What's next for me?
Reframe: Steering founders *away* from the iceberg
Hi all — Rob life update.
I left my role at HourWork late last year. Since then, I’ve been writing a book, working with a few awesome founders to find product-market fit, and dabbling to figure out what’s next.
My next project is called Reframe. Reframe provides tactical training for startups so they can find product-market fit and scale without wasting time or getting wildly diluted.
Reframe’s first tactical training, The $1M ARR Playbook, soft-launches today!
Here’s the backstory:
As a first-time founder, I spent two years in pre-product-market fit hell. This was the most stressful time of my life… by far. After a last-minute Hail Mary pivot, we then went from $0 and no product to $4M ARR in two years.
I’ve since worked hand-in-hand with a few B2B startups to get them from ~$50k to ~$500k+ ARR, with a clear path to $1M+. And I’ve been fortunate enough to advise some really thoughtful founders at earlier stages to get their first customers and start on their path to build a real business.
This has helped me figure out what actually matters to find product-market fit and get to your first $1M ARR. Just as important? I now know what doesn’t matter.
I’ve packaged all this knowledge in the $1M ARR Playbook. There’s 17 short videos & 150+ slides, and I’m continuing to add to it.
I’d SO appreciate your help forwarding this email or this website link to any founders you know who’d benefit.
If you don’t find it to be the most useful startup resource you’ve invested in, I’ll give you a full refund. And if you can’t afford it, send me an email and I’ll get it to you for free.
About the $1M ARR Playbook
“What are the fewest possible things you need to get to $1M ARR, with a path to $5M+ ARR?”
If you’re like the 50+ founders I’ve worked with, you’re grappling with a big problem: You’re scattered and feel like you’re trying to do too many things. You’re overwhelmed, and your mind looks like this:
As a result, you feel like you don’t have enough time to do find product-market fit, sell your product, and scale your business. Deep down you know that most of the things you’re doing aren’t pushing the ball forward, but it’s hard to figure out what actually matters.
I’ve now seen this scene play out. It’s not good. If you’re not focused on the right things, you’re only going to find product-market fit and scale to $1M+ ARR if you get lucky. When your bank account is only heading in the wrong direction, it’s not fun to work 80-hour workweeks and pray for lightning to strike.
That said, this doesn’t have to be the case. You don’t have to spend years hitting your head against the wall like I did.
If you know what actually matters, you can just focus on that. And if you know how to execute on what actually matters, you can short-circuit the learning curve and get moving fast towards and beyond $1M ARR.
So what matters? Here’s the not-so-secret recipe to get to $1M ARR:
Being super specific about who you’re selling to & what they want to buy
Doing direct outbound sales to potential buyers (call, email, LinkedIn, referrals) and creating a simple, effective sales process
Holding yourself accountable to 1 & 2… 100% of the time, without getting distracted
It’s difficult to execute consistently, but not complicated to understand.
Here’s what you need to know:
How to set up the minimum viable outbound sales tech stack, without spending a ton of time researching a thousand vendors
How to do cold emails and cold calls without hating yourself
How to do LinkedIn outbound that’s not cringey
How to get referrals from existing customers, investors, and connections without feeling like you’re begging
How to build a lead list without getting a PhD in data science
How to run a sales demo that generates sales without feeling salesy
Determining what your buyers want to buy (minimum viable pricing, packaging, & positioning) without spending a ton of money on a marketing agency
Handling objections and closing deals without arguing or wasting time
What targets to set and how to hold yourself accountable, so it’s not like yet another New Year’s Resolution…
And that’s what’s in the tactical training. I created 17 videos that cover 150+ slides that get really freakin’ practical. (Then I get theoretical and philosophical in one video, but you don’t need to watch that one.)
Yeah, it takes a few hours. Invest a few hours, save a few months. Or years. Anyway, here’s a link to buy the course. Forward it to a founder who’d benefit!
FAQs:
Is this a self-paced course or what?
Currently it’s a self-paced course. You also get a free 30-min debugging session with me when you purchase the course - use that time however and whenever you want.
I am ALSO considering offering a guided version where I help you (& maybe a small group of founders) implement this and debug things on the way to $1M+ ARR. If you’re interested in that, let me know!
Who is this for?
It’s largely for B2B founders who have a product and $10k-$500k ARR. But it also works for:
B2B founders at the “pre-product”, “pre-idea” stage - there’s a section on getting ideas
B2B founders who have more revenue but can’t figure out repeatability
B2C founders (surprisingly - didn’t expect this because I don’t understand consumers, but I’ll take it)
Agency founders who are trying to figure out their own GTM
Intrapreneurs at bigger companies
Anybody who wants to give me money
Why outbound sales and not inbound / marketing / PLG / community / etc. etc. etc.?
Outbound is the best way to own your destiny and learn fast. Everything else relies on someone else or something else, and has a slower learning cycle.
PLG and Google Ads sound nice, but founders tend to spend thousands of dollars on ads and learn very little from failure when people don’t convert. You earn the right to do a frictionless / self-serve sales process by proving that you can sell.
SEO is awesome when it works, but takes a ton of time and is another way to waste a heroic amount of money.
Community, podcasting, “building a media company” and other buzzwords are great - seriously, great. They work once you know how to sell, what you sell, and who you sell to. Until you know those things, they’re a waste of time.
Yeah, outbound sales can be intimidating and painful. But it’s the thing you’ll wish you invested in 6 months after you’ve done the “fun” things and they’re mostly not working.
Can I see one of the videos?
Sure. They’re not fancy - just me shouting in a Loom video at a Google Slides presentation - but here’s the intro video:
How’s this relate to the PMF Masterclass?
I launched the PMF Masterclass beta in February 2022 - and quite a few people made the investment. This is a new and wildly improved + expanded version of that course based on a ton of feedback and work alongside founders.
(If you invested in that course, you’ve already received early access to the $1M ARR Playbook for free! Thanks for your support.)
Why are you doing this? What’s your angle?
Early-stage startups need tactical guidance.
It feels like everything out there is either 101-level content marketing, only helpful for later-stage startups, or focuses on building a unicorn in 2020 rather than a solid company.
So that’s what I’m building. It starts with this course, and will unfold from there.