Micro SaaS Ideas
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Micro SaaS Ideas

One of the coolest things about Saas businesses
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is that they come in all shapes and sizes.
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So, even within my coaching programs,
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we've got venture-backed businesses that are hyper scaling.
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We've got bootstrap business that are profitable
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and we've got businesses just starting out,
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they don't quite know whether they're gonna be bootstrapped
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or they're gonna raise a bunch of capital,
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so it's super early.
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They come in all shapes and sizes,
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and one of the biggest growing trends in SaaS
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is the idea of Micro-Saas businesses.
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Micro-SaaS businesses are really cool
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because they're never gonna raise money,
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most likely not, they're never gonna IPO,
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they don't need to, but they're run by one to five people,
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sometimes part-time and they're wildly profitable,
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they just print cash every month
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and they get better and better.
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It's kinda like buying a condo and renting it out,
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that asset, the Micro SaaS business similarly,
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is gonna appreciate in value and just keeps spitting out
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more profits as long as you keep maintaining it properly,
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just like a condo, and this is why Micro SaaS businesses
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are becoming all the rage.
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Investors want them, operators want them,
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there's a huge marketplace for buying and selling them
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and there's lots of founders that are just building
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Micro-SaaS businesses and making more money
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and replacing their regular salaries.
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Super powerful, but here's the big question,
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what makes for a great Micro SaaS business?
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What are the core parameters and make
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for a really successful Micro-Saas business?
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This is something I'm personally really passionate about
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because one of my separate goals is to operate
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a set of Micro SaaS businesses with my business partner
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and so, we dug into what makes for a really great
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Micro-Saas business,
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how do you develop the right idea for it?
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So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
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the three principles you absolutely need to know
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to develop your Micro SaaS idea,
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or to buy the right Micro-Saas business and grow it
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and really adopt this lifestyle.
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Intro. (upbeat music)
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What's everybody, welcome to Unstoppable,
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I'm TK and on this channel, I hope SaaS founders like you
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grow your SaaS businesses faster
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with an Unstoppable strategy.
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Now, if you're new to this channel,
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be sure to hit the subscribe button
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and that bell icon because I drop a video like this
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two to three times a week with actionable strategies
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to grow your SaaS business with TK energy.
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Now, if you're already part of this community,
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if you're part of my SaaS coaching programs,
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welcome back, it's really good to see you over here.
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Now, when I was first starting out in SaaS,
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this company, 37signals, they're known as Basecamp now,
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was all the rage and they were talking about this phrase
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called bootstrapped, profitable and proud.
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Bootstrapped, profitable and proud,
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and I just loved it.
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Now granted, we went onto build a venture back business,
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but I always loved that ethos,
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because typically when you're in the venture bubble,
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you're either doing a venture back business
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that's highly scalable, or you're doing a lifestyle business
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and they look at it in a derogatory way.
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And the 37signals guys were one of the first ones
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to say no, we don't want the venture capital,
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we're not operating a lifestyle business,
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we're bootstrapped, profitable and proud
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and I just loved that ethos,
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and that ethos is really what makes
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for a Micro SaaS business.
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You're likely gonna be bootstrapped,
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you're likely gonna be profitable, wildly profitable,
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highly efficient and you're gonna be proud of it.
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And the reason you don't hear as much about it is,
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if a founder raises three million dollars of a seed round,
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they have to go promote it.
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They have to say, look at us,
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we raised three million dollars.
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If a founder made three million dollars in a year
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from a Micro-SaaS business and was wildly profitable
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and they just took three million dollars home to the bank,
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they're not gonna write a (mumbles) article about it.
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They're just gonna stay quiet, they're gonna buy a Ferrari,
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they might not even buy a Ferrari,
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they might just go on a really nice vacation,
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reinvest the money and it might stay
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super stealth wealth about it.
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No one needs to write an article about it,
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so you don't hear as much about them
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and VCs always said, these are lifestyle businesses
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and the people that are actually doing it are like,
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don't tell, don't tell, don't correct them.
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It's okay, we'll just keep our money
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and that's why Micro-SaaS ideas are so, so sexy
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in this ethos of bootstrap, profitable and proud.
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So in this episode, I'm gonna walk you through
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the three principles you absolutely need to know.
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Let's jump into principle number one.
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By the way, if you are excited to dig in,
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go ahead and smash that like button
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for the YouTube algorithm if you haven't already.
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Let's go to principle number one.
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So principle number one for an effective Micro-Saas business
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is you wanna solve a problem,
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ideally for the individual contributor.
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This, I think, what I found in all my analysis
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of Micro SaaS businesses that are doing well,
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the ones that were scoping out to build as well,
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were gonna be building a few or testing,
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we've been testing a few,
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is to solve a problem for an individual contributor.
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Here's why, Micro SaaS businesses work better
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when you're just solving for the user
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and the user is the one buying and that's end of story.
