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Entrepreneur's Handbook
entrepreneurshandbook.co · Group blog · on HN since 2017
Medium publication with startup stories, founder case studies, and growth tactics, such as MailChimp's rise and Coinbase's origins.
What HN saysHN commenters link it for startup anecdotes and a study of user acquisition channels drawn from indie hacker interviews, which one calls a great article.
90HN people shared it
12linked it in comments
114stories submitted
728story points
2 years agolast shared
2017people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Programmer Rejects $6B, Gets Fired from His Own Company4 people · 15 points · first shared 2020 · 2 comments on HN
- 2An Elderly Mathematician Hacked the Lottery for $26M3 people · 243 points · first shared 2020 · 89 comments on HN
- 3Top 15 Acquisition Channels That Worked for 479 Founders3 people · 13 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
- 4Lines of Code Turned into a $36B Empire2 people · 5 points · first shared 2020 · discussion on HN
- 5What You Should Know Before Starting a Professional Services Business2 people · 4 points · first shared 2020 · 1 comments on HN
- 6Running a Remote-First Startup: Do's and Don'ts2 people · 3 points · first shared 2021 · discussion on HN
- 7The staged protest that kickstarted the growth of salesforce into a billion dollar company a53d6995f7622 people · first shared 2021
- 8MailChimp: A side project that turned into a $700m/year revenue business1 people · 153 points · first shared 2021 · 26 comments on HN
- 9What We Learned from 100 Presentations of Startups1 people · 28 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 10My Startup Failed Six Years Ago. I’ve Been Hiding from My Shame Ever Since1 people · 26 points · first shared 2021 · 5 comments on HN
- 11I Sold My Entire Investment Portfolio One Hour Ago1 people · 20 points · first shared 2020 · 16 comments on HN
- 12Crucial Keys to Get into Y Combinator1 people · 17 points · first shared 2019 · discussion on HN
- 13Mountain climbing trained me for startup life (2020)1 people · 15 points · first shared 2020 · 7 comments on HN
- 14If You Can’t Buy It Twice, Don’t Buy It1 people · 15 points · first shared 2022 · 7 comments on HN
- 15Advice to Entrepreneurs from a Millionaire1 people · 8 points · first shared 2021 · 1 comments on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
chr15m · 2024-10-19
This is a great article where somebody systematically analyzed indie hackers interviews to figure out the best channels for user acquisition:
https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/top-15-acquisition-channels-that-work…
PaulHoule · 2021-12-10
Ideally you would have connections with people in the media developed over a long period of time or know some people who do.
Barring that you need something really newsworthy. You should read or watch the news and keep track of the names of the bylines. Try to understand what those people think is newsworthy and give them what they need to produce their product.
You can cold pitch anyone with a byline once, so it had better be good.
Be "notorious". You could be on TV tomorrow if your murdered your cofounder.
Thou shalt not kill, but here is an original marketing hack
https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-staged-protest-that-kickstarted-t…
plaidfuji · 2023-03-22
As a layperson with no economic credentials, I’d recommend books with a bit of entertainment value, even if they may gloss over some details. It’s still important to understand the basic theory and mechanics of the financial markets, but it’s equally important to understand the human factors and politics involved, and some of these more narrative books are helpful in that regard.
I found The Big Short both entertaining and enlightening on the 2008 crash, a while back I also read “The Number” by Alex Berenson, which focuses more on corporate equities and the rise of earnings per share as a driving metric.. I did also read about half of an older book called “Secrets of the Temple”, which gives a history of how Paul Volcker handled the inflation crisis of the 80s. That was more dense but really helped solidify my understanding of the Fed. I’ve also recently started “Random Walk through Wall Street”, which again is mostly equities-focused but so far seems to give a balanced take on the financial and human factors.
As far as explaining the most recent crisis, I’ve found this blog [0] to be the most informative, approachable and somewhat entertaining. Very clear explanation of what exactly the BTFP program is doing, with a healthy amount of speculation about how it could be abused and potential effects of that. Disclaimer that it’s written by a crypto researcher, but there’s very little content about crypto.
[0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/kaiseki-b15230bdd09e
swamp40 · 2023-02-21
Incredible. Looks like he finally found his co-founder on Reddit[0] though. Both billionaires now.
[0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/how-coinbases-founder-turned-an-idea-…
shaburn · 2022-10-17
Benioff staged a fake "end of software" protest against Siebel as a marketing ploy, successfully attracting news coverage. https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-staged-protest-that-kickstarted-t…
deadcoder0904 · 2022-07-19
the company (rovio) that built angry birds only succeeded after 51+ failed games.
source: https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/how-a-bunch-of-angry-birds-turned-aro…
tim333 · 2022-07-02
Update - I came across something on why they would have made such a loan
Voyager was offering the public high interest rates eg. 9% on USDT and 6% on bitcoin and then had to find somewhere to put that money that promised to pay more than that interest so they could make a profit. (rates https://www.investvoyager.com/blog/voyagers-june-interest-apr-rates/)
>3AC said they would pay a high rate of interest, and Voyager took their word for it– because in the minds of Voyager’s principals, there was no other outfit with 3AC’s pedigree that could absorb the amount of capital that needed to be shipped out the door. https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/number-three-511f334d8fae
So basically they lent the money because it was other people's money and they could make a profit as an intermediary.
johnnyApplePRNG · 2021-08-02
I thought it was well known why Jack Ma/Ant were being crushed?
He spoke out against and essentially insulted the government in a speech last year, and immediately disappeared from the limelight. [0]
[0] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/the-speech-that-cost-jack-ma-37-billi…
Jaxtek · 2020-12-29
Yes sure! I don't have any responsibilities at this age.So there can't be a better time than now to try things out.We (I) have the energy ,time and "freedom" required to do something crazy.I might lose some time and energy but there can't be a better time than now.So we (I) should keep building things and learn a lot.Many millionaires wish they started earlier[1].I already regret wasting my college years.So I don't wanna "miss out" this time.Thank you everyone for your advice
[1]https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/heres-what-these-20-millionaires-wish…
justiceforsaas · 2020-11-08
Oh, it's something I update very often and want to send emails/ask for feedback when I do. There's an article version of the top 15 acquisition channels available here though: https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/top-15-acquisition-channels-that-work…
nicovarchar2 · 2020-10-26
Maybe interesting for you : https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/what-you-should-know-before-starting-…
freediver · 2023-02-10
Congrats on still sticking to the idea of monetizing via payments vs throwing ads everywhere. This and your reply here is a rare positive signal coming from Medium nowadays.
A few personal observations:
1. For a paywalled service, quality is everything. When seeing medium.com in the URL, my expectation is that on average I will see low quality writing, that is forming its own character now, somewhat similar to LinkedIN [1] (exceptions exist but are invisible). Have you considered paywall to post, even as low as $1/mo as a content quality filter?
2. There is no reason for a 16k character article to require 6.5MB of data to render. (looking at a random article from the home page [2]). I hear that Medium has an optimized writing experience, why not have an optimized reading experience too?
3. Do you wish Medium became what Substack did, and if no, what is your vision for it? Why should one use Medium as an author or as a reader?
[1] https://twitter.com/StateOfLinkedIn
[2] https://entrepreneurshandbook.co/be-present-aff45d6421b4