Being Comfortable Being Sloppy

And how people are automating YouTube channels

Author

Michael Houck
July 05, 2023

On Saturday I shared a members-only deep dive about how non-technical founders can make progress even without technical co-founders. Join the community to get access to it now.

Today at a glance:

  • Opportunity → Google Test

  • Framework → The CUP Method

  • Tool → SaaS Pricing Explorer

  • Trend → YouTube Automation

  • Quote → Be comfortable being sloppy

💡Opportunity: Google Test

Googling (or prompting) is a skill. All engineers know this. What if candidates got tested on it?

$20 per candidate is an interesting idea for an MVP, but there’s also likely a subscription revenue play here. You could expand beyond a Google Test into prompting for various job-specific purposes as well.

A potential target market (that’s growing) for this is startups that hire a lot of remote workers, in particular VAs.

🧠 Framework: The CUP Method

The CUP method is a prioritization framework that helps you go from idea to product-market fit. It’s most useful in the 0 to 1 stage, before you’d consider something like “jobs to be done.”

It’s broken down into three steps:

  1. Current Primary Goal → A single goal you can reach in the short term.

  2. Unique Value Proposition → What makes your startup different from alternatives?

  3. Pain Points → What major problems are your users experiencing?

🛠 Tool: SaaS Pricing Explorer

SaaS pricing is tough. This SaaS pricing explorer lets you track, analyze, and explore over 1000 different software products pricing strategies.

This is a great way to learn from other founders, spy on competitors, and iterate on your own pricing.

📈 Trend: YouTube Automation

Have you heard about “faceless” pages on YouTube? The trend is also referred to as “theme” pages on Instagram.

Basically you create an account about a specific topic and create content for it without ever showing your face, and you “automate” the growth and maintenance of it with various tools.

Calling them “automated” is a bit of a stretch in my opinion, but people are building empires by running many of these at the same time with small teams.

Here’s an example (upgrade for my full analysis):

💬 Quote: Be comfortable being sloppy

First time founders often think their product needs to be perfect before launching. Second time founders know the opposite is true.

Once you have an MVP, put it out into the world and get feedback from customers, then iterate from there. It’s okay for your first iteration to be sloppy.

Netflix’s co-founder Marc Randolph agrees:

🔗 Houck’s Picks

  • Peter Thiel’s Reddit AMA answers on AI, tech, and startups (Link)

  • Series A expectations in today’s venture market (Link)

  • How to avoid the startup death spiral from Mercury’s founder (Link)

  • Insights on the Sale Process of 3 venture-backed companies (Link)

  • A goldmine of content and insights from Keith Rabois (Link)

  • The difference between great consumer founders and the rest (Link)

💡 How I Can Help

Here are 3 ways for me to help you close your fundraise, find PMF, or accelerate growth:

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