Today, we'll help all the non-storytellers tell a compelling story about their business. We've got a framework that'll walk you through the ingredients of a compelling story, and a mise en place-inspired approach that'll help you get to story market fit. We've got some rules, some variables, some accelerants, and an example about a service that helps Airbnb hosts launch their own interior design businesses.  

• Tacklebox
• Idea to Startup Newsletter
• Building a Story Brand
• Your New Life Will Cost You Your Old One
• Work Clean - The Life-Changing Power of Mise en Place
• How to Write Essays that Spread

00:30 Storytelling for your startup
03:24 The Two Reasons for the Barefoot Son Story
07:09 Smooth Jazz
07:37 The Three Ruls of Good Storytelling for Entrepreneurs
08:45 Rule 1: Good Stories Are About Speed
10:44 Rule 2: You Don’t Matter
11:39 Rule 3: A Good Story is Earned
12:22 Mise En Place
14:10 The Ingredients of Your Story
17:09 The Accelerants
19:24 Airbnb Interior Design
23:23 The End: Montaigne

Most startup advice says you need to be "maniacally focused" on one thing. I disagree. You need to balance your focus with some good old fashioned floundering. This episode is about the balance - when to focus and when to flounder - and how to build each skill. We even built a framework to help you out - The Four Rules of Floundering. 

• The Let's Actually Run Customer Interviews Workshop - a 10-day program that'll help you actually, finally, run proper customer interviews. This will kickstart your business. $150 through July 31 with code "EARLY"
• Flounder Mode
   

0:00 Let’s Run Customer Interviews Workshop
01:12 Mailbag
02:44 How to Flounder
03:56 The Idea: Community Investment Circles
07:11 When is it time to become “maniacally focused”?
10:35 The Four Rules of Floundering
15:26 Floundering’s real value: longevity

One of the most-listened and shared episodes of 2024 - an episode that multiple people reached out months later to say "this single episode helped me launch my business." So, that's cool. It's on standing out in a crowded market, and it's on mice. Specifically, the guy who got rid of ours. 

There are four lessons, a framework, Customer Journey Mapping and the Feature Fold. 

• Tacklebox
• Idea to Startup Newsletter
• Idea to Startup Bot
• Sugar (but it stinks)

00:30 Intro
02:00 We’ve Got Mice
05:15 The Mouse Man’s Funnel
07:50 Smooth Jazz
08:21 One - Build Your Funnel to Match Customer Emotion
11:45 Good Questions For Your Funnel
12:30 Two - Contrast from the Feature Fold
14:30 Saving your Customers a Decision
15:53 Three - Take Yourself Seriously
19:14 Four - The Things Other People Stink At
22:14 The End
22:50 Recap of the Four Lessons

Today, we'll help you stop beating yourself up so that you have the space to take the creative, strategic risks your startup needs to be successful. We'll go through the Eight Eccentricities of Startups - stuff you beat yourself up over but shouldn't - and three practices to help you navigate them. We also talk about baseball, goldfish, and Guy Raz. 

• Tacklebox
• Stop Beating Yourself Up Post

00:30 Stop Beating Yourself Up
02:53 The Beating Yourself Up Equation
06:49 Smooth Jazz
07:04 The Reality of Baseball
09:18 The Eight Eccentricities of Startup Progress
17:16 Three Practices to Break the Beat Yourself Up Cycle

Today, we've got a classic, much-listened to episode on getting your first 1,000 customers. We contrast the approaches of two pizza companies - Push for Pizza and Slice - and see how each company's early growth approach led to their bigger strategy. You also get a much less polished Brian on the mic. My grunge era. Enjoy! 

• Tacklebox
• Slice
• First 1000 Substack
• Tacklebox + Self-Serve Product

Most founders don't know what their differentiator is. That's a problem. Today, we walk through two paths to help you find a differentiator strong enough to anchor a business. We also help you root out bad differentiators - the ones that'll just waste your time. There's also a story about a Rabbi's wisdom, a founder making decaf coffee, and a poison ivy company I'm obsessed with. 

• Tacklebox - start your company before you quit your job
• How to Find Your Wedge
• How to Use Landing Page Tests 

00:30 Differentiator Intro
01:45 Rabbi Joke
05:15 Smooth Jazz
05:45 How to Find Your Differentiator
06:46 Path 1: Letting a Customer Tell You
11:41 Path 2: Four Questions to Pick Your Differentiator
19:32 How to Test Differentiators
21:00 The Reality of Differentiators (Downer)
22:16 The End - Taking Yourself Seriously

Vacuums are uncomfortable, but they're actually far less risky than the alternative. A No Whisper Ideas post on how to think about, approach, and create vacuums.

Brought to you by Tacklebox.  

Today, we're digging into the mailbag to answer some common questions. We hit on how to actually commit to a startup idea when you aren't confident it'll work (featuring the Discipline + Strategy Levers), the most frequent advice I give (feat. Monkeys and Pedestals and Sell the Position), and a question on the startup decision - should you do a thing that'll take 10 years? 

• Tacklebox
• Good Strategy Bad Strategy
   

00:30 Mailbag
01:53 Question One: How to Commit to an Idea
03:57 Discipline - Levers and Hooks
05:42 Marathon Programs
11:30 Strategy - Where to Run
19:00 Smooth Jazz
19:21 Question Two: The Key Stories
20:22 Monkeys and Pedestals
23:00 Sell the Position
25:07 The $10K Prompt
25:53 Question Three: How Old Will You Be?

Today is Part 2 of the series introducing the ERP (Early Rep Potential) Rubric. The idea behind ERP is that the best idea for you is the one you can do "full rep" tests on the fastest. We help Erica evaluate the potential of her FODMAP idea, where she's looking to help people identify specific food sensitivities. We score the idea and get clarity on its potential. We also talk a little Jon Hamm.  

• Tacklebox (test your startup idea)
• No Whisper Ideas (weekly newsletter, sign up to get a Notion copy of the ERP Rubric)
• How to Pick Which (of your many) Ideas to Pursue (ERP Rubric Part 1)
• Jon Hamm Show

00:30 ERP Rubric Part Two
03:52 The Ideas - Mold and FODMAPs
06:27 ERP Intro: Choose a Specific Customer
09:12 Part 1: Can You Find Your Customer?
12:59 Part 2: Can You Convert Customers?
17:01 Part 3: Can You Build a Solution?
21:12 Part 4: Collecting Feedback
23:19 Part 5: Organic Growth Potential
25:23 The Final Two Questions
28:00 The End

Today, we're trying something new. We send out the No Whisper Ideas newsletter every Sunday, and today, we posted it here. Maybe you'll like it. It's on Startup Misogis, a way to make a visible, memorable dent in your year. 

• Tacklebox
• No Whisper Ideas
• The North Fork Century
• The Ride
• Misogi
• Jesse Itzler
• Proof That You Can Do Hard Things

00:00 Intro - What This Is
01: 34 A 100 Mile Bike RIde
02:22 A Misogi Challenge
04:16 Startup Misogis