My favorite tips from Patrick McKenzie
Patrick McKenzie (@patio11) is a software engineer and entrepreneur. He’s known for his multiple successful SaaS businesses, and for his online writing. As of August 2024, he has published an impressive 3.7 million words. Here are some of my favorite tips from him:
Sell to businesses rather than consumers
Sell to businesses rather than selling to consumers. Businesses have much, much, much deeper pockets, they are easier to sell to – source
Businesses are the engines of the economy. As a small business owner, you probably don’t have the resources to reach millions of consumers directly. But you can reach a few dozen businesses, that serve these same consumers. You can be roughly in the same space, but you’re “closer to the source” so to speak.
Plus most people have an actual experience selling to businesses. Remember that time you were interviewing for a job? This was essentially a sales process. You were selling your skills and experience to a potential employer. You can use the same skills to sell your product to a business. With the added benefit of not having to work at an office.
Do what have been done before
The vast majority of companies who are out there sell something that some other company has sold before. Like think of your dentist. Have you happily paid your dentist money? Yes. Did he invent dentistry? No. There’s thousands and thousands of dentists out there. Your dentist makes quite a good living doing what every other dentist does – source
You don’t need to solve a completely new problem to be useful to someone. You can do what others are already doing, but better. Or cheaper. Or faster. Or more conveniently. Or for a different audience.
This goes contrary to the startup way of thinking, where you’re supposed to disrupt entire industries. But it’s a much safer way to build a business. You know there’s a market for what you’re selling, because other people are already selling it. You just need to find a way to do it better.
B2B software is about reducing the cost of people
The chief products of the tech industry are (in B2C) developing new habits among consumers and (in B2B) taking a business process which exists in many places and markedly decreasing the total cost of people required to implement it – source
Businesses use software products to either increase revenue or decrease costs. B2B software products are usually about decreasing costs. If you can help a business do the same thing with fewer people, they’ll be happy to pay you for it.
Motivation is a resource, and a finite one
I generally agree that motivation is one of the very few resources in running a business that actually matter. There’s basically only two: motivation and money. ‘Cause running out of either will generally kill your company – source
It’s hard to persist in anything for a long time, especially when you’re not seeing strong signs of success. So it’s important to give yourself a positivity boost every now and then. For Patrick, this was looking at his website analytics:
I loved seeing analytics data. I loved seeing how many hits I got today. And so I would start my days out with that. Like man, 123 hits today, that’s five more than I got yesterday! – source
For you, it might be something else. But starting your day with something intrinsically motivating is a tip that I use myself, and I can vouch for its effectiveness.
Write things that people will want to read many years later
Write things that people will want to read many years later, because then you don’t have to get on the content creation cycle where it’s like … a treadmill, and the only reward for being on the treadmill is you get to continue pedaling on the treadmill, but faster, with more people watching you, that seems a battle to me – source
Patrick is known for his long-form writing. Most of his articles are still relevant years after they were published. Like this one about salary negotiation, or this one about consulting.
To me it seems like a great strategy. You write something once, and it keeps bringing in new readers for years. You don’t have to keep churning out new content to keep people interested. You can focus on writing something really good, and then move on to the next thing.
Learn from someone who’s just a little bit ahead of you
You should go to the people who are like one or two rungs up on the ladder from you. So if you haven’t launched yet, talk to the folks who have launched and have $2,000 revenue a month or $5,000 of revenue a month – source
Like if you ask Mark Zuckerberg for advice, it’s like, well, if you start from the position where you have $1 billion in the bank, here’s how you spend that $1 billion most effectively. Without perhaps consciously remembering, oh yeah, there was that time once that I was also in a dorm room and $600 was a lot of money to me – source
You don’t want to take advice from someone who’s following a completely different path than you are. You also won’t get much value from someone who’s already made it to the top and can’t remember what it’s like to be where you are now. Instead, look for someone who’s just a little bit ahead of you. They’ll remember what it’s like to be in your shoes, and they’ll have practical advice that you can apply right now.
Resources
- Indie Hackers Podcast: Episode 13 (transcript)
- Things Many People Find Too Obvious To Have Told You Already (on Twitter)