How to use this course

How to use this course

This course is not designed to be academic at all. If you feel that it is, you're either not the right person for this course or I've done a terrible job. 

It's choppy, practical and... *shudders* actionable

You should start at the top and work your way down. 

Don't jump around. 

Although early stage growth isn't about being overly systematic, there's a reason I wrote everything in the order that I did: 

Because each section has knock on benefits or impacts on following sections

Go through it like that. 

I'm adding audio of every section in case you prefer to consume content like that. 

You'll have access to the spreadsheets I've included in each section for as long as you need them for. 

You may eventually find that you want to remix a lot of the concepts in this course. 

That's OK with me. As long as you're focused on actually growing – don't be an academic. 

Early stage growth is about finding what works.

Early Stage Growth Playbook

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  • Why early stage growth is different
  • How to use this course
  • Narration – Why early stage growth is different1

Validation

  • Why validation is genuinely important
  • The 2 deadly validation mistakes
  • Running user research interviews that don’t suck
  • Turning user research into useful stuff
  • Questions you can ask that don’t lead your interviewees
  • Tool: User Research Feedback Collector
  • Tool: Example of User Research Feedback Collector
  • Narration – Validation

Value Props

  • Why value props matter more than positioning at early-early stage
  • What’s the difference between value propositions and positioning?
  • The 4 components of effective value propositions
  • How to create value propositions with examples
  • Tool: Value Props Template
  • Tool: Example of Completed Value Props Template
  • Narration – Value Props

Message testing

  • Why you don’t need a website yet
  • How to test your concept in less than 20 minutes
  • How to get your first customers at this stage
  • What to do if you don’t get a good response
  • Tool: Simple cold outreach template2
  • Narration – Message Testing

Early stage landing pages

  • Components of early stage landing pages
  • Tool: Copy for early stage landing pages3
  • Narration — Early Stage SaaS Landing Pages

Tracking conversion

  • Why you should care about tracking conversion
  • What events you should be tracking
  • Where you should track progress
  • Tool: Funnel Data Template
  • Narration – Tracking Conversion

Getting strangers to buy from you

  • How to find the places where your prospects are
  • How to pitch to them without being salesy
  • Narration – Getting Strangers to buy from you

Tracking conversion: The funnel strikes back

  • Revisiting your conversion tracking is really important
  • 3 real world examples of why this matters
  • Narration — Tracking conversion: The funnel strikes back

Pain Point Content

  • Why pain point content works so well
  • How to come up with pain point ideas
  • How to write pain point content
  • Tool: Pain point content blog outline
  • Thread: How to 10x your value as a marketer with pain point content
  • Narration – Pain Point Content

Bonus resources

  • Twitter Summary Thread