Howdy Founders 🤠 

How’s business?

This one will be a bit longer than usual. I have a few things I want to discuss.

Let’s talk about:

• When to shut down 📉 

• Alternatives to shutting down 🏊‍♂️ 

• COLD EMAIL (Yes, I’m on this again — plz read) 🥶 📧 

• Business Idea of the Week 💡 

When to shut down

A few of my friends have needed to hear this recently, so I figured the thought could also do some good here.

It’s easy for us founders to forget that optimism doesn’t actually change the world in our favor. The odds are so stacked against us that we as founders must be even MORE delusional than the typical business owner. We have to convince ourselves (so that we can convince others) that this thing we are working on is an OUTLIER in some way.

Oddly, the longer we keep it going, the more evidence we have that our business isn’t working, AND YET the further convinced we become that we are on to something. That we are beating the odds.

FUN FACT: Statistically the longer a new business lasts, the better the odds are that it will shut down in the next year.

So the longer we survive…the less likely we are to… survive 🤦 Great.

So, are you going to shut down eventually? Probably.

This was supposed to be about WHEN to shut down though. Am I recommending that right now, without knowing anything about your business, you should shut ‘er down? NO.

This write-up is to get YOU thinking about it. Are you having fun? GREAT! Keep going!

Here are some bad reasons to keep going:

1. You could get acquired if you could just hit that milestone you’ve been reaching for (Like: Doubling your business)

   • You probably would have hit it by now if this was going to be a business worth buying.

2. You still have investors’ money in the bank

   • Give it back? (They love that)

3. It will be embarrassing to tell your friends/family that your amazing idea didn’t work.

   • Maybe…but your next thing might work ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Alternatives to shutting down:

Fix your marketing

Since almost a quarter of all startup failures are due to marketing-related issues (I believe it’s closer to 60-70%), rather than shutting down, you could try getting some help with your marketing.

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the Winston Francois Consulting Connection, which is an a la carte booking site to schedule an hour at a time with some serious KILLERS in the growth and go-to-market world. I’ve read a few success stories already and the general vibe is that you pay a couple hundred bucks and make that money back the same or the next day with what you learned. GO TRY IT (I’m on there but please don’t book me unless you wanna talk AI Automation since I’m on that kick right now).

Also please email me your success stories. The whole group is awesome and I know you’re going to be happy you tried it.

Get acquired (AKA: Rescued)

Palm Venture Studios will buy your company if they think they can put some cash in and get some revenue out. I’m serious.

They’re looking for companies that are

• Venture-backed

• Sub $10m valuation

• With a product in the market

They currently have an appetite for:

• EdTech

• Consumer

• CPG

If this sounds like you, hit me up for an intro. I know them really well and I’m happy to get you in there the same day.

Cold E-Mail 🥶 📧 

You HAVE to do this. I don’t care if you have a really obscure B2B business with a tiny market or a big market consumer e-commerce store.

About a decade ago, cold email became quite difficult. It was almost impossible to get into people’s inboxes and it was cost prohibitive for many business types. Well, I’m happy to say that those days are behind us and Cold Email is FULLY back.

Thanks to modern AI and tools that harness its power like Lemlist, a little bit of skill in copywriting/editing goes a long way. It’s no longer difficult to get into people’s inboxes with like a 99.7% success rate.

My workflow:

Step 1 - Set up an account on an AI-powered COLD email platform

DO NOT use Instantly.ai for this! I’ll write more about this below if you want the tea, but the summary is that they suck now. (I’m waiting on a response from the founders before I write up all the complaints I’ve been getting from the community)

Set up an account on Lemlist and I promise you’ll thank me later. It’s too cheap for what it’s going to do for your business.

You have to do this part 2 weeks before you’re ready to send emails because they have to warm up so do this today!

Step 2 - Get some leads

There are many ways to do this like Apollo, ZoomInfo, Rocket Reach, etc. What I’ve been doing recently is going on Fiverr and searching “{industry} leads” and paying someone on there like $0.10 per lead. You wanna run a test with 500 leads? That’ll be $50. NOT BAD!

Step 3 - Write cold email copy like a friend

The goal with this is to just get a response of any kind. DO NOT try to sell anything or get people into your marketing funnel in the first cold email.

Write subject lines with questions like “Hey did you convert those prospects?” or “Were we supposed to know about this already?”. MAKE THEM CLICK.

Write SHORT text-only emails like:

“Brenda, I can’t remember if I told you about this before but we’re doing a new thing where agents can 5-10 homebuyer prospects for free for signing up this month.

Did you need the link again?"

— John”

Make them think “Damn, do I know this guy?” and you’ll significantly increase the amount of response you get. This is ALL about the responses. Once they’ve responded you can send them links and graphics and marketing stuff.

Step 4 - Set up amazing follow-ups

Try this follow-up for your first one (Literally the next day):

“Hey Brenda, just making sure you saw my email because Susan at Remax-{city} told me it went in her spam for some reason 🙁 

I know you’ll wanna jump on this so I’m just nudging to make sure its in the right place

— John

Sent from my iPhone”

Step 5 - Follow up more than you think you should

Don’t act like you don’t know this is necessary. This will work and you know it.

Set up subsequences that will drip helpful awesome information to anyone who responded to the first email but didn’t convert yet. Be a good friend to them and give them the good stuff.

Ok go get ‘em!

THE END

I hope this one didn’t come off as too harsh. I write this like I’m talking to a friend. We’re friends, right?

Love you 🙂 

— John