Jason Cohen Profile Banner
Jason Cohen Profile
Jason Cohen

@asmartbear

35,388
Followers
639
Following
265
Media
38,394
Statuses

Keyword, buzzword, half-truth, adjective, hey look at me! (founder of two unicorns: , )

Austin, TX
Joined December 2008
Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.
Pinned Tweet
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 years
Excited to unveil a new, long-form article! Please enjoy. The Elephant in the room: The myth of exponential hypergrowth
Tweet media one
45
161
770
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
Wow, I think Substack is trying to say this chart is good, but it's terrible for revenue growth. The unit isn't monthly revenue, it's _cumulative_ revenue. Which means they're not growing in revenue, or very slowly.
Tweet media one
50
31
625
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 month
Reddit’s business model is weird: $800M revenue - wow! > 80% GPM - efficient! 55% revenue spent on engineering salaries - why? what features? -17% profit - WTF??? Something seems wildly off.
67
10
521
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
11 months
So, the first thing is still the main thing. It's just that leveraging that can be more creative than you might think. n/n
5
30
466
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 years
"Most of the embarrassing moments of my life happened when I wanted to say no, but ended up saying yes (or saying nothing at all). Most of the missed opportunities in my life happened when I wanted to say yes, but ended up saying no (or saying nothing at all)." — @jamesclear
6
72
437
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
I have a theory that it _typically_ takes 2 years to get to 1,000 _paying_ customers (at ≥$30/mo), even for companies who "hyper-scale." I'd love to test that with data. How long did it take you to get there? I'll go first:
73
35
431
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
17 days
@JackEllis One reason is it feels like they took something that doesn't belong to them. Another is that sensitive conversations happen over Slack, and LLMs tend to repeat things they've seen. See, for example, Github.
2
7
314
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
You know what would be great for America? Rebuilding it in 6 months. Hard, but good for moral. And cost $50M and not $2B. Prove we can still make things. We won’t, of course, but I wandered to say it out loud.
Tweet media one
53
18
309
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
7 years
I hate MVPs. So do your customers. Make it SLC instead.
Tweet media one
14
166
302
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
@HarrisFanaroff Some good answers here. Bottom line is the good stuff outweighs the negatives 100:1. Holding that little life, watching them figure out the entire world, the giggles and little hands on your face, seeing you in them, for good or Ill they’ll have to figure out themselves.
3
5
269
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
@girdley Haha, nice, somehow didn’t see that coming. Back to serious: Always pay all your vendors as fast as possible. (If cash-strapped, emphasize “as possible,” but never late). Result: best service, best results, and if there’s a conflict, tie goes to you. Besides, it’s just good.
6
2
261
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
11 months
Jordan made more money from Nike than the NBA. But... Jordan wouldn't make millions of dollars selling shoes if he wasn't one of the most popular basketball players in history. 2/n
2
13
249
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
Your failed startup DOES define you. It means you had the guts to try something, which means you're "a person who has the guts to try hard things,” which bodes well for the rest of your life. Now, embody that person, and continue to do gutsy things!
20
24
235
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 month
“Launching” is over-rated. Most of the time it's a flop; a huge waste of time, and hurts morale. Even in the best case, you still have to earn customers systematically for the next 3 years. Just work on THAT.
30
14
236
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
11 months
Jobs wouldn't get the opportunity to do Pixar if it weren't for Apple. Clooney wouldn't be the spokesperson for Tequila if he wasn't a popular actor. Foreman doesn't get to be the face of a grill without boxing. 3/n
1
13
227
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 Many startups fail despite identifying a real problem and building a product that solves that problem. This explains why, so you can avoid their fate. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
16
38
212
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 years
New article! For generating dramatically new ideas for your product or company, lifting you out of the fog of daily work. Enjoy, and thanks in advance for sharing!
2
73
196
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
23 days
Pick advice that matches your goals. Lots of people recommend Peter Thiel's Zero to One. That’s wonderful if you're aiming to build the next Facebook. But if your focus is on creating a self-funded company prioritizing happiness and profits, that advice is incorrect.
