The Knowledge Shop

• Coffee meetups - a success
• Too many people, now need to scale back a bit, so more intimate.
• Customer outreach / growth - sign up tactics for happy hours
• Asking for help - don’t feel guilty

https://twitter.com/lolitataub/status/1586790538618937344

Building in Public:

• Tell people what you are doing!!!
• They will come to you (I literally said about an event, and 10 people came to talk to me).

Come meet other founders....

Come to my next founders coffee: Small group Wednesday 3pm nr Grand Central.

https://lu.ma/lca9kqhc

And finally - I am building my team 😁

• Emily Chertow who runs a journalling startup. Perfect if you / your company need time for quiet reflection. so make sure to check out her sessions.
• Antler - you know who they are by now. The early stage VC, and who co-shosted a happy hour last night and kindly invited Knowledge Shop founders to come.
• Slope - the very cool design agency who hosted the event with Antler. The brands they have developed look amazing!

Events

Free for coffee on Wednesday? Come join the fun, in this small group founders coffee chat and workshop. (its my next event).

All The Knowledge Shop things its - https://linktr.ee/theknowledgeshop

https://anchor.fm/theknowledgeshop

Check out Slack, Whatsapp, newsletter:

https://linktr.ee/theknowledgeshop

Thanks Jay Dee for Linkedin Sales Navigator help. Check him out if you are looking for some sales help -https://www.faultlinesales.com/

Insights from today’s Episode

Victor Hunt, astorian.com - B2B marketplace for building owners to connect with trusted and reliable contractors

When talking about early revenue.

“It doesn’t matter if your product is free, if its no good, people won’t use it, and if it is good - people will pay for it”.

When grabbing attention

“In Ancient Egypt, they used hieroglyphics, today we use emoji’s - humans are very visual creatures”.

When communicating ideas

“An ounce of explanation, will save a pound of clarification”

When finding your first customers

“Use all the connections and shortcuts you have. Find your wedge into distribution”.

Hiring on Upwork / Fiverr

Look for…

- Competence

- Reliability

- Confidence - do the things without instruction / micromanagement

Test this by giving them a small scope project, that is a good representation of what you are looking to do (eg 1 or 2 hours).

Run a competition and request entries. Pay for the one you like most.

1. NYC Tech Week - nyctechweek.xyz
2. Day One - joindayone.com
3. Brooklyn Bridge Ventures - Charlie O’Donnell - https://www.brooklynbridge.vc/
4. The Fund - Jenny Fielding - https://thefund.vc/
5. Founders Friday - https://foundersfridaynyc.com/
6. Startup Leadership Programme (SLP) - slp-nyc.com

• When you have lost energy / momentum - surround yourself with folks who have it.
• Just move one step in front of you at a time
• Small wins really help
• Really looking forward to NY tech week - https://nyctechweek.xyz/
• Need to delegate stuff (ie need to find people to delegate work too)! - https://iworker.co/ (referral by some fellow founders)
• I got accepted into the Luminary / SVB Fellowship 😁 - https://www.weareluminary.com/home
• Sign up for the knowledge shop and raise your hand in joining or hosting an event - https://tally.so/r/mKYy87
• Off to hear Leslie Borrell pitch (a TKS community member) Carefully (her app for making it possible to share childcare amongst friends) - https://carefullyapp.com/ (Sorry Leslie for getting the name wrong when i was talking - but you are amazing!!)

1. Interviewed with Antler for their fall residency programme
2. Was on an entrepreneurship panel for my Alma Mater - Durham university
3. Pitched to a producer for Bloomberg TV

Should we use Knowledge Shop as a Verb?

The importance of getting ahead of opportunities and sponsorship and third-party opportunities?

Met fellow founders in the real world, and great brainstorming / ideation.

Thanks Kylie Robertson of Robertson Solutions - marketing and PR powerhouse, who loves launching / growing startups in the tech and travel space.

Happy Hour: people are paying 😁. 50% signed up in last 36 hours. AND people helped. Gorgeous videos and pics taken by attendees

- First sponsorship request whoop whoop.

Antler Application - I applied for their 6 week accelerator, and interviewing next week - Apply here if interested.

I have direction! I know how to answer the Q - “what do you need help with”? Convo's with marketplace founders. Venues to host sessions.

Website Development

OMG i am in love with Stripe, and i havent even made a transaction yet! Their customer service is second to none.

- Claiming credits. Find them. Look for those within founder communities eg Founderscard, Startups.com

- Many many convo’s about payment flows.

- California event i mentioned last episode isn't  happening - but regardless, was a great push to get me going.

Durham University (UK) event - I'm speaking on a panel in NYC about entrepreneurship. Want to come?

Join the Knowledge Shop waitlist here - https://waitlist.theknowledge.shop/

Getting Unstuck....

1. Talk to people. Other founders. Listen to their challenges, and give back. Dont languish and internalise things.

2. Hear other people's success stories. Everyone will have a unique story, and have trodden their own unique path. There is no such thing as the perfect route. Fundraising doesnt have to be A through Z. It can be A straight to Z. LEap frogging everything else.