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As soon as you have a SaaS business
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where it's selling to a decision maker,
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that's a manager and there are other users
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that are gonna be using it,
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chances are, it's gonna get a little bit more complicated,
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you're gonna require sales people,
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it won't truly be self-service or product led,
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there's gonna be multiple people to convince
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and it becomes a little bit harder
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and the beauty of a Micro SaaS business
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is it's got a very efficient sales and marketing process.
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It's nearly self-service, nearly automated
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and it just needs to convince one person
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that hey, we can solve your problem
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and they're like cool, swipe the credit card,
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whether it's their personal credit card
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or their business credit card.
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What's the quick hack to this?
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The principle is literally,
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look for individual contributors, ICs,
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individual people in specific jobs
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that need problems solved through SaaS and sell to them
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instead of tryna get a whole team involved.
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Now, it doesn't mean that you may not have a team plan,
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you may have viral effects inside of the thing,
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but that's not the primary thing.
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The primary thing is you have a single player mode,
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one person can get value out of it
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and solve the major problem,
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that's the first principle of a Micro SaaS business.
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Okay, so that's principle number one.
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Principle number two is, how do you make sure
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that this is gonna actually work?
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So the principle number two is,
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you should follow the jobs to be done framework.
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The jobs to be done framework is essentially a framework
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that helps you look at, okay,
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this is an individual contributor, this is our ICP,
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what are the jobs they need to do
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to be effective in their job.
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What are they compensated for?
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You literally map out using the jobs to be done framework
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and what does this person do?
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What does their day look like?
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What do they have to accomplish?
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What tools do they use?
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And what you wanna find in that workflow that they have
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is what is an urgent and important problem
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in their workflow?
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And your SaaS tool needs to solve an urgent,
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important problem in their workflow.
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That's super important.
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A lot of times, ultimately, whether you're building
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a Micro SaaS business or a SaaS business,
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you need to make sure you're solving an urgent,
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important problem, if you're not,
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then you gotta spend a lot of time marketing
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to these people, convincing them it's an important problem,
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they might not have any money left over
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to actually turn on a profit on that user.
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But, if you map out their jobs to be done
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for the specific individual contributor,
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you need to look at, what are they compensated for,
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what are the results they need and where in the workflow
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it's broken that your Saas product can plug in and solve,
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that's when the magic happens.
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It is a bonus caveat to this principle number two
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on the jobs to be done,
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you wanna make sure your Micro-Saas business
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clearly integrates into their existing workflow.
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One of the toughest things with Saas period
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is to acquire customers and to get them to come back.
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Churn is a big issue, people forget about it
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even though they're on trial,
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so if your Micro SaaS tool is designed to integrate
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into their current workflow so they never forget about it,
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say it's a Chrome extension
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that embeds into their workflow or it's a core integration
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or it's email notifications, whatever it may be,
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then you're more likely to actually retain
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and activate and convert that customer to proper revenues
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in that Micro-Saas business.
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So super important to make sure jobs to be done,
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what's the important, urgent problem,
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how do you solve it and how do you solve it
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by integrating in to their workflow?
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That's principle number two.
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Now let me just pause here for a second
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before I go to principle number three,
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are you starting to see the power in this?
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This is what makes for really awesome Micro SaaS businesses
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and if you can crack the code in one,
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you can start to scale it over time, which is super powerful
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and then you can use the common services from that
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to build other Micro SaaS businesses
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using these same frameworks, super powerful.
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Are you starting to see the power on this?
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Can I just get a yes in the comments below.
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Also, if you disagree, put it in the comments below,
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tell me what's wrong with it.
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I would love to have a debate.
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I answer every single comment
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and make sure that I engage with you guys
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and I love hearing from you guys.
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Also, if you haven't done so yet,
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be sure to hit that like button for the YouTube algorithm
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in fact, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm,
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it means a lot to us when you do that.
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YouTube really likes it when you do that too,
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I don't know why.
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Also, if you're in this stage where you're building out
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your Saas business and you're tryna develop your idea
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and craft your idea, I invite you to check out
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my 10 point SaaS business checklist.
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It's a 10 point checklist that helps you evaluate
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where you are in the SaaS business
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and works with the critical components
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of building a SaaS business and starting a SaaS business.
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I'll tell you more about it at the end of this video,
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you don't have to go anywhere right now,
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let's go to principle number three.
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Principle number three is how you price your Micro SaaS.
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Now, this is a core principle for any SaaS business,
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but it's infinitely more true for a Micro SaaS business.
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Ultimately, you're gonna have to figure out
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how much to charge for it
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and typically, Micro SaaS business,
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it's anywhere from 30 dollars a month
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to maybe 99 dollars a month, maybe more.
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But it's not a lot, it's something that you wanna do
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on a monthly basis and maybe give 'em a discount
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for doing annual, but not amounts
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where they wanna talk to sales.