20
7
213
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 month
If your product is 30% better, it’s not worth the effort, risk, time, retooling, to switch from an existing solution. Has to be 2x better at least. Shoot for 5x, so it’s a no brainer. Almost impossible… But then you win, and it was worth the effort.
31
14
204
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
10 months
Being competitive can motivate you to be great. The trap: Striving only because it's a game, rather than for a goal you actually want. The game isn't the goal. If you can't name the goal, you're trapped in the game. Only once you have a goal, use competitiveness for strength.
11
24
196
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
15 days
You already know: Persistence is hard. Grinding for hours a day, every day, with almost nothing to show for it, is hard. Not knowing whether it will ever work, is hard. But it’s still harder than whatever you expected. It’s OK, you’re not crazy. It’s that it’s hard.
11
19
204
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 month
Product is supposed to know what to build. Engineering is supposed to build. Sales is supposed to close. Marketing is supposed to attract. Support is supposed to solve with a smile. Who’s supposed to understand the customer, deeply? Everyone? OK, so do they? Fix it.
37
17
203
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
11 months
When the product is less than a year old, you don’t get to call it “tech debt.” You just built it wrong.
23
16
196
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 months
A common trope of Indie Hacker social media is that you should build an audience, then sell them a product. While that does work for info-products, it does not work for software. My story:
24
12
197
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
90% of the things you want to get done, will never get done. No joke, like you'll make lists of 100s and do 10s. So, 1. It's OK, breathe 2. They didn't need to be done, really 3. Do a few that matter, and that's good enough.
7
19
188
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
When you work 50 hrs/week on something you love, and something you own, or something that contributes to a higher purpose that you’re passionate about, do you burn out? Or is burn-out as much about how you 𝘧𝘦𝘦𝘭 about the work, as the 𝘲𝘶𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘵𝘺 of the work?
71
7
184
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
You never forget your first few customers. And the ones that stay with you for many years? They can’t know what their $49/mo meant to you. Everyone who bet on you early, in any form, holds a special place in your heart.
22
16
183
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Burnout destroys people, it's true, but 100% devotion and working far more than "a normal job" is also necessary to make a startup work, or pinnacles of human endeavor. “Hustle culture” is poisonous, but obsession and working very hard, is mandatory.
18
17
181
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 months
Reading about running a company is like reading about taking care of a newborn. It’s useful to do it, so you’re not totally ignorant, but real life is different in a way that words cannot convey. So, read, but mostly just do it.
20
19
181
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
5 months
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 This eight-step process brought WP Engine from an idea to a Unicorn. While there are other roads to Product/Market Fit, consider copying some of these ideas. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
21
24
182
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
The way to build business B is to build business B, not build business A in order to build B. So don’t build an agency to find a product business. Don’t build a content business to funnel a product business. They’re all hard and usually fail; don’t chain projects.
30
19
182
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
7 months
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 Companies that achieve Product/Market Fit — both self-funded and VC-funded — exhibit the same prototypical metrics curves and subjective experiences. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
14
40
169
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 years
"Most successful people are just an anxiety disorder harnessed for productivity.” -- @awilkinson
7
18
174
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
@joshuamarch Welp, just got this ad in my Twitter feed, offering to deliver this chimera of shit to my door so I don’t even have to move, so maybe I have an answer…. (Still would like an answer from an expert!)
Tweet media one
8
0
170
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
If your idea is really good, others will copy it. Some have already started doing it, before you. Some will become tough competitors. Most will be gone or irrelevant in two years. So ignore all that and focus on being one of the tough ones.
13
12
172
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
5 months
If you put a product out there, it might gain traction. If you go to meetups, you might find a cofounder. If you write, it might get read. You don’t make luck, but you can put yourself in a position to capture it.
15
27
171
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
No sense investing heavily in brand before Product/Market Fit. FIRST you have to make something people want. THEN you can build attention, awareness, and affinity for that thing. (Before PMF, you don’t even know what you brand should be!)
30
10
168
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 months
Picking your market is far more important than picking any one feature, and might be more important than every feature you will ever build.
13
18
165
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
28 days
Another banger observation from @jamesclear : “It's more advantageous to structure decisions to be easily reversible than to take too much time trying to make the perfect choice.”
