After more than a year of labor, my book 𝘏𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘦𝘯 𝘔𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘪𝘦𝘳𝘴 has launched! It's all my best ideas -- and best writing -- on how to grow your company with your existing budget and team. And yes, I read the audiobook myself. :-) 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝗱𝗶𝗿𝗲𝗰𝘁: You can buy cheaper bundles directly from me -- Kindle and Audiobook, or those plus the physical book -- from hiddenmultipliers.com 𝗕𝘂𝘆 𝗼𝗻 𝗔𝗺𝗮𝘇𝗼𝗻: It is available in paperback, Kindle, and Audible: tinyurl.com/hiddenmultiplier… 𝗙𝗿𝗲𝗲 𝗔𝗜 𝘀𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀: Skills that implement the ideas in the book as well as articles, more added all the time, at skills.asmartbear.com/ I'm so proud of this and grateful to the many people who helped along the way, reading early drafts, challenging my ideas, and encouraging me to do it, and the 750 people who preordered the book, trusting that it would be worth it. All your feedback and ideas are welcome, as usual! (P.S. You know this already, but 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝘃𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗿𝗲𝘃𝗶𝗲𝘄𝘀 and 𝘁𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝘆𝗼𝘂𝗿 𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗲𝗻𝗱𝘀 is extremely appreciated!)

Don’t treat this as a stepping stone. Treat this as your entire reason for being. Throw everything into it. Be the best, but where “the best” is defined by what you do in your special way, with your taste, talents, and even foibles. Because how you live your days is how you live your life. Even if it 𝘪𝘴 a stepping stone, this is how to take the biggest step.

Companies think training videos cost $X00 to make. The real cost is X0,000 people-hours fake-"watching" videos. That's just one insight @balindenberg, @jessicamalnik, and I found for Mindstamp in Smart Bear Live E10: youtube.com/watch?v=pfflbL_i…

I learned to write by copying the styles of other writers and seeing what fit, and what 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘺 didn't, and what else emerged. Copying style, not substance. Although… is that true? Or did I really "have that idea" in 2008 because that's the sort of thing Seth Godin or @jasonfried was saying in 2007? Then people started copying my best ideas without credit, and I was indignant. Maybe even bitter. Who wouldn't be? I mean, at least just toss a name and a link out there. But that matters only if the goal is to be known. It doesn't matter if the goal is to have an effect on someone else. This is how ideas move. Someone tosses a stone into a lake. The waves spread in every direction, far past the splash. Everyone forgets the stone, or never knew it was there. Especially when you think on timelines like a lifetime, or several lifetimes. Plagerism is still wrong, of course, in its own right. But if you take the long view, at least your idea is arriving somewhere you weren't yourself going. That's one way to define a legacy. Maybe a better one than how many people remember you name for another few decades after you could possibly care. longform.asmartbear.com/lega…

Stop calling it "tech debt" when your code breaks at 100x the load. Debt is a shortcut you take on purpose. Code that breaks at 100x is evolution due to growth. If you call it debt, your engineers feel like they failed. They didn't. The company grew. longform.asmartbear.com/scal…

Your stickiest customer may not be your heaviest user. My cohost on Smart Bear Live E10, @jessicamalnik, does positioning for B2B companies for a living. She found Mindstamp's stickiest customer: the one who cares about a certification "at the identity level." We've now seen two kinds of sticky customer on the show. The first kind is locked in. On E01, ScreenshotOne's customers build its feature into products they sell. Unless they rip that feature out, they stay forever. The second kind stays for identity, like Mindstamp's customer. Your product gives them something that's part of who they are. They don't even consider the competition. They'd be OK with a small price increase, and they spread the word even when features are missing. Lock-in keeps a customer because leaving is hard. Identity keeps one because leaving would mean giving up part of who they are. So look at your best customers and ask what they care about at the identity level. Then check that your worst customers don't care about it. Watch Jessica work: youtube.com/watch?v=pfflbL_i…

Interested to see this! I made something that sounds similar for most of the editing for Smart Bear Live, so I'm curious what's different or whether this would be easier.