So the moral of the story, is to surround yourself with other people - thats where the magic happens!

Join the Knowledge Shop waitlist here - https://waitlist.theknowledge.shop/

1. YC's Startup School ended. And they had a mini demo day - so you can hear my 60 second pitch.
2. I made a subdomain - clearly not an expert, but that was satisfying. So sign up for my waitlist, if you are fed up of working from home, talking to your plant! (or cat, dog, child, wall.....) or sat i silence next to a stranger.
3. Customer acquisition - thank you to Rob Fitzpatrick of Mom Test fame! Do not average out user insights, find the ones who LOVE what you are doing, and find more of them. I break down what i know, and ideas to do just that for the knowledge shop
4. Incorporating - so many mixed messages, but to help me feel like i have a "real" business, and to minimise risk. I am going to incorporate. Recommendations for Atlas, by Stripe and Angel List Stack.

May have a week off next week - as i am in Espana, but will record if i can.

See you soon fab founder friends.

And PLEASE sign up for the knowledge shop's waitlist, if you want to cowork with other founders in person.

Today we meet Brandon Wetzstein aka Brandonthelegoguy.com

We hear about:

• His founder journey, a transition from retail to startup life
• The struggle for finding your ideal customer
• Tips to keep you going aka Broadway matinees for the win, The Knowledge 
• And how he helps startups and create culture and problem solve.

Things you should look up, because we talk about them.....

• Lego serious play - https://seriousplay.training/lego-serious-play/
• His website - Brandonthelegoguy.com
• Knowledge Project - Shane Parish - https://fs.blog/knowledge-project-podcast/
• Science of Happiness (although technically called Wellbeing) - https://www.coursera.org/learn/the-science-of-well-being
• Broadway show inspiration - todaytix.com

You also hear me:

• Struggle with startup challenges - but taking it as a win, as it means I have done something.
• Learning from Jason Calacanis on the This Week in Startups podcast to "Be the host". Ie it allows you to talk to more people, learn from others, become the expert and build a great community around you.
• Building out the MVP continues, but at least it is moving (ish)

My ask....ever hosted eg Airbnb / Eatwith etc?

Would you consider hosting a coworking event in your home, office etc? Could be 4 people, could be 40 (up to you).

If yes, or open to it - ping me and lets chat.

You can see random photos of me in my grad garb here.

Today:

• Moving forward with workWITH (but do i continue with The Knowledge Shop brand)?
• Feedback for my straplines - what do you think about these...

 a) Cowork with people, not just next to them

 b) A new work family every day

 c) Office friends for when you don't have an office

• The excitement of speaking to developers to start building out the concept.
• The stress of what happens if it succeeds? The fear of falling foul of rules / regulations (even though i know Airbnb and & Eatwith have overcome a lot of these already).

• Registering as a company - so much different perspectives, but....
  • But been recommended Zenbusiness and https://www.corpnet.com/learning-center/
• Building my website (again). Using a mixture of webflow, canva, unsplash, Carrd and photopea (hosting, image and editing)

From the interview with CEO, Anita Kirkovska of https://www.microportal.io/

Key takeaways:

• The importance of Self reflection
• Just ship it, perfection is bad
• No code allows you to find PMF faster, by getting a proof of concept (which you can also iterate on quickly too) out quicker, allowing you to gather customer feedback faster
• Know anyone in Saas sales? Anita would love to talk to them, contact her on Twitter.

Social Media

• Anita's Twitter - https://twitter.com/anitakirkovska
• Marina's Twitter - https://twitter.com/marinatrajk

Resources

• ODX fellowship - https://www.beondeck.com/x
• No code fellowship - https://www.beondeck.com/no-code 
• Bubble - https://bubble.io/
• Apollo - https://www.apollo.io/ (Lead Gen / prospecting)
• Meet Alfred - https://meetalfred.com/ (Linkedin lead gen automation)

YC Startup School: https://www.ycombinator.com/blog/announcing-startup-school-2022

Lessons from former YC founder Blake Scholl - https://boomsupersonic.com/.

“Collect credibility”

• Ie know your stuff, speak confidently, build your advisory board
• Ship stuff, so they can see you have done things.
• Go bigger - tackle BIG problems!

Courage is not being fearless, but acting in spite of it.

My take away:

If someone can convince somebody they are able to build a supersonic plane with just a Balsa wood model, anything is possible.

Our first ever guest .....

Jen Auh - https://www.jenauh.com/

After a 20+year career working for Macy's, Bliss and Two-faced cosmetics etc, Jen took the entrepreneurial journey to become an image consultant. Today she provides personal branding / style advice for men, to boost their confidence / stand out amongst their peers.

Her book helping fellow image consultants grow their own businesses is coming out in August.