10
13
164
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
27 days
Koan #1 “Why do the customers leave after 6 months?” “Drink this glass of water.” “Done.” “Want another?” “No, I’m no longer thirsty.” And the student was enlightened.
20
2
159
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
6 months
When the sink is already dirty, you throw another cup in there. When it’s clean, you wash it or put in dishwasher, keeping it clean. This applies to your codebase, your design, your website, your inbox, your physical workspace. This week, decide to clean something up.
18
23
157
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
You can’t be college-level athlete without pain, sacrifice, will-power. You won’t become a chess IM (not even GM) without the same. You won’t be a great carpenter by reading about carpentry. …but building a company you think is a balanced, pain-free lifestyle?
19
7
156
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 years
Hot take: It’s better to be clear, simple, and only 80% accurate, than long-winded, complex, impossible to act on, but 100% accurate.
15
14
156
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
7 months
The people who say you shouldn’t work on your business on the weekends either: 1. Have never built a successful business or 2. Spent years working overtime to build a sustainable business/lifestyle (great!) and forgot what it took to get there (not great!)
23
18
153
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
When a product is simple to use, it’s typically quite difficult behind the scenes — attention to detail, getting all the corner cases right, high quality, managing contingencies. But hard for competitors to replicate, and awesome for customers. Two very good reasons.
14
7
156
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
10 months
I find that most people (me included) cannot learn something if they're not actively looking to learn it. So, startup/product "advice" just bounces off. You need to already be in trouble, or actively looking to solve something, to hear it.
22
8
150
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
If you hire people, and then tell them how to do every little thing, then you're building an organization that will never be better than you, and never have better ideas. Your job is to do exactly the opposite.
12
18
150
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
5 months
Before you spend months building the first version, develop at least a theory of the market, customer, and business model. So often, it’s not a plausible business, but you build a product anyway. Then it fails. No kidding. Here’s a full roadmap:
10
16
147
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
When you can’t sleep because you can’t stop thinking about it… When you wake up at 2:30a and think about it until 5:15… When you forget to eat… When peeing is too much of a distraction… You’ve found your obsession, and you should do it even if it “fails.”
19
12
146
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
The wealthier you are, the more you need to tip. And more often. More % at the restaurant, and minimum for things like valet or the airport shuttle driver. Carry only $20s so you never tip less, for example. No excuses. Spread that shit around.
23
5
144
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
8 months
Don't create a product because you think it might be a good business. Create one that you're excited to build, can't stop thinking about, that hits on some existing strengths and passions.... that you think might be a good business.
12
5
147
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 years
I just posted "I bootstrapped 3 companies to millions in ARR, then switched gears: Over 11 years, WP Engine has raised $300M as a Unicorn with 1,100 employees and 170,000 customers. AmA!" on Reddit
7
31
142
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
10 months
Not that you asked, but this is my "in the style of ChatGPT" prompt, which I originally developed to help write simple, professional prose for internal docs, and now I don't have top copy/paste it into other prompts: Be succinct, clear, professional, matter-of-fact, with no
15
4
146
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
11 months
OK, we all need help on this. Let's help each other. At least 10 times in the past month, someone has said to me: >>> I want to talk to customers more, but they don't respond to requests for meetings, nor to surveys. What do I do? Pay them?? <<< Let's give ideas. I'll start:
75
11
145
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Often the right answer is simple. • Eat better • Sleep better • Moderate exercise • Be authentic • Make things people want to buy Why do we demand more complex solutions? Because simplicity feels uninsightful?
23
12
145
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 Why do startups typically fail? It turns out that "avoiding those things" is already a plan for success. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
16
19
141
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 months
Everyone tells you to “sell the benefits, not the features.” But… just saying things like “saves time” isn’t actually that compelling. Everything tells me that. Seeing how, and believing it, maybe even desiring it, is why I’ll buy. So, don’t stick on the benefits too much.
31
9
141
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
Remember, the first time you hit Hackernews and get 1000s of views in an hour, but also 100 negative comments: The point of Hackernews is to disagree with the author to prove how much smarter you are. Don’t take it personally. Be surprised they read it at all.
