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Jim Huffman

A blog about Growth Marketing, Startup Struggles and the occasional 90s NBA reference.

12/16/2021 Newsletter: Getting into Y-Combinator đź’ˇ

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Want a personal notetaker for Zoom calls?
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Thanks to Fathom (YC W21) you can have that.
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Today, I chat with Richard White, Founder of Fathom. He takes us through his journey from being a part of the first Y-Combinator batch in Cambridge in 2005 with the founders from Reddit, Dropbox and Twitch to his latest YC backed startup, Fathom

Here are the topics discussed in today’s episode:

  • The power of a cold email
  • How to get noticed by accelerators like Y-Combinator
  • What advantages does Fathom bring to Zoom meetings
  • Fundraising strategies
  • Generating revenue when starting with a free service
  • Should you prioritize Monetizations or Growth
  • Stories from a startup
  • Half-baked idea to disrupt CEO headhunting

Get the full episode right here

LISTEN TO EPISODE

DID YOU MISS LAST WEEK’S EMAIL? Here are the top articles.

People enjoyed reading about the December 2021 Update on The $3M Challenge and 28% of you liked How David Goggins Made $25,000,000+ on His Book (The New Book Publishing Playbook) .

Here are the articles that caught my attention this week:

đź’Ľ My New DTC Brand Went From $0-$100k in 25 Days​

Zach Stuck shares a Tweet storm of how he grew his DTC brand from $0-$100K in just 25 days.

Click the link to check out his break down of the entire process for:

  • Ad creative testing
  • Landing page testing
  • Email & SMS strategy

Plus, he shares the offers he used to activate his first time customers.

✍️ BOOK OF THE WEEK: The Cold Start Problem: How to Start and Scale Network Effects​

I’ve been following Andrew Chen for some time. He was a pioneer in the Growth Marketing space and ran growth at Uber.

His book, The Cold Start Problem, reveals what makes winning networks thrive, why some startups fail to successfully scale, and, most crucially, why products that create and compete using the network effect are vitally important today.

If you need a book this holiday break then I recommend you start here.

🛠️ A Founder’s Step-by-Step Guide to Getting Your First 1,000 Community Members​

​Knoetic founder & CEO Joseph Quan says this about the power of community:“Community reframes your startup by starting with the people that you’re bringing together — not the product prototype you’re envisioning in your head.

Here is his approach to building community:

  1. Step 1: Run some cheap tests, do your “community discovery,” and build a wedge.
  2. Step 2: Spin up a scrappy mvp and earn the right to build more.
  3. Step 3: Nail your onboarding, identify your power users, and scale up.
  4. Step 4: Expand beyond your mvp and experiment.
  5. Step 5: Measure what matters and shore up your team.
  6. Step 6: Reap the rewards and leverage the community to supercharge the company.

🏆 The 8 Best E-Commerce Video Marketing Examples We’ve Seen​

Video marketing has the power to persuade.

​84 per​cent of consumers say they’ve been convinced to buy a product or service through watching a video.

So, video not only has the potential to drive more traffic to your e-commerce store but also convince visitors to make purchases.

Here are the examples that caught my eye:

  • Bloom & Wild – Great example of tutorials
  • Made – A short video that shows point of differentiation
  • Then I Met You – Showcasing UGC testimonials

📆 BFCM 2021 Recap from Klayvio​

No matter how much you prepare or plan ahead for Cyber Weekend, it’s impossible to know how your strategy will actually perform when Black Friday finally arrives—and you’re most likely left wondering, â€śWill Cyber Weekend make or break our yearly revenue goals?”

This year, over 160,000 active Klaviyo customers drove more than $5.3B in global sales and $3.6B in US sales over Cyber Weekend. These brands drove almost $1.5B globally across owned channels including email and SMS.

This data tells us that Klaviyo customers generated $48K over Cyber Weekend and $15.5K from email and SMS on average. See Klaviyo’s 2021 Report to see how you compare.

THE $3M CHALLENGE
Our Growth Team Launched a Startup Studio

We launched a startup studio and we are growing 3 companies to $1M in sales each. Specifically, an agency, a D2C brand and a SaaS Company. As a bonus, we’re documenting every step along the way. We’re calling it The $3M Challenge. Follow the journey to $3M right here.

Here is our update for December 2021.