Howdy Founders 🤠 

In a way, this one took a few months to write 😅 so please read on with the appropriate level of hype (lol)

In this one let’s talk about:

• A Massive new unlock for your hardest (Startup) problems 🔓️ 

• Business Idea of the Week 💡 

• How much are you paying yourself? 🤑 

🔓️ Massive new unlock for your hardest problems

Startups are hard. You never have enough people, money, or time to do what you’re trying to do. And you’re racing against the clock to build something that gets traction before you run out of cash.

What if you could talk to an expert for just an hour about whatever part of your company is blocking you right now?

Enter the New Consulting Connection

I've been working with an amazing growth consulting firm called Winston Francois and I’ve had the pleasure of witnessing the birth of the Consulting Connection.

They’ve built a platform where you can book time with seasoned experts across various domains – from marketing and product development to fundraising and scaling operations. These aren't just any experts; they're people who have been in the trenches and know what it takes to turn obstacles into opportunities.

Why This is a Game-Changer

This isn’t like Intro.co where all of the “experts” are just Twitter thread experts. The people on the Consulting Connection are actually pouring their expertise into startups just like yours (and honing their craft), every day.

Imagine having access to someone who’s successfully navigated the same challenges you're facing, ready to provide tailored advice and actionable insights. Need to refine your go-to-market strategy? There's an expert for that. Are you struggling with user acquisition? They've got you covered. This marketplace is designed to be a lifeline for founders, offering targeted support exactly when you need it.

I even put myself on there so you can grab time with me if you want. I’m excited to connect with you, share what I’ve learned, and help you tackle your startup's hurdles head-on.

Special Offer for Founders Only Subscribers

If you’ve been reading for a while, you know I like to go and get you guys discounts on things. So here’s the deal: Use coupon code FOUNDERSONLY to get 20% off any of your sessions. This is your chance to get expert advice at a fraction of the cost and gain the clarity you need to drive your startup forward.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I’m eager to hear about your experiences and how this resource helps you on your entrepreneurial journey.

Happy Scaling!

💡 Business Idea of the Week

How about a new kind of agency?

HANG WITH ME for a second! I know it already sounds stupid but this could actually be cool. For this example I’m going to re-imagine the SEO agency because I think it’s a low hanging fruit.

The current approach

SEO agencies are a dime a dozen and even all have the same pitch: “Here’s a sample audit of your site’s SEO. We found several ways that we can help out…let me know if you’d like me to send over the full audit”. I’ve heard this pitch a couple hundred times over the years. You know what I haven’t heard yet?

The re-imagined approach

I’ve never had an SEO agency approach me with 10 articles written to rank for keywords relevant to my business (for which I’m not currently ranking) but with modern tools, this would be incredibly simple to pull off.

How I might build this

It would be trivial enough to set up a Zapier Central bot that uses SEMRush on a bunch of sites to determine what keywords they are ranking for and then use a GPT prompt to brainstorm 10 keywords that would benefit them to rank for. You’d basically just keep feeding the bot sites you want to target (that you found contact info for via Apollo or something)

Then you just send those over to a programmatic SEO tool like ByWord and have it write SEO Optimized articles for the 10 keywords. Then drop those in an email saying “Hey I see you’re doing a great job of ranking for keywords like A, B, and C, but I think it would help you a lot to also rank for X, Y, and Z so I took the liberty of writing 10 articles to help you do exactly that…”

That’d be a hell of a pitch.

🤑 How much are you paying yourself?

I want to write a piece next week on how much founders are earning while running their startups but I could use some help from you if you don’t mind taking a second to answer this poll:

THE END

That’s all folks. Thank you as always for reading and see you next time (Be it next week or whenever I get around to it 😃 )

— John