The "80/20 principle" for founders

Traction: 80% distribution, 20% product

Growth: 80% retention, 20% acquisition

Revenue: 80% existing customers, 20% new leads

Pricing experiments: 80% positioning tweaks, 20% actual price changes

Brand building: 80% customer experience, 20% logo design

Sales: 80% listening, 20% pitching

Community building: 80% empowering... See more

That, as a startup, you should only do half of what you want to do (only half the options, half the tabs, half the offerings, and half the target audience) to compound your chances of true PMF.

I love asking businesses what their conversion is on new business efforts. Many answer proudly, “Ten percent.” Even if you ignore the principles of The Golden Circle, the law of averages says you can win about 10 percent of the business. Throw enough spaghetti against the wall and some of it sticks. To grow the business, all you need to do is more

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