Check out:

• If you know a man in need of style advice... - https://www.stylekonsult.com/
• New Chip accelerator - https://newchip.com/
• Y Combinator's Youtube channel - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCcefcZRL2oaA_uBNeo5UOWg

The NYC entrepreneurs Coworking Group surpassed 500 members

And over 125 people are already signed up for the next event on July 29th

The community is on fire too - sharing across Whatsapp and Slack. Someone even a few days ago posted "I love this group already” (saving that for when i am having a down day).

Research Learnings

Content management is a big challenge for people less organised in life, but it seems that managing content  you just stumble upon / save for later is a big challenge for everyone, regardless how organised you are.

Learnt more about Notion - what an incredible tool. Does so much, BUT I think that is why some people are put off by it - too intimidating? Or insufficient product marketing (they think it is interchangeable with Google Docs). 

Going to look into this more too, to see if its a tool i can use for the group to help with resource management.

Recording this on Riverside.fm (thanks to Ahmad for the idea) - this is my first video. Lets see how this goes….

The Knowledge Shop 2.0: Exploring how people discover and manager content? The different approaches people take online vs social vs private channels like Slack / Discord and then how do they re-find the content again? 

User Interview Research Learnings:

• People want to get to the source of truth / experts as quickly as possible. Need to cut through the noise in knowledge discovery. Google isn’t cutting it, and I quote its a load of “SEO Bullshit”
• Linkedin is great for finding / contacting experts, using hashtags can be very useful
• Managing content is easy for target research - ie when you are actively looking for a specific resource, but hard for the “Stumble upon” content. Ie the stuff that will be useful in the future, but that you don't need it right now

The NYC Coworking Community:

• We are becoming a real community. Members are supporting each other, asking for help and being vulnerable. This is really special.
• Slack is taking off too - if you havent joined, sign up here
• Now at 450 members, let's celebrate at 500. What should we do.....

My first guest appearance on a podcast. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOVG0Azk-i4, that was fun. Now go follow Ahmad talks too.

I'm - tori@theknowledge.shop

• Antler’s in-person summer residency in NYC at https://www.antler.co/nyc

https://www.meetup.com/nyc-entrepreneurs-coworking/

Thank you to Ahmad, who i met at the last event, for having me be on his podcast (my first ever podcast guest experience)!! 

He asked me to share my founder journey and some of the ways we can better support entrepreneurs. I'll let you know when my. episode is live.

So many people talking advisory boards at the moment, so thought i'd share some of the learnings from this week. Including notes from a great session that Ed Kang gave for Startups.com

You can watch it here.

Key takeaways....

Advisor Compensation Levels:

• Consider how much responsibility will they have?
• 0.25 - 2% typical advisor level (2% is really high. Has to be making a BIG contribution / moving the needle).
• Advisor’s relevance can change over time. So just because they are valuable now, doesn’t mean they will be throughout. (Hence need to not overweight in early days).
• Ensure there is a vesting schedule (with a cliff).

Purpose: The board should round you out, especially if you can’t find a cofounder / employee with those skills.

Avoid:

• Crossover between above characteristics. It gets cumbersome.
• Get people to join, who will give you genuine advice / add value (not to make your pitch deck look good / help you raise).

Recruiting Tactics:

1. Network, treat it like another other recruiting process
2. Build advisor pool slowly.
3. Find relevant people to ask their advice from first - approach like business research
4. Assess the chemistry.
5. Qualify their advice, how valuable is it?

Formalising things:

• Ask them if they’d be open to formalising the agreement
• You can use the “Founder Advisor Standard Template” if its a straight forward arrangement (just make sure to get a lawyer to check it first). 

https://www.clay.com/

Live list of people eg scrapes and enriches from Linkedin, HubSpot,  twitter google etc.

b) Adding a “voicemail” feature to the website, so you can talk to me and give me feedback, like I do with the podcast. Take a look and let me know what you think.

Pipe - Listener voicemails / Questions

Free 30 messages a month. Shall I do it?

We went on a cruise - but didn’t tell many people because I think there is still a fair stigma about them, in terms of both the type of people who cruise, and also cruising and covid - but fed up with that now. And it was AMAZING. Check out Virgin Voyages - yes of Richard Branson fame. If anyone can make you cruise, he will!

Bad thing about cruises though - even when it is the most amazing food you’ve ever eaten, is just how much of it there is.

Also found incredible music, check out Morf, the one man band musician. So talented. I really hope he makes it to NYC some time.

Very much noticed how what I eat really affects mindset and productivity, so back to lower carb / higher protein - and my new found favourite IQbars. (Themselves a startup - congrats to Will Nitze for bringing them to life)

Definitely not giving people medical advice here, just sharing my observations about my body and what impacts performance.

Massive thank you to all the founders who took part in my Alpha programme, most finish in the next 7 days. I hope you found it beneficial. Keep an eye put for a survey asking for some thoughts, so you can share anonymously.

So important to customise support for early founders, very differently than for more established startups. Can’t shift comparing them to new born babies and teenagers, and how much different the type of care each needs is. We need to sort that out, in order to make sure more make it to later stages.

