Fake Meat gains momentum

from the Morning Brew:

The coronavirus pandemic has exposed the traditional meat industry’s weak spots—namely, preventing outbreaks among workers. The difficulty of keeping slaughterhouses functioning safely has led to plant shutdowns, which themselves have led to spikes in wholesale prices. Meanwhile, alternative meat is gaining ground on two fronts. 

No. 1: It’s picking up the grocery pace. The sector’s U.S. retail sales grew 265% in the eight weeks leading up to mid-April, according to Nielsen, compared to 39% for fresh meat. 

No. 2: Alt-meat is riding a huge funding wave. At $930 million, Q1 investments in alt-meat companies topped 2019’s total fundraising haul (yes, including Beyond Meat’s $250 million IPO), per alt-protein lobbying firm the Good Food Institute. 

  • Plant-based meat company Impossible Foods raised $500 million, while media/alt-food brand LiveKindly pulled in $200 million. 

Bottom line: While some of this momentum is driven by the pandemic, a Berenberg analyst told the Financial Times that broad consumer trends toward environmentalism, healthy eating, and animal welfare will likely keep buoying the alt-meat sector.

How to make Twitter users share your content?

How to make your Twitter followers share your content like crazy?

Here are the instructions:
1. Go to Buzzsumo -> influencers -> Twitter Influencers
2. Search your keyword.
3. Write down all the Twitter handles.
4. Go to “Twitter’s Advanced Search
5. Input all the Twitter handles in the field:
5.1. “People” – “Mentioning these accounts”
OR
5.2. “People” – “To these accounts”
6. Hit search – here are the “raving sharers” in your niche.
7. Follow 1000 of them every day. According to this experiment, around 25% of the people you follow will follow you back.

Here’s a tool that does it automatically – SocialQuant (they have a 14-day free trial). Do you know any other tools?

About Florins

… as in more Florins… and more people with Florin name variations.

found this to be interesting:

https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floor_(voornaam)?fbclid=IwAR3lUMaCXBhNGiVHA2WBGpE_3YKTxvPL8CwOOkby2UbEbJvJKiGkXbzy08M

Okay, so Open Beta it is

for the first time ever.

it took 10 years to make and get to this level of knowledge and understanding. Not talking about myself. Talking about my product.

Finally tech can act like a real human would and give solid advice with iteration steps and adaptability.

More announcements about this will follow. But had to mark the moment.

Product Launch Sequences

choose a part according to your current level:

the pre-Pre-Launch – when you don’t have a list of emails. DON’t have a list of emails? -> don’t freaking launch a product

SOLO ADS – solo ads via solo ads thingys, solo ads via actual FB ads, insta ads, etc. 

  • solo ads via influencer marketing. get a 1,000,000 followers influencer to do a solo ads for you to get people INSIDE of your pre-launch
  • ^^^ that moves you further along on your journey and you don’t have to waste time on gathering an initial list, if you do that.
  • solo ads via Joint Venture offers – when someone else already has your audience, but not 100% as influencer marketing sort of deal, maybe even tech partnership or developer|publisher relationships

SO – are there PEOPLE…. HUNDREDS of freaking people who will sign-up to your Pre-Launch campaign?

If NO -> then do read everything from above again. focus on doing it yourself, or hacking together a SOLO ADS type of deal.

Is YES -> then the Force is strong in this one. Proceed


Pre-launch – story before features and everything else.

why build it?

why do you care?

why did you feel you must 100% give your sweat blood and tears to building this?

why should we (your audience) care? what are you fixing for us that has never been fixed before in that (100% validated) new way you are proposing?

get other people (if you have; if it makes sense) to help you convey and amplify your story with their personal needs and their personal struggles, and their personal connection to the story you want to help all this brand new audience to WIN!!!!

some screenshots

some videos

ask the right questions: like… if you could change just one thing?

