The Leaf Node

Boron Letters: Advice on Copywriting - Part 5

Chapter 17 How to get good at copywriting The way to get good at copywriting is to copy good writing. [I knew there would be a pun in there] The author advices copying by hand good ads you come across. Before I decided to

booknotes

Boron Letters: Advice on Copywriting - Part 4

Chapter 13 Do guilt and manipulation work? This letter starts off explaining how to induce guilt in a direct mail sales pitch. Sadly, the below sample copy does not stand the test of time. So many fauxpas here. More an example of things you

booknotes

Boron Letters: Advice on Copywriting - Part 3

Selling info products, customizing products to a niche, how to get people to open your sales emails and what to put inside those emails. Those are the topics covered in the the next four letters I read (9 to 12). Chapter 9 Selling info

booknotes

Boron Letters: Advice on Copywriting - Part 2

This is part 2 of my notes from The Boron Letters. The next chapters (5 to 8) get into how to make money and how to get rich. Chapter 5 Become a student of markets / a student of reality This one is about how

booknotes

Boron Letters: Advice on Copywriting - Part 1

Why Read This Book The Boron Letters are famous in the world of copywriting. They are written by a person named Gary C. Halbert in the 1980s. They are written by a father addressing his son. Side note: this author apparently went to jail

booknotes

Deploy Empathy by Michele Hansen - Part 4

This is the last post for this book. This part is about analyzing the interviews and taking action by pulling together what you've learned. Analyzing Interviews You can use interviews to make decision about product (new features, what to build in the first place)

booknotes

Deploy Empathy by Michele Hansen - Part 3

This part is all about the actual Interview. How to ask useful and impactful questions for different types of interview scenarios. Interviews The different types of interviews: Discovery interviews - for exploring a new idea or problem space Switch interviews - to figure out

booknotes

Deploy Empathy by Michele Hansen - Part 2

This post covers 3 major parts from the book: When Should You Do Interviews, Recruiting Participants and How to Talk So People Will Talk When Should You Do Interviews Interviews are used for both Targeted research for answering specific questions around a project and

booknotes

Deploy Empathy by Michele Hansen - Part 1

Why read this book? What do you know about customer interviews and what do you think about the word Empathy before starting?I know that customers interviews are good to do and helpful for many businesses. I tend to associate them more with SaaS

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SunsetUnder the BridgeYellow House, Gray SkyA walk on a cloudy dayA hike

Commitment Issues. Going All-In on One Thing.

Audio Version: I've been flip flopping between 3 different paths for the last couple months. And it doesn't feel good, it feels like a struggle and it doesn't feel like progress is being made. And it hasn't been effective. SO the goal of this

Notes From the Best Indiehacker Podcast Episodes

Capturing the most interesting or surprising bits from each episode. Not a summery of the entire episode. Bite sized. I note patterns of repeating advice and insights along with my observations on both the business building side and human psychology side. Public Notebook, updated

Why It Works

Why It Works: How LearnUX.io Got Its First 100 Customers

Why Do People Want This (Biz Side) What is the problem? Who is the target customer? What is the solution, the promise? Why do people pay? The Problem: User experience design is an important part of product design. There are many resources to learn

Why It Works

Why It Work: Mentorcruise Marketplace

Why Do People Want This (Biz Side) What is the problem? Who is the target customer? What is the solution, the promise? Why do people pay? The Problem: Getting into tech and learning to code is hard. There is an abundance of free or

Why It Works

Why It Works: Lunch Money Personal Finance App

Why Do People Want This (Biz Side) What is the problem? Who is the target customer? What is the solution, the promise? Why do people pay? The Problem: is in the personal finance and budgeting domain. Many apps exist in this space. Some try

Why It Works

Why It Works: VEED.IO Video Editing Platform

This case study is slightly different. Veed has grown rapidly over the last 18 months and they are well beyond 100 customers (in the ten thousands). So, in addition to the first 100, we'll cover all distribution channels and customer acquisition strategies that have

Why It Works: Apps Without Code

Why Do People Want This (Biz Side) What is the problem? Who is the target customer? What is the solution, the promise? Why do people pay? The Problem: People who are not software developers have good ideas for Apps - tools that can be

Why It Works

Why It Works: Leave Me Alone App

Why Do People Want This (Biz Side)What is the problem? Who is the target customer? What is the solution, the promise? Why do people pay? The Problem: too many unwanted emails in your inbox, emails that you never open and may have signed

Failed to make $1000 from a project: debugging why before moving on

In the interest of taking my own advice, debugging why the most recent project I shipped "failed" (putting failed in quotes because you know it's not that dramatic) I didn't expect to make money from this project. I wanted to get this idea I

newsletter

Let's Talk About Money and the Fear of Charging

Many indie makers have a fear of charging money for their stuff, at least at the beginning (I very much include myself here). This is a real legitimate fear with logical objections. Until we address these internal objections, we can't readily follow the advice

Debugging Your Way Through Indie Hacking

Debugging is figuring out why something is not working as expected. Both sides of the equation matter. It could be "not working" because either 1. your expectations are wrong OR 2. there is a reason and you haven't found it yet. Your job while

newsletter

How Stuff Works: Search Engine Optimization [#Letter23]

Here's a report from 10+ hours of SEO research including reading original SEO documentation from Google. (Full list of resources at the bottom). As a software engineer I mostly thought of SEO as a marketing tactic people use to get (lure?) other people on

newsletter

Start With Questions: 7 Steps to Efficient Learning [Letter#22]

Imagine that you have a reliable system for learning any topic that interests you. For first-time entrepreneurs learning efficiently and consistently is key to progress and success. But sometimes when we decide to learn more about a new topic, we don't know where to

newsletter

How to Craft Effective Landing Pages and Common Mistakes to Avoid [Letter#21]

Hi there! Last week we talked about deciding who your customers is as an entrepreneur. So assuming you have ideas for products/services that solve a problem for this group, how do you communicate those with your potential customers? A landing page, sometimes known

newsletter

The Most Important Decision for Founders [Letter #20]

Three questions to ask yourself before starting a business or getting attached to a business idea: What resources are you willing to put in? time, money, risk?Who do you want your customers to be?What do you want to get out of this?