With that have a fab week everyone, stay warm if its cold where you are, and go do something that makes you feel good. You all deserve it!

Free Tuesday 1st Feb?

If you are, and in NYC - come join the next Coworking event we have. Its in Nomadworks 30th & Broadway.

Ahoy! We are on a cruise ship. Massive shout out to Virgin Voyages, for this highly anticipated trip.

Since the launch party in ~2017, to today in 2022. It's been a long time coming, and am beyond excited to be here, to shake my phone for champagne (IYKYK), and just have some fun!

The name of this episode says it all! I finally realised how much imposter syndrome was undermining how i felt, and undervaluing my skillsets, to an average of 25%.

It took a mini eureka moment around my MBA to realise how much it was impacting me. Specifically, I realised that every assignment i submitted, I  got a much better grade than i thought i would. On average 25% better. Now this isn't me being coy - i didn't tell anybody what i thought i would get, so it was literally my head telling me what it though - how wrong is that!

So now when i feel unconfident, i am going to try and remember that whatever i feel, at least 25% more than i think, to not let it undermine my capabilities.

Next up is power!

Owning my own. Other people can ask, but so can i. Other people can say no, and so can i. As i build my businesses, really important to remember that, and own my skills and take, don't give away opportunities.

Finally - massive congrats to Rita Kakati-Shah for her incredible lifetime achievement award by President Biden. For all of her fantastic work supporting women and minorities achieve their full potential and help make the world a better place. If only we could all be 10% of Rita, the world would look very different!

• Flybridge - Great Step by step process to follow. Thank you to Lolita Taub for recommending it.
• Framework you can use - if you don't like blank pieces of paper
• Communities of Communities - learn from others. Thank you Common Room

Looking for GenZ-ers?

Stumbled on a fab event that Lerrer Hippeau and GenZ VC put on. To reach that younger demographic (for all things VC, marketing, audience building etc) All sessions were recorded. So go listen. 

To make you stronger / Own your Power

In moments of doubt, you need a visual reminder of how amazing you are. That is now my brand new Unstoppable Lipstick from Cindy Gallop and Bossy Cosmetics,

To help others feel stronger

Share how you are feeling, and your challenges. By vocalising them i guarantee it will help reduce their impact, and will very quickly make you realise that you are not alone in feeling anxious, overwhelmed etc. So share away, and help others - I bet there are more people around you struggling than you know, and by sharing, they will feel able to do the same.

In Person Events

Free Tuesday Jan 18th? Come to the next NYC Entrepreneurs' coworking session. Very kindly supported by Nomadworks.

Book here, and see you soon!

1. The handily named, community building framework, and related tools

2. Listen to recordings from the GenZ marketing event, that Lerrer Hippeau and GenZ VC put on last year. Some great panels and tips shared.

3.  A community of community managers (found via the GenZ event). Check out Commonroom.io and their Slack group too.

Motivation

1. Talk to someone - a friend / fellow founder. Just get out of your head.

2. Talk to yourself. Vocalising it can make it sound so much simpler. Pretend you are giving a friend advice.

3. Pomodoro technique. Work in 25 minute chunks. The deadline and breaks helps with energy conservation and motivation.

4. Throw a snowball and smile. It will make you feel better.

Now, some really important information....Yorkshire Puddings. 

For me, one of the most Christmassy foods you can have is the Roast for lunch, and that has to include Yorkshire puddings....

Fluffy and battery, perfect with lots of gravy. In the US the closest thing is a popover, but that really is very different.

So head to the Churchill Tavern in NYC, for one of their roasts (only on Sundays) if you want to try, or else here's a recipe to make your own.  You will not be disappointed.

Now that you are open to trying new things, let's connect this to entrepreneurship....

I want to help as many people on their startup journey as possible, so here are some useful tools and techniques to help you ideate and stay motivated, being open-minded to Yorkshire puddings, definitely also helps.

Ikigai - use this framework to brainstorm new ideas. It looks to find your sweetspot, by considering things that you love, that the world needs, your strengths and importantly what you can be paid for. Where they overlap, is where you are supposed to be.

Unfollow people who don't serve you! I know that subconsciously or not, i look for certain people's names on Linkedin. To see what they are doing, and still to try to please them, hope that they respect what i am doing. But i know, that is a futile and thankless task. They make me feel bad, and impact my ability to be my best self. I therefore unfollowed them, and gave myself permission to let go. It already feels really liberating, I'd encourage you to try that too.

Chasing Dopamine highs

Chasing dopamine highs. We all need dopamine, to help us strive and keep going. But too much, makes it harder to achieve the goals. Think alcohol - the more you drink, the more you need to reach the same highs.

Listen to this great episode by Stanford professor Andrew Huberman. 

To maximise your focus and to best stay on track, you need to regulate the tasks you perform, and what you consume (randomly), so that there is a more regular process of “searching” for it, like we used to as cave people.