^^ use that hack to find VOICE of customer

use all hacks in the book at this stage to further build your list

use viral mechanisms

build the biggest list.

with viral -> instead of 7% expert-level conversions, get freaking 15% to 25% COMPOUNDING conversions !!!!!


Give Access – Premium, special, one of a kind.

some access that ordinary mortals and losers won’t get.

create huge FOMO.


prepare to DO DROPS ->> drop prizes during the live event only to those WHO BUY TICKETS and WHO WATCH all event.

2x conditions. nothing else will count.

make ’em buy tickets

use ticketing platforms… otherwise, you will screw this up.

Make clear ways for them to reach the actual LAUNCH event’s freaking page.

Post them on their tickets.

post the url in their calendars

post them on the Eventbrite page. post them HUGE and with <<<<< and ^^^^ and >>>>> and vvvvvv

so that they see LIVE event link


the live event is not a live event … are you kidding me?

tech goes wrong all the time

NO. only the live chat and the live PRIZE drops are live

everything else is pre-recorded. It’s what is it.

Use the insanely great power of PREMIERES on youtube and on Facebook.

drop links during “live” event as many times as humanely possible.

people don’t know how to read chats. don’t know how to find prizes. do the thinking for them. Don’t make them think.


post event follow ups

sell stuff

the 3 weeks AFTER the Live Event should be your best 3 WEEEKS. make awesome content, awesome prizes, awesome discounts.

What Products Really Need to be Great

products

  • a product needs retention
  • a product needs to become better as more people use it. if more people use it, it becomes better for me. i will try to get more people in.
  • a product needs to reach a stage where if some users perform some actions, I will get notified of those things. self-perpetuating loops.
  • they do something. i get notification. makes me go through a loop again. because I went through a loop again, someone else will also be triggered and go through a loop again.

Automatic Check-ins are the best thing in the world. Basecamp really made us more productive with that

  • used it for awesome things inside our team.
  • now we organize ourselves insanely well
  • we were looking for something for many years. turns out automatic check-in were what we were looking for all this time
  • made a Friendship A.I. which already make my life better. built it inside my basecamp using this feature
  • it makes tons of sense for a Holacracy company like our ->>> basicaly the meeting Check-Ins (Holacracy concept) help with enforcing Key Activites (business model canvas concept) and are easily done through Automatic Check-ins (where you can comment, start convos, react, etc.)

How to Play the VC Game

Sitar Teli is awesome and this idea of hers has always been a favorite of mine.

seems like on sillicon india there was a lot more written. I was in a live audience when she gave one of her speeches about this, and then I saw her slides, but still: here’s some good ‘ol text.

The following is written after Sitar’s Presentation:

9 Important Gaming Lessons to Raise Venture Capital

Bangalore: Gamers of today need to focus on distinct games with different scenarios that need to be strategized accordingly very similar to the modern day business environment were organizations strategize to make effective decisions. There is a very close relationship between raising venture capital for any form of business to gaming which has been showcased by Sitar Teli who is a partner at Connect Ventures and one of the early investors in SoundCloud and avid gamer. She did a brilliant job by bringing into focus how gaming was connected to raising venture capital during the weekend’s Startup Camp Berlin.

She addressed a crowd and followed a keynote from German Technology Minister, Philip Rosler earlier that day and brought out a humorous and frank take on fundraising dubbed by the MC as a top talk of the day. Here are 9 tips that can be looked upon while looking forward to raise venture capital as reported by Nina Fowler of Venture Village.

1.Fundraising is Social

Teli goes on to say “In a social game, the larger a network you have the better you do in the game”. Fundraising too works out in the same manner- the bigger the network; the more are the chances of raising the venture capital for the firm. Teli continues “There’s a good reason for this. VCs see lots and lots of deals. Last year, we were a completely new VC fund. No-one knew we existed and we still saw about 800 deals”. The fact is that Teli’s references could be more reliable than a blind Email which shows the inefficiency or the lack of effort on the side of the entrepreneur.

