← Startup Marketing

Module 0: Start Here

The lean launch mindset: why startups win by shipping before they're ready, and the Attract/Convert/Close/Delight framework that runs this entire course.

Stages of the inbound framework

100

First customers to win by hand

% of founder time on customers early

Launch Before You're Ready

Your product will never feel ready. That's not a flaw in your product — that's the nature of building. Every successful startup you admire shipped something embarrassing, then fixed it in front of real users. The ones that died are disproportionately the ones that kept polishing in private.

Here's the math that matters: every month you spend perfecting is a month of zero learning. You cannot learn what customers want from inside your own head. You learn it by watching a real person try to use the thing, get confused, and tell you what they actually needed. Shipping is not the end of building — it's the beginning of learning.

Use the 70% rule: if it's 70% ready — meaning one real customer can get real value from it today — ship it. Define "ready" as a short list: the three things it must do, and the ten things you're deliberately leaving out. Write the leave-out list down. It protects you from yourself when the perfection urge hits at midnight.

Two paths

Ship early vs. polish in private

Example for illustration — not real results.

The four stages: strangers in, promoters out

1. Attractstrangers → visitors

2. Convertvisitors → leads

3. Closeleads → customers

4. Delightcustomers → promoters

Build brief

Describe your product in one paragraph as if explaining it to a skeptical friend. What does it do, who is it for, and why should they care?

The Four Stages: Attract, Convert, Close, Delight

Forget everything you know about marketing campaigns. The framework that runs this course has four stages, and every tactic you'll learn fits inside one of them: Attract, Convert, Close, Delight.

Why this beats old-school interruption marketing — ads, cold blasts, begging for attention — especially for startups: you cannot outspend the incumbents. You will never win a bidding war against a company with a hundred times your budget. But you can out-teach them. Useful content costs the same whether you're two people or two thousand, and buyers trust the teacher more than the advertiser.

Map the course to the stages as you go: Module 1 (your first 100, by hand) is Convert and Close done manually. Module 2 (launch) is Attract at full volume. Module 3 (content) is the Attract engine that compounds. Module 4 (metrics) keeps every stage honest. Module 5 (scale) systematizes Close and builds the Delight flywheel. When any marketing effort confuses you, ask which stage it's supposed to serve — if you can't answer, kill it.

Build brief

Which of the four stages — Attract, Convert, Close, Delight — is weakest in your business right now? Name what's specifically missing.

You Are the Marketing Department

In the early days, you are the marketing department. Not eventually, not once you can afford someone — now. And that's an advantage, not a handicap. Nobody can tell the story like the person living it. Buyers don't connect with brands; they connect with builders.

Founder-led marketing has three unfair advantages. First, story: you know exactly why this exists and who it's for, because you lived the problem. Second, access: you can reply to every comment, onboard every user, and answer every email personally — a big company physically can't. Third, speed: you can publish a post about this morning's customer conversation this afternoon. No approval chain, no brand guidelines meeting.

Expect to spend roughly half your working time on customers and marketing in the early months — talking to users, writing, outreach, launch prep. That feels wrong when there's product to build. It isn't. A product nobody knows about is a hobby; the marketing is what makes it a business. Document the journey as you go: the wins, the mistakes, the numbers. Building in public turns your daily work into Attract-stage content without any extra effort — and an audience that watched you build will be your loudest launch.

Where the hours go

Roughly half your time, early on

50%on customers

Customers + marketing50%
Product building50%

Build brief

List 10 people you personally know who could be customers number 1 through 10. Real names, not demographics.

Maya has spent seven months perfecting her app. Zero users, and she's delaying launch again for a redesign no customer asked for. What's her highest-leverage move?

Your turn: Write your launch-ready definition: the 3 things your product must do for one customer to get value, and 10 things you're deliberately leaving out for now.

Your next 24 hours

Message five people today — not a blast, five personal messages — and ask each for a 15-minute call about the problem your product solves. No pitching, just listening.

Steal this template

THE 70% SHIP CHECKLIST

☐ One real customer can get real value today
☐ The 3 must-do things work end to end
☐ The 10 leave-outs are written down (not forgotten)
☐ 10 specific people are lined up to try it
☐ You can watch them use it and take notes

If all five check out: ship this week.

Module cheat sheet

Ship at 70% ready — one customer getting value beats ten features nobody asked for.
Attract turns strangers into visitors; Convert into leads; Close into customers; Delight into promoters.
You can't outspend incumbents — but you can out-teach them.
The founder is the marketing department: story, access, and speed are unfair advantages.
Spend roughly half your early time on customers and marketing, not just product.
If a marketing effort doesn't serve a clear stage, kill it.