Need more innovation ideas? Check out the Board of Innovation.

I particularly like the "Opposites approach" or Flip the narrative.

Thanks again, to Cityspire for hosting our coworking meetup. It really is a very special venue.

Let's try to get next week's episode in on the day it's due now, shall we?

1. Monday's coworking meetup is a sell out! 15 people have tickets, to come and work together in person. Should be another great event, and another big big thank you to Studio by Tishman Speyer for hosting us.

2. The Alpha Programme for The Knowledge Shop is up and running. It's been great working with people, and sharing resources etc. To be as efficient as possible, i am trying to automate lots of the "busy" work, but very much in the "doing things that don't scale" mode right now.

Very tempted with a Google Script once i know a bit more!

This episode is festively short so you can go join one of your holiday parties.

Exciting times everyone - have a great week, and speak soon. 

3. Productivity Hacks galore, curtesy of the latest founder’s group session via Startups.com:

Web Scraping (via Day One too)

• Octoparse - thanks Sam
• https://hexomatic.com/

Lead Gen - 

• https://support.apollo.io/hc/en-us/articles/360030984131
• https://thewebminer.com/products

Project management:

• https://geru.com/
• https://startinfinity.com/

App Integration

• https://www.integromat.com/en - more powerful than Zapier apparently…

Deepdives:

Coworking Group: another great session, this time with more people and in a beautiful space. Yes sponsored by Studio by Tishman Speyer - but WOW, it is gorgeous! Go check out some of their locations.

Def not making millions off these, but nice to just meet new people.

Next event Dec 13th, buy a ticket here....

TKS:

• All 5 offers to alpha applicants are out. 4 Confirmed, and one waiting to hear back on.
• First call - so exciting, and nerve-racking too. But the journey has begun!
• Now need to start getting rid of busy work (hence those productivity hacks)!
• Watch this space, but may even get a script written to pull / categorise content from my emails, into a spreadsheet to make it easier to find…..

More next week

To help keep me honest / manage everything once we launch, i am likely using Hubspot and Zapier. Hope is that i can better organise all the info, and automate a lot of the operational activities that way. Watch this space, i think it is going to be a learning curve!

For the NYC Entrepreneurs Coworking meetup group (mouthful i know), we now have nearly 80 members!! Can not believe that at all. Our next event is Tuesday next week (30th November) AND.... we have a sponsor for it!

Big thank you to the Studio by Tishman Speyer team, who are helping us for the next two events. This means so much.

Excited to see their space, and meet even more super founders next week. Now only two spots left, so if you haven't RSVP's yet, make sure you do it ASAP! Only $10.

That's it for another week. Have a great Thanksgiving, and go eat some Turkey (or meal of choice) xx

• nuqlium.com - e-commerce customer experience (basically making the products that you see as relevant to you as possible)
• denimrush.com - the coolest merchandise and experiential marketing opportunities possible (fellow Day One alum)
• Shanthi's Snacks - Indian snacks. Right now they are looking for beta tasters (i def signed up for that job)
• https://instantreset.io/ - Help you stop procrastinating, and keep moving forward (Sounds perfect to help with The Knowledge Shop
• Luck Place - off shore developers. We all need more developers, at an affordable price.

Next meet up is November 30th, come join. It would be great to see you in person.

Also thank you to Trends.co for launching the fab new events section on their site. Attended the first Manhattan event last night, and met even more incredible people. Looking forward to the next one.

Also - i launched an NYC coworking meetup group. I felt like i could use the energy, and hopefully it would be a great new way to meet new people too.

So - did people respond??? YES THEY DID

We have registrations! I think we will fill both the 5 slots for the Alpha programme, and have another 5 for the coworking meetup.

Just looked at the stats actually for the meetup, and have 8 people already signed up. I know two people from Day One, but not the others, so should be good.

Shout out to Skippy - for believing in me, your comment out of the blue meant so much. Know that i love what you are doing, and am 100% cheering you on.

Also - remember that putting stuff out into the either - makes things happen.

I am now connected to one of the people overseeing the Techstars NYC newsletter, who said they would publish my future meetups (it goes to 15k people 😁), and also another VC reached out about one of their portfolio companies.

Exciting times!!!

https://larklove.com/ - Beautiful, plant-based intimate care for your bootylicious body

Awkward Essentials - the world's first after sex clean up sponge

In fact let’s keep the love going, with a few other fab female founded startups where I know the founders, and who are doing amazing things:

https://www.denimrush.com/ - Custom handprinted and made to order clothing, showcasing your and your brands personality.

https://www.mysticmondays.com/ - Tarot cards - your everyday magic starts here

https://spritztea.com/ - Softly sparkling craft tea infusions.

So - although I think it is safe to say that minimal TKS progress was made this week, I hope this helps raise the profile of a few more founders, changing the world in their own way.

Ps - when things did get a little tough this week, I Googled to find some websites to try to perk me up and found some video clips and jokes that made me smile.

