The 7 Laws of Scaling with Jim Huffman

Referral programs sound good, but how do you make them work? That’s something that today’s guest can talk about with authority. Louis Nicholls is the CEO and co-founder of SparkLoops, a referral tool for newsletter growth. Listen to today’s interview as Louis discusses some advice for launching a referral program, creative things to try with a referral program, and what prompted the idea for SparkLoop in the first place. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• What SparkLoop does
• Advice for launching a referral program
• Creative things to try with a referral program
• James Clear’s referral program
• Where the idea for SparkLoop from
• The baby steps to get traction
• When to go all in
• The key drivers of growth for SparkLoop
• Half-baked ideas that Louis likes
• Advice Louis would give on starting a course
• What helped SparkLoop get to its level of scale
• The nicest thing someone has done for Louis

Resources:

• Louis Nicholls
• SparkLoop
• Louis on Twitter
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Imagine wanting to solve a problem that you are having, then having your efforts turn into a brand that's featured on Shark Tank. That’s what happened to today’s guest, Yve-Car Momperousse. Listen to today’s interview to hear what Yve-Car has to say about how Kreyol Essence was born and started gaining traction, how to build communities and market within them, and deciding where your brand goes next. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• What gave Yve-Car the idea for Kreyol Essence
• How Kreyol Essence started getting traction
• Finding an audience
• What getting traction does for your mindset
• Advice for people who want to build a community and market that way
• How the brand got onto Shark Tank
• What Shark Tank did for the brand
• Navigating where to take your brand next
• How it’s been to run a business with a significant other
• Expanding and introducing new products in a brand that was launched on a flagship product
• The nicest thing that someone’s done for Yve-Car in her professional career

Resources:

• Yve-Car Momperousse
• Yve-Car on Instagram
• Kreyol Essence
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

In this episode, I talk about how you can build a culture you're proud of with small tweaks to how you communicate to your team and how you run your meetings. Hope you enjoy today's episode.

RESOURCES:

• What You Do is Who You Are
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

There are so many startups out there. How can you know which ones you should keep an eye on? In today’s episode, we’ll talk about some of the ones that are high up on our radar. Listen in to hear about some of the top startups that have caught our attention and why we’re keeping an eye on them. 

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• Psychiatric help and prescriptions online
• What kind of pain point is solved by online D2C psychiatric help
• Personalized allergy relief startup by Picnic
• Getting money for your startup with MainStreet
• Billo helps e-commerce companies make ad videos
• Ready-made StoryBrand websites at One Week Website
• Brex started as a startup targeting startups
• BitClout is a cryptocurrency created for the general public
• Privacy allows for the creation of single-use cards
• The use cases for Privacy
• Telegram is used for messaging, document and image sharing, and more
• The way people order cars these days

Resources:

• Lina
• Picnic
• MainStreet
• Billo
• One Week Website
• Brex
• BitClout
• Privacy
• Telegram
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

A by-product is a secondary product made in the manufacture of something else. The lumber yard has sawdust as their by-product. It’s obvious because it literally piles up.  A by-product is much harder to spot when you work in the digital space.

In this episode, I talk about how to find your by-product and give examples of by-products for other companies.

RESOURCES:

• What's Your By-Product
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

What does a startup accelerator do and why does a founder or founding team need one? Today, you’ll find out as you listen to an interview with Isaac Kato, managing director at Techstars Seattle. Listen in to learn what a startup accelerator actually does, why founders want it, and what founders can do to pique the interest of a startup accelerator like Techstars.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• Isaac’s role and background
• What a startup accelerator is
• The main selling point of a startup accelerator for founders
• What someone can do to stand out with their idea
• The questions answered by traction and what kind of traction Techstars is looking for
• Founder/market fit
• Industries that Isaac is interested in
• Applications of virtual worlds
• Isaac’s experience with Stanford and Harvard
• What Isaac is thinking about as he takes on new things
• Isaac’s work in Iceland
• Helping founders with critical thinking

Resources:

• Isaac Kato
• Isaac on Twitter
• Techstars Seattle Accelerator
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

How do you find the right employee or co-founder that could take your business to the next level?  By working in public and showing my work, I have been able to use to find my top hires. Here are some tips on how I show our culture to get the right people to come to us.  Hopefully, it can help you.

Resources:

• Show Your Work
• What You Do Is Who You Are
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Listen in to hear what Billy has to say about getting started on his path, the mindset of a startup, and his company’s current size and growth.

Topics Discussed in Today’s Episode:

• How Billy started his company and got on the path he’s on now
• The rise and fall of Billy's side project that got killed by the government 
• What success does for your mindset
• The use case for a chatbot
• How the company’s customer intelligence inform building new products
• When it made sense to go all in and invest
• Advice for B2B SAAS companies for virtual events and setting big goals
• How to leverage your network
• Evolving from demos to free trials
• Billy’s half-baked startup ideas
• The nicest thing anyone has done for Billy in his professional career

Resources:

• Billy Bateman
• ChatFunnels
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

What's your number? Do you know what you're working towards and how much money you want in the bank?  Here is the framework I use to answer that question:

First, here are three simple options for how to think about income:

• Option 1: Break-Even
• Option 2: I’m Feeling Comfortable
• Option 3: F-You Money

Second, What are your options for hitting your number?  Obviously, there are lots more than the three but I am laying out three scenarios for income.   

• Scenario 1: The Employee with Golden Options
• Scenario 2: The VC-Backed Founder with an Exit Plan
• Scenario 3: The Bootstrapped Founders with Cash Flow Dreams

Finally, how do you decide? The truth is that it's not about money but the life you want.

RESOURCES:

• What's Your Number
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook

Rob Sobers is a developer turned growth marketer. Today, he gives advice to first-time founders about the idea playing on easy mode. He breaks it down into the following 5 categories: 

1. B2B not B2C
2. Recurring revenue
3. SaaS not self-hosted
4. Established tech stack
5. Make your version of an existing product

At the end, he also talks about ideas he has if he was starting today. 

• Playing on Easy Mode
• Jim Huffman website
• Jim's Twitter
• GrowthHit
• The Growth Marketer's Playbook