“Delegation” means you still own it, but someone else does the work. That’s why “delegation” is not “team-building,” and doesn't scale. It buys you time; it doesn’t make the organization better. But "make the organization better" is your job. longform.asmartbear.com/dele…

An A player in one domain is a C player in another, and vice versa. Culture-specific, team-specific, project-specific, role-specific. So, yes, hire A and fire C… …and if you’re the C right now, go find the place where you’re already an A.

It's ironic how many responses to this are obviously AI bots. (Most?) AI still doesn't understand that we don't want it, and it just gets a mute or block. Sorry "earns" is I think the word Claude would have used...

Solid guidelines for retaining customers.

When Microsoft entered our market at Smart Bear, they had everything a startup fears: money, a brand, and customers they could sell to tomorrow. Their code review feature in Visual Studio was a check-box. It said that, somehow, somewhere, a code review happened. They validated our market (further) by entering it. And we sold a ton of Code Collaborator to Visual Studio shops. Microsoft is huge, and that's exactly why they couldn't do better. A big company is stuck with its existing tech, its architecture, its processes, its customers' expectations and its long-term contracts. If it changes the user interface even slightly, it gets a torrent of angry tweets and a support line full of confused people. Then it has to redo every screenshot in the docs. You can change yours this afternoon. But a big company is also "stuck" with a marketing machine that works, customer research, media attention, high-quality internal services, governance and security. It can survey its customers while you're struggling to get one of yours on the phone. Both are true. If you attack the first list, you can win. Microsoft could add a check-box. They couldn't make code review good enough to stop us. If you try to win on the second list, you lose. Only one side can win a fight for the same marketing channel, and they can afford to lose money on a channel just to keep you out of it. They're stuck with both. You get to pick where you fight them. And here's how to do that: longform.asmartbear.com/comp…

"If a pricing page ranges from $20 a month to $20,000 a month, I don't care how you've divvied that up--I'm just confused. … I don't know who you are." I said that to a founder on Smart Bear Live E02. On E10, Mindstamp's founder walked into a version of the same trap. His strategy: be specific. His new idea: a cheaper plan, to reach more people. But, of course, "cheaper" isn't more specific, and "more people" is almost surely not "more specific." You've probably done this too. You pick a niche. You want more customers. A lower tier looks like the easy way to get them. You think that targeting more tightly, being more specific in your ICP, will shrink your market. But it doesn't; it makes you 𝘤𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘦𝘳 to 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘬𝘦𝘵, which means your ICP has an easier time identifying and then picking you, and everyone else is more comfortable with the tradeoffs they'll get, which also makes it easier for them to pick you. And your differentiation is sharper. The cheap plan works the opposite way. It says "we're for anyone," and that's how you end up with the $20-to-$20,000 page. Most segments ignore you 𝘣𝘦𝘤𝘢𝘶𝘴𝘦 you're cheap. So the cheap plan doesn't add to your strategy of being specific. You can be the best for someone or the cheapest for everyone. Pick. I pointed out the contradiction, and he agreed. Then we solved it. Smart Bear Live E10: youtube.com/watch?v=pfflbL_i…

With AI, "be so good they can’t ignore you" becomes "Be so good they can’t replicate you." "So good" will not mean "features" anymore. It will mean design, delight, customer service, opinionation, attitude, brand, community, and more.

On social media it is wise to separate your personal joy, friends, weird jokes, and opinions… …from your company's marketing channels. Easy: Two accounts. One yourself, one your product. You might want to sell one of those someday.

New Smart Bear Live E10 just dropped! Mindstamp makes six figures of profit a year, but growth has stalled. Niche down, or stay general? Cohost @jessicamalnik and I workshop it with @balindenberg (Mindstamp): youtube.com/watch?v=pfflbL_i…

Data-informed, not data-driven.

Don't open a meeting with "We need to decide our Q2 priorities." Instead, say "I'll decide our Q2 priorities by Friday. Help me get it right." The room works out what to weigh. You choose. Otherwise 7 people make the choice for you, and nobody owns it. longform.asmartbear.com/prod…

Sometimes I go on podcasts even when they have no followers or episodes. They ask why. Because: 1. I don't make life decisions based on "number of followers." 2. Persistence 3. Did research (i.e. showed genuine care) 4. Had good questions that I wanted to answer. Don't need an audience for 2-4.