February 22nd, 2020
There's the ol' phrase: "It's not about what you know. It's about who you know."
It's very cliche, but I think as bootstrapped founders and people trying to "make it" on the internet, we can take some lessons from that.
I consider myself to be "self-made". When I think about something I want to do or accomplish, I romanticize the idea of "doing it all by myself" - this will always be a part of me, and it is a part of my identity. It's also probably the reason I failed at having co-founders and had more success as a solo founder.
However, when you look closer at very successful people and companies, you actually see that there is a whole network of people that helped make them successful.
I've got a couple examples.
1 - I used to work for an enterprise software company called Anaplan back when they were a Silicon Valley startup.
I had a customer-facing role and one thing I noticed was that most of our customers were also in Silicon Valley, and Anaplan was often a customer of theirs! For example, we paid a lot of money for DocuSign's product, and DocuSign paid a lot of money for Anaplan's product.
Now, that doesn't mean companies will be successful that do this (you still have to have a great product), but Anaplan is now worth $8B, their stock tripled in the last year, and they now have customers all around the world.
Sure, Anaplan could have gone with a cheaper e-signature product, but they had a strategic relationship with DocuSign, and it's hard to quantify what came from that (more customers, more word of mouth, important product feedback). DocuSign also went IPO and doubled their valuation in a couple years.
2 - Pieter Levels is probably the most successful solo founder I can think of. One thing I've noticed about him is that he truly gives back to the community.
He buys other maker's products, he sponsored the 24-hour startup with $500, he retweets stuff from people early in their journey. I can't really think of other people that do this. The only time you'll see this is from like VCs who are just RT'ing companies they've invested in. The difference between Levels is that he gives back with no expectation of anything in return.
Personally, I've been on the other end of his retweets and they have definitely contributed to my growth/sales/followers/etc. I look back at those moments as "defining" for me and I will always see Pieter as an element of my own success and influence.
And I honestly do think this kind of thing has contributed to his own success. I mean, it is the reason I am talking about him right now and think about every now and then.
You can call it selfish, I think it's beneficial for me to support other people even if I don't need to. Whether that's:
It's very cliche, but I think as bootstrapped founders and people trying to "make it" on the internet, we can take some lessons from that.
I consider myself to be "self-made". When I think about something I want to do or accomplish, I romanticize the idea of "doing it all by myself" - this will always be a part of me, and it is a part of my identity. It's also probably the reason I failed at having co-founders and had more success as a solo founder.
However, when you look closer at very successful people and companies, you actually see that there is a whole network of people that helped make them successful.
I've got a couple examples.
1 - I used to work for an enterprise software company called Anaplan back when they were a Silicon Valley startup.
I had a customer-facing role and one thing I noticed was that most of our customers were also in Silicon Valley, and Anaplan was often a customer of theirs! For example, we paid a lot of money for DocuSign's product, and DocuSign paid a lot of money for Anaplan's product.
Now, that doesn't mean companies will be successful that do this (you still have to have a great product), but Anaplan is now worth $8B, their stock tripled in the last year, and they now have customers all around the world.
Sure, Anaplan could have gone with a cheaper e-signature product, but they had a strategic relationship with DocuSign, and it's hard to quantify what came from that (more customers, more word of mouth, important product feedback). DocuSign also went IPO and doubled their valuation in a couple years.
2 - Pieter Levels is probably the most successful solo founder I can think of. One thing I've noticed about him is that he truly gives back to the community.
He buys other maker's products, he sponsored the 24-hour startup with $500, he retweets stuff from people early in their journey. I can't really think of other people that do this. The only time you'll see this is from like VCs who are just RT'ing companies they've invested in. The difference between Levels is that he gives back with no expectation of anything in return.
Personally, I've been on the other end of his retweets and they have definitely contributed to my growth/sales/followers/etc. I look back at those moments as "defining" for me and I will always see Pieter as an element of my own success and influence.
And I honestly do think this kind of thing has contributed to his own success. I mean, it is the reason I am talking about him right now and think about every now and then.
You can call it selfish, I think it's beneficial for me to support other people even if I don't need to. Whether that's:
- buying an indie maker's product even if there's a cheaper/free version built by VC backed company
- writing a nice tweet about someone's product
- sending a referral someone's way
- jumping on a phone call with someone to give/seek advice
- sending someone a message to thank, appreciate, or congratulate them
- or even just a simple retweet.
Because I truly believe it will come back to you - maybe not today tomorrow or even this year, but I know that most of my "peers" online will be very very successful in the next 20 years. And if we can all keep propping each other up over the years, it will only continue to help us grow.
So, this year, I've made it a point to try and support more of my peers in the maker/startup/etc space. I'm still working on how to cultivate this, but I want to support more genuine people that are working their ass off.
And when you buy someone's product, do remember that it's already 40% off, because of taxes, ya know!