Terrible Advice for New Founders, Pull to Push, Building in Public

Good Sunday 🌝!

This was happening in my mind last week.

Given how quickly the world was moving in the last 20 years, what will happen when Avery is 20 years old?

This question led me to prepare all sorts of investment. First, it was investing her pocket money into companies that can make the world a better place. Second, I bought AveryCheung.com knowing that a full name domain will be a key asset.

I posted this on Twitter and it got a lot of attention! I can’t figure if Twitter people love babies or domains (likely domains).

I also found out that my wife’s full name domain was available as well, and Twitter friends convinced me to buy it as well to honor my wife. Surely I did it.

Have you thought about any way to prepare for your own future in 20 years?

This week, I want to talk about:

• I caught up with an aspiring founder
• Pull to push
• #BuildingInPublic inspiration

🌏 An aspiring founder seeking advice

I almost always say yes if an aspiring founder asks me for advice. Because, I had always wanted this kind of feedback back then.

Last week, I caught up with Ed and he told me a couple of ideas in his head.

We bounced from one idea to another. When I hung up the video chat, I realized almost all aspiring founders struggled with these 2 things.

And there is only one way to learn: do → fail → learn.

Read my latest article where I broke down the Why behind these.

👉 Why Thinking Big is a Terrible Advice for New Founders​

🍭 Pull to push

Another thing people reach out to me for is to know how I reach out and build relationships with people online.

I always give people a way out when I ask. I never want them to feel forced.

2 months ago, I was asking if someone could offer feedback to my guide.

I was upfront that it was totally okay if she was not available.

I call this "Pull to Push"

When you present a way out (“pull”), most people are grateful that you have their time in mind and they would end up saying yes (“push”).

Of course, I failed to get a yes here. But we got on a call later on and she was very supportive of my work ever since.

Another example: last week I wanted to unsubscribe emails from Moz because it was getting overwhelming. I clicked “unsubscribe” and I saw this.

They let me choose what emails I want to receive.

Now, instead of unsubscribing everything, I unticked everything except the semi-monthly newsletter. This was perfect for me.

By giving me options, Moz retained me as a subscriber.

If you enjoy getting tips like this around using human behavior to improve your online interactions, I have a free email course and you can join here.

🥇 #BuildingInPublic

I decided to add a new section to Sunday Beam to share inspirations around #BuildingInPublic.

To kick off, you have to see this: how to build in public for real.

He did one thing well - to focus on himself.

Building in Public is about using transparency to tell stories and influence people. In the early days, it is more about building the habit of self-reflection.

You shouldn’t think about who is going to read your articles or tweets. Focus on yourself by reflecting what you’ve done good or bad, what you learn, and what the takeaways are.

Then write a good story for your future self to remember this.

Meydjer has just started #BuildingInPublic and he wrote this amazing article on how he almost gave up his business.

What I enjoy most is that he is telling a good story:

1. He writes like he is talking to a friend
2. He uses short sentences to make it super easy to read
3. He writes to enhance the storytelling effect, e.g. “Best. Advice. Ever.” “Which proves that…” “Bingo!”

I'm now running a free Twitter support group to gather like-minded builders to help each other. If you want to be part of this cozy 15 pax group, shoot me a message.

💡 Inspirations

​How Luke’d Launch It​

I’ve been public about how I am not a big fan of link curation newsletters. When I stumbled upon Luke’s newsletters, I was intrigued that he shares a new business idea each week and talks about how he’d launch it. This is the kind of newsletters I enjoy as I read into his mind.

​8 SEO Trends That Will Continue in 2021​

Ahref’s blog remains to be the only company blog I read regularly. SEO is forever changing so it is a must to stay on top of your game. And search intent remains to be the most important part of SEO - don’t miss out.

​Buy Me A Broccoli​

I didn’t know such a platform exists to let people thank someone by buying a “virtual coffee”. I set it up because Mattias wanted to support my work, and thank you to Carl, Alex, Deepika, and Aletheia who joined in as well. If you enjoy my sharing, you can send me broccoli :)