21
2
141
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 months
. @tferriss Many thanks for spotlighting my article (Brainstorming) in last week's 5B Friday. Below, website traffic (purple) and newsletter signups (blue). The TF effect!
Tweet media one
20
4
139
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 month
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 Even at wildly successful startups, the first few years were gut-wrenching, uncertain, on the brink of collapse, where pessimism is realism, and yet optimism is required. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
13
16
135
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Instead of “Now / Next / Later” what about “Now / Probable / Possible.” You’re still communicating roughly the same thing, but with correct level of commitment.
15
10
134
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
@schlaf It is extremely common. Also selling the business once you realize this often leads to depression. My own story, and one of another, and how I solved it the second time around, in the last section of this:
3
11
131
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 month
What's the counter-argument to the claim that USD is spiraling out of control?
@Cole_Walmsley
Cole Walmsley
1 month
This is insane. This is INSANE. This is a blatantly obvious sign of the impending doom of the U.S. Dollar and all fiat currencies. *This is as important as anything you will read this year* The United States Treasury issues bonds and other investment securities. They call
Tweet media one
Tweet media two
Tweet media three
525
2K
6K
95
9
134
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
13 days
During peak Google, Larry Page got gobs of email, and almost never answered it. Sometimes he would pick off the most recent email, and answer it. Because, he said, everyone who emailed him got one of two experiences: (1/5)
8
3
132
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
The more you’re attached to your idea (the product, the UX, the feature, the target customer, the market, the competitor, the differentiation, the price, the tech stack, the name, the colors), the less you can notice when it’s wrong. Hold everything lightly.
16
14
130
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
7 months
Those “startups” were never alive. Obviously chatting with PDFs was going to be commoditized quickly. If everyone is doing it, and equally well, with nothing particularly distinctive, it’s not a thing. Not a new lesson.
@thealexker
Alex Ker 🔭
7 months
Many startups just died today. Because OpenAI added PDF chat. You can also chat with data files and other document types. We had a wave of products better suited as features rather than stand-alone companies. Wrappers are being squeezed by OpenAI on one side and incumbents on
Tweet media one
346
759
6K
16
17
130
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
7 months
Really impressed with Supabase. So many indie devs love it; now I know why. Super fast, excellent UI, stored procs as auto-doc’ed API calls, excellent Typescript support for your own schema and APIs. Wow.
10
14
123
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
A feature should either THRILL ≥15% of customers or be USEFUL to ≥60%. Amazing how many are neither. You don't have time for those.
4
15
120
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
7 months
Your NPS is always lower than you think, because customers who already churned aren’t answering the quiz. Neither are the disengaged people. Double selection bias.
16
9
123
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
An oldie but goodie 👇🏾 You can charge much more than you think, if you reposition your value-proposition. Here’s how. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
14
16
120
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 A startup can beat a large, successful incumbent, if it does things the incumbent can not or will not do. Here are those things. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
7
11
120
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
28 days
Your North Star Metric must not be a financial metric. Those are lagging, multi-input, and the output of right-strategy and right-execution by the whole company. NSM is an immediate measure of customer value. More on the right KPIs:
5
7
121
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Investable startup: 1. Founder walks through walls 2. Founder looks for disconfirming evidence, and changes 3. Serves niche inside a large and growing market 4. Customers genuinely love the product w/ high retention 5. Employees genuinely love the company w/ high retention
9
6
118
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
When you're honest about your product’s drawbacks, you sell more and get fewer returns, because people understand what they're getting. And, you gain the credibility to claim its strengths, and they’ll believe you. Honesty is good for sales.
13
10
119
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
With ambitious projects, you start by laying the foundation: Setting up servers w/ automation, user authentication and multi-tenancy, basic UI screens, an API. But that doesn’t de-risk the project. Start with the hardest, scariest part. Prove that works first.
15
7
118
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 years
Write, to find out what you think. Read it back, to find out whether you even like what you think. Edit until it's something you actually want to think. Now you do think it, and you'll remember it. Publish, then other people can think it, if they want.
4
17
116
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
WP Engine took a little over two years to get to 1,000 customers at $70/mo average. Then the hockey-stick turned up and 11 years after that we're at 200,000 customers, and we went from $1M to $100M ARR as fast as typical "hyper-scale" companies.
