen list two makes revenue happen in the future, they are long term investments that pay off 12 months from now this is the most common mistake i see founders make the framework to think about this with is how you think about personal finance when you're young, 80% of resources go to surviving and 20% to investment when you're old, 80% goes to investment and 20% to surviving apply this same idea to your young company gl hf

The average salary for an entry-level SEO specialist in the US is $67,388. That means many businesses are willing to pay $5,615 per month for someone who might have just learned what WordPress was yesterday. Yet I still see some very skilled people on the SEO services side charging < $1,000 per month. Once you consider campaign expenses, you might make more money working at McDonald's. If you're an agency owner, freelancer, or consultant, please do me a massive favor: 1. Stop undervaluing what you do 2. If you're doing good work and getting your clients results, please increase your prices by at least 3.30% every quarter (to match inflation). 3. Don't let businesses bully you into charging less because they're still living in 2011 (when any could rank #1 in Google). SEO is more complex than ever, and your prices should reflect that.

Startup revenue by founder’s 𝕏 follower count: - 0 - 1K followers: $864 - 1K - 10K followers: $5,268 - 10K - 100K followers: $100,373 - 100K - 1M followers: $750,337

Someone asked me, "Why do you think YC demo day is far better than most tech events?" Me: "It feels more like a reunion, with far fewer aggressive pitches and requests to connect on LinkedIn." FWIW, I respect the hustle, but feel drained by highly transactional social environments. That's why I rarely go to tech events.

You can get rich by focusing on these 3 things: 1) Sales 2) Delivery 3) Marketing Everything else is a distraction.

"Sell the alpha, not the feature": The enterprise sales playbook for $1M to $10M ARR with @jjen_abel Jen is GM of Enterprise at @StateAffairsUS , co-founder @jjellyfish_co , and one of the sharpest minds I've ever met on all things enterprise sales. In this follow-up to our first chat two years ago (covering the founder-led sales zero to $1M phase), we focus on what founders need to know to grow from $1M to $10M ARR. We discuss: The dangers of pricing your product $10K-$20K Why tier-1 logos counterintuitively make the best early customers Why the “mid-market” doesn’t exist How to find and work with design partners Why you need to vision-cast instead of problem-solve Why services are the fastest way to get your foot in the door with enterprises When to hire your first salesperson and what profile to look for Much more Listen now • YouTube: https:// youtube.com/watch?v=37fKFW drMyA … • Spotify: https:// open.spotify.com/episode/29WRTO clMiqAILT077dPe5 … • Apple: https:// podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sel l-the-alpha-not-the-feature-the-enterprise/id1627920305?i=1000735957465 … Thank you to our wonderful sponsors for supporting the podcast: @WorkOS —Modern identity platform for B2B SaaS, free up to 1 million MAUs: https:// workos.com/lenny @Lovable —Build apps by simply chatting with AI: https:// lovable.dev @coda_hq —The all-in-one collaborative workspace: https:// coda.io/lenny