2.Viral loops are highly effective

There is tremendous competition in the market and to stand out from the crowd an entrepreneur needs to create some sort of a buzz or a promotion that will capture the attention of the customers as well as the Venture Capitalists. A VC spots a mention in a tech blog or somebody gives the company a referral provides some sort of recognition or an attention gathering medium to the company. This is indeed a viral loop. This in a way works for startups where entrepreneurs use their own networks to create Buzz in the market.

  1. Check your heads-up display
    While launching a product an entrepreneur should have all of his facts and figures crystal clear to avoid any sort of distortions during the latter stages of the product launch. It could include the number of active users, the company’s growth on a daily basis and steps to be taken to convert people to active users. If an entrepreneur does not have an ample data or idea of the business they should be talking to a specific type of VC, probably a seed VC, or someone who is more into prelaunch rather than already existing companies with traction.

  1. Know your gamer
    “My background is in consumer and social – I now also work with some SME B2B companies and freemium models,” Teli explained. “If you’re an infrastructure company, I could sit down for three hours and I wouldn’t know anything about your company at the end of it – I’d know what you told me, but I wouldn’t understand it.”

Under such circumstances one would be unlikely to invest money into the business and even if one does, it would not prove beneficial to the company when compared to an already existing partner who is an established expert in this field. It is not certain that an entrepreneur always deals with the right venture capitalists or may be a VC can refer someone to partner with; therefore it is very important to always set the right type of meeting with the right set of people from the very beginning.

  1. Practice builds skills
    An entrepreneur should have immense amount of practice and subject knowledge about the company so that he may not be caught in a situation where people could probably get a chance to question the credibility of the organization. In doing so sufficient amount of practice and prior trials are required in dealing with various situations. An entrepreneur needs to practice various time lengths and various pitch angles: product angle, business angle, marketing strategy – all the core functions and areas where one needs to succeed.

  1. Get ready for the boss level
    This is the stage that decides the future of the organization because it has a very high death rate. The original founders come up with the idea of starting the venture which has to be approved by the other partners as well. An entrepreneur should always keep in mind that though it is a tough phase the partners or at least one must genuinely be interested in this business proposition due to which they are present at the venue. The first thing that the founder needs to concentrate on is to talk to the person who is showing interest in the business proposition well in advance to get a view of who’ll be in the team gathering, especially the key decision-makers. This in a way will help an entrepreneur to get an overview of the tough questions that they are going to bombard on him when the meeting commences. Crosscheck every detail prior to the commencement of the meeting and it would prove handy to talk to individuals or organizations that have been previously funded.
  2. Don’t play the game – play the player
    The entrepreneur should focus on not playing the game but rather on playing with the players which means anyone in the world can talk to millions of VCs but the point is that it is difficult to get one “yes” from them. The point is that the “no’s” keep adding to the tally and finally comes to a stage where no VC is ready to invest in the business. Therefore it is very crucial to target the right set of VCs so that the chances of getting a yes is much higher and one should also target businesses who have done prior dealings with the organisation but are on the league to partner in a dream project.

  1. Know the cheat codes
    Preparing yourself for the unexpected and doing every possible bit to bring out the expected should be the point of focus for the entrepreneur. In-depth understanding and detailed analysis should be undergone to come out of any situation. In a way one should do as much as they can to educate and prepare themselves. Fantastic resources and a reliable team to back on, acts as the two major power blocks in pushing the idea forward to its ultimate destination.
  2. Failure is normal
    Failure is part of any business especially a startup where things are highly uncertain. It is not easy for every business to raise venture capital thus when there are situations they fail, and they need to accept it with open arms rather than just running or shying away from it. The worst thing that a startup could probably do is to not try again. The saying goes “Where there is a will there is a way” so is the case with startups. Failures are always considered as the stepping stones to success as the history has revealed this fact to us over and over again.