7
1
117
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
25 days
Don’t need to “launch.” If you did launch and it didn’t work, no need to launch again. Instead, make the product right, fix the homepage, better ads, target an IPC, and win the NEXT customer. And then the next. Etc..
11
9
115
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Proof that branding CAN be the most valuable thing.
Tweet media one
22
10
116
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
5 months
An excellent example. You have to make things people want to buy. EVERYTHING else is secondary.
Tweet media one
17
8
116
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
A product that looks great but doesn't work, gets cancelled. But there are 1000s of products with bad UI that make lots of money. So, design is important, but functionality is more important. Don't forget that.
13
14
115
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
21 days
Is it impressive to 3x revenue in one year? 3x growth from $1M to $3M ARR in one year is impressive. Taking a year to grow from $10k to $30k ARR means it's not working. Absolute numbers are the only things that matter.
15
4
115
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
If they spend 10 minutes in your app and accomplished a lot, that’s the best. If they spend 10 minutes because they can’t figure out how to do something, then abandon, they might cancel soon. So, “time in app” is not a good metric, by itself. “Valuable actions” is best.
15
6
113
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
“Build in public” is great but… …if you mean “build the product” then you’re not building a company. …if you mean “build a company,” then you should be talking about your market theory, how many potential customers you’ve talked to, and how your theory is evolving.
16
4
112
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
@joshuamarch Is there a simple explanation? Clearly our knowledge of exercise and availability of foods is better now than ever. Portion size? More sedentary on average or median? Makeup of food? (But the 70s and 80s had horrible food too…)
71
0
107
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
If you want to write a lot of good stuff, write a lot of stuff. Most will be bad, and you won’t publish that, but the process and habit means that when the good stuff comes, it will just pour out. And sometimes, you edit the bad later and it becomes good too.
13
6
113
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
A $20/mo product is just as much work to make and sell as a $10/mo product, but it requires 1/2 the customers before you can quit your day job or hire your next employee.
8
3
112
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
2 months
Are you in “stealth mode” because many people desperately want to know what you’re doing and how, and you’re carefully guarding your work from their greedy eyes? Or is it because no one cares about your side project?
34
3
110
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
6 months
A startup is an irrational act. Most fail, and most that don’t, don’t generate as much take-home money as the great career you could have had. That’s OK, just don’t use rational “risk adjusted returns” or other “logical” analysis to think about it.
18
7
107
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 years
We at @wpengine already do this for dads, and also for anyone adopting. No one has to wait for government mandate to do the right thing. Just do it. If you’re an entrepreneur, encode it now. We need fiat to force the rest, but *you* can change *now*.
@newsycombinator
Hacker News Bot
4 years
Finland to give dads same parental leave as mums
1
11
38
2
10
107
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
3 months
Contrary to those common, insipid tweets about consistent, small work, you will not write a book by writing for 30m/day. Nor make a product, nor any complex large work. That takes focus and obsession. Other things can, though: meditation, exercise, diet, social media.
15
5
105
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
5 months
You can be the best product for small market, build a real company, and then from a position of strength, either stay there or attempt to expand to adjacent markets. Or be undistictive in a huge market, out-advertised and invisible, never getting off the ground.
10
13
104
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
Ask a customer if they’ll use a feature; they say “yes” but don’t use it. Ask them to name a feature they actually want and there’s the “faster horse” problem of incremental improvement instead of vision. What’s the answer? Just “gut feel” and sometimes you’re right?
31
7
103
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
4 months
Talent without practice yields nothing. Execution without love yields burn-out, and is no way to live. Talent + Execution + Love == your purpose in life. Even if it takes decades to find it, that’s what you need to do.
16
16
103
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
The CEO position is lonely because everyone who really understands the company are reports, and nearly everyone else can't relate. And because your most difficult problems or worries must not become public knowledge. Coaches and peer groups can take the edge off.
16
5
103
@asmartbear
Jason Cohen
1 year
Just published a new article! 👇🏾 This fresh take on “Willingness-to-Pay” analyzes three types of customer motivation, leading to superior strategies for growth that also better the world. Many thanks for pressing 🔁 and ❤️!
8
21
101