Definitely recommend doing the same, if you ever find yourself either under the weather like I was, or feeling down for any reason - business or personal.

So I hope that these make you smile too.

Best Dad jokes - https://www.countryliving.com/life/a27452412/best-dad-jokes/

Home alone “Iron in the basement”- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3UWCZIzU4EM

Finding Nemo “Natural blue” and so many other funny scenes. (And always remember to just keep swimming” - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOnPbNfKcds

My personal favourite however will forever always be…..

“What’s brown and sticky”???

Answer - “A stick”

And with that, see you in a few days…..

1. Don’t let good be the enemy of the great. Nobody cares about what my MBA grade is going to be - just me. In the long term, I will care more about having built a successful business. So let go, and move on.
2. Finding your power. I have felt really dejected and like I am a real imposter recently, but a few conversations recently reminded me of how far I have become, how much I can help people (ie sharing insights with a new female entrepreneur), and that my prior life and learnings still have value. I felt so much more empowered following conversations with people - as opposed to in my head. This I think is key to staying motivated and making progress.
3. Do you revenge bedtime procrastinate? I bet you do. It can be a symptom of languishing, and is a form of self sabotage. Learnt this from a recent episode of Work Life from Adam Grant. Basically you are looking for excitement in a blah day. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/worklife-with-adam-grant/id1346314086?i=1000538486437

So, taking these three aspects in turn and in combination, it is so apparent how much mindset contributes to either making progress or the lack thereof. The more we can do to boost happiness and self-confidence etc, the more progress we will all make.

I am therefore looking to incorporate ways to address these in the knowledge shop MVP. More to come on that front. But sign ups are now open.

1. Dan, thank you, thank you, thank you for all your help and support so far. It means so much. For folks in the entrepreneurial space, looking to scale their sales processes - check out MindRacer
2. Website onboarding forms, using Typeform
3. Check out my updated website - not entirely happy with it yet, but it's an improvement. Let me know what you think....

• They can save you money, make sure to sign up / use them:
• Always search for promo codes - use Google search, member groups, social media eg Reddit, industry forums.
• Student discounts if you are one
• Founder Specific Channels - even if paid, you can save a lot of money across eg AWS, Docsend, Canva etc etc. Different rates on them, search across and see what offers the best for each particular purchase.
• Consider: Techcrunch, Day One, FoundersCard , Startups.com

Deep Dive: Asking permission / Justification

• In corporate, you are doing something for somebody else. You don’t self doubt about it, they say, you interpret and do.
• Startup life is hard - as you are the brand. So I find it hard to not second guess.
• The industry is designed to go against founders from atypical backgrounds, as they want to de-risk their investments (time / financial / your emotions)
  • Leading with “Why you”, why do you have “Product Market Fit”? Means you are constantly asking and having to justify, encouraging self doubt

But… did Mark Zuckerburg and Brian Chesky have founder market fit? Were they social media or travel execs? Or were they just curious and their own customers?

Don’t underestimate the value that an outsider brings, with out of the box thinking.

How I handled this / reminded myself i can do this?

Whilst suffering serious self doubt, like a beacon I listened to the Zero to One podcast, and an interview with the CEO of Eventbrite - Julia Hartz (with no tech / founder market fit background). And I quote…..

“You don’t have to be a crazy entrepreneur to do something. You don’t need a label”.

You don’t have to have a background to doing something: Just dig in and start. Don’t wait for permission.

If you have skills in critical thinking, are a fast learner and passionate about the problem - that’s all you need.

Now I feel so much better again. I need to keep this on replay to remind myself, I am not here to ask permission. I am here to do and make a difference. I am here to do me and hopefully help the world as a result.

Resources

Photo editing - Photopea

Zero to one podcast - Julia Hartz of Eventbrite

Canva - podcast templates

Perks:

• Techcrunch
• Founderscard
• Startups.com
• Day One
• Startup School

• After emotional stress of previous weeks, so did some reflective practice, always something to learn and share, even if you are uncertain in the moment
• Thank you to my lovely cousin, who gave me a beautiful candle. If anybody wants one - check out Honey & Sage on Etsy. Supporting “mental wellness and a fellow female entrepreneur.

Accepting help

• The “how can I help you question” - I always get stumped.
• I don’t want to waste people’s time? Because I don’t know how to decide between the different priorities, don’t want to add the emotional burden of managing somebody else’s expectations. Definitely work to do there.
• Hopefully the product roadmap for the October 7th launch date will work.

Deepdive - Lessons from Israel

Said differently, how can you create real life case studies to normalise / learn from

Israel has an incredible startup scene. Many reasons. This isn’t about politics, more a chance to think about attitudes, how the fates collided and what you can take from this, to help with your own startup journey.

