This was such a fun one to write!

Here’s what I have for you today:

• The first-ever Founders Only Retreat is ON!

• Massive design package giveaway ($3,000+)

• Different frameworks for team alignment

• E-commerce is good business? +Free Business Idea

We’re going to Bali 🌴 🤯 

Over 200 of you said you want to go, so we’re going.

In the last edition I asked you folks if you would attend a startup founders meetup in Bali and over 200 people said “Yes” so now it’s happening. If you were one of the people who said “Yes”, then it’s time to put your money where your vote is.

You know that feeling you get when you have a great day hanging out with “Your people”? Imagine THAT feeling x100. This is your chance to experience the pure bliss of being on an incredible adventure alongside your new founder friends who speak your language and understand how you operate.

I have no doubt some of you will find a new best friend and maybe even a future co-founder! It will be the best tax-deductible business expense EVER.

When is this?

The first week of June (2024).

Saturday, June 1 - Monday, June 3 (but you’re definitely going to want to stay for at least a week. It’s cheap and awesome)

What are we going to do?

We’ll all stay in Canggu and we’ll organize a Slack workspace to discuss things like lodging together if you like to save money that way. It’s pretty cheap though; You can find amazing places in Canggu for $500 /week.

A team of great people and I are planning 2.5 days of activities including:

• A keynote and fireside chat with a special guest (I don’t know who, but somebody good)

• A small team hackathon (cash prizes 🤑 )

• Daily organized outdoorsy activities (Surf lessons, beach yoga, cold plunging in nature, etc)

• A day at a beach club

Wow, can I attend?

Here’s the kicker: This is the first-ever “Founders Only Retreat” so we’re going to take it easy and only accept 25 founders.

You have to:

1. Be a CURRENT founder. You must be building something right now.

2. Be fairly mature. Bali is extremely safe, but I'm not your guardian if you climb a tree or something.

3. Be pretty sociable. I’ve seen things like this push introverts to the brink. If you’re an introvert and like challenging yourself in this way, let’s go!

What does the retreat cost?

It’s $500 if you pay your ($200) deposit by end-of-day Monday, April 1. It’s $750 to attend if you miss that early-bird deadline.

YES, it is a tax-deductible business expense.

What is included?

• Breakfast each day

• Lunch 2 days

• Dinner 2 days

• The aforementioned events/experiences.

• Co-working space that looks like this 👇️ 

How do I sign up?

To apply, go here → FILL THIS OUT

I’m going to personally do a 15-minute interview with every person that qualifies. If approved, you will be sent a payment link for the $200 deposit. As long as you pay that by Monday, April 1, you’re locked in at the early bird price of $500 total.

Founders Only 🤝 JetDesigns — Design Giveaway

As you know, I don’t monetize this newsletter so you’ll never see a sponsor. One major benefit is that I get to partner with amazing companies like JetDesings to GIVE STUFF AWAY like this insane design package worth over $3,000!

{The following was written by JetDesigns}

We’re thrilled to partner with Founders Only for this exciting giveaway! At JetDesigns, our mission is to support founders in validating, scaling, and enjoying their startup journey.

About Us: JetDesigns is like Netflix but for startup design. Saving you hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars, while you get to work 1 on 1 with your own expert designer.

Giveaway Details: 

We’re offering a special Founders Design Pack to one lucky community member (Value: $3000+).

• 1x Premium Landing Page Design (Value: $1999+)

• 4x Engaging Social Media Creatives (Value: $499+) 

• 1x Custom Email Template Design (Value: $499+)

How to Enter:

Enter through the designated giveaway page here

Winner Announcement:

The winner will be chosen randomly 1 week from the posting date at 10 AM PST. A JetDesigns team member will announce the winner and provide further details on prize redemption.

{I’ll announce the winner here in the newsletter as well}

Team Alignment

Have you ever lost sleep over a team alignment issue?

Or is your team always perfectly on target with the company mission and “North star”?

I see this issue pop up in founder groups and on Twitter a lot. The bigger a team gets, the more obvious it is to the founder(s) that employees are often working on something because its on their todo list without actually understanding WHY.

A potential solution for this: OKRs

The Objectives and Key Results framework was popularized by John Doerr in the book Measure What Matters. (For the record, my preferred book on the subject is Radical Focus by Christina Wodtke, which I feel is more applicable to small teams).

The OKRs framework helps a team align and concentrate their efforts on achieving significant impacts. OKRs consist of two main components:

1. Objective: This is a clearly defined goal that is qualitative and inspirational. Objectives are intended to be ambitious and challenging, guiding teams and individuals toward a specific direction. They answer the question of what is to be achieved, focusing on the desired end result rather than the process.

2. Key Results: These are measurable outcomes that track the progress toward the Objective. Key Results are quantitative, making it clear whether the Objective has been achieved. They should be specific, time-bound, aggressive yet realistic, and measurable or verifiable. Typically, each Objective is supported by 2-5 Key Results.

The OKR framework encourages setting goals that are ambitious to foster innovation and growth. It emphasizes transparency and alignment within the organization, ensuring that everyone understands how their efforts contribute to the broader company goals.

A more popular (easier to adopt) option is KPIs

Key Performance Indicators are a set of quantifiable measures that are used to gauge performance in terms of meeting strategic and operational goals. Unlike the broader, more ambitious objectives targeted by OKRs, KPIs tend to focus on how specific tasks, projects, or activities contribute towards achieving those key business objectives.

So if your “North star” is “MORE REVENUE” then you might say:

• Devs, ship 2 new features a month with 0 breaking bugs

• Marketing, increase ROAS each week by 20%

• Sales, close 50% of your appointments each week

So anyone on your marketing team should understand that the reason they’re designing slightly more appealing ads or tweaking copy, or writing a 1,500-word blog post, is → because the KPI is a 20% ROAS bump → which is because the North Star is “MORE REVENUE”.

How do you keep your team aligned?

There are standups and check-ins and all manner of apps and frameworks and I’m very interested in what is working for your team.

Ecomm is a good business ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

As a tech founder for the last decade, it took a minute to wrap my head around this.

In case you missed it, Hampton released a report of data gathered from their Ecomm founders. You’ll need to go download it from them if you want all the juicy details (it’s free) but I’ll give you some of my favorite highlights.

Annual Revenue Per Employee (RPE) is pretty sweet!

The average annual revenue per employee is $1.35 Million!

Other Highlights:

• Average Revenue: $25m

• Average Founder Salary: $385k

• Worst performing marketing channel: TikTok (Surprising!)

💡 Free Ecomm Business Idea:

I think a store that sells fake expensive tech items would explode right now. There are so many people who want their home office to look like MKBHD’s. You could start with a realistic-looking (but fake) Apple Vision Pro, for example.

These days people (influencers and wannabe influencers) want to include fancy hot new tech in their Instagram photos (or in the background of their YouTube videos) and don’t necessarily want to shell out thousands of dollars for the real thing as it will largely just be a prop for them.

Or you could start by buying a bunch of these fake iPhones and sticking them in frames to sell to Apple fanboys for $200 each. Anything they can use as a realistic prop.

THE END

Thank you as always for reading this. I don’t have any sponsors or directives or agenda so you’re always going to get whatever topics inspired me during the week. This one was fun!

I love you all.

Sincerely,

John Hancock

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