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And typically on the internet,
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if you're spending more than a thousand dollars,
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then they'll wanna talk to sales,
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that's just the way it goes, but if you have it,
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and if you're doing a webinar and then they buy
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on the webinar, then maybe they'll spend 2,000 dollars
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but that's the max.
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But for software, what tends to happens
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is 99 bucks a month or something like that
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and so you wanna make sure
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that you're pricing this appropriately.
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How do you know how to price it?
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Well, what you wanna do is you wanna justify
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and express 10x ROI.
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10x ROI, meaning if you're charging 100 dollars,
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you need to show how they're gonna get 1,000 dollars back.
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And usually, you wanna target people,
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you wanna make sure these individual contributors
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you're targeting from principle number one
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actually have disposable income and or are high earners.
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Why? Well chances are, these individual contributors
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at the onset, are not gonna have access
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to a corporate credit card.
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They don't wanna go to a manager and bother them,
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so a lot of times, if it's priced properly
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and they have disposable income,
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they'll just swipe the credit card
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on their personal credit card
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and as they start to see value,
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they'll start to expense it on their expense report
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and as they start to see value,
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they'll maybe tell their manager, just say,
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hey, let's just get this for the whole team.
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That's the progression on how it goes.
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But if you're starting out with people
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that are inherently don't have a lot of disposable income,
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they're not high earners, then chances are,
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they're not gonna be able to afford software,
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they're just gonna try and grind it out
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and do their job and make the money and pay the bills.
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And so, this is a one two thing, one,
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you really wanna target the right individual contributors
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that have disposable income and you can show, look,
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if you take that disposable income and you actually spend
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99 bucks a month on this, you'll get 10x ROI
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and you'll have more money.
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Great example of this is sales people.
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ToutApp sold to sales people
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and we charged three dollars a month at start
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and by the time we sold, we were 125 dollars a month.
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And our self-service plans went up
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to I think about 79 dollars.
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And sales people would literally just reach
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into their pocket and swipe their own credit card
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because they knew that if they had more pipeline,
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then they would close more deals and get more commission
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and then their personal investment would pay for itself.
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And so they're very willing to make that spend
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'cause they had that disposable income
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and they could see how they would make that money back,
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and then over time, they would tell their manager
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and the manager would buy for the whole team
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and then we would go and top down with our sales team
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and sell it to the whole team.
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That's how it worked.
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So, super important, principle number three
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is you wanna price in a way where you can show 10x ROI,
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you wanna communicate that ROI
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and you wanna double check that these people
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can actually afford it so that you're targeting
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the right group of people.
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So those are my three principles, now you know.
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Just to recap, number one,
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solve for an individual contributor.
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Number two, follow the jobs to be done framework
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and make sure you're solving an urgent, important problem
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with your SaaS product and integrate it into their workflow.
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Number three, price it in a way where they can get 10x ROI
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and then double check to make sure
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that these folks are high earners or have disposable income
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so they can make their money back,
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or at least expense it to the company,
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that they have the type of company
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and the type of role where they can expense it.
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Those are my three principles on making sure
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that you're picking the right Micro-Saas ideas
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to build these incredible type of SaaS businesses
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that your bootstrap, profitable and proud,
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and it's a sure awesome mantra that I still love
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so that you can do that too.
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Now, if you got value from this,
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be sure to smash that like button,
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but I have something for you.
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If you're building out a SaaS business
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and you wanna make sure,
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these three principles are great places to start,
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but we just wanna make sure, hey,
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I wanna make sure my SaaS idea is valid.
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I wanna make sure I validate it in the right way.
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I wanna make sure I get the initial revenues
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without building too much product.
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I wanna make sure I'm not stuck in the one more feature trap
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as I'm building this product,
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then I invite you to check out
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my 10 point Saas business checklist.
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My 10 point SaaS business checklist is completely free,
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it'll walk you through the 10 key questions
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you should answer to really validate your SaaS idea.
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It's completely free, just go to tkkader.com.saas-checklist,
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tkkader.com/saas-checklist.
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It's completely free, you'll get access to it right away
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and then we're off to the races to help make sure
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that you don't waste months developing the wrong product,
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you actually validate your core SaaS idea,
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whether it be a Micro SaaS idea or much more in-depth one.
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That checklist works really well
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for Micro SaaS ideas particularly,
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but will also extend to bigger SaaS ideas as well.
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If you got value from this video,
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be sure to smash that like button.
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I drop a video like this two to three times a week
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with the TK energy so be sure to smash that subscribe button
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and that bell icon so that you get notified.
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If you have a fellow founder, fellow engineer friend
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that wants to get into becoming a founder,
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please sure this video with them,
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it'd just mean the world to us,
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we put a lot of love into these videos
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and lastly, remember, everyone needs a strategy
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for their life and their business,
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when you are with us, yours is gonna be unstoppable.
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I'm TK and I'll see you in the next episode.
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(bright music)