• Migration - new cultures / experiences insights. Always be learning
• Military - purpose and the “greater good”. Recreating the “family unit” from the army in your startup. Is this proof you don’t want to go it alone?
• Quick decisions - time kills all deals. Ie biz ideas, you need to keep moving forward and making progress. 
• This especially includes your founder dreams and motivation. Don't give up
• Use your diaspora Ie network think about who has the skills you need, don’t over look. I know designers, copy people etc. ask them if they can help, or make recommendations - not expecting handouts, but will help you make quicker progress “what’s the worst that can happen?
• Puts the business risk into perspective. If all else fails remember most of us are lucky to live in countries with safety nets Ie social welfare, family, internet, up training support etc.
  • In effect can we shift our mindset to see “trying” as the badge of honour, as opposed to the outcome - normalise against the fear of failure?

Links / Resources

Go buy your candle - crystals, scents and calm. We all need founder wellness support https://www.etsy.com/uk/shop/HoneyandSageuk

Israel's startup scene - https://www.startupnationcentral.org/

To rate / share the podcast with people you think would benefit, that would be amazing. - 

Here's Judy Blume - https://www.amazon.com/Are-You-There-God-Margaret/dp/148140993X

1. Used Fiverr (others like Upwork are available)
2. Looked for designers with nice looking portfolios
3. Filtered by price, whether they could deliver in my timeframe, and geography (i couldn't loose a day due to timezone differences).
4. Then waited........
5. After hearing from a slightly dubious person, met "Christi" (hoping not too many people find her, but credit where credit is due), and wow. amazing speed and ability to decipher. I could literally have used what she gave me immediately, without any tweaks (although i did of course ask for some).
6. Now you have somebody else you can turn to for future projects (I am already working with her on more) 

1. Entrepreneur Daniel Gross on a webinar said "Starting a business is an irrational act". So true, you are taking a leap of faith and hoping that your motivation and product traction align. Very comforting to hear that if a successful entrepreneur thinks this, that i am not alone.

2. Co-founder dating - great way to meet interesting people and learn from them. Remember you'll likely need to meet a few before you find your prince, but enjoy the journey (don't forget YC's co-founder matching tool)

3. Research research research

a) Prototype interviews - interesting, but hard managing conflicting views. Will keep going with a few more, and then make some decisions eg how to communicate? SMS, Slack, Whats'App...

b) Accelerator research (MBA dissertation) - how is the industry evolving? How might it evolve? Increasing importance of ongoing support / community, being niche (not just generalists), more becoming funds?

 4. Make the ask - if i hadn't, then no accelerator research interviews. Don't think, just do (now going to keep reminding myself of that).

That's here - here are some links - happy listening....

Startup communities / Resources - Pioneer & Startups.com

Ps - should have mentioned and didn't - strawberry jam wins out over dentists in marketing material. Use that learning from me.

Launchpad book - https://www.audible.com/pd?asin=B009IS9FD8&source_code=ASSORAP0511160006

Lunchclub - https://lunchclub.com/

YC Co-founder matching - https://www.startupschool.org/cofounder-matching

Canva - https://www.canva.com/join/hxp-scg-srb.

1. Use hooks to grab people’s attention in marketing. For me that was strawberry jam on Linkedin, previously bagels in my episode names. Now wondering what other hooks I can use, to increase engagement / awareness?
2. Found that posting on Linkedin around 12, gets me the most interaction - perhaps a good split between east coast US and UK / Europe? Test to find your time, and avoid re-sharing content on Linkedin. The algorithm hates it. The content will never be seen. Oh and use tools like Buffer, if you are posting a lot, it will help you manage the content.
3. Audience feedback. Apparently I am not alone in some of my inner critic / self-doubt thoughts/ Thank you for letting me know. It’s really hard when you’re recording and talking to yourself, but I do believe strongly that others have similar struggles, and so I really appreciate, hearing from you that my hunch is correct. I hope this helps, and will continue to help
4. Find your tribe. Who emulates what you are trying to build / want to become? Find where they live, and go join them. You will pick up their habits / learn from their wisdom / avoid mistakes. For me that’s surrounding myself with other entrepreneurs / VC’s, for you it could be musicians, C-suite execs, developers. Happy to help brainstorm how to find them for you, If its useful. This came up in “Grit” again, and I realised that I naturally surround myself with people, so this is proof I should keep doing it, and you should too!

Deepdive: Why building my prototype was so hard (read why I was procrastinating so much).

Because I was scared! It is a direct reflection of me, and I didn’t want to disappoint people, let you down, and or put something out that was so bad it changed your opinion of me. I was holding on so tightly, because I felt it needed to be perfect.

That was a big realisation. And that realisation, then made It easier to figure out how to move forward. (You’ll be pleased to know I have now build my user flow prototype, and going to start showing it to people).

In case they are useful, here are some tools that finally pushed me over the edge to actually make it happen……

First - think “ACT” - thanks Reid Hoffman, and your Masters of Scale Course.

• A - Ask questions. What is wrong in this situation, how can I improve it. As your potential customers their views.
• C - Connect with your network. Run your ideas by them, get their feedback. Would they back it?
• T - Take action - what can you do right now? Don’t over think it, make that call, send that email, just do it (Nike were really onto something there).

