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Holiday week means lots of progress on projects that bring me joy.

In the past few days PuffinPay has had 1k lines of code written & 150 deleted.

Making big strides & really enjoying working on it.

#buildInPublic #startups
Get creative with your sales.

I made over $15k in sales to a group of 5 strangers at once by thinking outside of the box.

This was for a 3 month course. Enrollment was low & it started soon.

Here’s what I did (which inspired my upcoming SaaS product):

#buildInPublic #startup
Best growth hack for winning large clients?

Help people in a meaningful way.

That's literally how I've won my biggest customers.

2 real examples from my personal experience:

#startup #buildInPublic
There's a cost to pursuing goals.

We have limited time & energy, so pursuing one goal generally closes the door to other options.

But we often don't know which goal is best.

Here's a strategy I recommend:

#buildInPublic #learnToCode #Career #startup
Continuing to work through Puffin Pay's core functionality.

Integrated with Stripe Connect so merchants on our platform can accept payments through Stripe.

Working to get PuffinPay ready ASAP so that it can be used for Debug Academy's upcoming cohort.

#buildinpublic
Made some good progress on PuffinPay today!

Decided not to use Laravel Cashier. Not a great fit for our project, especially as its primary focus is providing unique & creative checkout options.

First building interfaces for payments, then integrating Stripe.

#buildInPublic
Most of my experience is with #php and #drupal

Drupal is a great website-builder-builder. Use it to build a specialized wix.

I chose #Laravel for PuffinPay because:
- Skills transfer
- Good for quick backend dev
- To become more well-rounded

#buildInPublic
I worked at a company which was acquired for $1 Billion dollars.

Before they were acquired, I left to work for myself.

I didn't exercise my options (purchase my shares), so I didn't benefit from them being acquired.

Why? And do I regret it? ⤵️

#startups #buildInPublic
A student reached out w/this message:
"I DID IT!!!! I got an offer! I will be so thrilled to start making my payments again. Thank you for everything. For all your support. For caring. For all you do!!!!"

Why were they so kind and enthusiastic? What did we do?

#buildInPublic
👇
Excited to be building a SaaS product!

I've talked to a *lot* of customers. More people will buy your product than you think - sometimes they just need kindness & flexibility with the payments.

We're simplifying ethical sales:
puffinpay.io

#buildInPublic
Ads resulted in a fair # of visits

Main takeaway was:
Focus on converting to newsletter subs instead of directly to sales

To that end:
- Added a newsletter popup form
- Improved site performance

Current focus is improving SEO so we move up in search results.

#buildInPublic
Let's see what our CAC is. #buildInPublic

We've been around, next semester will be our 17th. We teach #webdev using #Drupal.

95% of our students join by alumni referrals.

Trying paid ads. Here are the first two versions for LinkedIn.
Did you know your browser comes with free tools for analyzing website performance, accessibility, SEO & more?

Visit a webpage, run the tool & receive scores and actionable items for improving it

How to use it & a demonstration

#a11y #seo #learnToCode #html #buildInPublic
1/4
Here's a time-saver:

I send many emails with similar content. For example, when someone applies to a class, 80% of the email is identical from one student to the next.

Gmail has support for "templates". Save emails as templates & select templates when responding

#buildInPublic
Rolled off a long-term contract recently & will use the saved time to #buildInPublic.

@FounderSummit 's SaaS cohort helps me work w/ppl @ similar stage.

My team picked @laravelphp for our app & set the repo up last week 🚀

Focus=democratize premium products (e.g event tickets)
Check out the title of the email I just received from LinkedIn: "Replace this with a real subject line"

Looks like even the big companies like to #buildInPublic
This is where the "Learn more" button will take users:
debugacademy.com/course/drupal-…

To a course page for our part-time 3-month course.

So far the click through rate is 0.11%. Sounds low, but seems fairly standard..?

Need to let it run before drawing conclusions.

#buildInPublic
Let's see what our CAC is. #buildInPublic

We've been around, next semester will be our 17th. We teach #webdev using #Drupal.

95% of our students join by alumni referrals.

Trying paid ads. Here are the first two versions for LinkedIn.
I cut out snacking and stopped finishing the kids’ plates. Also biking 2-3 times a week / when I can. 23% closer to my target weight.

A long-term project ends soon.

Refocusing on:
- Health
- Family
- Remaining PT client
- @DebugAcademy
- #buildInPublic product development 🚀 twitter.com/ashabed/status…
I made it out 2 days in a row. AMA.

I don’t have time to ride daily w/teaching, consulting, product-building & family. Delayed some product work today.

But I plan to at least be more mindful of what i consume, go on meeting-walks, and bike a few times each week.

#buildInPublic twitter.com/ashabed/status…
I’m completely against the “fire fast” recommendation that so many startup experts make.

#buildInPublic #careers #startups
@Shpigford We don’t “fire fast”. If someone truly isn’t a fit for our needs, we don’t assign them much work for a month or two while we train them (or sponsor training for them) for their next job. They typically end up in a position they love with this approach & refer people to us for yrs
Word-of-mouth has historically worked well for us, until corona.

So we're improving our online marketing.

Check out what our team member
@LinzCDesigns designed:
debugacademy.com/course/drupal-…

..After taking our class, she coded it too!

#buildInPublic #learnToCode #drupal #design