Still struggling? Combine with Mel Robbins 5-second rule. Count backwards in your head (or out loud). To get you to take action. Think rocket ship taking off. Have an idea, count down NOW and do it!!!!!

So - that was a lot for this week, but I hope the vulnerability and the tips will help you keep going on your entrepreneurial journey. Please reach out with ideas, and where you are stuck. This founder journey is lonely, it doesn’t have to be!

Tori

Resources Mentioned

• Buffer https://buffer.com/
• Grit - https://angeladuckworth.com/grit-book/
• Masters of Scale Course - https://join.mastersofscale.com/freeweek/PNI5Kdd02qr0nxi
• Mel Robbins - 5 second ruke - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nI2VQ-ZsNr0&t=6s

Canva roadmap templates

Y Combinator MVP video

• I am nervous recording today. I have listeners. This is getting real.
• According to Anchor, all of the listeners so far are women (not sure about Apple), but that's interesting. What does this mean? Does the subject just appeal more to women? Does Anchor / Spotify just have more women listeners? Are the men all listening on Apple? (i know my husband is).
• Accelerators appear to be widening, not narrowing the funding gap (amount of equity raised) between male and female-led startups.  According to the World Economic Forum, the gap increases from 2.1x to 2.6x difference, after the accelerator? WHY!!! Surely accelerators are supposed to level the playing field?
• How can i help. what are you struggling on? Don't keep it inside, email me and tell me how i can help (or if you want to be part of the prototyping / MVP guinea-pigs).

The Deep dive: Customer Research / Analysis

Tools

• Otter.ai - record / transcribe recordings
• Interview analysis. Added themes from interviews onto Google / Excel Sheet.
• Grouped founders as "Wannabe" and "Doing it"
• Pulled out their biggest challenges, and then categorised them eg mental (self-doubt, imposter syndrome, loneliness etc), skills based (need to learn new skills) or expert (they wanted to speak to an expert to help with eg hiring, accounting etc).
• Findings - wannabe's biggest challenges were internal, those who had started still looking for support there, but also wanted experts to talk to as well.
• The initial prototype will therefore focus on providing emotional / psychological support to founders. This will test the hypothesis that if you can support founders emotionally (instead of just academically),  startup success rate will be significantly higher / founders will be more diverse.
• Full disclosure, i still got stuck doing this. I would highly recommend having a project / deadline to help focus you.
• Currently finishing a pitchdeck for the CitySpark accelerator programme i am in through my business school. It reminded me to think through the problem, solution, early adopters, market size etc. It got me out of my head!!!!

Pitchdeck templates

• Thank you Finance PM - can edit in Canva.
• Inspired by an early Uber template on Slidebean, to see how they pulled out key facts.

• This week, the podcast became "Linkedin official", and so i wanted to start by saying huge thank you's to everyone who has shown their support for what i am doing. You really blew me away, and i was totally surprised by that.
  • To everybody who is listening to this as a result, thank you for making the trek over. I hope you like it, and please let me know what i can do better for next time, any guests you would like featured (you can nominate yourself), and areas you'd like for a deepdive.
• I don't know which customer to prioritise first. Prototyping is where i am trying to get to, but struggling with which audience to prioritise first, founders who have just begun, or those who want to start. I'm analysing research, will do some business model canvas, and then choose one, and start prototyping around that. Watch this space.....

Deepdive - Why and how to choose an accelerator, and what went into DayOne

For me priorities were

• Missed community / collaborative working
• Needed deadlines / accountability
• It needed to start soon
• The people had to be nice
• Right size - learn from people, but not so big i was just one of a number
• How much structure? Content vs freeform self-paces
• Cost - could i afford it, did i think i think it delivered value for money.

Considered the following, and thought Day One was right for this time, still very open to the others too. People often do multiple accelerators.

1. https://joindayone.com/
2. Ondeck
3. Tacklebox
4. Labs

As always reach out, like, ask questions at tori@theknowledge.shop

• Purpose, is one of the pillars of grit (according to our friend Angela Duckworth, of Grit fame)
• When you are working towards something bigger than yourself, you will go beyond
• This was very nicely illustrated this week on a hunt for bagels! Suffice it to say, i went further on the hunt because they were for my husband, than if they'd been for me.
• So ask yourself, what is your purpose? It doesn't have to be grand, but it will help you drive further than you would without it.

Resources:

GSV Ventures, a specialist Ed-Tech focussed female-led venture capital fund. They run bootcamps, to help people advance their ideas.

• Anchor - publishing podcasts
• Better than 500k other podcasts, Amplifimedia.com

Resilience

• Grit, by Angela Duckworth. Yes, you need it to succeed, especially in entrepreneurship, but you can cultivate if it doesn't come naturally. Will be covering this topic more in the coming weeks (as i finish the book).

Productivity

• Delta waves concentration music, Spotify. Helps keep you focussed